' course may be described as made up of the Greek and
Latin classics, with Rhetoric, Logic, and Dialectics, Moral Philosophy,
or Ethics, Mathematics, Physics, and Astronomy. The little text-book of
Rhetoric, by Talon or Talaeus, was made up of notes from the Lectures of
Peter Ramus, and used in all our Colleges till superseded by the better
compilation of the Dutch scholar, Gerard John Voss.

Melville had to contend with many opponents, among them the sticklers
for the infallibility of the Stagyrite. Like the German Reformers, he
had accepted Aristotelianism as a basis, with a similar process of
reconciliation. So it was that Aristotle and Calvin were brought to kiss
each other.

[MELVILLE DEFEATED ON THE REGENTING.]

ATTEMPT TO ABOLISH REGENTING.

Melville's next proposal was all too revolutionary. It consisted in
restricting the Regents each to a special group of subjects; in fact,
anticipating our modern professoriate. He actually set up this plan in
Glasgow: one Regent took Greek and Latin; another, his nephew, James
Melville, took Mathematics, Logic, and Moral Philosophy; a third,
Physics and Astronomy. The system went on, in appearance at least, for
fifty years; it is only in 1642, that we find the Regents given without
a specific designation. Why it should have gone on so long, and been
then dropt, we are not informed. Melville's influence started it in the
other Universities, but it was defeated in every one from the very
outset. After six years at Glasgow, he went to St. Andrew's as Principal
and Professor of Divinity, and tried there the same reforms, but the
resistance was too great. In spite of a public enactment, the division
of labour among the Regents was never carried out. Yet such was
Melville's authority, that the same enactment was extended to King's
College, in a scheme having a remarkable history--the so-called New
Foundation of Aberdeen University, promulgated in a Royal Charter of
about the year 1581. The Earl Marischal was a chief promoter of the plan
of reform comprised in this charter. The division of labour among the
Regents was most expressly enjoined. The plan fell through; and there
was a legal dispute fifty years afterwards as to whether it had ever any
legal validity. Charles I. was made to express indignation at the idea
of reducing the University to a school!

We now approach the foundation of Marischal College. The Earl Marischal
may have been actuated by the failure of his attemp