In the universities of Central Europe, and that of Paris, their parent, the censor was a very important person; yet he was the subordinate of one far greater in power and influence. In the words of the writers of the _Trevaux_, so full of knowledge about such matters, “Un Régent est dans sa classe comme un Souverain; il crée des charges de _Censeurs_ comme il lui plait, il les donne à qui il veut, et il les abolit quand il le judge à propos.” The regents still exist in more than their original potency; for they are that essential invigorating element of the university of the present day, without which it would not exist. Of old, when every magister was entitled to teach in the university, the regents were persons selected from among them, with the powers of government as separate from the capacity and function of instructing; at present, in so far as the university is a school, the regent is a schoolmaster—and therefore, as we have just said, he is an essential element of the establishment. The term regent, like most of the other university distinctions, was originally of Parisian nomenclature, and there might be adduced a good deal of learning bearing on its signification as distinct from that of the word professor—now so desecrated in its use that we are most familiar with it in connection with dancing-schools, jugglers’ booths, and veterinary surgeries. The regency, as a university distinction conferred as a reward of capacities shown within the arena of the university, and judged of according to its republican principles, seems to have lingered in a rather confused shape in our Scottish universities, and to have gradually ingrafted itself on the patronage of the professorships. So in reference to Glasgow, immediately after the Revolution, when there was a vacancy or two from Episcopalians declining to take the obligation to acknowledge the new Church Establishment, there appears the following notice:— “_January 2, 1691._—There had never been so solemn and numerous an appearance of disputants for a regent’s place as was for fourteen days before this, nine candidates disputing; and in all their disputes and other exercises they all behaved themselves so well, as that the Faculty judged there was not one of them but gave such specimens of their learning as might deserve the place, which occasioned so great difficulty in the choice that the Faculty, choosing a leet of some of them who seemed most to excel and be fittest, did determine the same by lot, which the Faculty did solemnly go about, and the lot fell upon Mr John Law, who thereupon was this day established regent.”—_Ibid._, vol. iii. p. 596.