lists at Aberdeen. Let the tune be the sweet familiar one you found somewhere in the Bible long ago, The mothers we leave behind us'-leave behind us on their knees. May it dir through your bones, brave boys, to the end, as you hope not to be damned. And now, quick march." A week passes, and two who have fallen in the fray come crawling back. Sentimental Tommy is to have another chance in the silence of the Thrums school, the four ministers sitting like the Fates on hair-bottomed chairs. It is a familiar picture-the bare school-rooms, the background of ministers, the intermittent scratching of pens. The fate of Scotland has been staked on many a desperate cast of the iron dice of war, but no contests have been more strenuous than these quiet, orderly struggles presided over by the vigilant dominie. Tommy holds his pen with an easy hand and drives merrily on, while poor Lauchlan McLauchlan halts and perspires, the ministers meantime gossiping about eternal punishment. But the race is not always to the swift, and Tommy's confident smirk becomes first "a most holy expression" and later a deepening frown; for Tommy has reached a point where there is but one word in the language which will serve his purpose, and that word will not come at his bidding. There are other and better days for Tommy, but this day is full of blackness; for he has lost his chance for the university.

The roots of the universities are in every village, and in every part of Scotland the romance of young aspiration is told and retold in the loving frugality of fathers and mothers, in the passionate zeal and eagerness of ardent and ambitious boys. For the Scotch university is not the training-ground of the aristocracy; it is the broad, open field in which the sober-minded, God-fearing democracy of Scotland finds its opportunity. No other institutions are more democratic in spirit, more simple in habit, more keenly in touch with the frugal, working life of the people, than the higher schools which have given Scotland vigorous thinkers, courageous scholars, strenuous preachers, and a long succession of leaders of light and force. "Five and thirty years have I been minister at Drumtochty," the Doctor used to say at school examinations,

"and we have never wanted a student at the University, and while Dominie Jamieson lives we never shall." Whereupon Domsie took snuff, and assigned his share of credit to the Doctor, "who gave the finish in Greek to every lad of them, without money and without price, to make no mention of the higher mathematics. Seven ministers, four schoolmasters, four doctors, one professor, and three civil service men had been sent out by the auld schule in Domsie's time, besides many that had given themselves to mercantile pursuits." And when Domsie, the schoolmaster, gets the news of George Howe's great success, he cannot rest until he has carried it to the little stone house set in the old-fashioned garden. No list of promotions in a gazette ever brought more honest joy and pride than the simple announcement in the boy's letter. Domsie becomes almost lyrical in his delight: "First in the Humanity and first in the Greek, sweepit the field, Lord preserve us. A' can hardly believe it. Eh, I was feared o' thae High School lads. They had terrible advantages. Maisters frae England, and tutors, and whatna, but Drumtochty carried off the croon. It'll be fine reading in the papers:

"Humanity-First Prize (and Medal), George Howe, Drumtochty, Perthshire.

"GREEK --First Prize (and Medal), George Howe, Drumtochty, Perthshire.

"As for me, I wadna change places wi' the Duke o' Athole,' and Domsie shook the table to its foundation.”

Of the four universities, Edinburgh has the interest of the finest setting; not that its immediate surroundings are finer or more impressive than in the case of the other universities; but that Edinburgh is one of the most beautiful cities in the world, with an outlook of surpassing variety and loveliness. It has been the good fortune of a few cities to possess a certain distinction of situation and appearance; a charm apart from human or historic interest. Athens, Florence, Venice, and Edinburgh have an individuality which is not only distinct but indicative of a certain high quality of spirit and history.

It may be a matter of mere coincidence, but it is certainly true that each of these cities stands for great qualities of imagination and notable achievements in fields wider and higher than those of

commerce.

These cities are not, like Berlin or St. Petersburg, chiefly aggregations of population; they are full of character; they are stamped with an unmistakable individuality; they seem to have a spirit ual entity.

Now, of these historic towns, whose history has had a recurring touch of idealism, and whose outward vesture has an indefinable dignity or beauty, Edinburgh is pre-eminently the university city. Athens stood for a more flexible and richer culture, Florence for a keener sense of form and a more passionate love of beauty, Venice for a more splendid pageantry of life; but Edinburgh looks like the home of scholars. There is a touch of severity in the grouping of the city lines, in the gray stone, in the veiled skies; color there is none; but of form there is no lack. Dignity, quietness, a subdued air of romance, the ripeness of a long history, seem to brood over the place. No city is more irregular or has greater advantages of self-revelation; it is, in fact, one of the few large cities in the world which can be seen from within its own boundaries. Edinburgh is not spread out about the observer in great circles like London or Paris; it rises around him, spreading over the slope and summits of three hills. Arthur's Seat and Salisbury Crag fill the

background, and one may see from them, while he gathers bluebells, the far shining German Ocean and the crown of Ben Ledi; the gray castle and the long lines of towering houses crown the hill; the beautiful park makes a line of verdure along the base of the rock on which the old city stands in a huddled mass; then come the quiet, dignified modern streets; and at the end of the vista, rising to the left of Holyrood, Calton Hill, with its group of classic columns, gives the picture a certain unity and completeness. The beauty of the place is not gay and irresponsible; it is sedate and composed; it has an academic air; it seems to be an extension of the University; or, to be more exact, the University seems to be the localization of the spirit of Edinburgh.

