In the long and elaborate memorandum which he drew up in the second year of his Rectorship, on the four possible relations in which the University of St. Andrews and the college at Dundee might conceivably stand to one another, Bute gives clear evidence of his genuine desire that the cause of education and learning should flourish equally in both institutions. But both he and those who thought and acted with him were perfectly convinced that this would never be so long as Dundee continued its intrigues to become the predominant partner in {193} what he calls the "ill-assorted union" between them; and he was equally convinced that an absolutely essential preliminary step in this direction was the dissolution of the Order of the University Commission of March 21, 1890 (_dies nefastus_, as Bute calls it in one of his notes), by which the existing union between St. Andrews and Dundee had been brought about. It was with this object that an action was brought in the Court of Session in July, 1894, for the "reduction" of the union in question, and also that a bill was introduced into the House of Lords by the Chancellor of the university, the Duke of Argyll, whose sympathies were entirely with Bute in the question at issue.[9] [Sidenote: 1893, St. Andrews and Oxford] "I have sometimes dreamt," wrote Bute in one of the most picturesque passages of his Rectorial Address, "of the primeval headland, still lifting skyward its crown of ancient towers, but with that crown encircled by an aureola of affiliated colleges--a commonwealth of seats of learning, an Oxford of the North." It may have been with some such vision as this before him that Bute had suggested to his assessor, some time before drawing up the memorandum above referred to, another solution of the difficulty: {194} _March_ 28, 1893. Why should it not be suggested to Dundee, that instead of a division of forces, difference of place, etc., etc., they should build a college for themselves at St. Andrews, just as we hope Blairs will do, confined to Dundee people? I think that would meet the foundress's intention, and it might be called Dundee College. This would be transferring her benefaction to St. Andrews, instead of St. Andrews being bled into such veins as Dundee possesses. I do not see why St. Andrews, holding a unique position, geographically and otherwise, should not also hold a unique position in being constituted, as Oxford and Cambridge are, of a congeries of free and affiliated colleges.