LITTLE niture and earn a man's wage," he said. Q In a month 

 JOURNEYS he had passed his first examinations and was made a 

 sizar. Before this he had been fag to everybody, but 

 now he was fag to the seniors only. He not only made 

 their beds and cleaned their rooms, but worked their 

 examples in mathematics, and thus commanded their 

 respect Jt, jt> 



Once in class, being called upon to recite from Euclid, 

 he declined and shocked the professor by saying, " It 

 is a trifling book I have mastered it and thrown it 

 aside." And it was no idle boast he knew the book as 

 the professor did not. When he arrived at Cambridge, 

 he carried in his box a copy of Sanderson's Logic pre- 

 sented to him by his uncle the uncle having no use 

 for it. It happened to be one of the text-books in use at 

 Trinity. When Isaac heard lectures on Sanderson he 

 found he knew the book a deal better than the tutor, a 

 thing the tutor shortly acknowledged before the class. 

 QThis caused young Mr. Newton to stand out as a 

 prodigy. Usually students have to rap for admittance 

 to the higher classes, but now the teachers came and 

 sought him out. One professor told him he was about 

 to take up Kepler's Optics, with some post-graduate 

 students would young Mr. Newton come in? Isaac 

 begged to be excused until he could examine the book. 

 The volume was loaned to him. He tore the vitals out 

 of it and digested them. When the lectures began he 

 declined to go because he had mastered the subject as 

 far as Kepler carried it. 



Genius seems to consist in the ability to concentrate 

 78 



