Page:Lectures on Ten British Physicists of the Nineteenth Century.djvu/14

 country with the help of a leaping pole, he navigated the duck pond in a wash tub, he rode a pony behind his father's phaeton, he explored the potholes and grooves in the stony bed of the mountain stream which flowed past the house. He studied the ways of cats and dogs; he watched the transformation of the tadpole into the frog, and he imitated the manner in which a frog jumps. But he attracted attention not so much as an incipient naturalist as a physicist. He had great work with doors, locks and keys, and his constant request was "Show me hoo it doos." He investigated the course of the water from the duckpond to the river, and the courses of the bell-wires from the pulls to the bells in the kitchen, "action at a distance" being no explanation to him. When a very small boy he found out how to reflect the sun into the room by means of a tinplate. He early acquired manual skill by making baskets, knitting elaborate designs and taking part in such other operations as went on around him, whether in the parlor, the kitchen, or on the farm.

Being an only child, young Maxwell made playmates of the children of the workmen on the farm, which had one bad effect; the Scottish dialect became such a native tongue that in after life he could not get rid of the brogue.

His early instruction in the elements of education was received from his mother. She taught him to read, stored his mind with Scripture knowledge, and trained him to look up through Nature to Nature's God. But she died from cancer at the early age of 48, and James was left when nine years old to the sole charge of his father. Education at home under a tutor was first tried, but the result was such that preparations were made to send him to the Edinburgh Academy, one of the best secondary schools of the Scottish metropolis. He entered the Academy in the middle of a term, and his reception by the other boys was not auspicious. His manners were not only rustic but eccentric; he had a hesitation in his speech, and he was clad more for comfort than for fashion. They were all dressed in round jacket and collar, the regulation dress for boys in the public schools of England; he came in a gray