PROFESSORIAL LIFE
The St. Andrews University has the reputation of being given to strife,
and never being thoroughly at rest unless it has at least one law-plea
in operation before the Court of Session in Edinburgh, or an appeal
before the House of Lords in London. In a small town, and more
especially in a small University town, there is of course unlimited
opportunity for discussing every matter of interest, and battles are
fought and won before our very doors--battles often just as interesting
as those of the great world outside, and more engrossing because in
them we probably play the part of active participators, instead of
being simple spectators from outside. Of this time Sheriff Smith,
however, writes: 'Never was the University set more social, and less
given to strife than in Ferrier's day. Grander feats I have often seen
elsewhere, but brighter or more intellectual talk, ranging from the
playful to the profound, never have I heard anywhere.' In this respect
it contrasts with the more self-conscious and less natural social
gatherings of the neighbouring city of Edinburgh, whose stiffness and
formality was unknown to the smaller town. The company, without passing
beyond University bounds, was excellent. There was Tulloch at St.
Mary's, still a young man at his prime, and a warm friend of Ferrier's
in spite of the traditional decree that St. Mary's dealings with the
other College should be as few as might be; there was Shairp,
afterwards Professor of Poetry in Oxford, and always a delightful and
inspiring companion; in the Chair of Logic there was Professor
Spalding, whose ill-health alone prevented him from sharing largely in
the social life; and he was succeeded by Professor Veitch, afterwards
of Glasgow, whose appreciation of Ferrier was keen, and with whom
Ferrier had so much intercourse of a mutually enjoyable sort. Then
there was Professor Sellar, a staunch friend and true, and likewise Sir
David Brewster, the veteran man of science, whom Scotland delights to
honour. When Brewster resigned the Principalship of the United College
in 1859, Ferrier was pressed to become a candidate for the post, and
Brewster himself promised his support, and urged Ferrier's claims; but
there were difficulties in the way, and his place was filled by another
follower of science, Principal Forbes.
Ferrier's students are now, of course, dispersed abroad far and wide.
One of their number, Sheriff Campbell Smith of Dundee, writes of them
as follows:--'His old students are scattered everywhere--through all
countries, professions, and climates. To many of them the world of
faith and action has become more narrow and less ideal than it seemed
when they sat listening to his lofty and eloquent speculations in the
little old classroom among earnest young faces that are no longer
young, and nearly all grown dim to memory; but to none of them can
there be any feeling regarding him alien to respect and affection,
while to many there will remain the conviction that he was for them and
their experience the _first_ impersonation of living literature, whose
lectures, set off by his thrilling voice, slight interesting burr, and
solemn pauses, and holding in solution profound original thought and
subtle critical suggestions, were a sort of revelation, opening up new
worlds, and shedding a flood of new light upon the old familiar world
of thought and knowledge in which genius alone could see and disclose
wonders.' And this sometime student tells how in passages from the
standard poets undetected meanings were discovered, and new light was
thrown upon the subject of his talk by quotations from the classics,
from Milton and Byron as well as from his favourite Horace. His
eloquence, he tells us, might not be so strong and overwhelming as that
of Chalmers, but it was more fine, subtle, and poetical in its
affinities, revealing thought more splendid and transcendental. 'In
person and manner Professor Ferrier was the very ideal of a Professor
and a gentleman. Nature had made him in the body what he strove after
in spirit. His features were cast in the finest classic mould, and were
faultlessly perfect, as was also his tall thin person,--from the finely
formed head, thickly covered with black hair, which the last ten years
turned into iron-grey, to the noticeably handsome foot.... A human
being less under the influence of low or selfish motives could not be
conceived in this mercenary anti-ideal age. If he made mistakes, they
were due to his living in an ideal world, and not to either malice or
guile, both of which were entirely foreign to his nature.'[11] And yet
there was nothing of the Puritan about the Professor's nature. There
are celebrations in St. Andrews in commemoration of a certain damsel,
Kate Kennedy by name, which are characterised by demonstrations of a
somewhat noisy order. Some of the Professors denounced this institution
and demanded its abolition. But Ferrier had too much sense of humour to
do this; he did not rebuke the lads for the exuberance of their
spirits, but by his calm dignity contrived to keep them within due
bounds.
