Chapter II: Undergraduate Life at Cambridge

Maxwell did not remain long at Peterhouse; before the end of his first term he migrated to Trinity, and was entered under Dr. Thompson December 14th, 1850. He appeared to the tutor a shy and diffident youth, but presently surprised Dr. Thompson by producing a bundle of papers--copies, probably, of those he had already published--and remarking, “Perhaps these may show that I am not unfit to enter at your College.”

The change was pressed upon him by many friends, the grounds of the advice being that, from the large number of high wranglers recently at Peterhouse and the smallness of the foundation, the chances of a Fellowship there for a mathematical man were less than at Trinity. It was a step he never regretted; the prospect of a Fellowship had but little influence on his mind. He found, however, at the larger college ampler opportunities for self-improvement, and it was possible for him to select his friends from among men whom he otherwise would never have known.

The record of his undergraduate life is not very full; his letters to his father have, unfortunately, been lost, but we have enough in the recollections of friends still living to picture what it was like. At first he lodged in King’s Parade with an old Edinburgh schoolfellow, C. H. Robertson. He attended the College lectures on mathematics, though they were somewhat elementary, and worked as a private pupil with Porter, of Peterhouse. His father writes to him, November, 1850: “Have you called on Professors Sedgwick, at Trin., and Stokes, at Pembroke? If not, you should do both. Stokes will be most in your line, if he takes you in hand at all. Sedgwick is also a great Don in his line, and, if you were entered in geology, would be a most valuable acquaintance.”

In his second year he became a pupil of Hopkins, the great coach; he also attended Stokes’ lectures, and the friendship which lasted till his death was thus begun. In April, 1852, he was elected a scholar, and obtained rooms in College (G, Old Court). In June, 1852, he came of age. “I trust you will be as discreet when major as you have been while minor,” writes his father the day before. The next academic year, October, 1852, to June, 1853, was a very busy one; hard grind for the Tripos occupied his time, and he seems to have been thoroughly overstrained. He was taken ill while staying near Lowestoft with the Rev. C. B. Tayler, the uncle of a College friend. His own account of the illness is given in a letter to Professor Campbell[13], dated July 14th, 1853.

“You wrote just in time for your letter to reach me as I
reached Cambridge. After examination, I went to visit the
Rev. C. B. Tayler (uncle to a Tayler whom I think you have
seen under the name of _Freshman_, etc., and author of many
tracts and other didactic works). We had little expedites and
walks, and things parochial and educational, and domesticity.
I intended to return on the 18th June, but on the 17th I felt
unwell, and took measures accordingly to be well again--_i.e._
went to bed, and made up my mind to recover. But it lasted more
than a fortnight, during which time I was taken care of beyond
expectation (not that I did not expect much before). When I
was perfectly useless and could not sit up without fainting,
Mr. Tayler did everything for me in such a way that I had no
fear of giving trouble. So did Mrs. Tayler; and the two nephews
did all they could. So they kept me in great happiness all the
time, and detained me till I was able to walk about and got
back strength. I returned on the 4th July.

“The consequence of all this is that I correspond with Mr.
Tayler, and have entered into bonds with the nephews, of all of
whom more hereafter. Since I came here I have been attending
Hop., but, with his approval, did not begin full swing. I
am getting on, though, and the work is not grinding on the
prepared brain.”

During this period he wrote some papers for the _Cambridge and Dublin Mathematical Journal_ which will be referred to again later. He was also a member of a discussion society known as the “Apostles,” and some of the essays contributed by him are preserved by Professor Campbell. Mr. Niven, in his preface to the collected edition of Maxwell’s works, suggests that the composition of these essays laid the foundation of that literary finish which is one of the characteristics of Maxwell’s scientific writings.

Among his friends at the time were Tait, Charles Mackenzie of Caius, the missionary bishop of Central Africa, Henry and Frank Mackenzie of Trinity, Droop, third Wrangler in 1854; Gedge, Isaac Taylor, Blakiston, F. W. Farrar,[14] H. M. Butler,[15] Hort, V. Lushington, Cecil Munro, G. W. H. Tayler, and W. N. Lawson. Some of these who survived him have given to Professor Campbell their recollections of these undergraduate days, which are full of interest.

Thus Mr. Lawson writes[16]:--

“There must be many of his quaint verses about, if one could
lay hands on them, for Maxwell was constantly producing
something of the sort and bringing it round to his friends,
with a sly chuckle at the humour, which, though his own, no one
enjoyed more than himself.

