Aberdeen University Studies Series Author:University of Aberdeen Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: Systems of Education1 By Archibald Alison 2 I GLADLY seize this opportunity of returning you my warmest thanks for the honour you have done me, in permitti... more »ng me to address you from this place. It is an honour of which any one in any rank or station might be proud ; but which is in a peculiar manner gratifying to me, from early association, and the connexion of my forefathers with this ancient seat of learning. Seven and thirty years have elapsed since I first visited this in- teresting country, and beheld, in its cities and plains, the proud triumph of human industry over the disadvantage of climate and situation ; in its mountains, the highest sublimity of majestic nature. The summit of Benachie, the rocks of Lochnagar, the wells of Dee are well known to me; and many of my happiest days have been spent in traversing your dusky moors. But I have yet a closer and a dearer tie with this city and this university. If I cannot say it is my native, I may at least say it is my ancestral land. I feel, I hope I may say, a legitimate pride in being descended from a family, which, for many generations, added to the cluster of eminent men whose labours have shed such imperishable lustre over this city. Two hundred years have elapsed since my great-great-greatgrandfather, James Gregory, commenced, within the walls of Marischal College, that brilliant course of mathematical discovery which rendered him the worthy friend of Newton and antagonist of Huygens. One hundred years have elapsed since my collateral ancestor, Thomas Reid, first entered, also within the same walls, on those profound researches into the human mind which have rendered his name immortal. It was in this city that my grandfather, Dr.Gregory, wrote that Legacy to his Daughters, which is now to be found in every language o...« less