Page:Lectures on Ten British Physicists of the Nineteenth Century.djvu/29



In these verses we have a description by Rankine of the scenes and pastimes in which he spent his earliest years. Carrick borders on Galloway, and there, ten years later, Clerk-Maxwell grew up in a similar environment. After some preliminary education at home he was sent when eight years of age, to the public school; first to the Academy of the neighboring town of Ayr, afterward to the High School of the City of Glasgow. But his health broke down, and he was restricted for some years to private instruction at his home now in Edinburgh. To his father he was indebted for superior instruction in arithmetic, elementary mathematics, mechanics and physics. When 14 years of age he received from his mother's brother a present, which had a powerful effect on his subsequent career—a copy of Newton's Principia. To his private study of that book and of other books of the like order, he was indebted for his skill in the higher mathematics. While his education proceeded at home, he received instruction in the composition and playing of music, which enabled him in after years to compose the tunes for his own songs.