Reform of the University of Glasgow : considered with reference to the published report of the Royal Commissioners of Visitation appointed by Sir Robert Peel, and to the evidence and documents contained in their unpublished appendix, embracing the whole of Mr Oswald's bill for the regulation of that university, compared, clause by clause, with the constitution proposed by those commissioners / by a graduate of the University.

Date:: 1835

Credit: Reform of the University of Glasgow : considered with reference to the published report of the Royal Commissioners of Visitation appointed by Sir Robert Peel, and to the evidence and documents contained in their unpublished appendix, embracing the whole of Mr Oswald's bill for the regulation of that university, compared, clause by clause, with the constitution proposed by those commissioners / by a graduate of the University. Source: Wellcome Collection.

Provider: This material has been provided by the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh. The original may be consulted at the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh.

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$Jt> I acuities; and though a small honorarium was sometimes paid by the students, the (hief inducement to undertake it was the exemption from pastoral duty, and residence, which was allowed to ecclesiastics dedicating themselves to such occupations. Of the lour Faculties, indeed, that of the Arts, though considered as the least and the lowest, was the most useful and the most active. The others were destined rather to accom- plish grown men for the learned professions ; but tliKs, which comprehended grammar, logic, physics, and morals, was looked irpon as an elementary school of liberal education in general, and was resorted to accordingly by a great proportion of the youth in the neighbourhood, whatever might be their ultimate destination. The house originally lent by the bishop, for the accommodation of the students in the arts, appears to have been known by the name of Paedagogium, or Collegium artium; hut, in the year 1459, James, Lord Hamilton bequeathed, for this purpose, a tenement of houses on the site of the present buildings, and four acres of land, situate in the Dow- liill, to Master Duncan Bunch, Principal Regent in the Faculty of Arts in the Univer- sity of Glasgow, during his incumbency, and to all future Regents in the same Faculty, for the use, accommodation, and utility of the said Master Duncan, future Regents, and all Stu- dents that then were, or in aftertimes should be, in the Faculty of Arts. Except that the souls of the donor, and of his wife. Lady Eupheinia, are to be remembered in the prayers of the College, there is no interference with the original constitution of the Univ'ersity, as founded by Pope Nicolas V. The bequest is to the then existing Faculty of Arts, a con- stituent part of that University, and of coeval foundation; and the original constitution of the University is no more altered by this bequest, than it would be now by another from any private individual, to an existing chair in the University. No restriction is made by Lord .Tames Hamilton on the number of persons to enjoy his bequest, or on their election, .ad- mission, or deportment. Long after his donation, matters remained in a similar state. The Faculty of Arts went on like the three other Faculties, only wdth the benefit of a house and garden of its own, while the lecturers in the others were obliged to convene in the chapter-house of the predicant friars, or in the palace of the archbishop. Its mem- bers gave lectures on the arts, and the arts only, and conducted examinations for degrees in that Faculty alone, just as the members of the other Faculties did respectively in theo- logy, and in canon or civil law'. By the reformation of religion, the University seemed for a time extinguished; almost all its members, being clergymen of the Catholic persuasion, were dispersed, and de- prived of their honours and emoluments; the three higher Faculties, which had no peculiar funds, and were composed entirely of churchmen, disappeared altogether; and, of the Faculty of Arts nothing was visible but the paedagogium, or college of arts, which still retained possession of its house, and carried on, in a languishing manner, its more inoffen- sive instructions. From this low estate, the University was raised by donations made within the twenty years following the establishment of the Reformation. In lo63. Queen Mary bestowed certain funds for the support of five bursars, “forasmikle as, w'ithin the City of Glasgow, “ ane College and University was devised wherein the youth mycht be brocht up in letters “ and knawledge, the Commonwealth served, and virtue encreased: of the w'hilk College, “ ane parte of the schools and chambers being biggit, tlie rest thereof ceased ; swa that the “ samyn appeared rather to be the decay of ane University, nor ony w'ays to be reckoned “ ane established foundation.” Part of this royal donation consisted of^ thirteen acres of land lying beside the samyn City.” The Broomielaw is the supposed situation ot the land thus gifted ; but Mr Hill, the College Factor, reports that “ All the lands of the College in “ this neighbourhood, have now for a long period, been feued out or disposed of for payment “ of ground-annuals, of which the College are in receipt of [omitting the items] 64/. I3s. \^d. As to the five Bursars, the Commissioners report that “ the members of the College profess to be unable to trace any Bursars as having been maintained on this foundation ! Nine years afterwards, a farther addition to the property of the University was made by a Charter, granted by the Town of Glasgow and confirmed by Act of Parliament, conveying certain properties and rents that had formerly belonged to the collegiate churche.s cRapels, mid religious liouses, but which the Town had six years previously obtained from the Crown by a gift under the great seal. In this deed, the Provost and Magistrates, Hmentiiig the ruin of the buildings, and the dissolution of morals arising from poverty and idleness, en- I I? i 8 ii i i P I c ( ( t I i I ! 1$

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