Ossian Collection > Scottish eccentrics

STRANGE CASE OF WILLIAM BERRY 119
the slump) to establish a Gaelic University should not be
run on sufficiently common-sense and utilitarian lines,
instead of being devoted to hare-brained and useless
matters like Gaelic literature and pipe music. But it is
interesting to remember that it was a prince of utilitarian
educationalists who long previously — and in my opinion
very justly and wisely — advocated the closing-down of
Glasgow University and the devotion of the funds thus
freed to the exclusive purpose of a College of Bagpipe
Playing in the Hebrides.
This was the eccentric Professor of Natural Philosophy
in Glasgow University, John Anderson, whose benefac-
tion made possible the beginning of technical education in
the over-ambitious "Andersonian University", now the
great Royal Technical School. Failing to suppress the
older University in the manner indicated, it is a pity, I
think, that he did not suppress his own and devote the
funds to the more interesting project. As a suitable com-
panion and counterpart to the story of the Rev. John
Gregory's invention — and suppression — of a superior gun,
it is worth recalling here that Anderson, too, among his
multifarious interests, prosecuted a taste for the military
art and invented a species of gun, the recoil of which was
stopped by the condensation of common air within the
body of the carriage. Having in vain endeavoured to
attract the attention of the British Government to this
invention, he went to Paris in 1791, carrying with him a
model, which he presented to the National Convention.
The governing party in France at once perceived the
benefit which would be derived from this invention, and
ordered Mr Anderson's model to be hung up in their hall
with the following inscription over it — "The Gift of
Science to Liberty". Whilst he was in France, he got a
six-pounder made from his model, with which he made
numerous experiments in the neighbourhood of Paris, at
which his countryman, the famous Paul Jones, amongst
others, was present, and gave his decided approbation to
the gun as likely to prove highly useful in landing troops