268 



SCIENTIFIC THOUGHT. 



seventeenth and eighteenth centnries they stood in inti- 

 mate relations with such Continental centres of study as 

 Paris, Geneva, and the Dutch universities. Adam Smith 

 and David Hume were in direct and very intimate inter- 

 course with French thought, the former having obtained in 

 France a knowledge of the novel views of the great politi- 

 cal economists of the pre-revolutionary period. Edinburgh 

 became in the first half of the last century, under the 

 influence of John Monro and his son Alexander (1697- 

 1767), who was a pupil of Boerhaave, a medical school 

 of great importance, rivalling London in its foreign re- 



sity of Edinburgh,' 2 vols., 1884. 

 Three of them St Andrews, Glas- 

 gow, and Aberdeen were founded 

 in the century preceding the Re- 

 formation ; St Andrews about 

 1411 by BishojD Wardlaw, because 

 Scotch students had been un- 

 popular and " molested " at Ox- 

 ford. The University of Glasgow 

 was founded in 1450, reference 

 being made to the University of 

 Bologna in the Bull of Pope Nicholas 

 v.; but it has also been observed 

 that ' ' the customs and technical 

 phraseology showed an imitation of 

 the institutes of Louvain, then 

 and for all the following century 

 the model university of Noi-thern 

 Europe, of which a Scotchman, 

 John Lichton, had been Rector " 

 (p. 21). Aberdeen was started by 

 Bishop Elphins tone, who had studied 

 in Glasgow and Paris, and been pro- 

 fessor, both there and at Orleans, of 

 canon and civil law. In the pre- 

 amble to the Bull of Pope Alexander 

 VI. the Universities of Paris and 

 Bologna are referred to (p. 29). 

 But the universities seem not to 

 have flourished previous to the Refor- 

 mation, when they wei-e "purged" 

 and a new spirit and order infused 

 into them. St Andrews was to have 

 four faculties, named as in foreign 



universities Philosophy, Medicine, 

 Law, and Divinity (p. 63). Glas- 

 gow and Aberdeen were to have 

 two faculties, of which the first 

 was to be Philosophy (or Arts), 

 the second to comprise Law and 

 Divinity. The ' Book of Discipline ' 

 contained a verj' complete scheme 

 of higher graded education ; but 

 this was only gradually and par- 

 tially realised ; secondary schools 

 being wanting, the "colleges" had 

 to descend to elementary teaching 

 (p. 67). A jealousy also existed on 

 the part of those in power regard- 

 ing the older universities, these 

 being as the King of France de- 

 clared when refusing to grant to 

 the Academy of Geneva the rights 

 of a university hotbeds of heresy 

 (p. 125). Accordingly the latest 

 academic creation in Scotland was 

 the foundation by the "Town 

 Council and ministers of the city " 

 of the College of Edinburgh (pp. 

 99, 121, 127) between the years 

 1561 and 1578, King James's char- 

 ter dating from 14th April 1582. 

 " But it did not, like the older uni- 

 versities, commence with a blaze 

 of success and then collapse. It 

 started from a humble beginning 

 and steadily expanded into greater 

 things" (p. 158). 



