ABSTRACT
During the nineteenth century Scotland possessed a university system quite distinct from that of England both in its fundamental assumptions and in its administrative arrangements. Following the Act of 1889, the ordinances under the Act in 1892, and further adjustments in the 1900s, the Scottish universities were brought more into line with English assumptions of restrictive entry and specialist study. The traditional Scottish system had seemed justified by its past achievements. The arts curriculum of the early nineteenth century consisted of combinations of classics and sciences but with a specifically Scottish emphasis on philosophy. Mathematics in Scottish universities was regarded as being part of a liberal education rather than as a technical skill to be acquired as a tool for other applications. The commissioners under the Act found the existing curricula of Scottish universities far too rigid, indeed from 1861 the curricula of the four Scottish universities had been virtually uniform.
