authentic. In this charter, Marischal College is described variously as a gymnasium, collegium (college), academia (academy) and universitas (university). Marischal was the second of Scotland's post-medieval "civic universities", following the University of Edinburgh, created without Papal bull and with a more modern structure and a greater resemblance to the Protestant arts colleges of continental Europe. As such, both Edinburgh and Marischal came to be known as the "Town Colleges" of their respective cities. The university was founded with the expressed aim of training clergy for the post-Reformation Kirk. Its Greek motto translates as "virtue is self-sufficient". The College was constructed on the site of a medieval Franciscan friary, disused after the Reformation. This building was later replaced by a William Adam-designed building in the mid-18th century; however, this, together with the friary remains, were demolished entirely for the construction of the present building between 1835 and 1906, as was the Longacre home of Bishop John Skinner, site of the 1784 consecration of Samuel Seabury, now marked by a plaque on the east wall of the College's quadrangle. James Clerk Maxwell FRS, FRSE (1831-1879), described as "the most famous and influential professor Aberdeen has ever had" was appointed as Professor of Natural Philosophy in 1856 and continued in that post until the merger of Marischal College with Kings College. The Mitchell Hall, where University of Aberdeen graduations previously took place, was built in the early 20th century. It is named after Dr Charles Mitchell, an alumnus of the university and a Tyneside shipbuilder. A large stained-glass window dominates the hall, executed by TR Spence of London and representing the university's history. The building was commended by poet John Betjeman following a visit to Aberdeen in 1947: "No-one can dismiss Marischal College, Aberdeen, when looking at the work of the present century. Wedged behind a huge town hall in an expensive and attractive mid-Victorian baronial style, I saw a cluster of silver-white pinnacles. I turned down a lane towards them, the front broadened out. Oh! Bigger than any cathedral, tower on tower, forests of pinnacles, a group of palatial buildings rivalled only by the Houses of Parliament at Westminster. "This was the famous Marischal College. Imagine the Victorian tower with a spire on top, and all that well-grouped architecture below of lesser towers, and lines of pinnacles executed in the hardest white Kemnay granite and looking out over the grey-green North Sea