6 Castle Street
Edinburgh
6th Feb., 1867
My Dear Archibald,
It is a long time now since I last wrote to you, and indeed I have been very irregular this month with all my correspondence.
One reason for this is that such work as we get to do here — and the whole does not come to a great deal — is very much in the form of writing. In the University as well as in our college essay-writing is the main thing required, and so the Edinburgh men have a fluency in this line that we at Aberdeen cannot at all equal. It does not follow however that because they write faster Edinburgh men write better than we do: indeed I do not think that is the case. The great business of the first year is the Homily which I have now got through with.
We get a list of about 50 to choose our subject from. I chose what I found to be a very difficult one — The Theory of Development in its bearings on Apologetics. Of course you will guess that I did not go in for the natural history of the subject but worked from Spencer[2] not Darwin, i.e. I endeavoured to show not that Nat. Hist. had not proved but that it never could prove such a theory and that the theory was metaphysically absurd and physically incorrect.
I believe I shall never recover from the dislike to Nat. Hist. that Duns’[3] lectures have inspired me with. I now make it a point of honour never to listen to the lectures & to absent myself from the class pretty often.
The man is always stupid and superficial, generally talks nonsense and is occasionally profane. I have some rich specimens of his lectures which I must tell you when I see you next.
I have settled to go to Tübingen during the summer. It is quite necessary to have a good knowledge of German if one is to do any good in the second Hebrew class, Indeed I have found it necessary to read a good deal of German this winter which of course is rather slow work as I cannot always dispense with the Dictionary.
The annual general meeting of the Edin. Aberdeen University Club was held on Saturday. You will see that this is a very respectable body when I tell you that Donaldson[4] is president and that of a committee of eight three of the members are Prof. Masson,[5] Prof. Davidson[6] & Dr Woodford.[7] The remaining members of Committee are a Dr McDonald, a Mr Ritchie, David Westland, a man Grant whom you may remember (a small deformed fellow), and myself.[8] Ferrier[9] is secretary. So you see there is a strong tendency in Aberdeen men to retain their characteristics even in Edinburgh. Loyal Aberdeen men look with much horror on Blackie[10] who Pr. Masson says is quite anti-Aberdonian.
I see McDonell [sic] pretty often this winter.[11] He seems to be getting on very well. He has nearly given up reviewing for the writing of leaders and always does anything on Political Economy & such subjects. Lilley is coming out strong this winter. He is the only man who works for Duns, so of course will get his prize. He is also working very hard at Hebrew and I suppose will be first there also tho’ on the exams already over he & I are just equal. All the rest are far behind. Lilley[12] is working very hard so I daresay he will be first on the whole.
I hope you are keeping well this winter and that Willie is well and getting on at the Gr.[Grammar] School.
Write soon & give me some University news,
With kind regards to Mrs McDonald & Willie (I do not add to yourself because I think you agree with me in disapproving of these formulas).
I am,
Yours truly,
W. R. Smith
[1] CUL ADD 7446 C064 MS
[2] Herbert Spencer’s First Principles, setting out his evolutionary “Theory of Development”, was first published in 1862 and would have proved an easier and more tempting target for criticism by Smith in his homily than Darwin’s Origin of Species of 1859. Cf. Reminiscences by W. S. Bruce, pp.79f., for the debate between Lindsay and WRS on the respective merits of Spencer and Darwin.
[3] Smith mistakenly writes “Dun’s”.
[4] Donaldson, James (later Sir James) (1831–1915): was educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and Marischal College, becoming first a noted patristic scholar with his three volume study, A Critical History of Christian Literature and Doctrine from the Death of the Apostles to the Nicene Council (1864–66), and subsequently a leading educationalist, closely involved in drafting both the Scottish Education Act of 1872 and the Scottish Universities Act of 1889, prior to being appointed Principal of St Andrew’s University.
[5] Masson, David (1822–1907): was professor of Rhetoric and English Literature at Edinburgh University from 1865 to 1897. Of humble origins, he had been educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and Marischal College. A close friend of Alexander Bain, he was introduced by the latter in London to Thomas Carlyle and John Stuart Mill, becoming a noted writer for the periodicals of the day. Masson was a strong proponent of women’s rights as well as a noted historian, critic and academic of considerable renown.
[6] A. B. Davidson similarly was born and educated in Aberdeen.
[7] Probably the Dr Woodford mentioned by Alexander Bain (Autobiography, p.306) as Chancellor’s Assessor at Aberdeen University in 1865.
[8] McDonald, Ritchie, Westland and Grant are unidentified.
[9] Ferrier, Sir David (1843–1928): pioneer neurologist and neuro-surgeon, another Aberdeen Grammar School pupil, was two years ahead of WRS at King’s College, then qualified in medicine (1868) at Edinburgh University. From 1870 he lived in London, practising at Kings College Hospital there.
[10] Blackie, John Stuart (1809–1895): had been born in Glasgow but was educated in Aberdeen at the Grammar School and Marischal College. Though his appointment in 1837 to the newly created Regius chair of Humanity [Latin] at Marischal College was blocked by Aberdeen Presbytery on account of his openly cynical attitude towards the required subscription to the Westminster Confession, the ecclesiastical objection was overruled by the Court of Session. Those events foreshadow WRS’s later trials and possibly go some way towards explaining Blackie’s “anti-Aberdonian” prejudice. In 1852 he was appointed to the chair of Greek at Edinburgh University.
[11] Yet another Grammar School pupil, John (later Sir John) Macdonell (1845–1921) was a contemporary of WRS at Aberdeen University before joining the Scotsman as journalist and leader writer, publishing A Survey of Political Economy in 1871. Entering the Middle Temple in 1870, Macdonell thereafter pursued an eminent career as jurist, becoming professor of Comparative Law at University College London in 1901.
[12] More than fifty years later, James Philip Lilley (1845–1931) was to write “William Robertson Smith: recollections of a fellow-student” in The Expositor (vol. xx, 8th series, 1920, pp. 61–76 and 126–138).