i874 ADDRESS ON "JOSEPH PRIESTLEY" 435 



to ask me if I would have any objection to attend service in 

 the College Chapel on Sunday as the students would hke it. 

 I said I was quite ready to do anything it was customary for the 

 Rector to do, and so this morning in half an hour's time I shall 

 be enduring the pains and penalties of a Presbyterian service. 



There was to have been another meeting of the University 

 Court yesterday, but the Principal was suffering so much from 

 an affection of the lungs that I adjourned the meeting till to- 

 morrow. Did I tell you that I carried all my resolutions about 

 improving the medical curriculum? Fact, though greatly to my 

 astonishment. To-morrow we go in for some reforms in the 

 arts curriculum, and I expect that the job will be tougher. 



I send you a couple of papers — Scotsman, with a very good 

 leading article, and the Aberdeen Herald also with a leading 

 article, which is as much favourable as was to be expected. . . . 

 The Websters are making me promise to bring you and one of 

 the children here next autumn. They are wonderfully kind 

 people. 



March 2. — My work here finishes to-day. There is a meet- 

 ing of the Council at one o'clock, and before that I am to go 

 and look over laboratories and collections with sundry Pro- 

 fessors. Then there is the supper at half-past eight and the 

 inevitable speeches, for which I am not in the least inclined at 

 present. I went officially to the College Chapel yesterday, and 

 went through a Presbyterian service for the first time in my 

 life. May it be the last ! 



Then to lunch at Professor Struthers' and back here for a 

 small dinner party. I am standing it all well, for the weather 

 is villanous and there is no getting any exercise. I shall leave 

 here by the twelve o'clock train to-morrow. 



On August 2 he delivered an address on " Joseph 

 Priestley" {Coll. Ess. iii. i), at Birmingham, on the occasion 

 of the presentation of a statue of Priestley to that town. 

 The biography of this pioneer of science and of political 

 reform, who was persecuted for opinions that have in less 

 than a century become commonplaces of orthodox thought, 

 suggested a comparison between those times and this, and 

 evoked a sincere if not very enthusiastic tribute to one who 

 had laboured to better the world, not for the sake of worldly 

 honour, but for the sake of truth and right. 



As the way to Birmingham lay through Oxford, he was 

 29 



