MACGILLIVRAY AS TEACHER 
151 
distinction—such as Dr Matthews Duncan—have 
spoken with gratitude of what they owed to his 
lectures. It could hardly be otherwise, for he was 
keenly interested in his subject and believed in it 
as an educative discipline, and he had the gift of a 
picturesque style. 
It is fitting to include here what was said by 
one of his students, the late Dr John F. White— 
who had much in common with MacGillivray—on 
the occasion of the presentation of a mural 
memorial tablet to Aberdeen University in 1900 :— 
“ I must notice how easily he attracted to his 
special subjects even those students whose bias lay 
rather towards classics and mathematics. For it 
was a noticeable fact that many of his best prize¬ 
men were not students of science, but of. other 
subjects. I do not know exactly whether it was 
owing to the magnetic influence of the earnest 
Professor, or whether it was that such students 
were attracted by the fresh study of Nature, 
hitherto to us a sealed book, but this I can say, 
that even the students of literature felt that here 
was no antagonism between the two pursuits, but 
rather that the one was complementary to the 
other. We felt that new powers were being 
awakened within us; that the hitherto dormant 
faculties of observation, comparison, classification, 
and generalisation were receiving a new stimulus. 
. . . The influence of MacGillivray’s methods 
and spirit abides indelible. 
“ MacGillivray’s lectures were formal and 
precise, full of detail—perhaps overladen with 
detail. . . . But as he always illustrated by speci¬ 
mens, even these details were not felt burdensome. 
. . . The Vestiges of Creation had appeared in the 
