ABSTRACT
Johanna Trosiener’s guide, counsellor, friend and unofficial tutor was Richard Jameson, born in 1724, son of Richard Jameson in Stane and his wife Anna. The view from the farm is over fields and marshland to Cardon Hill and Culter Fell in the background. The countryside all around is characterised by successive ranges of bare-topped hills with rich pasturage on their lower slopes. The conditions which Schopenhauer’s English schoolmaster enjoyed in his early years in the north of England will have been very similar, for he began teaching at precisely the time described by Gordon. Richard Jameson appears to have gone up to Edinburgh University in 1747/8 and to have completed his course in 1751. In 1748 the University of Edinburgh had about 500 students, half of them studying medicine. Matthew Stewart was elected Professor of Mathematics on 2 September 1747, in succession to Colin M’Laurin, who died in June 1746.
