John Patrick, Third Marquess of Bute, K.T. (1847-1900) Part 20

[Sidenote: 1893, St. Andrews and Oxford]

"I have sometimes dreamt," wrote Bute in one of the most picturesque pa.s.sages of his Rectorial Address, "of the primeval headland, still lifting skyward its crown of ancient towers, but with that crown encircled by an aureola of affiliated colleges--a commonwealth of seats of learning, an Oxford of the North." It may have been with some such vision as this before him that Bute had suggested to his a.s.sessor, some time before drawing up the memorandum above referred to, another solution of the difficulty:

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_March_ 28, 1893.

Why should it not be suggested to Dundee, that instead of a division of forces, difference of place, etc., etc., they should build a college for themselves at St. Andrews, just as we hope Blairs will do, confined to Dundee people? I think that would meet the foundress's intention, and it might be called Dundee College. This would be transferring her benefaction to St. Andrews, instead of St. Andrews being bled into such veins as Dundee possesses.

I do not see why St. Andrews, holding a unique position, geographically and otherwise, should not also hold a unique position in being const.i.tuted, as Oxford and Cambridge are, of a congeries of free and affiliated colleges.

The above mention of "Blairs" has reference to another scheme which Bute hoped might, if carried out, fulfil the two-fold object of strengthening the position of St. Andrews, and of raising the educational standard--an object he had much at heart--of his co-religionists in Scotland. With this view he had proposed the transference to St. Andrews, and the affiliation to the university, of the College of Blairs, near Aberdeen, the training-school of the Scots Catholic clergy; and had promised substantial help both towards the acquirement of a site, and in the endowment of the new seminary. The success of such a scheme obviously depended to great extent, if not entirely, on the concurrence of the ecclesiastical authorities. They were divided on the matter, among those opposed to the plan being the then Metropolitan of Scotland, as well as the rector of the college; and finally the Holy See, much to Bute's disappointment, decided against the project. An alternative scheme, providing for the establishment in {195} the university city of a house of studies in connection with the abbey of Fort Augustus, also proved impracticable.

The Benedictines were only invited to make the foundation on the understanding that, and as long as, Bute's offer was not taken advantage of by the secular clergy, and they did not see their way to accept it under those conditions.

[Sidenote: 1894, Interest in the Jews]

Simultaneously with the plan just referred to, Bute likewise cherished the hope of attracting to the university members of the Jewish body, in which he had always been warmly interested. He wrote as to this on June 8, 1894:

Mr. Mocatta has given me a tract, and talked to me at length of the religious desolation of the young Jews who are sent to Christian schools and colleges without any provision for their own religious instruction and practices. I am trying to persuade him and others that all they seek to gain would be gained, and all they deplore avoided, by starting a Jewish college at St. Andrews. I think the idea is dawning on them.

Three months later he wrote to the Chief Rabbi that he was much gratified at the prospect of young Hebrews matriculating at St.

Andrews. "I do not pretend," he added, "to have any other motive in the matter than zeal for the good of the university; but I sincerely think that the benefits would be reciprocal."[10] Bute was not a little incensed at this time by what he called a "most unseemly" letter written to the newspapers by one of the professors, who said that he would much prefer that a group of Jewish students should have "a comfortable {196} berth in Abraham's bosom" than that they should come to St. Andrews. A question subsequently arose as to the unsuitability of a certain Sat.u.r.day--which was not only, of course, the Hebrew Sabbath, but chanced to be also their solemn Day of Atonement--for the entrance examination of Jewish candidates. The Princ.i.p.al suggested, as an alternative, holding an examination on the following Sunday--a proposal that drew from Bute a characteristic protest, in which he gives interesting proof of his sympathy with Hebrew religious ideals:

The Day of Atonement is, as the Chief Rabbi feelingly wrote me, the most solemn day in all their year.... Anything more defiantly contemptuous of their race and religion than the original selection of that particular day for the examination can hardly be conceived, nor any device better calculated to raise contempt for St. Andrews in the whole Jewish world. I fear it can hardly have been inadvertent....

The amended proposal, of holding the examination on the Sunday, seems to me hardly less objectionable. I had suggested Thursday, in order that the young men's minds might be as free as possible on their solemnity. On the Princ.i.p.al's plan, they would have to reach St.

Andrews--a place utterly strange to them--on Friday evening and there pa.s.s the Day of Atonement alone, presumably in an inn. When night set in on Sat.u.r.day, they would have been 26 hours without so much as a crumb or a drop of water--unwashed, barefooted, and probably dressed in grave-clothes--their minds having been fixed as far as possible on Sin, Death, and Eternity--and worn out by hours of recitation of Hebrew prayers. Would they be likely in this state to do themselves justice in an examination held a few hours later?

