Bursary

Bursary (Late Lat. bursarius, 'a treasurer,' from Gr. bursē, 'a skin'), the annual proceeds of a sum permanently invested for the maintenance of a student at a Scotch secondary school or university. Elsewhere a bursar is merely the treasurer of a college or monastery. A number of small bursaries were long the only equivalents at the Scotch universities for the scholarships of the English; but by the University Commissioners of 1863 many of these were consolidated into others of greater value for the encouragement of the higher learning, for which there had hitherto been the most meagre provision. Many restrictions that had become antiquated were removed, but a number of presentation bursaries were allowed to remain, some with a preference for a particular name, or natives of a particular district. Since 1863 a considerable number of scholarships for graduates, corresponding to English fellowships, have been founded by private individuals, particularly in Edinburgh and Glasgow; as well as many additional bursaries for undergraduates, among them ten founded at Edinburgh in 1881 by Thomas Carlyle to commemorate the name of his wife's father. At Edinburgh there are now over 200 bursaries of values varying from £2, 15s. 6d. to £100. At Glasgow there are about 200 bursaries, many of them small, the largest about £100. Its Snell exhibitions to Balliol College, Oxford, and its four Clark scholarships, the last amounting to as much as £200, are the chief provision for higher learning. At St Andrews there are over 100 bursaries, varying in amount from £5 to £50; and at Aberdeen there are more than 250 bursaries, varying from £5 to £50.