CHILDHOOD AND YOUTH 19 



Fyfe, who has supplied the following notes of his recol 

 lections : 



" I met William Ramsay for the first time in August 1863 when 

 we both joined the Third Latin Class of the Glasgow Academy. 

 He and I and William Miller, nephew of the late Dr. Samuel 

 Miller, sat together at the foot of the class for two or three days 

 till the class was arranged in Divisions, and I have a very vivid 

 recollection of him at that time. He continued in the Glasgow 

 Academy till May 1866, taking the Third Latin in 63/64, the Fourth 

 Latin 64/65 and the Fifth Latin 65/66. 



So far as I remember he did not take any part in the class 

 games, and I do not remember that he took any prizes. I 

 think this was accounted for by the fact that he was nearly 

 two years junior to the average age of the class. There were 

 about 60 boys in the Third Latin and it was divided into two 

 divisions according to seniority. The senior division was con- 

 siderably larger than the junior, and except Alexander MacEwen 

 they were all boys who had been born before the end of January 

 1851. As Eamsay was not born till October 1852 he must have 

 been about two years below the average in age. He was all the 

 same about the average height. 



In November 1866 he went to the University and took the 

 usual Arts Degree curriculum. This would be, I think, Latin 

 and Greek for two years, that is till May 1868, Logic and Mathe- 

 matics in 1868/69, and Natural Philosophy and Moral Philosophy 

 in 69/70. I do not think he ever took chemistry in the University. 



Our friendship began shortly after we went to College. I was 

 attending the Junior Latin Class with him, beginning in Novem- 

 ber 1866, and in addition I took the class of chemistry beginning 

 in October 1866 under Professor Anderson. I remember that 

 one day passing through the Quadrangle I heard Ramsay talking 

 to some students of an experiment which he was going to carry 

 through. I joined them and told him that I was attending the 



