40 MEMOIR OF AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN. 



thing ever fall in my way. Immediately, therefore, on seeing 

 the minute of Council containing the aforesaid removal, together 

 with their most sufficient reason for the same as a rider, I ad- 

 dressed a letter to the Council that, under the principle there 

 advocated, I should consider it discreditable to hold their Pro- 

 fessorship one moment longer. The resignation was of course 

 accepted, and I have done with them. 



This step will be against my pecuniary interest should the 

 University ultimately succeed very well, which the present pro- 

 ceedings of the Council will not allow any man to think who 

 knows how much such an institution depends on public opinion. 

 For the present moment, and up to the present time, I shall be 

 no loser, since I know that by my own private exertions I can 

 gain as much as, thanks to the dissensions in the University and 

 the conduct of the Council regarding them, I have ever done in 

 my public capacity. 



With regard to an accusation and a hearing supposed by you 

 necessary previous to the removal of a Professor, I must en- 

 lighten you on a principle discovered in the University of London 

 by the Council, and faithfully acted on by them up to the present 

 moment ; viz., that a Professor in their institution is on the same 

 footing with regard to them as a domestic servant to his master, 

 with, however, the disadvantage of the former not being able to 

 demand a month's wages or a month's warning. The proprietors, 

 by their sense expressed at public meetings, have agreed with 

 them, it appears to me. 



I have still some interest in the University on account of some 

 valued friends who remain behind, having what the advertise- 

 ments call encumbrances. They, however, have expressed their 

 determination to remain only one session longer ; and feeling, as 

 I do, that I never could send a ward of mine to an institution 

 where it has been thus admitted by precedent that the student is 

 a proper person to dictate the continuance and decide the merits 

 of a Professor, I cannot wish the University to succeed, because 

 I feel it ought not to succeed upon those principles. 



If there be a large body of the Proprietary really interested 

 in the moral as well as intellectual part of education, their efforts 

 may yet save that fine institution. As a proprietor of it I would 

 gladly lend my humble aid. 



Yours most sincerely, 



A. DE MORGAN. 



