l calf. He was ever careful,
conscientious, and honorable in all his dealings, as his father had been
before him.]
It was in the winter of 1836-37 that he spent his first session in
Glasgow. Furnished by a friend with a list of lodgings, Livingstone and
his father set out from Blantyre one wintry day, while the snow was on
the ground, and walked to Glasgow. The lodgings were all too expensive.
All day they searched for a cheaper apartment, and at last in Rotten Row
they found a room at two shillings a week. Next evening David wrote to
his friends that he had entered in the various classes, and spent twelve
pounds in fees; that he felt very lonely after his father left, but
would put "a stout heart to a stey brae," and "either mak' a spune or
spoil a horn." At Rotten Row he found that his landlady held rather
communistic views in regard to his tea and sugar; so another search had
to be made, and this time he found a room in the High street, where he
was very comfortable, at half-a-crown a week.
At the close of the session in April he returned to Blantyre and resumed
work at the mill. He was unable to save quite enough for his second
session, and found it necessary to borrow a little from his elder
brother[9]. The classes he attended during these two sessions were the
Greek class in Anderson's College, the theological classes of Rev. Dr.
Wardlaw, who trained students for the Independent Churches, and the
medical classes in Anderson's. In the Greek class he seems to have been
entered as a private student exciting little notice[10]. In the same
capacity he attended the lectures of Dr. Wardlaw. He had a great
admiration for that divine, and accepted generally his theological
views. But Livingstone was not much of a scientific theologian.
[Footnote 9: The readiness of elder brothers to advance part of their
hard-won earnings, or otherwise encourage a younger brother to attend
college, is a pleasant feature of family life in the humbler classes of
Scotland. The case of James Beattie, the poet, assisted by his brother
David, and that of Sir James Simpson, who owed so much to his brother
Alexander, will be remembered in this connection.]
[Footnote 10: A very sensational and foolish reminiscence was once
published of a raw country youth coming into the class with his clothes
stained with grease and whitened by cotton-wool. This was Livingstone.
The fact is, nothing could possibly have been more unlike him. At this
time Li
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