A HISTORY OF SCIENCE 



ing kites that would fly, Newton at least so the stories 

 of a later time would have us understand cared more 

 for the investigation of the seeming principles involved, 

 or for testing the best methods of attaching the strings, 

 or the best materials to be used in construction. 



Meanwhile the future philosopher was acquiring a 

 taste for reading and study, delving into old volumes 

 whenever he found an opportunity. These habits 

 convinced his relatives that it was useless to attempt 

 to make a farmer of the youth, as had been their in- 

 tention. He was therefore sent back to school, and in 

 the summer of 1661 he matriculated at Trinity College, 

 Cambridge. Even at college Newton seems to have 

 shown no unusual mental capacity, and in 1664, when 

 examined for a scholarship by Dr. Barrow, that gen- 

 tleman is said to have formed a poor opinion of the 

 applicant. It is said that the knowledge of the esti- 

 mate placed upon his abilities by his instructor piqued 

 Newton, and led him to take up in earnest the mathe- 

 matical studies in which he afterwards attained such 

 distinction. The study of Euclid and Descartes's " Ge- 

 ometry " roused in him a latent interest in mathemat- 

 ics, and from that time forward his investigations were 

 carried on with enthusiasm. In 1667 he was elected 

 Fellow of Trinity College, taking the degree of M.A. the 

 following spring. 



It will thus appear that Newton's boyhood and 

 early manhood were passed during that troublous 

 time in British political annals which saw the over- 

 throw of Charles I., the autocracy of Cromwell, and the 

 eventual restoration of the Stuarts. His maturer 

 years witnessed the overthrow of the last Stuart and 



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