Born in Callander, Buchanan became a Church of Scotland minister in Peebles. Four of his brothers took up similar posts elsewhere. Buchanan himself moved to Glasgow in 1824, when he worked as assistant and then successor to Professor Jardine in the chair of logic at the university. He was said to have taught the elements of psychology and formal logic, and the laws of rhetoric, "with singular clearness".
On his retirement in 1864 he moved to Ardfillayne, by Dunoon, from where he published two volumes of "Tragic Dramas from history, with legendary and other poems".
He died on 2 March 1873, aged 87.
IN the days when the University was domiciled in the High Street, it was to a large extent isolated from the general life of the city. Every student devoutly believed that it had an independent government; that undefined powers - extending, it was reverently whispered, even to life and death - were vested in the Senatus Academicus; and that no policeman dare pass beneath the antique gateway. At rare intervals visitors from "the neighbouring city" - an epithet which some of the older professors delighted to use - might be seen hurriedly passing through the quadrangles to or from the Hunterian Museum, glancing as they passed at the bust of Zachary Boyd; but, as a rule, town and gown were far apart. There was then no university chapel in which seats could be rented by the non-academic citizen, and no entertainments were then given at which gentlemen in hoods and trenchers mingled with prosperous citizens and ladies in evening dress. The professors, at least those of them who resided within the ancient walls, never dreamed of going to a civic feast, or taking part in a public meeting. Though a single step brought the passenger from the crowded High Street into the court where the venerable scholars had their dwellings, he felt, when he had taken that step, as if he had passed out of the roar of the nineteenth century into the slumbrous quiet of the middle ages.
Yet, withal, her ancient University has not been the least powerful of the influences which have combined to make Glasgow what she is. The author of the "Wealth of Nations" was the occupant of a chair; it was the repairing of an instrument in another professor's laboratory which suggested to James Watt the idea of the steam engine; and in the same laboratory more recent discoveries, which are now necessities to commerce, have been patiently wrought out. Nor does it admit of doubt that to the mental discipline and enlargement of view obtained in the old class-rooms by successive generations of young citizens, we may fairly trace much of that spirit of enterprise which has linked the city to the ends of the earth.
Professor Robert Buchanan was a true representative at once of the isolation of the old college and of its power to mould the life of the community from which it stood apart. It chanced that his house in the Professors' Court was in the corner farthest from the street; and its occupant had literally neither part nor lot in the city. He was rarely seen beyond the college walls, and when he was, he had the aspect of a stranger in haste to do his errand and be gone. He sat at no dinner tables, and those who knew him would have been as much surprised had they seen him on a City Hall platform as if he had appeared among the performers at a circus. But all the while he was contributing more than most to make Glasgow what she has become. In the logic class-room young students from the High School, as well as older students from the country, had their fist glimpse into the world of mind. Their mental powers were there tried and disciplined, and they learned precision of thought and expression. They were trained to habits of thoroughness. No slovenliness of style, no inexactitude of thought could escape the searching criticism and humorous satire of the professor.
His teaching was admirably adapted to the mixed multitude which year by year thronged his class-room. He was probably not much of a metaphysician, but he taught with singular clearness the elements of psychology and formal logic, and the laws of rhetoric. The discipline in his class was perfect. He had a quiet power which never needed to assert itself, but was at once felt and acknowledged. His lectures written at his entrance on office, did duty to the end - the very jokes which enlivened them being repeated to the sons of those who had applauded them thirty years before; yet somehow the lectures never lost their freshness. They were so clear and orderly that it was specially easy to take notes: and the note-books of former students circulated freely among the benches, to the grief of the professor, who sometimes made caustic references to the "traditions of the elders." As an examiner he was unequalled. The ignorant or careless student had no chance of escape. The questions were put softly, but they went to the root of the matter in hand. It was vain to search either the terms of the question or the face of the examiner, for any indication of the expected answer. The terms offered no leading, and the face was not stern or unkindly, but neither was it sympathetic or helpful.
The best evidence of the value of Professor Buchanan's teaching is found in the fact that the estimate which his students had of it became higher in their after years. He was wont to refer to former members of his class - among whom were such men as the late Archbishop of Canterbury - with pardonable pride; and they in turn spoke gratefully of the good they had got from him. On his retirement from the chair in 1864 many of them united to do him honour.
We have left little space in which to note the events of his personal history. A native of Callander, where he was born in 1785, he and four of his brothers became ministers of the Church of Scotland. His charge was at Peebles, where he succeeded Dr. John Lee, afterwards Principal of Edinburgh University. Mr. Buchanan acquired a reputation in the district for the beauty of his prayers, but there is no tradition of any peculiar power in his sermons. He liked the place, and spoke, long after he left it, of the pleasure with which he watched from the manse windows the heather-bloom gradually come out on Hindleshope Heights. In the early days of the "Scotsman," a club of working men in Peebles eagerly read the newspaper. The minister, who was acquainted with one of them, asked for a "sight of it." When he returned it to the lender it was with a hint "that it boded no good."
He removed to Glasgow in 1824, when he was chosen assistant and successor to his former master, Professor Jardine, in the logic chair, of which he became sole occupant in 1827. He left behind him at Peebles all his old clerical life, except the beautiful prayers with which he opened his class each morning, and he rarely visited the scene of his ministerial labours. It is told that on one occasion, after the railway had been opened, he was seen standing forlorn at the station, when a stout man tapped him roughly on the shoulder and said, "Maister Buchanan, an' is this you? Aye man, I havena seen ye for a lang time." This was a once youthful member of his flock, grown into a butcher of 18 stones! Our informant adds that, "Maister Buchanan" did not return to Peebles. His summers were spent at Ardfillayne, Dunoon, where the beautiful shrubbery and high walls effectually shut him in from the noisy world he shunned. To this calm retreat he retired when he resigned his chair, and there, on March 2nd, 1873, he passed peacefully away in his eighty-eighth year. After his retirement, he published two volumes of "Tragic Dramas from history, with legendary and other poems," the composition of which must have given colour to the otherwise sombre tints of his solitary life. The volumes reveal true dramatic power, and deserve a higher place than has yet been accorded them in our Scottish literature.
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