FELLOW OF PETERHOUSE n 



Library. The accompanying picture of the group containing Tait and 

 Steele, who are respectively first and third reckoning from the left, has 

 been reproduced from a somewhat faded photograph. Its probable date 

 is 1852. 



Having taken his degree as Senior Wrangler and First Smith's Prizeman, 

 Tait was elected a Fellow of his College and began to establish himself as 

 a "coach." To quote from an address he gave to the Edinburgh Graduates 

 fourteen years later, he became one of those who, 



" eagerly scanning examination papers of former years, and mysteriously finding 

 out the peculiarities of the Moderators and Examiners under whose hands their 

 pupils are doomed to pass, spend their lives in discovering which pages of a 

 text-book a man ought to read and which will not be likely to ' pay.' The value 

 of any portion as an intellectual exercise is never thought of; the all-important 

 question is Is it likely to be set? I speak with no horror of or aversion to such 

 men ; I was one of them myself, and thought it perfectly natural, as they all do. 

 But I hope that such a system may never be introduced here." 



His hopes, it is to be feared, are being only partially realised. 



Tait's experience as a coach was fortunately very limited. During the 

 two and a half years he continued to reside at Peterhouse he had hardly time 

 to establish a reputation. There is indeed a story 1 of "Tait's one Pupil," 

 who had begun to read with Hopkins. So unsatisfactory was his progress 

 that Hopkins advised him to seek another tutor. Naturally the pupil 

 protested and said he would do his utmost not to keep the others back. 

 But Hopkins was obdurate. Accordingly the aspirant to Wrangler honours 

 became Tait's one pupil, and was taught to such good purpose that when the 

 Tripos list came out he was one place above Hopkins' best man. When 

 congratulated upon the success of his pupil Tait is said to have remarked, 

 "Oh, that's nothing I could coach a coal scuttle to be Senior Wrangler." 



Tait, however, was not a man to let time hang on his hands. He read 

 widely and thoroughly in all branches of mathematical physics. During these 

 years also he learned to read Italian with ease and made himself master of the 

 French and German languages. 



1 The story is given with full details in a letter from W. A. Porter, whose authority was 

 C. B. Clarke, 3rd Wrangler in 1856, and Mathematical Lecturer in Queens', 1857-65. 



2 2 



