Its ill-success was the subject of leading articles in the local press. The _Manchester Guardian_ of July 9, 1858, wrote: “Explain it as we may, the fact is certain that this College, which eight years ago it was hoped would form the nucleus of a Manchester university, is a mortifying failure.” And Professor Roscoe was blamed for not awarding the Dalton scholarship because he had the hardihood to say that none of the laboratory students was sufficiently qualified to be worthy of it. The _Manchester Examiner_ was somewhat more appreciative of the efforts of the little band who were gallantly striving to raise the very low standard of middle-class education in Manchester at that time. We are compelled (it said) to look for the causes of non-success elsewhere than in the collegiate machinery. If an objection can be raised against the College at all, it is that such an institution is either in advance of our felt wants, or altogether unsuited to the economical conditions of Manchester life. Still, this is the fault of the community, not of the College. The worst that can be said of it is that it is too good for us. This might certainly be said, in a certain sense, of the first Principal of the College. Excellent in many respects as a man, and inspiring as a teacher, he was altogether unfitted to direct the development of the young and struggling institution in such a community and at such a time. Principal Scott, whom Mrs. Oliphant described as “a man whose powerful, wilful, and fastidious mind has produced upon all other capable minds an impression of force and ability which no practical result has yet adequately carried out,” had little constructive or directive power. Earnest, upright, and conscientious, he was essentially an idealist—almost a visionary—a man of words—forceful and even eloquent at times—but with no capacity for action. As a thinker he lived a strenuous and exhaustive life. Although only forty-six at the date of his appointment, his constitution, never very robust, was already undermined and his nervous energy impaired. He was frequently ill, and his repeated absences from the College necessarily interfered with his administrative work. After struggling for six years with the duties and responsibilities of a position for which circumstances and the times in nowise fitted him, he tendered his resignation as Principal a few months before Roscoe was appointed to the chair of Chemistry and was succeeded by Professor Greenwood.