ABSTRACT
The an;s curriculum, and the ways in which it was taught, had not changed mar~edly from late-medieval times. The curriculum comprised Latin and elementary Greek in the fIrst year, followed by a year each of logic, and rhetoric, with moral and natural philosophy in the final year. Teaching was mainly by lectures, in Latin, often taking the form of dictation of set texts to large classes although there was some individual tuition and instruction. The philosophical basis of the . curriculum was still mainly derived from Aristotle
. down to the 1660s, but thereafter student notebooks and theses begin to reflect ideas drawn from Descartes, Locke and especially Newton. , Intellectual advance in Scottish universities was restricted by the system of
regenting under which a single member of staff took a class through the entire four-year cu,rriculum. In the late seventeenth and' early eighteenth centuries there was growing criticism of standards of education in Scottish universities, and their role in relation to society. There was increasing readiness to challenge the centrality of ancient languages in the curriculum .
