Page:A biographical dictionary of eminent Scotsmen, vol 5.djvu/191

Rh knowing that his labours were not without success, both from his students themselves, many of whom did not hesitate to ascribe their advancement in after-life to the active and industrious habits acquired in the logic class, and also from the opinion of the public at large, which was very clearly evinced by the progressive increase of the number of students; the average of which, when he entered upon the office, in the public class was about fifty, but which increased to nearly two hundred. This was, no doubt, partly owing to general causes, applicable to the times, but to a certain extent it was assuredly to be attributed to the great estimation in which this class was held by the public at large. Few teachers have ever enjoyed so large a portion of the respect and affection of their pupils. This was owing not a little to the warm interest which they could not fail to perceive he took in their progress,—to his strict impartiality, which admitted of no preference or distinction of any sort except that of talents and industry,—and to a kindly, affectionate, and almost paternal regard, which marked the whole of his demeanour to his students—who, dispersed, as they afterwards came to be, into all quarters of the globe, have very generally concurred in expressions of cordial esteem to their old preceptor. With such a hold upon the regard and affection of his class, he scarcely ever required to have recourse to the ordinary means of enforcing academical discipline.

From 1774, when he first entered upon his office, till 1824, when he gave up teaching, the business was systematically carried on in the way here described, with such improvements from time to time as were suggested by his experience; and he possessed such an excellent constitution, aided by a temper remarkably cheerful, that during the whole fifty years he was scarcely a single day absent from his class on account of indisposition. His predecessor, Mr Clow, survived till 1788, having the year before his death resigned to his successor the whole privileges of the office, with his seat in the faculty; and, notwithstanding the very laborious duties which he had imposed on himself by his mode of teaching, he still contrived to devote a portion of his time to the extrication of the patrimonial affairs of the college, and the arrangement of their accounts, which his business habits enabled him to undertake without much difficulty, and which, chiefly by his exertions, were brought from a state of comparative confusion into a very satisfactory arrangement. In 1792, likewise, when the royal infirmary was erected at Glasgow, he bestowed very great labour in promoting the undertaking, and for more than twenty years afterwards officiated as secretary, taking on himself the chief management of the affairs of the institution, from which he only retired a short time before his death, when he received the thanks of the managers for the unwearied attention he had bestowed on their business for nearly thirty years.

The private life of Mr Jardine did not present any great variety of incident. During the session he lived in college in terms of great friendship with several of his colleagues, particularly with the late professors Millar and Young, whose views in college affairs generally coincided with his own; and in summer he resided at a small property which he purchased in the neighbourhood of Hamilton, which he took great delight in adorning, and entered with much relish upon the employments of a country life, which formed an excellent relaxation after his winter labours. His residence in that quarter naturally occasioned a connexion with the presbytery of Hamilton, who, for upwards of thirty years, returned him as their representative to the General Assembly, which he regularly attended, taking a considerable share in the business, and generally coinciding in opinion with the late Sir Henry Moncrieff Wellwood, with whom he lived for a great many years in habits of the most unreserved friendship. One of the last public appearances which he made was in May, 1825, upon the question of