AND MODEIW PHYSICS. 43 



lectual matters when friends of tbe intellectual kind are 

 scarce. However, there are plenty friends not intellectual 

 who servo to bring out the active and practical habits of mind, 

 which overly- intellectual people seldom do. Wherefore, if I 

 am to be up this term, I intend to addict myself rather to the 

 working men who are getting up classes than to pup?., who 

 are in the main a vexation. Meanwhile, there is the examina- 

 tion to consider. 



4i You say Dr. Wilson has sent h'u book. I will write and 

 thank him. I suppose it U about colour-blindness. I intend 

 to begin Poi&son'd papers on electricity and magnetism to- 

 morrow. I have got them out of the library. My reading 

 hitherto has been of novels -' Shirley ' and 'The Newcomer, 1 

 and now 'Westward Ho. 1 



" Macmijlan proposes to get up a book of optics with my 

 assistance, and I feel inclined for the job. There is groat 

 bother in making a mathematical book, especially on a subject 

 with which you are familiar, for in correcting it you do as you 

 would to pups. look if the principle and result is right, and 

 forget to look out for small errors in the course of the work. 

 However, 1 expect the work will bo salutary, as involving 

 hard work, and in the end much abuse from coaches and 

 students, and certainly no vain fame, except in Macmillan's 

 puffs. Hut, if I have rightly conceived the plan of an 

 educational book on optics, it will be very different in manner, 

 though not in matter, from those now used." 



The examination referred to was that for a 

 Fellowship at Trinity, and Maxwell was elected on 

 October 10th, 1855. 



Ho was immediately asked to lecture for the 

 College, ort hydrostatics and optics, to the upper 

 division of the third year, and to set papers for the 

 questionists. In consequence, he declined to take 

 pupils, in order to have time for reading and doing 

 private mathematics, and for seeing the men who 

 attended his lectures. 



