Clerk Maxwell 45 



In November 1856 Maxwell was appointed Professor of 

 Natural Philosophy at Marischal College, Aberdeen, a chair 

 which was abolished in 1860 in consequence of the fusion 

 of the two colleges in tha town. Among many characteristic 

 remarks which occur in his letters of that period we may 

 quote the following : "I found it useful at Aberdeen to tell 

 the students what parts of the subject they were not to 

 remember, but to get up and forget at once as being rudi- 

 mentary notions necessary to development, but requiring 

 to be sloughed off before maturity." Between 1860 and 

 1865 Clerk Maxwell taught Physics at King's College, 

 London. His duties there were exacting and he suffered 

 from two serious illnesses. He may have realized that his 

 powers of teaching did not lie in the direction of making 

 matters easy to students, many of whom were not over 

 anxious to learn, but it was probably mainly for reasons 

 of health that he resigned his chair and settled down at 

 Glenlair, the house built by his father on the family estate 

 in Dumfriesshire. A few years later he was, however, 

 persuaded with some difficulty to take over the newly- 

 established Professorship of Experimental Physics at Cam- 

 bridge. The Cavendish Laboratory was built in that 

 University by the Vllth Duke of Devonshire for the pro- 

 secution of experimental research in Physics ; it was opened 

 in 1870, and there probably never has been a benefaction 

 more fruitful in its results. The laboratory has, indeed, had 

 a brilliant history ; its immediate result was to allow Clerk 

 Maxwell to spend the closing years of his life among old 

 friends and new pupils. He died after a short but painful 

 illness in November 1879, at the age of forty-eight. Those 

 who knew him will hold his memory in affectionate remem- 

 brance, and to all who turn to his writings for a knowledge 

 of his work he will always remain a source of inspiration. 



