90 JAMES CLERK MAXWELL. [CHAP. IV. 



Mr. Clerk Maxwell made inquiries early in the 

 summer of 1847, with a view to placing his son at 

 College in November. In deciding not to continue 

 his classical training, he appears to have been chiefly 

 guided by some disparaging accounts of the condition 

 of the Greek and Latin classes in comparison with 

 those of Logic, Mathematics, and Natural Philosophy. 

 The result was that in his seventeenth year Maxwell 

 entered the second Mathematical Class, taught by 

 Professor Kelland, the class of Natural Philosophy 

 under J. D. Forbes, and the Logic Class of Sir William 

 Hamilton. Classical reading, however, was not by 

 any means relinquished, as the correspondence of 

 1847-50 clearly shows. 



