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the students are obliged to attend; a part of literary economy which is but little attended to in the universities of England. But I will venture to affirm, from experience, that if a professor does no more than deliver a set of lectures, his young audience will be little the wiser for having attended him. The most profitable part of my time is that which I employ in examinations, or in Socratical dialogue with my pupils, or in commenting upon ancient authors, all which may be done by a tutor in a private apartment, as well as by a professor in a public school. Lectures indeed I do, and must give; in order to add solem-. nity to the truths I would inculcate; and partly too, in compliance with the fashion, and for the sake of my own character, (for this, though not the most difficult part of our business, is that which shows the speaker to most advantage); but I have always found the other methods, particularly the Socratic form of dialogue, much more effectual in fixing the attention, and improving the faculties of the student.

I will not, madam, detain you longer with this comparison: it is my duty to give you my real sentiments, and you will be able to gather them from these imperfect hints. If it is determined that your nephew shall be sent to an university in Scotland, he may, I believe, have as good a chance for improvement at Edinburgh or Glasgow, as at any other if the law is to form any part of his studies, he ought, by all means, to go to one or other of these places; as we have no law-professors in any other part of this kingdom, except one in King's college, Aberdeen, whose office has been

Whether he

a sinecure for several generations. should make choice of Edinburgh or of Glasgow, I am at a loss to say: I was formerly well enough acquainted with the professors of both those societies, but, tempora mutantur. Dr. Reid is a very learned, ingenious, and worthy man; so is Dr, Blair: they are both clergymen; so that, I am confident, your nephew might lodge safely and profitably with either. Whether they would choose to accept of the office of tutor to any young gentleman, they themselves only can determine; some professors would decline it, on account of the laboriousness of their office: it is partly on this account, but chiefly on account of my health, that I have been obliged to decline every offer of this sort.

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