and play, the students went into the fields around
the Burgh loch, or elsewhere, and returned at four,
for examination at six.
In summer they held their conferences concerning
the lectures till three. From three to four
they were examined by the regent, and from four
to six were again permitted to ramble in the fields.
Even on Saturdays each of the professors held a
disputation in his own class-in winter from seven
till nine a.m., and in summer from six till nine,
and was similarly occupied from ten till twelve.
?That is,? says a writer on this subject, ??a
few tourists who came to Edinburgh in those days.
?? What is called the college,? wrote an Italian
traveller in 1788, ? is nothing else than a mass of
ruined buildings of very ancient construction.
One of them is said to be the house which was
partly blown up with gunpowder at the time it was
inhabited by Lord Darnley, whose body was found
at some distance, naked, and without any signs of
violence. The college serves only for the habitation
of some of the professors, for lecture rooms,
and for the library. Here resides, with his family,
the celebrated Dr. William Robertson, who is head
THE ORIGINAL DESIGN FOR THE EAST FRONT OF THE XEW BUILDING FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBUKGH.
From the Plde in ? I The Work in Architecture of Robw&madJmes ddatn,? London, 1789-1821.)
regent in those times taught as many hours on a
Saturday as his successors at the present devote to
their students in the course of a whole week.
In short, the saving of human labour in teaching
seems to be the great glory and improvement of
the age.?
The examination on the students? notes had
become that which the commissioners of 1695
regarded it-the most useful and instructive part
of a professor?s duties.
On the aznd November, 1753, one of the most
shining lights of the old university-Dugald
Stewart-was born within its walls, his father, and
predecessor in the chair of mathematics, being Dr.
Matthew Stewart, who was appointed thereto in
=747.
The poverty and dilapidation of the old university
buildings excited the coninlent of all the
of the university, with the title of principal. The
students, who amount annually to some seven or
eight hundred, do not live in the college, but
board in private houses, and attend the lectures
according as they please. Dr. Robertson thinks
this method more advantageous to youth than
keeping them shut up in colleges, as at Oxford
and Cambridge. He says that when young men
are not kept from intercourse with society, besides
that they do not acquire that rude and savage air
which retired study gives, the continual examples
which they meet with in the world, of honour and
riches acquired by learning and merit, stimulate
them more strongly to the attainment of these;
and that they acquire, besides, easy and insinuating
manners, which render them better fitted in
the sequel for public employments.?J
Elsewhere the tourist says, ?The results are such,
