Higher Education in Scotland. -- The Universities. -- How they
differ from English Universities. -- Is he a Gentleman? --
Scholarships. -- A Visit to the University of Aberdeen. --
English Prejudice against Scotch Universities.
Scotland boasts four universities: Edinburgh, Glasgow, Aberdeen, and St.
Andrew's.
These four great centres of learning constitute the system of Higher
Education in Scotland.
These universities differ essentially from the two great English ones,
first because men go there to work, secondly because they are open to
the people. A peasant's son, like Thomas Carlyle for instance, can go
there without fearing that his fellow-students will avoid him because he
comes of a poor family.
When a new student arrives at Oxford or Cambridge, the others do not
enquire whether he is a clever fellow or a dunce; what they want to
know is what his father is, and who was his grandfather. It is only
after obtaining a satisfactory answer to these questions that they
associate with the new comer.
In Scotland, as in France, every man who is well educated and has the
manners of good society is a gentleman. The son of a peasant possessing
these is received everywhere.
Each Scotch university offers from fifty to eighty scholarships, varying
in value from L8 to L70. These sums, paid annually to the winners of the
scholarships, help them to live while they are devoting their time to
study.
The most admirable thing about high education in Scotland is that it is
put within the reach of all, and is not, as it is in England, a
sugarplum held so high as to be often unattainable.
The result is that every intelligent young Scotchman may aim at entering
a profession. There may be in this a little danger to the commerce and
agriculture of the country. However, these young men do not encumber
Scotland; their studies fit them for a lucrative career, which they
often go and seek in the Colonies. An Australian friend told me recently
that more than half the doctors in Victoria were Scotchmen.
I have spoken, in a previous chapter, of the privations that Scotch
undergraduates will often impose upon themselves. Nothing is more
remarkable than the sustained application and indefatigable will which
they bring to bear on their studies. Nothing distracts them from their
aim; they never lose sight of the diploma that will be their
bread-winner. I have seen them at work, these Scotch students. I visited
the School of Medicine at Aberdeen University, in the company of Dr.
John Struthers, the learned Professor of Anatomy. I was struck, in
passing through the dissecting room, to see about fifty students,
without any professor, so absorbed in their work that not one of them
lifted his head as we passed.
In France it would have been very different: every eye would have been
turned to the stranger, and all through the room there would have been a
whisper of _Qui ca_? And then remarks and jokes would have run rife.
* * * * *
The English are very prejudiced against the Scotch universities.
How many times have I been told in England that young fellows, who fail
to obtain their medical diploma in England, could get them easily enough
in Scotland. Nothing is more absurd; if ever it was so, it was a long
while ago. In these days, the examinations of the four Scotch faculties
are quite as severe and quite as difficult as the English ones.
Whenever there is a vacant mastership in an English public school
advertised in the newspapers, it is always stated that the candidates
for the post must be graduates of one of the universities of the United
Kingdom. This does not alter the fact that candidates, who are not
Oxford or Cambridge men, have no chance of being elected. I have known
Scotch masters in the public schools. They had studied at Edinburgh,
Glasgow, or Aberdeen, but had gone to Oxford or Cambridge to reside, in
order to obtain an English degree.
Why is this?
Simply because these two great English universities give their old
scholars an importance, not necessarily literary or scientific, but
social; they stamp them gentlemen.
Whatever the English may say, the universities of old Scotland are the
nurseries of learned and useful citizens. Of this they would soon be
convinced if they would visit those great centres of intellectual
activity. But this is just what they avoid doing. When the English go to
Scotland, it is to fish or to shoot in the Highlands, and whatever they
may get in the way of game or fish, they do not pick up much serious
information on the subject of Scotland.