were instituted in the seventeenth century, but it does not appear that the Medical School and Faculty was established till the last century.

Assistants to Professors.

In the Faculty of Arts there are assistants to the Professors of Humanity, Greek, Mathematics, and Natural Philosophy. Each of these receives an annual salary of £100. In the Faculty of Medicine there are assistants to the Professors of Anatomy, Chemistry, Materia Medica, and Medical Jurisprudence, with salaries varying from £25 to £100. The assistants in these various classes are appointed annually by their respective Professors, subject to the approval of the University Court. The Professors of Natural History, Institutes of Medicine, Practice of Physic, Surgery, and Pathology, have also assistants provided by the Senatus.

General Council.

The General Council consists of the Chancellor, the Members of the University Court, the Professors all for the time being, all Masters of Arts of the University, all persons on whom the University has, after examination, conferred either of the degrees of Doctor of Medicine, Doctor of Science, Bachelor of Divinity, Bachelor of Laws, Bachelor of Medicine, or Bachelor of Science, or any other degree that may hereafter be instituted; and also all persons who shall establish that, previous to 2d of August, 1861, they had, as Matriculated Students, given regular attendance on the course of study in the University for four complete sessions, or for three complete sessions in this, and a fourth in another Scottish University-the attendance for at least two of such sessions having been on the course of study in the Faculty of Arts.

The fee for registration is £1, but each applicant who registered under the Universities (Scotland) Act, 1858, will be entitled to an abatement from such fee, equal to the sum that may already have been paid by him in name of entrance money and annual fees. No person can be a member of Council until he has attained the age of twenty-one years complete.

The Council meets twice a year-viz., on the first Tuesday after the fourteenth day of April, and on the last Friday in October, at one o'clock, 'to take into their consideration all questions affecting the well-being and prosperity of the the University, and to make representations from time to time on such questions to the University Court, who shall consider the same, and return to the Council their deliverance thereon.' All proposed improvements in the internal arrangements of the University 'shall be submitted to the University Council for their consideration.' 'The Council may appoint a Committee or Committees at one meeting to arrange or prepare business for a future meeting, but it can not delegate any of its functions or action to a committee.

The Chancellor is by statute President of the Council; and in his absence, the Rector; whom failing, the Principal or Senior Professor present, with a deliberative and also a casting vote.

The General Council of this University, and the General Council of the University of St. Andrews jointly, return a Member of Parliament. When a poll is demanded, members may either vote personally or by voting papers. The Chancellor and one of the Assessors in the University Court are elected by the Council. When a poll is demanded, the election is made by means of voting letters, issued by the Registrar to the members, which must be returned to him within 21 days. The Chancellor holds office for life, and the Assessor for four years from the date of nomination.

III. SUPERIOR INSTRUCTION.

The four Universities by which Superior Instruction is dispensed are organized as follows:

Med. Jurisprudence, F. Ogston, M.D.
Botany, G. Dickie, M.D.

University of Glasgow, 1-450.

Chancellor, Duke of Montrose, K.T.; Vice-Chanc., The Principal; Rector, Earl of Derby; Dean of Faculties, Sir Thos. E. Colebrooke, Bart., M.P.; Princi pal, Thos. Barclay, D.D.; Rep. in Parl., Edward S. Gordon; Clerk and Sec., Rev. Duncan H. Weir, D.D.

Social and Domestic Life.

One of the leading defects in the working of Scottish universities is the total isolation in which they leave the student the moment he quits the lectureThis has been particularly remarked of the metropolitan university of Edinburgh. Prof. Lorimer, in his Universities of Scotland,' observes:

room.

