PROPOSED RETURN TO PROFESSORSHIP. 71 



its consisting of men of business, who could not, or would not, 1836. 

 take any great interest, partly by the system of voting by proxy, Letter to 

 the Council holding, as might be supposed, a great number of &}* **. 

 proxies. 



Shortly after the commencement of the Institution various 

 causes of irritation arose between the Council and Pro- 

 fessors, partly owing, in my belief, to the desire of power and 

 influence in an individual who stood in an ill-defined position ; 

 partly to the jealousy of some members of the Council whose 

 political bias led them to think the best way of preventing an 

 administrative officer from going wrong was to tie him up so 

 tight that he could neither go right nor wrong, but very much 

 from a feeling among the Professors that their position was not 

 safe, and in particular a suspicion, which suppose well founded, 

 that the Council intended to divide the Professorships as soon as 

 the income became considerable. 



In the course of the years 1828 and 1829 the Professors 

 that is, a considerable number of them made such representa- 

 tions to the Council of their unwillingness to remain in so 

 ambiguous a position, backed with a declaration of their inten- 

 tion to retire, as induced that body to subject themselves to by- 

 laws in regard to dismissal of a Professor, requiring long notice, 

 considerable attendance, and decided majority before a Professor 

 could be dismissed. It is to be noticed that these by-laws, 

 though rescindible at the pleasure of the body which imposed 

 them, were honourably adhered to in the subsequent matters, 

 and that no technical difficulties were thrown in the way of the 

 appeal to the Court of Proprietors. 



This matter being settled for the present, though no great 

 confidence in either body existed on the part of the other, disturb- 

 ances arose in the Anatomical class, the pupils questioning the 

 competency of their Professor. Suppose it admitted that these 

 disturbances were excited in the first instance by insinuations 

 of two other Professors in their lectures, and were culpably 

 fomented by the individual already alluded to, and by certain 

 members of the Council ; suppose also that repeated investiga- 

 tions into the competency of the Professor in question failed in 

 establishing anything against him, and that he was finally dis- 

 missed in consequence of the Council not being able to quell the 

 disturbance, and of the interference of the Court of Proprietors, 

 under the name of a Select Committee, which resolved to the 

 effect that there could be no peace in the University while 



