Page:Lectures on Ten British Physicists of the Nineteenth Century.djvu/17

 and the latter gave him the special privilege of working with the apparatus used in the lectures on physics. There was then no well-appointed physical laboratory; any research made was conducted in the lecture room or the room for storing the lecture apparatus. But strange as it may seem, Maxwell appears to have done most work for the class of logic. Sir William Hamilton (that is, the Scottish baronet) was noted for his attack on mathematics as an educational discipline, but he was learned in scholastic logic and philosophy, and he had the power of inspiring his students. It was his custom to print on a board the names of the best students for the year in the order of merit; I recollect seeing on one board the name of James Clerk Maxwell, I think about sixth in the list. About this time George Boole published his Mathematical Analysis of Logic which found in Maxwell an appreciative reader. In his third year at the University, besides continuing his experiments in the physical department, he took Moral Philosophy under Professor Wilson, who wrote much under the name of Christopher North but whose lectures on moral science were characterized by Maxwell as vague harangues; also Chemistry in the department of Medicine, and there, as in Physics, he was privileged to make experiments. The academic session at Edinburgh is short—only six months; the long vacations he spent at Glenlair, where he fitted up a small laboratory in the garret of the former dwelling house. There he studied and experimented on the phenomena of light, electricity and elasticity. As the outcome of these researches he contributed two papers to the Royal Society of Edinburgh, which were printed in the Transactions; one on "The Theory of Rolling Curves," the other on "The Equilibrium of Elastic Solids." During his study at Edinburgh University, Maxwell made great use of the high-class works on mathematics and physics which were to be found in the University Library, acting unconsciously on the advice of his compatriot and subsequent neighbor—Thomas Carlyle.

In sending his son to Edinburgh University it was John Maxwell's intention to educate him for the legal profession