Glasgow University gave the Ll.D. to Butcher
Cumberland; it expelled Thomas Muir; it would not appoint David Hume to a
vacant chair; it sold its beautiful college and allowed its grounds to be
turned into a goodsyard.
Universities are honest institutions and give full
value for their money to those who have bought them.
Paris University condemned Joan of Arc as an agent of
the devil.
Virtue is never represented by institutions but by men
and women whom they try to repress.
(Aberdeen University awarded an "honorary"
Ll.D. to Robert Maxwell - Ed).
In the eighteenth century Glasgow University had the
founder of Political Economy, Adam Smith, the inventor of the steam
condenser, James Watt, and the discoverer of Latent Heat, Joseph Black
(who was born in Bordeaux).
It was then a Scottish university.
Of what distinguished names can it boast now that it
has become North British? I am afraid that there is only one of
international significance. I met him at one of the SSP meetings at
Wellington Street when he introduced himself to me as a Scot who had
returned to do something for Scotland.
He is now Professor Robert Silver, whose name is
associated with Weir’s of Cathcart and the desalination of water with
all its potentiality of increasing wealth in the deprived countries of the
world.
When I was in English class at Glasgow University I
joined my fellow students in singing every day "Ye Mariners of
England" before Professor MacNeill Dixon was allowed to begin his
lecture.
We may not have risen high but from what depths we have
risen.
At Glasgow University I was a member of the Tory Club
and a member of the Officers’ Training Corps, two facts that keep me in
a state of humility and save me from despairing of any one.
Professor Ian Macgibbon relates that a short time ago an Edinburgh Town
Councillor had a row with a professor who said
"It was you councillors who prevented the appointment of Hume as
professor."
The councillor replied, "I did not know Sir Alec was
interested."
David Home changed his name to Hume because the English could not
pronounce it properly. The University perpetuates by its David Hume tower
this distortion by another distortion.
Strathclyde University receives per student from the Labour Government
£521; Manchester University £931; London University £1,258.
These figures are taken from a speech made in the House of Commons by
John Mackintosh M.P.
He is a professor at Strathclyde University. He is an enthusiastic
supporter of the Labour Government.
Add your own comments!
Why are French universities so revolutionary, whereas ours in Scotland
are so stable? Because French universities are overwhelmingly middle
class whereas ours are much more proletarian and therefore tend to be more
conservative.
If Bruce had not been beaten the English at Bannockburn, Glasgow would be
a nineteenth century university like London and Durham. As
it is, it does not rank high among British universities and is sinking
every year still lower.
Anyone who argued for the abolition of universities in the interest
of civilisation would find plenty of arguments in his favour. England's
backwardness in higher education is due to the determination of Oxford and
Cambridge dons to defend their monopoly against any rivals.
Now the
English have taken over the Scottish universities to achieve a uniform
level in the dominant country and its satellite.