Search

The Horn Collection (MS Gen. 1824) comprises a fifteen-box, un-indexed collection of papers, drafts, notes, and miscellaneous items of David Baynes Horn, former Professor of History at the University of Edinburgh. This wideranging collection contains numerous items that will be of interest to historians of rhetoric, logic, philosophy, and education. At the time of his death in October 1969, D. B. Horn, Professor of Modern History at the University of Edinburgh, was engaged in writing a full-length history of his university. The University Court (Senate) had given Horn "two years leave of absence to write a full-scale History of the University of Edinburgh" according to his letter to the Edinburgh Town Clerk, dated 4 March 1968. Horn had earlier completedA Short History of the University of Edinburgh, 1556-1889, which was published by the Edinburgh University Press in 1967. In his letter to the Town Clerk, Horn described the parameters of his plan: "In the first instance, I would limit myself to the period when the Town Council acted as patrons of the University, that is down to 1858." Horn had made significant progress in the last twenty months of his life toward his goal of publishing a full history of his beloved University. Judging from the draft materials, Horn appears nearly to have completed the project. His papers and miscellaneous items will be of particular interest to those tracing the history of the teaching of rhetoric and belles lettres in eighteenth and nineteenth century Britain. The broader purpose of this bibliographical essay is to highlight those materials in the Horn collection that may be of value to the scholars interested in the general academic context of enlightenment rhetoric in the Scottish universities. The collection (MS Gen. 1824) was deposited in the University of Edinburgh Library by way of the good graces of D. B. Horn's daughter, Dr. Hazel Horn. It appears that Dr. Horn provided an initial deposit of her father's papers after his death in October, 1969, and in 1977 passed along a "further large instalment of [her] father's notes and papers for his history of the University. . .[which] will clearly be of value and benefit to many scholars" ("Letter from Mr. Charles Finlayson, Keeper of Manuscripts, to Dr. Hazel Horn," 7 October 1977). D.B.