[11] _Writings by the Way_, by John Campbell Smith, p. 357
_seq._
A picture of Ferrier was painted about a year before his death by Sir
John Watson Gordon, and it may still be seen in the University Hall
beside the other men of learning who have adorned their University. It
was painted for his friends and former students, but though a fairly
accurate likeness, it is said not to have conveyed to others the keen,
intellectual look so characteristic of the face. It was the nameless
charm--charm of manner and personality--that drew Ferrier's students so
forcibly towards him. As his colleague, Principal Tulloch, said in a
lecture after his death: 'There was a buoyant and graceful charm in all
he did--a perfect sympathy, cordiality, and frankness which won the
hearts of his students as of all who sought his intellectual
companionship. Maintaining the dignity of his position with easy
indifference, he could descend to the most free and affectionate
intercourse; make his students as it were parties with him in his
discussions, and, while guiding them with a master hand, awaken at the
same time their own activities of thought as fellow-workers with
himself. There was nothing, I am sure, more valuable in his teaching
than this--nothing for which his students will longer remember it with
gratitude. No man could be more free from the small vanity of making
disciples. He loved speculation too dearly for itself--he prized too
highly the sacred right of reason, to wish any man or any student
merely to adopt his system or repeat his thought. Not to manufacture
thought for others, but to excite thought in others; to stimulate the
powers of inquiry, and brace all the higher functions of the intellect,
was his great aim. He might be comparatively careless, therefore, of
the small process of drilling, and minute labour of correction. These,
indeed, he greatly valued in their own place. But he felt that his
strength lay in a different direction--in the intellectual impulse
which his own thinking, in its life, its zealous and clear open
candour, was capable of imparting.'
Ferrier was not, perhaps, naturally endowed with any special capacity
for business, but the business that fell to him as a member of the
_Senatus Academicus_ was performed with the greatest care and zeal.
With the movement for women's University education, which has always
been to the front in St. Andrews, he was sympathetic, although it was
not a matter in which he played any special part. 'No one,' it was
said, 'had clearer perceptions or a cooler and fairer judgment in any
matter which seemed to him of importance.' Principal Tulloch tells how
on one occasion in particular, where the interests of the University
were at stake, his clear sense and vigilance carried it through its
troubles. His loyalty to St. Andrews at all times was indeed
unquestioned. It is possible that had he made it his endeavour to
devote more interest to practical affairs outside the University
limits, it might have been better for himself. There may, perhaps, be
truth in the saying that metaphysics is apt to have an enervating
effect upon the moral senses, or at least upon the practical
activities, and to take from men's usefulness in the ordinary affairs
of life; but one can hardly realise Ferrier other than he was, a
student whose whole interests were devoted to the philosophy he had
espoused, and who loved to deal with the fundamental questions that
remained beneath all action and all thought, rather than with those
more concrete; and the former lay in a region purely speculative. Such
as he was, he never failed to preserve the most perfect order in his
class, and to do what was required of him with praiseworthy accuracy
and minute attention to details.
'Life in his study,' says Principal Tulloch, 'was Professor Ferrier's
characteristic life. There have been, I daresay, even in our time,
harder students than he was; but there could scarcely be anyone who was
more habitually a student, who lived more amongst books, and took more
special and constant delight in intercourse with them. In his very
extensive but choice library he knew every book by head-mark, as he
would say, and could lay his hands upon the desired volume at once. It
was a great pleasure to him to bring to the light from an obscure
corner some comparatively unknown English speculator of whom the
University library knew nothing.'
We are often told how he would be found seated in his library clad in a
long dressing-gown which clung round his tall form, and making him look
even taller--a typical philosopher, though perhaps handsomer than many
of his craft. 'My father rarely went from home,' writes his daughter,
'and when not in the College class-room was to be found in his snug,
well-stocked, ill-bound library, writing or reading, clad in a very
becoming dark blue dressing-gown. He was no smoker, but carried with
him a small silver snuff-box.'
Professor Shairp says that now and then he used to go to hear him
lecture. 'I never saw anything better than his manner towards his
students. There was in it ease, yet dignity so respectful both to them
and to himself that no one could think of presuming with him. Yet it
was unusually kindly, and full of a playful humour which greatly
attached them to him. No one could be farther removed from either the
Don or the Disciplinarian. But his look of keen intellect and high
breeding, combined with gentleness and feeling for his students,
commanded attention more than any discipline could have done. In
matters of College discipline, while he was fair and just, he always
leant to the forbearing side.... Till his illness took a more serious
form, he was to be met at dinner-parties, to which his society always
gave a great charm. In general society his conversation was full of
humour and playful jokes, and he had a quick yet kindly eye to note the
extravagances and absurdities of men.' And the Professor goes on to
narrate how on a winter afternoon he would fall to talking of Horace,
an especial favourite of his, and how then he would read the racy and
unconventional translation he had made up for amusement. And afterwards
he would talk of Wordsworth and the feelings he awoke in him, showing
'a richness of literary knowledge, and a delicacy and keenness of
appreciation, of which his philosophical writings, except by their fine
style, give no hint.' Hegel and Plato were the favourite objects of his
study. Of the former he never satisfied himself that he had completely
mastered the conception. But the insight that he had got into his
dialectic and into the doctrine of Reality contributed very largely to
making his philosophy what it was. He endeavoured to apply the system
in various directions, and ever continued in his efforts to work it out
more fully.
