SPECIAL MEETING. Ixxvii 



from the respectable distance of his seat in the class-room — 

 and then at only a meagre lot. There was an Atwood's 

 machine (perhaps only a large diagram of it), a Hero's foun- 

 tain, a model force pump, an air-pump, a feather-and-guinea- 

 tube, Magdeburg hemispheres, a syphon, a barometer, a 

 friction electric machine, and some spark apparatus, a gold- 

 leaf electroscope, Zamboni pile, Volta cup, Leslie's cubes, a 

 thermometer or two, a tuning-fork set, a balance, some hydro- 

 meters, and a dozen or two more such instruments — and the 

 "cabinet" was complete. It is true that in various large uni- 

 versities there were professors working at research, but the 

 laboratories were not visible to the undergraduate, and the 

 idea of a laboratory course of instruction was absolutely for- 

 eign to the British mind. What didactic instruction might 

 be given in the ordinary college was just as likely to be given 

 by the professor of Classics or History, as that of Mathematics 

 or Astronom^^ The idea of a separate chair of Physics was not 

 yet general. 



When AlacGregor went abroad to studj^ Physics there 

 were few places in the Old Country where he could get the 

 kind of instruction he needed; not at Cambridge or Oxford, 

 or Glasgow, or Dublin, though in all of these were able pro- 

 fessors, and professors doing research work; but no place for 

 students wanting to do so. However, at Edinburgh, Tait 

 was allowing as a great privilege a few selected, promising 

 students to go into his own private laboratory and help him 

 with his researches, and, as they became capable, undertake 

 part of them by themselves. Here MacGregor was initiated 

 into the mysteries and delights of research, and began to 

 "find himself," as an independent worker. The very fewness 

 of Tait's students thus privileged was a great advantage to 

 them, for they were very close to him and his work, and had 

 the benefit of almost private tuition from that great leader in 

 physical thought. 



