David Livingstone
Education

Livingstone attended Blantyre village school, along with the few other mill children with the endurance to do so despite their 14-hour workday (6 am–8 pm). Having a family with a strong, continuing commitment to study reinforced his education.

At the age of 21, he was excited by a pamphlet his father got from the church setting out Gützlaff's call for missionaries to China, with the new concept that missionaries should be trained as medical doctors. His father was persuaded and, like many other students in Scotland, Livingstone was to support himself, with the agreement of the mill management, by working at his old job from Easter to October, outwith term time. He joined Anderson's University, Glasgow, in 1836, studying medicine and chemistry, as well as attending theology lectures by the anti-slavery campaigner Richard Wardlaw at the Congregational Church College, where he may also have studied Greek. To enter medical school, he needed some knowledge of Latin, and was tutored by a local Roman Catholic man, Daniel Gallagher (later a priest, founder of St Simon's, Partick). Livingstone worked hard, got a good grounding in science and medicine, and made lifelong friends including Andrew Buchanan and James Young.

The London Missionary Society (LMS) was at the time the major organisation in the country for missionary work, and unlike others was open to Congregationalists. He applied to the LMS in October 1837, and in January was sent questions which he answered. He got no reply until invited to two interviews in August 1838. He was then accepted as a probationary candidate, and given initial training at Ongar, Essex, as the introduction to studies to become a minister within the Congregational Union serving under the LMS, rather than the more basic course for an artisan missionary. At Ongar, he and six other students had tuition in Greek, Latin, Hebrew and theology from the Reverend Richard Cecil, who in January 1839 assessed that, despite "heaviness of manner" and "rusticity", Livingstone had "sense and quiet vigour", good temper and substantial character "so I do not like the thought of him being rejected." A month later, he still thought Livingstone "hardly ready" to go on to theological studies at Cheshunt College, and "worthy but remote from brilliant". In June 1839 the LMS directors accepted Livingstone, and agreed to his request to continue studying with Cecil at Ongar until the end of the year, then have LMS support for medical studies in London.

To gain necessary clinical training he continued his medical studies at the Charing Cross Hospital Medical School, with his courses covering medical practice, midwifery, and botany. He qualified as a Licentiate of the Faculty (now Royal College) of Physicians and Surgeons of Glasgow on 16 November 1840 (in 1857 he was made an Honorary Fellow of the Faculty). On 20 November 1840 Livingstone was ordained a minister of the church, as was another missionary to South Africa, William Ross, in a service at the Albion Chapel, Finsbury. The ordination service was conducted by Cecil and J. J. Freeman.
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