Another former student, who has been quoted before, writes in his
Recollections of student life at St. Andrews:[12] 'Ferrier had not
Spalding's thorough method of teaching. He had no regular time for
receiving and correcting essays; he had only one written examination;
for oral examination he had an easy way, in which the questions
suggested the answers; yet all these drawbacks were atoned for by his
living presence. It was an embodiment of literary and philosophical
enthusiasm, happily blended with sympathy and urbanity. It did the work
of the most thorough class drill, for it arrested the attention, opened
the mind, and filled it with love of learning and wisdom. Intellect and
humanity seemed to radiate from his countenance like light and heat,
and illumined and fascinated all on whom they fell.... Let me recall
him as he appeared in the spring of 1854. The eleven-o'clock bell has
rung. All the other classes have gone in to lecture. We, the students
of Moral Philosophy, are lingering in the quadrangle, for the
Professor, punctual in his unpunctuality, comes in regularly two or
three minutes after the hour. Through the archway under the
time-honoured steeple of St. Salvator's he approaches--a tall somewhat
emaciated figure, with intellectual and benevolent countenance. As he
hurries in we follow and take our seats. In a minute he issues gowned
from his anteroom, seats himself in his chair, and places his silver
snuff-box before him. Now that he is without his hat and in his gown,
he has a striking appearance. His head is large, well-developed, and
covered with thick iron-grey hair; his features are regular, his mouth
is refined and sensitive, his chin is strong, and his eyes as seen
behind his spectacles are keenly intelligent and at the same time
benevolent. He begins by calling up a student to be orally examined;
and the catechising goes on very much in the following style:--
[12] _Pleasant Recollections of a Busy Life_, by David
Pryde, LL.D., p. 59.
'"_Professor._--Well, Mr. Brown, answer a few questions, if you please.
What is the first proposition of the lectures?
'"_Student_ repeats it.
'"_Professor._--Quite right, Mr. Brown. And, Mr. Brown, is this quite
true?
'"_Stud._--Yes.
'"_Prof._--Quite right, Mr. Brown. At least, so I think. And, Mr.
Brown, is it not absurd to hold the reverse?
'"_Stud._--Yes.
'"_Prof._--Yes, yes. Thank you, Mr. Brown. That will do."
'The Professor then begins his lecture. As long as he is stating and
proving the propositions in his metaphysical system, his tone is simple
and matter-of-fact. His great aim is to make his meaning plain, and for
that purpose he often expresses an important idea in various ways,
using synonyms, and sometimes reading a sentence twice. But when he
comes to illustrate his thoughts, his manner changes. He lets loose his
fancy, his imagination, and even his humour; and his whole soul comes
into his voice. His burr, scarcely distinguishable in his ordinary
speech, now becomes strong, and his whole utterance is slow, intense,
and fervid. He is particularly happy in his quotations from the poets,
and he has a peculiarity in reading them which increases the effect.
When rolling forth a line he sometimes pauses before he comes to the
end, as if to collect his strength, and then utters the last word or
words with redoubled emphasis. The effect of his eloquence on the
students is electrical. They cease to take notes; every head is raised;
every face beams with delight; and at the end of a passage their
feelings find vent in a thunderstorm of applause.
'The two most remarkable features of his lectures were their method and
clearness. Order and light were the very elements in which his mind
lived and moved. He kept this end in view, threw aside the facts that
were unnecessary, arranged the facts that were necessary, and expressed
them with a precision about which there could be no ambiguity. In fact,
each idea and the whole chain of ideas were visible by their own light.
So perspicuous were the words that they might have been called
crystallised thoughts.
'Out of the classroom Ferrier was equally polite and kind, especially
to those students who showed a love and a capacity for philosophy. It
was no uncommon thing for him to stop a student in the street and
invite him to the house to have a talk about the work of the class. I
have a distant recollection of my first visit to his study; I see him
yet, with his noble, benignant countenance, as he reads and discusses
passages in my first essay, gravely reasoning with me on the points
that were reasonable, passing lightly over those that were merely
rhetorical, and smiling good-naturedly at those that attacked in no
measured language his own system.'
