292 JAMES CLERK MAXWELL. [CHAP. X. 



Public Opinion here says that what our colleges want 

 is inferior professors, and more of them for the money. 

 Such men, says P. 0., would devote their attention more to 

 what would pay, and would pay more deference to the 

 authority of the local press than superior or better paid men. 

 Therefore, although every individual but one who came before 

 the Commission was privately convinced that the best thing 

 in itself would be to fuse our two institutions into one, with 

 one staff of teachers, yet they all agreed that the public opinion 

 of the whole was the opposite of the private opinion of each, 

 and that more harm than good would result from adopting 

 the course which seemed good to the members, but not to 

 the body, of the public. So the battle rages hot between 

 Union (of Universities only) and Fusion (of classes and pro- 

 fessors). Almost all the professors in Arts are fusionists, and 

 all the country south of the Dee, together with England and the 

 rest of Europe and the world, but Aberdeen (on the plat- 

 form), is Unionist, and nothing else is listened to at public 

 meetings, though perhaps a majority of those present might 

 be fusionists. Such is Public Opinion ; but we are all quiet 

 again now, and I am working at various high matters, for I 

 have a very good class for Physical Astronomy, Electricity, 

 and Undulations, etc., and I want to do them justice. 



I have had a lot of correspondence about Saturn's Kings, 

 Electric Telegraph, Tops, and Colours. I am making a Col- 

 lision of Bodies' machine, and a model of Airy's Transit 

 Circle (with lenses), and I am having students' teas when I 

 can. Also a class of operatives on Monday evening, who do 

 better exercises than the University men about false balances, 

 Quantity of Work, etc. 



To Miss CAY. 



129 Union Street, Aberdeen, 

 28th Nov. 1857. 



I had a letter from Willy to-day about jet pumps to be 

 made for real drains, but not saying anything about the 

 Professorship of Engineering. 



I have been pretty steady at work since I came. The 



