When young William Robertson entered the University of Edinburgh in 1734–5, he became part of a university, which, like the city, was in the midst of transformation. The intellectual environment both in and around the university was lively as the thought of Francis Hutcheson, John Locke, and the Earl of Shaftesbury collided with traditional Calvinist forms and beliefs. Such intellectual debate was facilitated by the abolition of the regent system by William Carstares in 1708. Under this older system, each instructor taught a cohort of students all subjects as they moved through in a fixed curriculum. Drawing on his experience with Dutch universities, Carstares instituted reforms in the arts curriculum to begin appointment of specialized professors responsible for teaching a specific discipline, and by the 1730s the new system was solidly in place, and its effects were notable. The professors of arts acquired a new energy and distinction based on their expertise, making them the “midwife” to the Scottish Enlightenment's republic of letters. For the students, the benefits were mixed. They were no longer kept within a fixed curriculum, and they had a greater range of choices among classes. But they were no longer under pressure to complete a curriculum or to graduate. William Robertson is a case in point: he enrolled for classes in the academic years 1734–5, 1735–6, 1736–7, 1738–9, and 1739–40, but he never felt it necessary to take a degree, or to spread himself – at least formally – across the whole of the offered curriculum. He took the basic arts courses in Latin, Greek, and logic (including rhetoric and literary criticism) that were expected of students preparing for the ministry. In addition, he studied history and theology, although his son William told Dugald Stewart that history did not seem to be one of his father's favorite studies. Nor does he appear to have branched out into mathematics, moral philosophy, or natural philosophy, subjects that were not required for the church. But we do learn the historian's “favourite Studies Seem in the early period of his life to have been Philosophy and particularly the Stoic Philos: of which he was a great Admirer.”