Anderson's

Excerpt from "A Topographical Dictionary of Scotland" by David Webster, Edinburgh, 1817.


"Anderson's academical institution, similar to the university, deserves also to be noticed. This institution was founded in 1796 by the late Mr Anderson, professor of natural philosophy in the university, who left to trust hs valuable apparatus, his library and museum, as well as his property of every kind. From his funds, assisted with liberal subscriptions, a handsome and commodious building, containing an elegant lecture-room, and other apartments for the instruments and museum, has been erected. The intention of this institution was to afford a regular course of instruction to those persons who do not intend to enter any of the universities, and to admit the ladies to the same benefits of knowledge, which other seminaries do not allow: accordingly, courses of popular lectures are given on natural and experimental philosophy, on mathematics, on chemistry, botany and natural history. There is a class for mechanics, which is most numerously attended, in which the above sciences are taught for a very trifle. No institution was ever productive of greater advantages than this; in such a manufacturing city as Glasgow, the knowledge of chemistry and mechanics are essentially necessary; which is not saying too much to affirm, that, in no city in Europe, is the knowledge of these sciences so generally diffused as in this."


John Anderson's foundation eventually became Strathclyde University.

This quotation was found by my father, Hubert Gent, who notes that his copy suffers a remarkable binding variant. On the spine the title is given as (sic) "Typographical Dictionary".

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ipg@cs.strath.ac.uk