Aurora borealis academica : Aberdeen University appreciations, 1860-1889.

Date:
1899
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Aurora borealis academica : Aberdeen University appreciations, 1860-1889. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    professor it was no wonder that the lads at times were unable to control their enthusiasm. If I say something of the humours of his class- room, it is because they were attended with no pain to himself. There are plenty of people who would have died of shame over one-tenth of the insults at which Professor Martin simply smiled a superior smile. I never saw the faintest trace of his being even partially annoyed by the jokes of the class and its disorder. He was too sure of himself and his own greatness and wisdom, and of the pitiable folly of young men, to be other than compassionate. In a certain way he was not a bad teacher. He had three books, one of them Butler’s Analogy, the other an American production by Way land, and a third which I do not remember, and his business was to knock these into our heads. He wrote on the blackboard clear summaries of them, and expected answers that would exactly reproduce them. In addition, he delivered lectures. They were “ elo- quent ” at times, and very old. The most famous of the number was on “ Conscience,” “The Terrors of Remorse,” etc., etc. It was always known when that lecture was to be delivered, and as the professor rolled off his periods, they were followed by such frantic and prolonged applause, that if I recollect well, he had to carry the thing on for some days. No doubt as to the genuineness of this applause