CHAP. IV.] ADOLESCENCE 1844 TO 1847. 81 



on a particular shore, so as to represent them with 

 perfect truth in a picture. 



After contributing to the Proceedings of the Edin- 



. . . JEt. 15-16. 



burgh Royal Society, it might perhaps have been 

 expected that Clerk Maxwell, although scarcely 15, 

 would at least have been taken from the Academy and 

 sent to the classes of Mathematics and Natural Philo- 

 sophy at the University. Instead of this, he simply 

 completed his course at school. His inventions may 

 perhaps have interfered a little with his . regular 

 studies for he missed the Mathematical medal in 

 1846 but he was one of the few of the class which 

 he had joined in 1841 who continued at the Academy 

 until 1847. And when he left, although still younger 

 than his competitors by about a twelvemonth, he was 

 not only first in mathematics and English, but came 

 very near to being first in Latin. He had not yet 

 "specialised" or "bifurcated," although the bent of 

 his genius was manifest. Nor have I ever heard him 

 wish that it had been otherwise. On the contrary, he 

 has repeatedly said to me in later years that to make 

 out the meaning of an author with no help excepting 

 grammar and dictionary (which was our case) is one 

 of the best means for training the mind. Some of his 

 school exercises in Latin prose and verse are still 

 extant, and, like everything which he did, are stamped 

 with his peculiar character. 1 The first Greek play we 

 read (the Aleestis of Euripides) made an impression 



1 On his copy of Monk's Alcestis, which we read in the 6th class 

 1845-46), the owner's name is followed by an original distich : 

 " Si probrum metuis, nolito tangere libruin, 

 Nam magni domini nomina scripta vide?." 

 G 