“I remember Maxwell coming to me one morning with a copy of
verses beginning, ‘Gin a body meet a body going through the
air,’ in which he had twisted the well-known song into a
description of the laws of impact of solid bodies.

“There was also a description which Maxwell wrote of some
University ceremony--I forget what--in which somebody ‘went
before’ and somebody ‘followed after,’ and ‘in the midst were
the wranglers, playing with the symbols.’

“These last words, however meant, were, in fact, a description
of his own wonderful power. I remember, one day in lecture,
our lecturer had filled the black-board three times with
the investigation of some hard problem in Geometry of Three
Dimensions, and was not at the end of it, when Maxwell came up
with a question whether it would not come out geometrically,
and showed how, with a figure, and in a few lines, there was
the solution at once.

“Maxwell was, I daresay you remember, very fond of a talk upon
almost anything. He and I were pupils (at an enormous distance
apart) of Hopkins, and I well recollect how, when I had been
working the night before and all the morning at Hopkins’s
problems, with little or no result, Maxwell would come in for a
gossip, and talk on while I was wishing him far away, till at
last, about half an hour or so before our meeting at Hopkins’s,
he would say, ‘Well, I must go to old Hop.’s problems’; and, by
the time we met there, they were all done.

“I remember Hopkins telling me, when speaking of Maxwell,
either just before or just after his degree, ‘It is not
possible for that man to think incorrectly on physical
subjects’; and Hopkins, as you know, had had, perhaps, more
experience of mathematical minds than any man of his time.”

The last clause is part of a quotation from a diary kept by Mr. Lawson at Cambridge, in which, under the date July 15th, 1853, he writes:--

“He (Hopkins) was talking to me this evening about Maxwell.
He says he is unquestionably the most extraordinary man he
has met with in the whole range of his experience; he says
it appears impossible for Maxwell to think incorrectly on
physical subjects; that in his analysis, however, he is far
more deficient. He looks upon him as a great genius with all
its eccentricities, and prophesies that one day he will shine
as a light in physical science--a prophecy in which all his
fellow-students strenuously unite.”

How many who have struggled through the “Electricity and Magnetism” have realised the truth of the remark about the correctness of his physical intuitions and the deficiency at times of his analysis!

Dr. Butler, a friend of these early days, preached the University sermon on November 16th, 1879, ten days after Maxwell’s death, and spoke thus:--

“It is a solemn thing--even the least thoughtful is touched
by it--when a great intellect passes away into the silence
and we see it no more. Such a loss, such a void, is present,
I feel certain, to many here to-day. It is not often, even
in this great home of thought and knowledge, that so bright
a light is extinguished as that which is now mourned by many
illustrious mourners, here chiefly, but also far beyond this
place. I shall be believed when I say in all simplicity that I
wish it had fallen to some more competent tongue to put into
words those feelings of reverent affection which are, I am
persuaded, uppermost in many hearts on this Sunday. My poor
words shall be few, but believe me they come from the heart.
You know, brethren, with what an eager pride we follow the
fortunes of those whom we have loved and reverenced in our
undergraduate days. We may see them but seldom, few letters may
pass between us, but their names are never common names. They
never become to us only what other men are. When I came up to
Trinity twenty-eight years ago, James Clerk Maxwell was just
beginning his second year. His position among us--I speak in
the presence of many who remember that time--was unique. He was
the one acknowledged man of genius among the undergraduates. We
understood even then that, though barely of age, he was in his
own line of inquiry not a beginner but a master. His name was
already a familiar name to men of science. If he lived, it was
certain that he was one of that small but sacred band to whom
it would be given to enlarge the bounds of human knowledge.
It was a position which might have turned the head of a
smaller man; but the friend of whom we were all so proud, and
who seemed, as it were, to link us thus early with the great
outside world of the pioneers of knowledge, had one of those
rich and lavish natures which no prosperity can impoverish,
and which make faith in goodness easy for others. I have often
thought that those who never knew the grand old Adam Sedgwick
and the then young and ever-youthful Clerk Maxwell had yet to
learn the largeness and fulness of the moulds in which some
choice natures are framed. Of the scientific greatness of our
friend we were most of us unable to judge; but anyone could
see and admire the boy-like glee, the joyous invention, the
wide reading, the eager thirst for truth, the subtle thought,
the perfect temper, the unfailing reverence, the singular
absence of any taint of the breath of worldliness in any of its
thousand forms.

