CHAP. III.] BOYHOOD. 45 



CHAPTEE III. 



BOYHOOD EDINBURGH ACADEMY "OLD 31" HOLIDAYS 



AT GLENLAIR 1841 TO 1844 MT. 10-13. 



THE first school-days are not always a time of pro- 

 gress. For one whose home life has been surrounded 

 with an atmosphere of genial ideas and liberal pur- 

 suits, to be thrown, in the intervals of " gerund- 

 grinding," amongst a throng of boys of average intel- 

 ligence and more than average boisterousness, is not 

 directly improving at the outset. Not that Maxwell 

 ever retrograded for his spirit was inherently active; 

 but where the outward environment was such as 

 awakened no response in him, he was like an engine 

 whose wheels do not bite working incessantly, but 

 not advancing much. If the Scottish day-school 

 system had not still been dominated by a tyrannous 

 economy, and by that spirit of laisser faire which in 

 education is apt to result in the prevalence of the 

 worst, much that was in Maxwell would earlier have 

 found natural vent and growth. As it was, he. was of 

 course storing up impressions, as under any circum- 

 stances he would have been ; but his activities were 

 apt for the time to take odd shapes, as in a healthy 

 plant under a sneaping wind. Or, to employ another 

 metaphor, the light in him was still aglow, but in 



