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.
[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.
[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 Livingstone was not working at the mill; and, in regard to dress, however plainly he might be clad, he was never careless, far less offensive.
His chief work in Glasgow was the prosecution of medical study. Of his teachers, two attracted him beyond the rest--the late Dr. Thomas Graham, the very distinguished Professor of Chemistry, and Dr. Andrew Buchanan, Professor of the Institutes of Medicine, his life-long and much-attached friend. While attending Dr. Graham's class he was brought into frequent contact with the assistant to the Professor, Mr. James Young. Originally bred to a mechanical employment, this young man had attended the evening course of Dr. Graham, and having attracted his attention, and done various pieces of work for him, he became his assistant. The students used to gather round him, and several met in his room, where there was a bench, a turning-lathe, and other conveniences for mechanical work. Livingstone took an interest in the turning-lathe, and increased his knowledge of tools--a knowledge which proved of the highest service to him when--as he used to say all missionaries should be ready to do--he had to become a Jack-of-all-trades in Africa.
Livingstone was not the only man of mark who frequented that room, and got lessons from Mr. Young "how to use his hands." The Right Hon. Lyon Playfair, who has had so distinguished a scientific career, was another of its habitués. A galvanic battery constructed by two young men on a new principle, under Mr. Young's instructions, became an object of great attraction, and among those who came to see it and its effects were two sons of the Professor of Mathematics in the University. Although but boys, both were fired at this interview with enthusiasm for electric science. Both have been for many years Professors in the University of Glasgow. The elder, Professor James Thomson, is well known for his useful inventions and ingenious papers on many branches of science. The younger, Sir William Thomson, ranks over the world as prince of electricians, and second to no living man in scientific reputation.
Dr. Graham's assistant devoted himself to practical chemistry, and made for himself a brilliant name by the purification of petroleum, adapting it for use in private houses, and by the manufacture of paraffin and paraffin-oil. Few men have made the art to which they devoted themselves more subservient to the use of man than he whom Livingstone first knew as Graham's assistant, and afterward used to call playfully "Sir Paraffin." "I have been obliged to knight him," he used to say, "to distinguish him from the other Young." The "other" Young was Mr. E. D. Young, of the Search Expedition, and subsequently the very successful leader of the Scotch Mission at Lake Nyassa. The assistant to Dr. Graham still survives, and is well known as Mr. Young, of Kelly, LL.D. and F.R.S.
When Livingstone returned from his first journey his acquaintance with Mr. Young was resumed, and their friendship continued through life. It is no slight testimony from one who knew him so long and so intimately, that, in his judgment, Livingstone was the best man he ever knew, had more than any other man of true filial trust in God, more of the spirit of Christ, more of integrity, purity, and simplicity of character, and of self-denying love for his fellow-men. Livingstone named after him a river which he supposed might be one of the sources of the Nile, and used ever to speak with great respect of the chief achievement of Mr. Young's life,--filling houses with a clear white light at a fraction of the cost of the smoky article which it displaced.
Beyond their own department, men of science are often as lax and illogical as any; but when scientific training is duly applied, it genders a habit of thorough accuracy, inasmuch as in scientific inquiry the slightest deviation from truth breeds endless mischief. Other influences had already disposed Livingstone to great exactness of statement, but along with these his scientific training may be held to have contributed to that dread of exaggeration and of all inaccuracy which was so marked a feature of his character through life.
It happened that Livingstone did not part company with Professor Graham and Mr. Young when he left Glasgow. The same year, Dr. Graham went to London as Professor in University College, and Livingstone, who also went to London, had the opportunity of paying occasional visits to his class. In this way, too, he became acquainted with the late Dr. George Wilson, afterward Professor of Technology in the University of Edinburgh, who was then acting as unsalaried assistant in Dr. Graham's laboratory. Frank, genial, and chivalrous, Wilson and Livingstone had much in common, and more in after-years, when Wilson, too, became an earnest Christian. In the simplicity and purity of their character, and in their devotion to science, not only for its own sake, but as a department of the kingdom of God, they were brothers indeed. Livingstone showed his friendship in after-years by collecting and transmitting to Wilson whatever he could find in Africa worthy of a place in the Edinburgh Museum of Science and Art, of which his friend was the first Director.