University.] THE PROFESSORS AND THE TOWN COUNCIL. 15 -
endof the year named, a body was, for the first
time, regularly dissected in the city, after the celebrated
Dr. Archibald Pitcairn-who left a distinguished
position as a professor of medicine in the
University of Leyden, to marry a lady of Edinburgh
-had been induced to settle there, and seek a
practice. . . ,
The Doctor, on the 14th of October, wrote to his
friend 1)r. Gray, of London, stating that he was
making efforts to obtain from the magistrates subjects
for dissectiod, such as the bodies of those who
died in the ,House of Correction at Paul?s Work,
and had none to bury them. ?We offer,? he says,
I? to wait on these poor for nothing, and bury them
after dissection at our own charges, which now the
town does; yet there is great opposition by the
chief surgeons, who neither eat hay nor suffer the
oxen to eat it. I do propose, if this be granted, to
make better improvements in anatomy than have
been made at Leyden these thirty years; for I
think most or all anatomists have neglected or
not known what was most useful for a physician.?
The person who moved ostensibly in this matter
was Alexander Monteith, who entered the Colleg?
of Surgeons in December, 1691. He was a prominent
Jacobite, and owner of Todshaugh, now
called Foxhall, in West Lothian. He was an eminent
surgeon, and a friend of Pitcairn?s. The Town
Council on the 24th of October, in compliance with
his urgent request, granted to him the bodies of
those who died in the House of Correction and
of all foundlings who died at the breast.
They gave him, at the same time, a room for dissection,
with permission to inter the mutilated remains
in the College Kirk Cemetery, stipulating
that he should inter all intestines within forty-eight
hours, the rest of the body within ten days, and that
his prelections should only be in the winter season.
Though the College of Surgeons did not generally
oppose this new movement, they greatly disliked
his exclusive permission from the Council,
and proposed to give demonstrations in anatomy
as well, asking for the unclaimed bodies of those
who died in the streets, and also of foundlings.
Their petition was granted, on the understanding
that they should have a regular anatomical theatre
ready before the Michaelmas of 1697 ; but it was
not until 1705 that the Anatomical Chair was
founded in the university.
In 1703 a struggle for emancipation from the
Town Council was made by the professors. It had
-wen usual f9r the former body to appoint a day for
graduation, or laureation, as it was named in those
days. This was for the first or senior class; and to
preside at this learned ceremony a certain portion
of the somewhat unlearned civic patrons were
regularly deputed, with their robes, insignia, and
halberdiers, to at ten d.
The professors, as may be supposed, were becoming
very impatient of this yearly interference
with their internal arrangements, and perhaps imagined,
not unnaturally, that literature, science,
and philosophy, could derive but little lustre .? from
the presence of men who, generally speaking, would
have ears which heard not, and understandings
which could not perceive.?
Thus they bethought them of a plan whereby they
hoped to get rid of such officious visitors in all
time coming.
Accordingly, when all the professors met in the
Old College Hall, on the 20th of January, 1703,
they, as an independent faculty, adopted the following
resolution :-
? The Faculty of Philosophy within the city of
Edinburgh, taking to their consideration the reasons
offered by Mr. Scott . why his magistrand class
should be privately graduated, and being satisfied
with the same, do unanimously, according to fheir
undoubfed yighf, confained in the charfer of erection,
and their constant and uninterrupted custom in
such cases, appoint the said class to be laureated
privately upon the last Thursday of April next,
being the twenty-seventh day of the said month.
Signed by order, and in presence of the Faculty, by
Robert Anderson, CZerk.?
This was deemed by the Provost and bailies as
the very tocsin of rebellion, and roused at once
their wrath. A visitation accordingly followed, by
the Lord Provost, Sir Hugh Cunningham, Knight,
and the bailies, with the inevitable halberdiers, in
the library of the college on the 15th of the following
month ; there he informed the Senatus that
among many other contumacious things,. he had become
cognisant <? of an unwarrantable act of the
masters of that college, viz., the Professors of
Philosophy, Humanity, Mathematics, and Church
Iiistory, wherein they assert themselves a FiicuZty,
empowered by the charter of erection to appoint,
&C.?