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[Sidenote: 1893, Bute's disinterestedness]

It seems unnecessary, after a lapse of a quarter of a century, to enter into further details of the regrettable controversy between St. Andrews and Dundee, which persisted throughout Bute's term of office in the university, but of which all, or nearly all, the protagonists have now pa.s.sed over

"To where, beyond these voices, there is peace."

There is no doubt but that the part taken by Bute in the affair was much misinterpreted in many quarters; and he in turn may have to some extent misunderstood, and unconsciously misjudged, the actions and motives of his opponents. Enough, however, has perhaps been said to show, what no impartial person can question, that he was throughout animated by a single-hearted desire to act for the best, and to promote by every means in his power the highest interest of the university which he loved so well. That this was the view of those whose suffrages had placed him in office, and with whom he had never ceased to maintain the most cordial relations, namely, the students of the university, was shown by the substantial majority by which, as will be seen, they voted for his re-election to the Rectorship.

[1] It is to be feared, from their use of this particularly objectionable word, that the then Glasgow Corporation did not combine a literary sense with their other (doubtless) admirable qualities.

[2] Bute's speech on this occasion, delivered in reply to two addresses presented to him, was in Latin. Some of those present were rather disconcerted by this cla.s.sical outburst, for which they were not in the least prepared.

[3] Bute's far-reaching charities were regulated, like everything else in his busy life, by strictly business-like methods. Every appeal for help which reached him was carefully sifted and inquired into through the almoner to whom, from the time of his coming of age, he entrusted the investigation of all such cases before dealing with them himself.

[4] The marble altar in the church was given by him. An inscription on it, inconspicuous yet visible to every priest who celebrates there, asks for prayers for Bute himself and for his wife.

[5] This was on a subsequent occasion to the election of 1883, referred to on a previous page.

[6] "I pray G.o.d bless my Rectorship of St. Andrews," he wrote in his diary on the last day of this year.

[7] It was to this same kinsman that Bute, then in his thirteenth year, had addressed the remarkable letter quoted on p. 6.

[8] A condition attached by Bute to his foundation of the Chair of Anatomy was that a new Chair of Physiology should be const.i.tuted from the former Chair of Medicine, which a majority of the University Commissioners had wished to transfer to History.

[9] The Court of Session refused to grant the "reduction" of the union; and the House of Lords, after some further litigation, finally decided, on July 27, 1896, that Dundee College was not merely affiliated to, but actually incorporated in, the University of St. Andrews, and that the union between them was valid, permanent, and irreversible. In November, 1900, a month after Bute's death, the same tribunal dismissed an action raised by certain members of St. Andrews University, craving the reduction of all the doc.u.ments const.i.tuting the Union. Since the last-named date the union has remained as const.i.tuted in 1890, except that University College, Dundee, is no longer represented by two members in the University Court.

[10] In the same letter Bute expresses his willingness to give a site for the new synagogue to be erected at Cardiff. He did, as a matter of fact, a little later grant a ninety-nine years' lease, on very favourable terms, of an excellent site for the Jewish place of worship.

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CHAPTER XI

NOTES AND ANECDOTES--SECOND RECTORSHIP OF ST. ANDREWS--PROVOST OF ROTHESAY

1894-1897

Although Bute (who was not given to exaggeration) found occasion to write at the end of 1894, in his usual brief summary of the events of the past twelve-month, "The whole year has been spent in the struggle for the University of St. Andrews," he nevertheless found time, with the ordered industry which was one of his marked characteristics, not only for the numerous other duties inc.u.mbent on him, but also for the social amenities which the _debut_ of his only daughter had brought into his retired life. His note on the Caledonian ball in London, which he attended this year, is amusing, if not altogether appreciative:

The ball was doubtless a great success as regarded the charity which benefited by it; but it was mismanaged, crowded, and hot beyond expression, and the dancing was a mere rough-and-tumble (as seems to be the way now), with neither science, grace, nor even an elementary idea of time. The poetry of motion seems to be asleep.

A dinner given to Lord Rosebery[1] by his old {199} contemporaries at Christ Church, which Bute attended, must have evoked curious memories of long-past days.

R's cynical witticisms (when the doors were shut) on the state of politics were quite startling: we were all his political opponents except one. The well-remembered names and changed faces were rather pathetic.

Bute has a note on the famous Ardlamont murder trial, which was arousing general interest in the early days of 1894:

Lord Kingsburgh said that ten of the jury were determined to hang Monson, and _he_ was determined they should not, as he did not consider the evidence legally conclusive. n.o.body doubts M.'s guilt morally.[2]

[Sidenote: 1894, Maiden speech in Parliament]

On June 4 Bute made his maiden speech in Parliament (it was his last as well as his first,) in reference to certain pet.i.tions he had occasion to present on the affairs of St. Andrews University. He wrote of this to Dr. Metcalfe: