THE OXFORD OF SCOTLAND.

Otago Witness, Issue 3005, 18 October 1911, Page 84

THE OXFORD OF SCOTLAND.

THE UNIVERSITY OF ST. ANDRE tv S. It was in September, 1411, that the University of St. Andrews—“the Oxford of Scotland,’’ as the oldest and most famous seat of learning north of the Tweed has been described—was founded. To the ordinary Sassenach St. Andrews is known only as the place where golf is played, and where Tom Morris lived and died; as an academic centre its importance is known only to those who live in the educational and literary sphere. Three-quarters of a century ago Henry Cockburn, in his Journal, described the “Gray City by the Northern Sea’’ as an “asylum of repose,’’ where the professors and students had everything to excite ambition —books, tranquillity, and old inspiration, and where golf was not a mere pastime, but a business and a passion. —Dr Lee.— 'Since Cockburn wrote, St. Andrews has greatly changed socially as well as educationally. Golf is still its “staple industry,- ’ but the description of the late Sir John Skelton, better known as Shirley, is no longer applicable. He tells us that when Dr Robert Lee, a well-known Edinburgh professor and “ecclesiastical innovator,” studied at St. Andrews about 1821 he found it a dark, sombre, ruinous, illlighted, badly paved, old-fashioned, oldmannered-, secluded place, in which “oldfashicned professors and old-fashioned ladies looked after keen-eyed, thread-bare students, who in red and ragged gowns, like the early Edinburgh Reviewers, cultivated the Muses on a little oatmeal”! While still retaining its mediaeval charm, St. Andrews University is now recognised as one of the best-equipped institutions of the kind in the country. The old college buildings have long since been replaced by modern classrooms and halls, new chairs have been founded, and endowments in the shape of bursaries and scholarships have been provided, partly by private benefactions and partly by State subvention. Jiie dream of its founders has indeed been realised, and St. Andrews has become in truth, and not merely in name, “The Scottish Oxford.” It is the Scottish Gii ton as well, for since the national colleges were thrown open to women it has become the favourite university tor girls in Scotland.

—Scotland's First Seat of Learning.— For nearly 300 years before the foundation of its university St. Andrews had been noted for its schools, but it was not until 1411 that Bishop Henry Wardlaw projected the idea which' culminated in the establishment of Scotland's first seat of learning. In that year, says Boethius, the historian, "began the University of St. Andrews, and attracted to it the most learned men as it*; professors." These included Lawrenoe of Lindores, Abbot of Scone, and Richard Cornwall, Doctor of Degrees, and Archdeacon of Lothian. Bishop Wardlaw had fixed the constitution of the university, settled ite discipline, and conferred various privileges upon its professors and members, and invested the government of it in a rector, subject to an appeal to himself and to his successors, whom he created its perpetual chancellors. But the Pope had not yet given his sanction to the foundation of the new university. It was not till February 3, 1413, that the Papal Bulls were received endowing the infant seminary with the privileges of a university. The occasion was marked by great rejoicings on the part of the inhabitants. A solemn convocation of clergy was held in the refectory, and after the bulls had been read the Te Deum was sung, and High Mass was celebrated. In the evening tli3 townsfolk gave themselves up to mirth and revelry, and so boisterous did the enthusiasm become that an historian describes the scene as one that "mace benefited the brilliant triumphs of war than the quiet and noiseless conquests of science and philosophy." —Literature and Theology.—

Meantime, we are told, "all who thirsted for literature resorted to the university from every quarter." But as yet the university had no home of its own. The classes met in houses thrown open by private residents in the town ; the number of students was small, and the incomes of the ..professors were even below those of a second class teacher in an elementary school. The need for increased accommodation soon became pressing, but it was not till 1450 that St. SaJvator's College was founded by Bishop Kennedy, another of the pious and enlightened prelates of St. Andrews. This was the first building that was solely devoted to the purpose of the university. It was endowed from the college revenues, and funds were pro-

vided for the maintenance of 13 persons in all. The college consisted of a principal, .a licentiate, and a bachelor, all of whom had to be in holy orders and lectured on theology certain days in the week ; four Masters of Arts, who taught logic, physics, philosophy, and metaphysics; and six foundation scholars, described as "poor churchmen." Sixty-three years later (in 1512) St. Leonard's College was founded by Piior Hepburn and Alexander Stewart Archbishop of St. Andrews, and endowed with the tithes of the parish of that time. It had a great reputation among the sons of the Scottish nobility and gentry, but in 1747, when the university was, as it seemed, on the down grade, the college was united by act of Parliament with St. Salvator's, and received the designation of the United College, which it still retains. A third college, St. Mary's, was created in 1537, and is devoted to the teaching of theology. Its venerable buildings and quadrangle are equal to anything to be seen at Oxford. Nor do these colleges form the complete corporation of St. Andrews University, for there is now affiliated with it University College, Dundee, which was founded in 1880, and formerly opened in 1883. —Famous Students.—

Even more interesting than the historical facts of the rise and development of St. Andrews University itselif is the roll of its most famous students. It includes the names of men distinguihed in science, 'literature, and art, and others who played conspicuous parte in ecclesiastical affairs, as well as in- the service of the State. George Buchanan, the greatest humanist in Europe, and the first Latin poet of his age, studied at St. Andrews, and so did that prodigy of learning, James Crichton, better known as "The Admirable Crichton,'' who entered St. Salvator's College when only 10 years of age! On the scroll of fame are also enshrined the names of James Beaton, who flourished in the reign of James V ; John Napier, Baron of Merohiston, the inventor of logarithms ; Andrew Melville, who spent three years in the Tower, and was afterwards sent into exile for having committed such acts of les majeste as comparing Queen Mary with Nebuchadnezzar, and calling King James VI "God's gillie vassel"; James Melville (his brother), the diarist, who also offended the King, and was compelled to reside in England for the greater part of his life. The University of St. Andrews can also lay claim to having been the alma mater of practically all the great' lea lers on the Covenanting and Royalist sides, including James, Marquis of Montrose, and the great Marquis of Argyll. Other famous students of the period were David Leslie, afterwards Lord Newark, who was defeated by Cromwell at the historic Dunbar Drove; the Earl of Lauderdale, who was the Royal instrument for crushing the Covenanters in Scotland; James Graham, of Glaverhouse, Viscount Dundee, who perished in the hour of victory at the battle of Killiecrankie ; Alexander Robertson of Struan, the Jacobite poet; and William Murray, Marquis of Tullibardine, who unfurled the Pretender's standard at Glenfinnan in 1745. At a still later period there were studying at St. Andrews Henry Dundas, first Viscount Melville, the trusted lieutenant of Pitt; Lord Chancellor Erskine, who supported the French Revolution ; Robert Fergusson, the poet; James Wilson, founder of the American Constitution when the Independene of that colony was proclaimed ; and the immortal Thomas Bowdler. Nor does this exhaust the list of great men upon whom the oldest university in Scotland can lay claim. Dr Arbuthnott, the physician of Queen Anne and the friend of Pope and Swift, was a student of St. Andrews, and so was Dr Thomas Chalmers, the 1 famous Scottish divine, James Bowan Lindsay, who discovered wireless telegraphy so long ago as 1853; Baron Playfair, the famous chemist; and, last, but not least, Andrew Lang, who loves to speak of his first college as "mine own | St. Andrews."--D. A. Oswald.