FOUNDATION OF THE UNIVERSITY OF EDINBURGH.

The University of Edinburgh celebrated last week the three-hundredth anniversary of its foundation. The invitations sent to the leading universities of the world were generally responded to by representative literary and scientific men. In view of the event, the Principal of the university, Sir Alexander Grant, prepared a history of the foundation in two octavo volumes. From this work the following details as to the origin of the university are taken.

Some obscurity rests over the earliest history of the Edinburgh foundation, but a positive date is reached, April 24, 1852, when King James VI. signed a charter giving power to the town council of Edinburgh to provide for higher education in humanity and in the tongues, in philosophy, theology, medicine, law and other liberal sciences. Thus, "the municipal authorities and clergy of Edinburgh were entrusted forever with the absolute control of higher education within the Burgh." On the 16th of October, 1583, the magistrates of Edinburgh appointed a committee to devise the order of teaching to be kept in the college now erected. A strictly university course of study was adopted. The curriculum was divided into four sessions, and at the conclusion of the fourth the students were made magistri or masters of arts. The prescribed course differed from the mediaeval degree system in three important respects : 1. In making Greek an indispensable part of university study ; 2, in the spirit of humanism which it exhibited ; 3, in its modernizing tendency. Instruction began in the winter of 1583-4.

Commenting on the institution, the Nation says : "From its foundation onward, Edinburgh has been growing in honor and usefulness. Long ago it was called the modern Athens. Stewart, the author of the "Antiquities of Greece" is said to have suggested this epithet because of the resemblance in the aspect of the two cities, and perhaps this circumstance has had its influence upon the architecture of Edinburgh. But certainly the spirit of Athens does not require for its embodiment an acropolis or a temple. We must look beyond the natural or the structural advantages of a city if we would determine the conditions of academic success."

"An institution which can claim Goldsmith, Walter Scott, Carlyle, and Darwin among its alumni and can say that Niebuhr came from Germany to spend a year within its walls is of no mean repute. It is pleasant to notice that in its three-hundredth year the number of students is greater than ever before, having reached an aggregate of 3,341, more than half of whom are in its medical department. Nearly one-third are in the department of arts, while the rest are jurists and theologians." [Sun.