towards me, I am now—she having been the
last of her kindred—about to bequeath to
Edinburgh University with whatever piety is in me this
Craigenputtoch, which was theirs and hers, on the
terms, and for the purposes, and under the conditions
underwritten. Therefore I do mortify and dispose
to and in favour of the said University of Edinburgh,
for the foundation and endowment of ten equal Bursaries,
to be called the ‘John Welsh Bursaries,’
in the said University, heritably and irredeemably,
all and whole the lands of Upper Craigenputtoch.
The said estate is not to be sold, but to be kept
and administered as land, the net annual revenue of
it to be divided into ten equal Bursaries, to be called,
as aforesaid, the ‘John Welsh Bursaries.’
The Senatus Academicus shall bestow them on the ten
applicants entering the University who, on strict
and thorough examination and open competitive trial
by examiners whom the Senatus will appoint for that
end, are judged to show the best attainment of actual
proficiency and the best likelihood of more in the
department or faculty called of arts, as taught there.
Examiners to be actual professors in said faculty,
the fittest whom the Senatus can select, with fit assessors
or coadjutors and witnesses, if the Senatus see good,
and always the report of the said examiners to be
minuted and signed, and to govern the appointments
made, and to be recorded therewith. More specially
I appoint that five of the ‘John Welsh Bursaries’
shall be given for the best proficiency in mathematics—I
would rather say ‘in mathesis,’ if that
were a thing to be judged of from competition—but
practically above all in pure geometry, such being
perennial, the symptom not only of steady application,
but of a clear, methodic intellect, and offering in
all epochs good promise for all manner of arts and
pursuits. The other five Bursaries I appoint to
depend (for the present and indefinitely onwards)
on proficiency in classical learning, that is to say,
in knowledge of Latin, Greek, and English, all of
these, or any two of them. This also gives good
promise of a young mind, but as I do not feel certain
that it gives perennially or will perennially be thought
in universities to give the best promise, I am willing
that the Senatus of the University, in case of a change
of its opinion on this point hereafter in the course
of generations, shall bestow these latter five Bursaries
on what it does then consider the most excellent proficiency
in matters classical, or the best proof of a classical
mind, which directs its own highest effort towards
teaching and diffusing in the new generations that
will come. The Bursaries to be open to free competition
of all who come to study in Edinburgh University,
and who have never been of any other University, the
competition to be held on or directly before or after
their first matriculation there. Bursaries to
be always given on solemnly strict and faithful trial
to the worthiest, or if (what in justice can never