3-082-375 - The Print Collector/Heritage Images

The late John Stuart Blackie, 1895. Blackie was Emeritus Professor of Greek in the University of Edinburgh. 'Many disagreed with him, some criticised him, everyone loved him. Apart from certain eccentricities which those who did not know Blackie intimately did not understand, everyone saw the dominant nature, the manly soul, the marvellous optimism, the tender affection for country, the stern stickler for truth...To him we owe the origin of the movement for University reform in Scotland, a movement which is tending to clothe the dry bones of scholastic formalism with the flesh of living culture...it was his energetic espousal of the Crofters' cause that led to the appointment of Lord Napier's Commission; and that to his own personal energies the sum of £12,000 was collected to found a Celtic chair in the University of Edinburgh...The upholding of a national sentiment was of all questions the one which was nearest his heart, and perhaps it was his love of all things Scottish - Scottish Church, Scottish song, Scottish history, Scottish people - that endeared him so much to every Scot with an atom of patriotism in him'. From "Illustrated London News", 1895.