This isolation of the students seriously interferes with the usefulness of the institution. Here students from the country, particularly those of the humbler class, who for the most part have no other means of making the acquaintance of their fellow-students, and of the professors, than the arrangements of the university afford them, usually feel themselves as much strangers and aliens at the end of their four years' course, as they were at its commencement. Social intercourse, and familiar interchange of ideas and sympathies, even for the time being, to say nothing of those lasting friendships which, under more favorable circumstances, spring up so readily betwixt fellow-students, are here as little fostered by the juxtaposition of the class-room as that of an ordinary city church. Each individual hearer seats himself in his accustomed place to listen to the lecture, as he would to take part in the service; and if he has any communication with his fellow-hearers, during its continuance, he of course commits a sin little less heinous than talking in church. In the ordinary case he quits, not only the lecture-rooms, but the college walls themselves, when his day of toil is ended, without interchanging a dozen words with any one; and if, on the occasion of examinations, reading of prize essays, or the like, some little conversation does take place among the students, it is rarely to the extent of making them acquaintances out of doors. The humanizing interchange of almost brotherly affection, and the jovial, and, for the most part, harmless intercourse which binds young hearts together, in the English and German schools of learning, is here unknown. The poor Edinburgh student celebrates with no songs his passage from the sterility of unconscious boyhood, into the rich and leafy summer of his days. In his solitary lodging he pores over the pages which his professor has prescribed for his study; but his newly-found faculties are whetted by no friendly encounter with kindred wits, his affections meet with none of the sympathy for which they yearn, and his passions take him by surprise, and often fill him with despondency. sorrowful sequestration from the genial influences proper to academic life, the better half of his nature seems given only to torture him, and lead him astray. If he is gregarious at all, he shares his intellectual and moral bewilderment with a few of his former school-fellows from his native village, who have had as little opportunity as himself of gaining the freer atmosphere of thought and feeling which a wider society of young men never fails to conquer for itself. Dull, clownish, and sad, he is an object of ridicule to the more fortunate portion of those who sit on the same benches with him, and of no very well founded respect to himself. To best that can come of him is a bookworn, and in such depressing circumstances, it is not strange that even his reading goes heavily and mechanically along; that the new thoughts which he encounters take little hold on a subjective nature so feebly stimulated from without, and that he goes into the profession (too often the Church) for which he has striven to prepare himself, by an amount of self-denial worthy of a martyr, with no better ground of confidence in his qualifications than that self-conceit which solitary mental toil is so apt to engender, even in minds originally modest, vigorous, and sanę.

In this

To remedy this state of things, and to cast at least a portion of the sunshine which belongs to the age and occupation of the student, and restore the student to the society of his fellows in years and studies, Professor Lorimer suggests the following expedients:

1. Debating Societies.-The only existing institution by which this is even attempted to be done is that of debating societies. By means of these something is even now effected, and by better organization they might, no doubt, be rendered more efficient than they are; but under the most favorable circum

stances, and more especially in the hands of very young men, they will be apt to degenerate into occasions for mere idle talking, to foster vanity and superficiality, and to take the tone of their loudest and shallowest rather than of their ablest and most polished members. Were a good staff of junior professors and tutors attached to the university, it might be possible, by putting these societies under their superintendence, to give to their discussions, in a manner adapted to the altered spirit of the times, something of the character of the 'disputations' to which our forefathers seem justly to have attached so much importance. By selecting or suggesting subjects of a properly academic character, by taking part in the discussions themselves, and occasionally inducing resident graduates to join in them also, it would not be difficult for a very small number of professors and tutors effectually to remove the character of triviality which belongs to these societies at present; and as these persons need not be greatly more advanced in years than the majority of the ordinary members, there is no reason why their presence should cause restraint or engender formality in the proceedings. But as we regard the formation of a class of persons thus intermediate between the professors as they exist at present and the students, not only as the most effectual means of improving the teaching of the universities, but also of removing the social evils of which we complain, we must speak of them a little more in detail.

