Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 7.djvu/687

665 EDINBURGH 665 or suffering from injuries, is efficiently combined with Its indispensable uses as a school for clinical instruction and practical training in the healing art. The Royal Botanical Garden is another important adjunct lo the university as a school of science. The professor of botany is regius keeper of the garden ; but its special requirements necessitate its removal from the crowded centre of the city. It has accordingly undergone four suc cessive changes of site since its foundation in 1670 by Sir Andrew Balfour and Sir Robert Sibbald. It now occupies a fine area of 27 acres on the north side of the city, in Inverleith Row. This is carefully laid out with a special view to botanical instruction. It includes a herbarium and palm houses, with an extensive range of hot-houses, a museum of economic botany, a lecture room, and other requisites for the students of botany who attend here the lectures of the professor during the summer term. The Royal Observatory, which has already been referred to as one of the architectural adornments of the Gallon Hill, also constitutes an important adjunct to the university. The astronomer royal for Scotland holds along with that office the professorship of practical astronomy. Museum of Science and Art. One other important insti tution of practical instruction, in intimate connection with the university, is the Museum of Science and Art, situated immediately to the west of the university building, and in direct communication with it. The first keeper of the museum, Dr George Wilson, was also professor of technology in the university, but the chair has not been filled since his death, though his successor in the charge of the museum delivers lectures from time to time in the large lecture room in the east wing of the building, which is capable of accommodating about 800 sitters. The Museum of Science and Art embraces not only the objects of science included in the departments of geology, mineralogy, palaeontology, and natural history, as well as other allied sciences, but also of industrial art, and of the raw productions of com merce, illustrative of nearly all the chief manufactures of Great Britain, and of many foreign countries. Royal College of Surgeons. The museum and lecture rooms of the Royal College of Surgeons are accommodated in a handsome classical building in Nicolson Street, in the immediate vicinity of the university buildings. The College of Surgeons is an ancient corporate body, with a charter of the year 1505, and exercises the powers of instructing in surgery and of giving degrees. Its graduates also give lectures on the various branches of medicine and science requisite for the degree of doctor of medicine, and those extra-academical courses are recognized,&quot; under certain restrictions, by the university court, as qualifying for the degree. The museum contains a valuable collection of anatomical and surgical preparations adapted to the ad vancement of the study of surgical science. Royal College of Physicians. The Royal College of Physicians is another learned corporate body, organized as such, with special privileges by a charter of incorporation granted to them by Charles II. in 1681. The meetings of the body take place in their hall, a handsome building on the terrace overlooking the Queen Street Gardens, where they have a valuable library and a museum of materia medica. But the college as a body takes no part in the educational work of the university. The three older Scottish universities of St Andrews, Glasgow, and Aberdeen were all founded in the 15th century, by the authority of papal bulls, and derived their original endowments chiefly from the liberality of influential ecclesiastics, who had large revenues and church property at their disposal. They originated a part of that grand conception of the 15th century, which aimed at organizing the learning of the age into local branches of one university system, embracing the whole scholarship of Christendom, and recognizing the graduates of all universities as members of one corporate brother hood, co-extensive with the Christian world. The Scottish univer sities still differ from those of Oxford and Cambridge in perpetuat ing some curious relics of this cosmopolitan university system. The first conception of the University of Edinburgh is also due to a learned Scottish ecclesiastic, Robert Reid, bishop of Orkney, a favourite councillor of James V., who died at Dieppe in 1558, as was believed from poison, when on his way home, after fulfilling his duties as one of the commissioners for the marriage of the Queen of Scots to the Dauphin of France. He left a bequest of 8000 merks towards the founding of a college at Edinburgh, and is stated by the historian of the family of Sutherland to have destined a much larger sum for the same purpose, but it was diverted by the earl of Morton to his own use. The above-named bequest was only recovered after long delay, when, in 1581, it was appropriated to the purchase, from the provost of the Kirk of Field, of the grounds now occupied by the university buildings. The circum stances attendant on the death of this first benefactor of the University remind us of the ecclesiastical changes already in pro gress in the 16th century. The actual foundation of the University of Edinburgh dated subsequent to the Reformation ; and it is honourably distinguished among the national universities of Great Britain as the creation of the citizens themselves. The Royal Charter granted by James VI. in 1582 contemplates a university on a wide basis, with the conditions necessary for liberal study, and arrangements suited lo the progress of modern science ; and it is wonderful how much has been accomplished in spite of the meagreness of the whole endowment. By the Univer sities (Scotland) Act of 1858, provision is made for the better government and discipline of the Scottish universities, and that of Edinburgh was materially affected by its operations. The civic origin of the university had placed the patronage of the chairs, and the supreme control of the university, to a very considerable extent in the hands of the city corporation. The administration of the responsible duties thus devolving on the town council reflects, on the whole, great credit on the city ; and its exercise of the patronage of university chairs was abundantly justified by the high rank attained by the university under the distinguished professors selected by it. But the university had long outgrown the healthful operation of such anomalous relations ; and by the new Act, it has been remodelled as a corporation, consisting of a chancellor, vice- chancellor, rector, principal, professors, registered graduates and alumni, and matriculated students. The chancellor is elected for life by the general council, of which lie is head ; and the rights of the city as the original founder of the university have been recog nized by giving to the town council the election of four of the seven curators, with whom rests the appointment of the principal, the sole patronage of seventeen of the chairs, and a share in other appointments. For further details see UNIVERSITIES. Neio College. One of the proceedings consequent on the disruption of the Church of Scotland in 1843, and the formation of the Free Church, was the establishment of New College at Edinburgh, in connection with that church. As originally projected, it was designed to include scientific and literary as well as theological chairs. Since then, however, this and the other colleges of the Free Church of Scotland, established at Aberdeen and Glasgow, have assumed the mere limited character of purely theological colleges though in that of Edinburgh a chair of natural science is still retained. New College Buildings, designed in the pointed style of the 16th century, are erected on the site of the palace of Mary de Guise, and include a hall for the general assembly, or supreme court of the church. They occupy a prominent site at the head of the Mound, imme diately in the rear of the National Gallery ; and the two central towers, with a lower one in the same style, attached to the church at the north-east angle, contribute to give elevation to the facade which has been aptly designed to harmonize with the lofty surrounding buildings of the Old Town. The United Presbyterian Church has also its theological hall for the training of its ministers. The building hitherto occupied for the accommodation of the students, and also for the meetings of its church courts, is situated in Queen Street; but in September 1877 the New Edinburgh Theatre, in Castle Terrace, was purchased with the view of being converted to those uses. Literary Institutions. Next door to the United Pres byterian premises in Queen Street is the Philosophical VII. 84