Page:The Student, Edinburgh University Magazine, New Series, Volume V., Summer Session 1891.pdf/24

 I understand it is to be repaired. The statues with which originally it was adorned have been broken down by John Knox and his fanatics. Of the colossus of M'Ewan himself nothing now remains but the site, which is boarded round. Great notices are posted up on the boards, “ Stick no bills.” I rather like the Scotch, but I find they never wear knickerbockers nor kilts, save on Sundays, when they go to St Giles'. They look very funny on a windy day.—Your loving son,

—I gladly answer your queries as to my progress in study. Firstly, we attend the Gardens, either the Botanic or Princes Street, where the beauties of nature are pointed out to us by our intelligent Professoriate. Fee, £4-4s. Then we study “Human Nature” (wide Butler’s Sermons) in Princes Street, making remarks and criticisms on the little world around us. No fee: this is an extra. Then we dissect skates (of comparative freshness) during the hot noon-tide hours. This is to test our nerves. Our Professor says that if we can stand this we can stand anything. I was very sick the first day, but Jamieson took me (to practise the business) to an old decayed oyster shop. That hardened me, an 1. never turn a hair now. A four-month-old dead frog never disturbs me. But can t look at sweetbreads, of which I was at one time rather fond. By the way 1 have entered for our great competition in the Union, and am rather hard up Your affectionate nephew,

one attempts to pass judgment upon a whole class of persons, it seems it would be very convenient never to lose sight of the advice which Lord Chesterfield gave to his son, and in the present case double care and precaution are needed on account of the peculiar circumstances in which an American who has come to Scotland, Studied along with Scotch students, and who undertakes to treat them justly, finds himself. If he praises them, Americans will undoubtedly say it is shrewd policy which guides him, and that he sacrifices truth to convenience; if he censures them, why could not Scotchmen say, with equal justice, that all is due to national prejudice? Such reflections make the writer hesitate, and it is to be feared that the outcome will be similar to that which generally results from falling into doubt and studying over the spelling of a word—the more one thinks and reason and chooses, the surer he is to take the wrong road.

A type of a student is to be chosen; by selecting a friend, the picture may result too favourably; if one whose lot it has been to displease be submitted to examination, it would be more than human if the sentence were fair. There remains then, only the indifferent man, but, to confess the truth, one who neither please nor displeases, who fails to excite either envy or love, much surely have no character; he is the same great nothing the world over. What must be done, then, is to take a little of one kind and a little of another, sufficient of each to make a good average.

In the first place, if we know nothing of a man, we must judge him by appearances, by his means of treatment of others, his gait, his dress—in short, by his complete external make-up. Later we can study the stars which shine in the heavens of his ambition; we can examine the minute structure of the man, and thus make up our estimate of him in a broader, better way. In other words, we can follow him in his pursuit of an ideal, we can make ourselves acquainted with his aims and intentions, and then return to his motives—to the underlying principles which govern his actions, and which make the man what he is.