Jump to content

Universities in Scotland

From Tilcayo Cats, the lean encyclopaedia by Tilcayo Knowledge Systems
Tilcayo Cats original · British Bees · Sources and editorial assessment · Originals retention rule

The universities in Scotland have a history reaching back to the 15th century, when the country's first universities were founded. In the 18th century a group known as the Moderate literati rose to power at the University of Edinburgh.[1][2]

Medieval foundations

Scotland's first three universities were founded in the 15th century: St Andrews in 1410–11, Glasgow in 1451 and King's College, Aberdeen, in 1495. Each grew up beside a cathedral and under the authority of its bishop.[1]

Like other European universities, they drew on the medieval models of Bologna and Paris. Bologna was a "university of students", and the election of the rector by students at the older Scottish universities survives as a relic of that model.[3] Teaching and degrees across Europe were organised in four faculties: arts, theology, medicine and law.[3]

The Enlightenment at Edinburgh

In the 18th century, appointments to chairs at Edinburgh were often a matter of patronage. In 1757 none of the Moderate literati held a post at the University of Edinburgh, but within a few years they had become powerful in both the university and the Church of Scotland.[2][2]

Adam Ferguson failed in his first attempt to gain the chair of moral philosophy, which went to the lawyer James Balfour of Pilrig.[4] On 4 July 1759 the town council elected him unanimously as professor of natural philosophy.[5] He became a very popular teacher of the subject, though he saw it as a stepping stone to moral philosophy.[6] That year he wrote that Edinburgh was "probably the best place for Education in the Island".[6]

Rhetoric and belles lettres

Adam Smith gave public lectures on rhetoric in Edinburgh from the winter of 1748–49. According to the historian Richard Sher, they were the first of their kind in Great Britain, and they ran for three years until Smith became professor of moral philosophy at Glasgow.[6][7] Robert Watson continued them until he was appointed to the chair of logic and rhetoric at St Andrews in 1758, and Hugh Blair took them over from late 1759.[8]

Blair treated rhetoric as the theory of all communication in words, written and spoken. In 1760 the town council created an unpaid university chair for him.[8] On 4 August 1762 he was admitted as Regius professor of rhetoric and belles lettres, with a salary of £70 plus class fees.[9] He charged the minimum fee of two guineas and taught poor but deserving students free. His course was well attended from the 1760s to the early 1780s.[9]

Leadership and patronage

William Robertson's election as principal of Edinburgh was, in Sher's view, probably the most important single event in the university's 18th-century history. He took over a college that had lacked an effective head for years.[10] His predecessor, John Gowdie, had treated the post as a sinecure.[10]

Patronage also reached Glasgow. In May 1762 the Earl of Bute, filling the chair of ecclesiastical history there, passed over the faculty's own choice, James Oswald of Methven, in favour of William Wight.[11]

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Anderson, Robert (2006). British Universities Past and Present (1st ed.). Hambledon Continuum. p. 12. ISBN 9780826433558. Retrieved 2026-10-23.
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Sher, Richard B. (2015). Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Moderate Literati of Edinburgh (Classic ed.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. p. 93. ISBN 9781474407441. Retrieved 2026-10-23.
  3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Anderson, Robert (2006). British Universities Past and Present (1st ed.). Hambledon Continuum. p. 1. ISBN 9780826433558. Retrieved 2026-10-23.
  4. ↑ Sher, Richard B. (2015). Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Moderate Literati of Edinburgh (Classic ed.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. p. 94. ISBN 9781474407441. Retrieved 2026-10-23.
  5. ↑ Sher, Richard B. (2015). Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Moderate Literati of Edinburgh (Classic ed.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. p. 107. ISBN 9781474407441. Retrieved 2026-10-23.
  6. ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 Sher, Richard B. (2015). Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Moderate Literati of Edinburgh (Classic ed.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. p. 108. ISBN 9781474407441. Retrieved 2026-10-23.
  7. ↑ Sher, Richard B. (2015). Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Moderate Literati of Edinburgh (Classic ed.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. p. 108-109. ISBN 9781474407441. Retrieved 2026-10-23.
  8. ↑ 8.0 8.1 Sher, Richard B. (2015). Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Moderate Literati of Edinburgh (Classic ed.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. p. 109. ISBN 9781474407441. Retrieved 2026-10-23.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Sher, Richard B. (2015). Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Moderate Literati of Edinburgh (Classic ed.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. p. 116. ISBN 9781474407441. Retrieved 2026-10-23.
  10. ↑ 10.0 10.1 Sher, Richard B. (2015). Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Moderate Literati of Edinburgh (Classic ed.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. p. 115. ISBN 9781474407441. Retrieved 2026-10-23.
  11. ↑ Sher, Richard B. (2015). Church and University in the Scottish Enlightenment: The Moderate Literati of Edinburgh (Classic ed.). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. p. 117. ISBN 9781474407441. Retrieved 2026-10-23.
Retrieved from "https://tilcayo.cat/w/index.php?title=Universities_in_Scotland&oldid=175165"