Page:The Student, Edinburgh University Magazine, New Series, Volume V., Summer Session 1891.pdf/13



To the older graduates of Edinburgh University the picture of the new University Quadrangle, which we print this week, will appear with all the advantages of strangeness and novel interest. The buildings which make up the present Medical School are of recent erection, and the students of the years preceding the ’eighties knew them not. Their associations gather round the older and more his­torical College of King James in the Bridges. The erection of these later buildings marks the great strides which our University has made in recent years; and the nobility of their appearance seems to sym­bolise the greatness of the Edinburgh Medical School. A great leap must be made from the insignificant and almost parochial college of the preceding century, with its government by town council and bailie bodies, to the present magnificent institution of Edinburgh University. But only in later years has this great change been emphasised. Not till 1883 were the present buildings of the New University erected, to make conception of the old state of matters well-nigh impossible. We can scarcely realise now that in very recent days the old University buildings provided accommodation for stu­dents of all the four Faculties.

The site of this newer and medical portion of the University is in juxtaposition to that of the Royal Infirmary. The Middle Meadow Walk—that general highway of studentdom—divides the two. The buildings were first rendered possible and practicable through the magnificent bequest of ,£20,000 from Sir David Brewster. They were completed at a total cost of over,£230,000. The architect was Mr Robert Rowand Anderson, whose “general treatment of the irregular piece of ground at the disposal of the architects was the cleverest of all,” and whose “elevations in the early Italian style were, on the whole, the most original and tasteful.”

A serious mistake seems, however, to have been made as regards the level of the Quadrangle. Its slope considerably destroys its utility and beauty. Both in this respect and in regard to its much smaller dimensions, it cannot compare with the greater and more classical Quadrangle of the old University. No doubt the Trustees