Professor Ferrier was never failing in hospitality to his students as
to his other friends. Dr. Pryde goes on: 'Every year Ferrier invited
the best of his students to dinner. At the dinner at which I was
present there were two of his fellow-professors, Sellar and Fischer. It
was a great treat for a youth like me. Mrs. Ferrier was effervescent
with animal spirits and talk; Ferrier himself, looking like a nobleman
in his old-fashioned dress-coat with gold buttons, interposed
occasionally with his subtle touches of wit and humour.' The Professor
appears to have been an inveterate snuffer. His students used to tell
how the silver snuff-box was made the medium of explaining the
Berkeleian system, and how to their minds the system, fairly clear in
words, became a hopeless tangle when the assistance of the snuff-box
was resorted to. And Dr. Pryde narrates how he used to see Professor
Spalding and Professor Ferrier seated side by side in the students'
benches, looking on the same book, listening to their young colleague
Professor Sellar's inspiring lectures, and at intervals exchanging
snuff-boxes. He gives the following account of his last visit to
Ferrier, when he was on his deathbed, but still in his library among
his books: 'He told me that his disease was mortal; but face to face
with death he was cheerful and contented, and had bated not one jot of
his interest in learning and in public events. He was very anxious that
I should take lunch with Mrs. Ferrier and the rest of the family; and
though he could not join us, he sent into the dining-room a special
bottle of wine as a substitute for himself. Two months afterwards he
had passed away.'
Tulloch writes after the sad event had occurred:[13] 'I have, of course,
heard the sad news from St. Andrews. What sadness it has been to me I
cannot tell you. St. Andrews never can be the same place without
Ferrier. God knows what is to become of the University with all these
breaks upon its old society; and where can we supply such a place as
Ferrier's?' And his biographer adds: 'The removal of that delicate and
clear spirit from a little society in which his position was so
important, and his innate refinement of mind so powerful and beneficial
an influence, was a loss almost indescribable, not only to the friends
who loved him, but to the University. His great reputation was an
honour to the place, combining as it did so many associations of the
brilliant past with that due to the finest intellectual perception and
the most engaging and attractive character. Even his little
whimsicalities and strain of quaint humour gave a charm the more; and
the closing of the cheerful house, the centre of wit and brightness to
the academical community, was a loss which St. Andrews never failed to
feel, nor the survivors to lament.'
[13] _Memoir_, p. 196, by Mrs. Oliphant.
Professor Ferrier was occasionally called upon to make a visit to
London, although this did not seem to have been by any means a frequent
occurrence. Business he must occasionally have had there, for in 1861
he was appointed to examine in the London University, and in 1863,
shortly before his death, the Society of Arts offered him an
examinership in Logic and Mental Science, in place of the late
Archbishop of York, which he accepted. But of one visit which he paid
in 1858, with Principal Tulloch as joint delegate from the University
of St. Andrews, Mrs. Oliphant gives an amusing account, in her _Memoir
of Principal Tulloch_.[14] The object of the deputation was to watch the
progress of the University Bill through the House of Commons. This Bill
was one of the earliest efforts after regulating the studies, degrees,
etc., of the Scottish Universities, and also dealt with an increase in
the Parliamentary grant which, if it passed, would considerably affect
the Professors' incomes as well as the resources of the University. The
Bill, which was under the charge of Lord Advocate Inglis (afterwards
Lord Justice-General of Scotland), likewise provided that in each
University a University Court should be established, as also a
University Council composed of graduates. Ferrier and Tulloch no doubt
did their part in the business which they had in hand: they visited all
the Members of Parliament who were likely to be interested, as other
Scottish deputations have done before and since, and received the same
evasive and varying replies. But in the evenings, and when they were
free, they entertained themselves in different fashion. First of all,
they have hardly arrived after their long night's journey's travel
before they burst upon the 'trim and well-ordered room where Mr. John
Blackwood and his wife were seated at breakfast'--this evidently at
Ferrier's instigation. Then, having settled in Duke Street, St.
