Macneill, working chiefly on surveys, harbours and railroads, and was appointed in 1855 to the chair of civil engineering in Glasgow, vacant by the resignation of Lewis Gordon, whose work he had undertaken during the previous session.
He resigned soon afterwards and devoted himself to civil engineering.
The university, established in 1855, is undenominational, and grants degrees in the faculties of arts, law, medicine, science, civil engineering and music; instruction in theology is left to the affiliated colleges.
The Polytechnic School, occupying an interesting old building on the Largo de Sao Francisco de Paula, is chiefly devoted to civil engineering.
In addition to the public schools there are a Roman Catholic university at Santiago, which includes law and civil engineering among its regular courses of study; numerous private schools and seminaries of the secondary grade, with a total of 11,184 students of both sexes in 1903; and 506 private primary schools, with an attendance of 29,684.
