204 JAMES CLERK MAXWELL. [CHAP. VII. 



of three mathematicians who had been chosen from 

 the bachelors of the second year. 



He was at once appointed to lecture to the Upper 

 .Division of the third year in Hydrostatics and Optics, 

 and, to reserve time for his own studies, he now 

 desisted from taking private pupils. He had indeed 

 enough to occupy him without burdening him self with 

 them. Besides the lecture in hydrostatics and optics, 

 for which he found it desirable to read beforehand " so 

 as not to tell lies," he had a large share in " exercising 

 the questionists," i.e. preparing pass-men for the final 

 examination, by setting papers in arithmetic, algebra, 

 etc., and looking them over with the writers indi- 

 vidually. 



He had also been asked to prepare a text-book 1 on 

 optics, and made some plans for doing so, having pre- 

 viously resisted the solicitation of his friend Monro, 

 who had urged upon him the task of " translating 

 Newton." And it is a fact worthy of the attention of 

 bachelor fellows, that young Clerk Maxwell thought it 

 worth while to attend the lectures of the Professor of 

 Mechanics 2 and to exchange ideas with him. 



For Electricity and Magnetism he took out Poisson 

 again, and presently began putting together more sys- 

 tematically his own ideas on Faraday's Lines of Force. 



His interest in coevals and juniors, which even in 

 his undergraduate days was often like that of an 



1 The MS. of a considerable part of this book is still extant. There 

 appears to have been sometimes a contest in his mind between the 

 claims of different subjects. " I will have nothing to do with optics," 

 he was heard once to exclaim. 2 Professor Willis. 