James's, they are asked, rather inappropriately, it would seem, to a
ball, where they were 'equally impressed by the size of the crinoline
and the absence of beauty.' Next Cremorne was visited, Tulloch
declaring that his object was to take care of his companion. 'If you
had seen Ferrier as he gazed frae him with the half-amused,
half-scowling expression he not unfrequently assumes, looking bored,
and yet with a vague philosophical interest at the wonderful expanse of
gay dresses and fresh womanhood around him!' 'He will go nowhere
without a cab; to-day for the first time I got him into an omnibus in
search of an Aberdeen Professor, a wild and wandering distance which we
thought we never should reach.' The theatre was visited, too; Lear was
being played, very possibly by Charles Kean. In the Royal Academy,
Frith's Derby Day was the attraction of the year. But quite remarkable
was the interest which Ferrier--who did not appreciate in general
'going to church,' and used to say he preferred to sit and listen to
the faint sounds of the organ from the quiet of his room--betrayed in
the eloquence of Spurgeon, then at the height of his fame and
attracting enormous congregations round him in the Surrey Garden
Theatre. Tulloch wrote to his wife: 'We have just been to hear
Spurgeon, and have been both so much impressed that I write to give you
my impressions while they are fresh. As we came out we both confessed,
"There is no doubt about _that_," and I was struck with Ferrier's
remarkable expression, "I feel it would do me good to hear the like of
that, it sat so close to reality." The sermon is about the most real
thing I have come in contact with for a long time.' The building was
large and airy, with window-doors from which you could walk into the
gardens beyond, and Ferrier, Tulloch writes, now and then took a turn
in the fresh air outside while the sermon was progressing.
[14] P. 127.
After London, Oxford was visited, and here the friends lived at Balliol
with Mr. Jowett, who had not yet become the Master. Ferrier would
doubtless delight in showing to his friend the beauties of the place
with which he had so many memories, but to attend eight-o'clock chapel
with Tulloch was, the latter tells us, beyond the limits of his zeal.
Just before this, in 1857, another visit was paid by Ferrier to Oxford
with his family, and this time to visit Lady Grant, the mother of his
future son-in-law. It was at Commemoration-time, we are told, and a
ball was given in honour of the party. On this occasion Ferrier for the
first time met Professor Jowett, besides many other kindred spirits,
and he thoroughly enjoyed wandering about the old haunts at Magdalen,
where in his youth he had pelted the deer and played the part of a
young and thoughtless gownsman.
A little book was published some years ago, on behoof of the St.
Andrews Students' Union, entitled _Speculum Universitatis_, in which
former students and _alumni_ piously record their recollections of
their _Alma Mater_. Some of these papers bring before us very vividly
the sort of impression which the life left upon the lads, drawn
together from all manner of home surroundings, and equally influenced
by the memories of the past and the living presence of those who were
the means of opening up new tracts of knowledge to their view. One of
them, already often quoted, says in a paper called 'The Light of Long
Ago': 'I always sink into the conviction that the St. Andrews United
College was never so well worth attending as during the days when in
its classrooms Duncan taught Mathematics, Spalding taught Logic, and
Ferrier taught Metaphysics and Moral Science, illustrating living
literature in his literary style, and in the strange tones, pauses, and
inflections of his voice. To the field of literature and speculation
Ferrier restored glimpses of the sunshine of Paradise. Under his
magical spell they ceased to look like fields that had been cursed with
weeds, watered with sweat and tears, and levelled and planted with
untold labour. Every utterance of his tended alike to disclose the
beauty and penetrate the mystery of existence. He was a persevering
philosopher, but he was also a poet by a gift of nature. The burden of
this most unintelligible world did not oppress him, nor any other
burden. Intellectual action proving the riddles of reason was a joy to
him. He loved philosophy and poetry for their own sake, and he infected
others with a kindred, but not an equal, passion. He could jest and
laugh and play. If he ever discovered that much study is a weariness of
the flesh, he most effectually concealed that discovery.'
And to conclude, we have the testimony of another former student who is
now distinguished in the fields of literature, but who always remains
faithful to his home of early days. Mr. Andrew Lang says: 'Professor
Ferrier's lectures on Moral Philosophy were the most interesting and
inspiriting that I ever listened to either at Oxford or St. Andrews. I
looked on Mr. Ferrier with a kind of mysterious reverence, as on the
last of the golden chain of great philosophers. There was, I know not
what of dignity, of humour, and of wisdom in his face; there was an air
of the student, the vanquisher of difficulties, the discoverer of
hidden knowledge, in him that I have seen in no other. His method at
that time was to lecture on the History of Philosophy, and his manner
was so persuasive that one believed firmly in the tenets of each school
he described, till he advanced those of the next! Thus the whole
historical evolution of thought went on in the mind of each of his
listeners.'