360 MEMOIR OF AUGUSTUS DE MORGAN. 



1867. It gave a pain to my husband to refuse a request so 



kindly and cordially made. His reply was as follows : 



' MY DEAE WALEY, I acknowledge your kind letter of 

 the 7th with the cordial and gratifying inclosure, signed 

 by eleven old pupils, whose dates represent the time which 

 has elapsed since I rejoined the College in 1836. 



' The inclosure is in itself a testimonial. It has all the 

 meaning and all the value. And to those who hold that 

 the mind of the teacher counts for something in the 

 making of the pupil, the string of names appended to it will 

 be no mean presumption that I have in some degree a 

 claim to the terms in which I am described. 



' I am asked to sit for a bust or picture, to be placed in 

 what is described as " our old College." This location is 

 impossible; our old College no longer exists. It was 

 annihilated in November last. 



' The old College to which I was so many years attached 

 "by office, by principle, and by liking, had its being, lived, 

 and moved in the refusal of all religious disqualifications. 

 Life and soul are now extinct. 



'* I will avoid detail. I may be writing to some who 

 think that the recent transaction is a reparable dilapida- 

 tion, or even to some who approve of it. To me the 

 College is like a Rupert's drop with a little bit pinched off 

 the small end ; that is, a heap of dust. 



' I can never forget that I have been usefully employed, 

 though I now wish my life had been passed in any other 

 institution. I have worked under the conviction that I 

 was advancing a noble cause, until every letter in the 

 sentence " Augustus De Morgan, Professor of Mathematics 

 in University College, London," stands for 234 hours of 

 actual lecturing, independent of all study and preparation; 

 and all this under a banner which is now shown to have 

 been either shamfully raised or shamefully deserted. 



6 So much is necessary that my old pupils may under- 

 stand my mind, and the repugnance I feel towards any 

 proceeding which must record my connection with Uni- 



