Glasgow University gave the Ll.D. to Butcher Cumberland; it expelled Thomas Muir; it would not appoint David Hume to a vacant chair; it sold its beautiful college and allowed its grounds to be turned into a goodsyard.

Universities are honest institutions and give full value for their money to those who have bought them.

Paris University condemned Joan of Arc as an agent of the devil.

Virtue is never represented by institutions but by men and women whom they try to repress.

(Aberdeen University awarded an "honorary" Ll.D. to Robert Maxwell - Ed).

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In the eighteenth century Glasgow University had the founder of Political Economy, Adam Smith, the inventor of the steam condenser, James Watt, and the discoverer of Latent Heat, Joseph Black (who was born in Bordeaux).

It was then a Scottish university.

Of what distinguished names can it boast now that it has become North British? I am afraid that there is only one of international significance. I met him at one of the SSP meetings at Wellington Street when he introduced himself to me as a Scot who had returned to do something for Scotland.

He is now Professor Robert Silver, whose name is associated with Weir’s of Cathcart and the desalination of water with all its potentiality of increasing wealth in the deprived countries of the world.

When I was in English class at Glasgow University I joined my fellow students in singing every day "Ye Mariners of England" before Professor MacNeill Dixon was allowed to begin his lecture.

We may not have risen high but from what depths we have risen.

At Glasgow University I was a member of the Tory Club and a member of the Officers’ Training Corps, two facts that keep me in a state of humility and save me from despairing of any one.

Professor Ian Macgibbon relates that a short time ago an Edinburgh Town Councillor had a row with a professor who said

"It was you councillors who prevented the appointment of Hume as professor."

The councillor replied, "I did not know Sir Alec was interested."

David Home changed his name to Hume because the English could not pronounce it properly. The University perpetuates by its David Hume tower this distortion by another distortion.

Strathclyde University receives per student from the Labour Government £521; Manchester University £931; London University £1,258.

These figures are taken from a speech made in the House of Commons by John Mackintosh M.P.

He is a professor at Strathclyde University. He is an enthusiastic supporter of the Labour Government.

Add your own comments!

Why are French universities so revolutionary, whereas ours in Scotland are so stable? Because French universities are overwhelmingly middle class whereas ours are much more proletarian and therefore tend to be more conservative.

If Bruce had not been beaten the English at Bannockburn, Glasgow would be a nineteenth century university like London and Durham. As it is, it does not rank high among British universities and is sinking every year still lower.

Anyone who argued for the abolition of universities in the interest of civilisation would find plenty of arguments in his favour. England's backwardness in higher education is due to the determination of Oxford and Cambridge dons to defend their monopoly against any rivals.