15 Buccleuch Place
EDINBURGH
13 February, 1868
My Dear Archibald,
I am quite ashamed of having let so long time pass without writing to you, but I have been so busy and especially have had so many essays & discourses to write that I have let all my correspondence get out of order.
I have this session given in to various Professors one Latin discourse and four English essays, the shortest of which would take half-an-hour to read. I am working at another essay to-night, a troublesome one upon a Hebrew root, and am so bored with it — having some fifty passages to classify & explain — that I have set to this as a relief. I must say however that two of the essays above mentioned were written in Summer.
I spent my whole Xmas holidays on an essay on Prophecy — as to how far Prophecy depends on History, a very difficult subject. As besides all this I have done a lot of other work in Theology and have been reading Plato, Aristotle, Spinoza, Descartes & Kant you may judge that I have been pretty busy.
To get to more interesting matter, you will no doubt applaud the conduct of Dr Candlish[2] in setting up a Gymnasium in the New College. I attend with a good deal of regularity especially in wet weather and succeed pretty well where a light weight is an advantage — as in the various kinds of vaulting. A popular exercise is the Spring Vault in which a bar of very imposing height may be cleared without much effort when one has got the knack. Perhaps you know this by the name of double Vaulting which it sometimes receives in our gymnasium.
My weakest point is the Trapeze on which I am quite helpless and unable to get up steam. Occasionally probationers come up and assist and it is rather comical to see a man in a white neckloth [sic] knotted round a bar with his head projecting between his legs.
There is a good story about Buchanan just now which has the merit of being unvarnished truth.[3] Miller, whom you remember at Aberdeen, and Webster were to read their sermons to Buchanan & Miller had been appointed to read first but could not get away from a meeting till some 20m after the hour appointed. So Webster goes up to Dr James & bawls in his ear, “Mr Miller and I are to change Places, Sir!!”. The answer was, “Read any place you like.” Webster read & as he finished Miller entered the room and was horrified when Dr James, beginning his Criticism with, “The sermon we have just heard is a very admirable one”, gave an elaborate criticism of Miller’s sermon. When Miller had read his sermon Webster’s criticism followed, addressed to Miller. Dr B. did not know Miller from Webster though they had been two years in his class, nor had he heard a word of either sermon tho’ Webster at least standing at B’s side had literally bawled the whole as loud as if he had been in a Church. Isn’t that a competent Professor? I need not say that it is not uncommon to talk across the room when he is lecturing. His lectures are awful twaddle, rolled out in a most rhetorical style, and occasionally beginning while the censor[4] is still calling the roll. In such cases the Censor being a modest man generally gives up the vain attempt and sits down unable to silence the Professor.
The Aberdeen University Club Supper comes off tomorrow. I have had a good deal of bother selling tickets without much result. The Aberdeen Students at the New College have very little interest in their alma Mater.
How does Willie like the College work? I believe I should have written to him but I hope he will excuse me for adhering to you.
Has the squabble about Minto come to an end yet? I must say I sympathise with Minto, nor have I seen any Aberdeen man who does not. I am told by Trail[5] that a little more caution & skill in managing his case would have given Minto the victory. I don’t envy his successor, tho’ no doubt Thomson[6] will be very civil to him.
I had a letter from Moir a short time ago. He was second in Routh’s Examination last term. The man before him had degraded & so I presume had an advantage over Moir.[7] I am sorry to say that his rheumatism still troubles him occasionally.
Who has got the Fullarton Scholarships this year? I have not seen them in the Papers. By the way McGregor’s[8] victory at the Ferguson was not very glorious. He is the worst scholar in Philosophy that has appeared yet. He is going to go in for Shaw[9] but I am sure he has no chance.
Bain[10] persuaded me from going in against Lindsay & Hunter.[11] Ag[ain]st the former I certainly have no chance but if I can get time in Summer to work at Phil: I daresay I would rather like to try my chance against the latter. Lindsay himself is, he says, more afraid of me than of Hunter who has not pleased Fraser[12] very well at the Ferguson & has been getting more & more thoroughly a Utilitarian &c. since.
At present I cannot say whether I shall go in or not, probably not unless Hunter goes in as my great object wd be to beat him if possible & so increase my relative chances of an examinership at Aberdeen.
There is not much general news going just now. If you are interested in Edinburgh University you may care to hear that Sir Alex. Grant may very probably be chosen Principal & Prof. of Mor[al] Phil. I suppose he would be a first rate Professor, but he would not give up his fine position in Bombay for the Professorship alone.
I don’t remember an more news just now. I hope you are keeping well this winter. Are you attending the Natural History Society this winter? I see it very fully reported in the Free Press[13] always.
With kind regards to Mrs McDonald and Willie.
I am
Yours truly
Wm Robertson Smith
[2] Candlish, Robert Smith (1806–1873): Principal at New College from 1862 to 1874 and also minister of St George’s Free Church until succeeded by Alexander Whyte.
[3] Even if true, the story was certainly not new: neither Miller nor Webster are listed among the students then attending New College.
[4] A minor college official whose duties included calling the roll before lectures.
[5] Trail, John A.: matriculated at Aberdeen University in 1861, the same year as WRS and his brother George. He later became an Edinburgh lawyer.
[6] Professor David Thomson (1817–1880): who had secured the chair of Natural Philosophy against Clerk Maxwell on the 1860 amalgamation of King’s and Marischal College at Aberdeen, continued successfully in his post until his death in 1880 at the age of 63.
[7] Routh, Edward John (1831–1907): was a noted mathematician, fellow of Peterhouse College and maths lecturer at Cambridge, with a high reputation for tutoring private pupils in that subject [DNB]. It would seem that Moir was a former student, with WRS, at Aberdeen University.
[8] Perhaps Donald Macgregor from Caithness, a New College student in the same year as WRS.
[9] The Shaw fellowship.
[10] Bain, Alexander (1818–1903): held the chair of Logic and English at Aberdeen University, and one of WRS’s teachers there. Earlier was closely associated with J. S. Mill in the latter’s study of Comte during the 1840s and subsequently was noted for his psychological writings. Bain and WPS knew one another well but the relationship was always strained by the ideological gulf between them. Bain’s unacknowledged influence on WRS was nevertheless considerable and is detectable even in his earliest work.
[11] Hunter, William Alexander (1844–1898): another able Aberdonian who obtained high honours, Hunter had been educated at Aberdeen Grammar School and the University there, graduating in 1864 with ‘the highest honours’ [DNB]. After being called to the English bar in 1867, he was appointed to the chair of Roman Law at University College London in August, 1869, and in 1885 was elected MP for Aberdeen North. His sympathies for the views of John Stuart Mill (and later Charles Bradlaugh) would not have endeared him to Robertson Smith. Hunter was, however, instrumental in gaining free elementary education for all children in Scotland from 1890.
[12] Fraser, Alexander Campbell (1819–1914): aligned himself with the Free Church in 1843 and was professor of Logic at New College from 1846–56 before he succeeded Sir William Hamilton as Professor of Logic and Metaphysics at Edinburgh University in 1857 until his retirement in 1891. He contributed the article on Locke to EB9.
[13] I.e. the Aberdeen Free Press newspaper, which WRS’s parents would have sent him regularly.