There is no profession so incompatible with original enquiry as is a Scotch Professorship, where one's income depends on the numbers of pupils. Is there one Professor in Edinburgh pursuing science with zeal? Are they not all occupied as showmen whose principal object is to attract pupils and make money?

Brewster to J. D. Forbes, 11 February 1830 (St. Andrew's University Library). Quoted in William Cochran, 'Sir David Brewster: An Outline Biography', in J. R. R. Christie (ed.), Martyr of Science: Sir David Brewster, 1781–1868 (1984)