88 SIR WILLIAM RAMSAY 



prejudice, as a remarkably high level specially adapted to those, 

 and there were many such at that time, who valued the teaching 

 for its own sake and quite independently of the hall-mark of a 

 degree. I have frequently had occasion to refer to the notes I 

 took of Professor Fanshawe's lectures on Spinoza, to a mere 

 handful of keenly interested students. I question whether a 

 better and more inspiring course of lectures on philosophy was 

 given in any class-room in the United Kingdom. One realised 

 in after-days in what high estimation such teaching was held 

 and how the University College had been regarded as a centre 

 of intellectual atmosphere, for example, if I may cite a case, by 

 the gifted ladies who wrote under the name of ' Michael Field.' 

 In a letter from Sidney Irwin of Clifton College he speaks of 

 Rowley's lectures as bearing the academic stamp of distinction. 

 In all departments such work was encouraged and enlisted 

 Ramsay's sympathy. * Remember/ he said to me when he was 

 called away to University College, London, ' we are working 

 for the future. We are now a University College, but some day 

 I hope you may be here to see it we shall have a University 

 in Bristol. To this end a high level is necessary all round, in 

 Arts no less than in Science/ It was partly through the spirit 

 Ramsay helped to infuse into his colleagues that the prosecution 

 of research was steadily encouraged." 



Ramsay frequently visited London either for the pur- 

 pose of reading his papers before the Royal or the 

 Chemical Society or in connection with social gatherings. 

 On the 23rd of April, 1884, a dinner to Perkin, the dis- 

 coverer of the first " aniline dye," was given in London 

 under the chairmanship of Hofmann, who had come 

 over from Berlin for the occasion. Many distinguished 

 chemists were present, among them the famous Russian 

 Mendeleeff, of whom the following account by Ramsay, 