2. Junior Staff of Professors, Tutors, and Teaching Candidates.-What we want is a class of men to form a connecting link between the students and the professors, properly so called, who ought at all times to be the most eminent representatives of their respective departments, to be found within the country, or who can be induced to come from abroad. It is manifestly impossible that these latter can ever see much of the student, without neglecting duties still more important, and which can in nowise be delegated. The interests of science and of human progress forbid such a serious encroachment on their time, and even were it otherwise, their distinguished position, and, for the most part, their age, render any thing like intercourse on equal terms impossible. But no such gulf divides the student from the extraordinary professor. He is usually an aspirant to the office of the ordinary professor but though his rival as a public teacher, his emoluments, unlike those of his superior, are almost entirely dependent on his popularity. If the senior professor is disabled from infirmity, or is so much engaged as to render it impossible that he should lecture, (as was the case with Guizot, Cousin, &c., in France, and with Schelling, Schlegel, &c., in Germany,) the ordinary professor supplies his place, either permanently or till some other arrangement is made; in the former case opportunity being afforded for another candidate for public favor to offer himself. The duty of conducting class examinations will naturally fall to the share of the extraordinary professor, and that he is in a condition to do far more effectually than it can be done by a senior professor. If his other arrangements admit of it, as they probably would in the smaller universities of Scotland, it will be his duty to read privately with such of the students as either request his more special instructions, or as he himself judges to stand in need of them. In the larger universities this duty would fail to be discharged by a third order of professors or tutors, (or perhaps occasionally by simple graduates holding a temporary appointment from the Senatus Academicus,) and as regards the whole of this latter class, their chief recompense would, of course, consist in the prospect of the distinguished career, to which their office would be the regular and recognized entrance. A very small salary (say £100 a year) would, in such circumstances, probably be sufficient to secure the services of young men fully adequate to the task. It is to this latter class of academical teachers that we would chiefly look for removing the social evils which we have mentioned as existing in the University of Edinburgh. If the humbler class of students had the privilege of reading with these gentlemen gratis in their rooms, there are, we are certain, from the enthusiasm with which we know the poor fellows to be inspired, few who would not avail themselves of it, and the result would inevitably be an acquaintance of a very valuable kind, not only with the tutor himself, but with those who read along with them. Daily meetings in a private room of say a dozen persons at a time. where conversation would not only be admissible, but, if it had reference

to the subject in hand, would be the chief medium through which instruction would be conveyed, and these meetings, presided over by a young, accomplished, and often, it is to be hoped, an elegant man, could not fail, if continued for years, to have a refining effect on the most boorish, as they could not be otherwise than inspiriting and delightful to every one who was not altogether unworthy of entering academic walls.

3. A Common Table.-We believe there are none of the arrangements of the English universities, the adoption of which would be more likely to add to the happiness and to promote the social training of Scotch students than that of a college table, at which the professors and tutors, or a certain number of them, and such resident graduates as might find it convenient, should dine daily, and which should be open to all students at a very moderate cost. From the constitution of the Scottish universities it is impossible that college tables could be arranged in a manner precisely analogous to those in colleges where all the students are resident, and under the control of the college authorities; it is a mistake, however, to suppose that the institution itself is incompatible with the professorial and non-resident system. For proof of this we have to go no farther than to Trinity College, Dublin, where a large proportion of those who dine regularly at the college table do not reside within the college walls. But even if a small body of resident professors, tutors, and students were thought necessary as a nucleus around which college society might form itself, no very formidable obstacle seems to stand in the way of its foundation in Edinburgh. By far the greater number of students at present reside in lodgings, which are neither so comfortable, respectable, nor economical as a well arranged Hall, (similar to the Private Halls about to be instituted in Oxford,) might very well be made; and to suppose that they would not willingly avail themselves of the offer of such a means of bettering their condition, is to suppose in them an aversion to improvement which we are not entitled to predicate of persons, for the most part, under forty.

In any attempt to introduce the custom of the common table into the Scottish universities, the want of the beautiful dining-halls which exist in so many of the colleges of the ancient universities, and which add not only to their picturesque character in the eyes of a stranger, but what is far more important, exercise a refining influence on those who frequent them, would no doubt be severely felt. The present, however, is the age of the revival of Gothic architecture, and here would be as noble an occasion as could be found for calling the recovered art into play. But even though these, and many of the other indications of ancient wealth, were awaiting for a time,—though both the hall and the table were of the plainest description, we feel certain that they would still confer important benefits on students, situated as we have represented many of those at Edinburgh to be. Though we do not altogether subscribe to the doctrine that

we are clear that

Carols, and not minced meat, make Christmas pies,

"Tis mirth, not dishes, sets a table off;
Brutes and fanatics eat and never laugh.

Nor, simple though, from the circumstances of many of those who ought to frequent it, such a table would necessarily be on ordinary days, is there any necessity that on festive occasions the sinews of the most substantial good fellowship should be awanting. The 'brawne of the tusked swine,' even ‘a fair and large boar's head upon a silver platter,' might, without any very wanton extravagance, be carried up to the principal table in the hall with great state and solemnity' at the merry Christmas season, and its appropriate carol

'Caput apri' defero

Reddens laudes domino,' &c.,

would be as appropriate at the University of Edinburgh, as at Queen's College, Oxford, or in the Inner Temple.

Prof. Lorimer closes his treatment of this subject by suggesting that the adoption of an academic dress would contribute to the formation of a corporate feeling in the University of Edinburgh, as it does in those older universities of Scotland, and in those of England.