AND MODEIIK PHYSICAL 15 



And again, speaking of his school-life : 



" But at school also he gradually made his way. He soon 

 discovered that Latin was worth learning, and the Greek 

 Delect its interested him when we got so far. And there were 

 two subjects in which he at once took the foremost place, 

 when he had a fair chance of doing so ; these were Scripture 

 1'iography ami English. In arithmetic as well as in Latin his 

 comparative want of readiness kept him down. 



"On the whole lie attained a measure of success which 

 heljied to secure for him a certain resjiect ; and, however 

 strange he sometimes seemed to his companions, he had three 

 Dualities which they could not fail to understand agile 

 strength of limb, imjierturbable courage, and profound good- 

 nature. Professor James Muirhead rememliers him as 4 a 

 friendly boy, though never quite amalgam iting with the rest.' 

 And another old class-fellow, the Rev. W. Macfarlane of 

 Lenzie, records the following as his impression : * Clerk 

 Maxwell, when he entered the Academy, was somewhat rustic 

 and somewhat eccentric. Hoys called him '* Daft y," and used 

 to try to make fun of him. On one occasion I remember he 

 turned with tremendous vigour, with a kind of demonic force, 

 on his tormentors. I think he was let alone after that, and 

 gradually won the respect even of the most thoughtless of his 

 schoolfellows.'" 



The first reference to mathematical studies occurs, 

 says Professor Campbell, in a letter to his father 

 written soon after his thirteenth birthday.* 



"After describing the Virginian Minstrels, and betwixt 

 inquiries after various pets at Olenlair, he remarks, as if it 

 were an ordinary piece of news, * I have made a tetrahedron, 

 a dodecahedron, and two other hedrons, whose names I don't 

 know. 1 We had not yet begun geometry, and he had certainly 

 not at this time learnt the definitions in Euclid ; yet he had 



* Life of J. C. Maxwell," p 56. 



