ABSTRACT
Great as is the importance of the schools, it is the universities which in the last resort determine the academic reputation of a country. Cynics maintain that but for this good fortune Scotland would still be waiting at the end of an English queue hoping that one day she might be allowed a university of her own. In the beginning, and indeed later, these universities had to struggle against poverty, but the astonishing thing is how much they did with how little money. During the Nineteenth Century, British Governments endeavoured by a series of Royal Commissions to impose what they assumed to be better ideals on Scotland. Modern science demands an ever-increasing specialisation not always easy to reconcile with a general education. The dominant point of view seems to be that of the London administrator anxious to get rid of ‘anomalies’ and to further the aim of ‘co-ordination’.