Nowhere is history more obvious than in Edinburgh; it is impossible to get out of sight of places and buildings overlaid with tradition and story; and these traditions and stories have almost always the touch of tragedy on them. The ancient city lives in the modern city in a very unusual sense; the past is always in sight. And this is especially true of the older town which climbs the steep street to the Castle, and in the heart of which stands the University. The place is crowded with memorable figures if one has the

gift of far-sight. In St. Giles the voice of John Knox still echoes, although the redoubtable preacher lies at rest almost within sound of his own voice in the Parliament Close, where he has the singularly ill-chosen society of Charles II., mounted on a stationary charger. The Cowgate and High Street are the main thoroughfares of the old quarters, but one must plunge into dim alleys or closes between immensely high buildings packed with human beings in order to see old Edinburgh. In no other town have human beings been more crowded or lived under worse conditions. But great changes have been made, and one of the worst of these old human hives has been transformed into a most attractive students' lodging-house.

James VI., although only sixteen years old, had been King of Scotland fifteen years when the University of Edinburgh opened its doors to students in 1582. The need of a new university had been keenly felt many years by those who had to travel across Scotland to Glasgow, or north to St. Andrews. To-day the distances in time between the different centers of Scotch education are hardly worth taking into account; three centuries ago the journeys involved were expensive, laborious, and sometimes perilous.

Moreover, the Reformation had brought about changes which logically carried with them the founding of an institution entirely in sympathy with the Scotland of Knox. In Scotland, as in England and on the Continent generally, the earlier universities were ecclesiastical corporations, often founded and largely managed by great prelates, who added to their other functions that of Chancellor; instruction was largely directed to the preparation of candidates for the priesthood, and the conduct of religious services was more emphasized than the work of study. Letters, metaphysics, canon law, and music were taught from the standpoint of the clergy and with reference to their bearing on ecclesiastical culture. There was not only complete uniformity of dogma and observances throughout the universities, but the overwhelming power of the Inquisition was invoked to keep teachers and students in spiritual conformity and intellectual servitude. The first professor of canon law in the University of St. Andrews was also, for a time, InquisitorGeneral for Scotland, and scholars were burned in the futile effort to maintain the Roman tradition intact. For some time after Protestantism had gained the ascendancy, the bishops, who had controlled the

patronage of the universities, continued to control appointments to the teaching bodies in the three universities. In 1567, however, an act of Parliament for reforming the universities transferred this dangerous power to certain authorities of the Kirk, and immediately the entire body of professors at King's College, Aberdeen, was retired in order to make room for teachers of the Reformed faith. In the changes of the time the older institutions suffered severe losses of revenue and lost ground rapidly.

Edinburgh, as the citadel of the Reformation, was rapidly growing in influence and power, and one of its foremost teachers, after the death of John Knox in 1572, was his successor, James Lawson—a man of piety, learning, and energy, who had studied and taught at St. Andrews, had continued his education on the Continent, had brought about the rebuilding of the High School, and who finally, as the supreme achievement of his arduous life, secured the establishment of a university in the city which was shaping Scotch history. It was upon his recommendation that Mr. Robert Rollock, then a regent of St. Andrews, was appointed to the first professorship in the new university. Under the charter granted by James VI., that most pedantic scholar and most scholarly pedant, the Lord Provost, Magistrates and Council of the Burgh of Edinburgh, with the advice of the ministers, were charged with the power of appointing and removing all professors. A long array of properties of various kinds was conveyed by royal generosity to the new institution, but, like other similar gifts, these endowments were so encumbered with conditions of many kinds and prior liens of every sort that their value was practically nominal.

The Magistrates and Council had long entertained the purpose to which Lawson's energy gave practical effect, and had selected as a site for the future college the ground on which the University now stands. This plot of ground was then a suburb of the city, óccupied by gardens, old churches, and other edifices falling into decay, and was known as St. Mary in the Fields--which soon became “Kirk o' Field." Many years were to pass, however, before the college was lodged in Kirk o' Field; funds were lacking, and

there was vexatious opposition. History was being rapidly made meantime, and much of it was touched with tragedy, and one act in the drama which convulsed Scotland was performed in near proximity to the home of the future university; for close to the south side of what is now the quadrangle stood the house in which Darnley was lodged on the night when, by an explosion, his body was blown over the neighboring town-wall.

When the charter was finally secured, work began at once, and by remodeling buildings already on the ground and supplementing them with temporary structures the college was quickly housed. The University has now half a hundred or more chairs; it began with one. The occupant of that chair, although not a great scholar or thinker, was a man of unusual force and discretion. His portrait hangs in the Senate Hall of the University, and shows a solid, round head with hair approaching red, a ruddy complexion, and a face of unmistakable individuality of feature. In October, 1583, the new institution was opened by an address from the new professor, in the college hall, and in the presence of a large audience. Of the throng of students who came for enrollment, so many were found deficient in the knowledge of Latin, then indispensable in all higher education, that a preparatory class was organized and placed in the charge of a second teacher. The sessions began early in October and ended in August; students were admitted upon application to a magistrate, under whose authority they were enrolled; the fees were small; and it was intended that all students should live within the college precincts, and wear gowns. The regulation with reference to residence soon fell into disuse, and that with regard to gowns was never enforced.

Twenty years after the opening of the University, James VI. became King of England, the Court was removed to London, and the royal bounty was no longer extended to the poor but rising college. Neither then nor later has it profited greatly by the aid of the nobility or of the great proprietors of Scotland. A former Principal of the University, in a sketch published in 1840, says that in the list of benefactors the name of only one nobleman appeared up to that time, and