1911-12.] Obituary Notices. 481 
the consequent executive changes did not take place until eleven years 
later, after the passage of the Universities (Scotland) Act, 1889, the 
problems raised by the Report were from the first eagerly and anxiously 
discussed in academic circles and had a prominent place in the thoughts of 
Professor Chrystal. The Universities, however, were only a part, though 
no doubt a highly important part, of the problems of national education to 
the solution of which so many of the best years of his life were devoted. 
In 1882 the Educational Endowments (Scotland) Act was passed, establishing 
a Commission with compulsory powers, Lord Balfour of Burleigh being 
chairman, and Mr Alexander Gibson, advocate, secretary. Professor 
Chrystal was not a Commissioner, but he was on terms of intimate 
friendship with the secretary, and there can now be no impropriety in 
saying that the many questions the Commission had to deal with were 
frequently discussed by Mr Gibson with Professor Chrystal and their 
common friend Professor Robertson Smith, who about that time was much 
in Edinburgh, and that Mr Gibson found their opinion always helpful and 
generally such as might profitably be suggested for the consideration of 
his Commission. These discussions served to deepen in Chrystal’s mind 
the interest he had long felt in educational reform as it ought to be 
regarded by a statesman. In 1872 Lord Young’s Act had revolutionised 
primary education in Scotland, but on his return to his native country 
in 1877 Chrystal remarked with concern that secondary education had 
not only not kept pace with primary education, but had, on the whole, 
retrograded. Secondary schools were dying, or, even if apparently 
prosperous, far from efficient. The Universities, he said, were “ unwhole- 
some! y prosperous ” ; their standard, like that of the secondary schools, 
was “ below the level of the cultivated nations of Europe.” His reflections 
soon led him to become more and more the advocate of extending the 
policy of state aid to secondary schools. 
In 1886 he was appointed to represent the University on the newly 
constituted governing body of the Heriot Trust, and he continued to hold 
office until 1902. The task was a congenial one. He took the greatest 
interest in the affairs of the Trust, and in his capacity of Governor he was 
delighted to be able to play an influential part in laying the foundations 
of the new organisation both of George Heriot’s School and of the Heriot- 
Watt Technical College. Meanwhile, another important development of 
his educational activities had taken place. In 1885 the Scotch Education 
Department had been reconstituted, the Secretary for Scotland being made 
Vice-President of the Committee of Council, and one result of this important 
administrative change was that for several years it fell to Professor Chrystal, 
VOL. xxxii. 31 