It is difficult to know how this quarrel might
have ended, had not the Lord Advocate, as
mediator between the parties, effected a compromise,
which, however, implied a surrender of
the asserted point at issue by the four professors ;
at the same time, so resolute were the magistrates
and Council in their intention of upholding and
defending their privileges as patrms of the
university, that Bailie Blackwood, in the name of
the rest, declared that the Council of the city
?would not be satisfied with the masters simply
16 OLD AND NEW EDINBURGH. [University.
passing from the pretended act of their pretended
Arcuh?y, unless it. were passed from as an act wanting
all manner of foundation.??
On the 5th of May, 1703, the magistrates, flushed
with triumph, ordained that Mr. Scott?s class
should be publicly graduated, as of old, in the
public hall of the university, which was accordingly
done, without consulting that professor or any other
member of the Senatus Academicus.
A memorial, however, signed by the former and
the other professors, so far succeeded in soothing
the irate Provost and bailies, that they ultimately
granted him that which he had so earnestly
wished-a private graduation of his students ; but
while doing so, they took the opportunity of loftily
and sternly prohibiting the other professors, ?upon
their peril, to graduate any in time coming but
such as took out a certificate or diploma with the
town?s seal, and poor scholars to have it gratis;
and order that all certificates make honowabk mention
of the magistrates and Council of Edinburgh
as Patrons of the CoZZege.?
Some curious matters of detail occurred about
this time, when the Rev. William Carstares was
principal, in connection with the museum of
? Rarities belonging to the College,? on the state
of which the Council appointed a commission to
report how far the said ?rarities ? in the drawers
corresponded to the inventory thereof.
Among other things, the commission reported
that the wire-work in the presses was so wide that
studeots and others visiting the museum, ??by
putting their fingers into the holes, did disorder
(the contents), and possibly might embezzle, some
of them ; particularly there was wanting a coraline
substance growing upop a piece of silver, much like
unto a Spanish cob.?
To remedy these mischances it was proposed
that the wires should be more close. Of two
cabinets they found that one contained the Materia
Medica in three drawers ; and as to the other, they
knew not what was in it, as it had no keys, and
they had never seen it opened. The commission
offered the further suggestion that ?the Rarities
purchased in the time of Mr. Henderson?s father,
such as the woman?s horn rei with siZver, and the
skeleton, Src., be registrated and cataIogued by
themselves.?
The keyless cabinet was ordered to be broken
open, and found to contain only a quantity ?of
atheistical books, which the late principal, Dr.
Gilbert Rule, had caused to sequestrate from the
others.?
These were delivered to the librarian, with
orders that no one should be permitted to read them
?
without the express permission of the Town
Council.
The Humanity Class, as a separate professoiship,
was founded by the Faculty of Advocates,
who, on being voted a sum of money for the endowment
of a chair connected with their own profession,
devoted it in the first instance to the cultivation of
Latin, as the language in which the most valuable
legal knowledge was to be found; and John Ray
was the first professor, in 1597.
In 1707, on the Treaty of Union with England,
there was ratified by Parliament and in the Act of
Security an Act of 1621, bf which the Scottish
Parliament defined in ample form the rights,
immunities, and privileges of the university.
It was not until 1708 that a separate professorship
of Greek was appointed. For some twenty
years before that period the proposal to that effect
had been made, and a master actually named, who
was to teach within the college, without the rank
or salary of professor. But in the year above
named, on the 16th of June, the Town Council,
?considering that as a knowledge of the Greek
tongue is a valuable piece of learning, and much
esteemed in all parts of the world where letters and
science do flourish, so they, being willing to contribute
their utmost endeavour to advance the
knowledge of that language, do judge that nothing
can more effectually promote the said end than
the fixing of a Professor of Greek in this burgh.?
Consequently, William Scott, one of the regents,
was appointed.
Following Bower?s ? History,? we may give the
following condensed view of the course of study
which was introduced by Principal Rollock in
In the beginning of October the session commenced,
and lasted till about the end of the ensuing
August, when an examination of the students
took place before the Town Council and the senior
members of the college. As the younger men were
prepared for the perusal of the higher order of Latin
Classics, the most of their time was passed in reading
the most approved Roman authors, particularly
Cicero, who in those days was in the greatest
repute among the learned.
Translations from English into Latin, and nice
versa, were a regular exercise throughout the whole
session, and the ? common theme,? as it was called,
was prescribed by the principal towards its closei.
e., the subject of a brief essay to be written in
pure Latin, affording each student an opportunity
of displaying his attainments in that language, and
knowledge of the general principles of composition.
The appointment of this subject was evidently
1583.