“Brethren, you may know such men now among your college
friends, though there can be but few in any year, or indeed in
any century, that possess the rare genius of the man whom we
deplore. If it be so, then, if you will accept the counsel of
a stranger, thank God for His gift. Believe me when I tell you
that few such blessings will come to you in later life. There
are blessings that come once in a lifetime. One of these is the
reverence with which we look up to greatness and goodness in
a college friend--above us, beyond us, far out of our mental
or moral grasp, but still one of us, near to us, our own. You
know, in part at least, how in this case the promise of youth
was more than fulfilled, and how the man who, but a fortnight
ago, was the ornament of the University, and--shall I be
wrong in saying it?--almost the discoverer of a new world of
knowledge, was even more loved than he was admired, retaining
after twenty years of fame that mirth, that simplicity, that
child-like delight in all that is fresh and wonderful which we
rejoice to think of as some of the surest accompaniment of true
scientific genius.

“You know, also, that he was a devout as well as thoughtful
Christian. I do not note this in the triumphant spirit of a
controversialist. I will not for a moment assume that there is
any natural opposition between scientific genius and simple
Christian faith. I will not compare him with others who have
had the genius without the faith. Christianity, though she
thankfully welcomes and deeply prizes them, does not need
now, any more than when St. Paul first preached the Cross at
Corinth, the speculations of the subtle or the wisdom of the
wise. If I wished to show men, especially young men, the living
force of the Gospel, I would take them not so much to a learned
and devout Christian man to whom all stores of knowledge were
familiar, but to some country village where for fifty years
there had been devout traditions and devout practice. There
they would see the Gospel lived out; truths, which other men
spoke of, seen and known; a spirit not of this world, visibly,
hourly present; citizenship in heaven daily assumed and daily
realised. Such characters I believe to be the most convincing
preachers to those who ask whether Revelation is a fable
and God an unknowable. Yes, in most cases--not, I admit, in
all--simple faith, even peradventure more than devout genius,
is mighty for removing doubts and implanting fresh conviction.
But having said this, we may well give thanks to God that our
friend was what he was, a firm Christian believer, and that his
powerful mind, after ranging at will through the illimitable
spaces of Creation and almost handling what he called ‘the
foundation-stones of the material universe,’ found its true
rest and happiness in the love and the mercy of Him whom the
humblest Christian calls his Father. Of such a man it may be
truly said that he had his citizenship in heaven, and that he
looked for, as a Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ, through whom
the unnumbered worlds were made, and in the likeness of whose
image our new and spiritual body will be fashioned.”

The Tripos came in January, 1854. “You will need to get muffetees for the Senate Room. Take your plaid or rug to wrap round your feet and legs,” was his father’s advice--advice which will appeal to many who can remember the Senate House as it felt on a cold January morning.

Maxwell had been preparing carefully for this examination. Thus to his aunt, Miss Cay, in June, 1853, he writes:--“If anyone asks how I am getting on in mathematics, say that I am busy arranging everything so as to be able to express all distinctly, so that examiner may be satisfied now and pupils edified hereafter. It is pleasant work and very strengthening, but not nearly finished.”

Still, the illness of July, 1853, had left some effect. Professor Baynes states that he said that on entering the Senate House for the first paper he felt his mind almost a blank, but by-and-by his mental vision became preternaturally clear.

The moderators were Mackenzie of Caius, whose advice had been mainly instrumental in leading him to migrate to Trinity, Wm. Walton of Trinity, Wolstenholme of Christ’s, and Percival Frost of St. John’s.

When the lists were published, Routh of Peterhouse was senior, Maxwell second. The examination for the Smith’s Prizes followed in a few days, and then Routh and Maxwell were declared equal.

In a letter to Miss Cay[17] of January 13th, while waiting for the three days’ list, he writes:--

“All my correspondents have been writing to me, which is kind,
and have not been writing questions, which is kinder. So I
answer you now, while I am slacking speed to get up steam,
leaving Lewis and Stewart, etc., till next week, when I will
give an account of the _five days_. There are a good many up
here at present, and we get on very jolly on the whole; but
some are not well, and some are going to be plucked or gulphed,
as the case may be, and others are reading so hard that they
are invisible. I go to-morrow to breakfast with shaky men, and
after food I am to go and hear the list read out, and whether
they are through, and bring them word. When the honour list
comes out the poll men act as messengers. Bob Campbell comes
in occasionally of an evening now, to discuss matters and vary
sports. During examination I have had men at night working with
gutta-percha, magnets, etc. It is much better than reading
novels or talking after 5½ hours’ hard writing.”

His father, on hearing the news, wrote from Edinburgh:--

“I heartily congratulate you on your place in the list. I
suppose it is higher than the speculators would have guessed,
and quite as high as Hopkins reckoned on. I wish you success
in the Smith’s Prizes; be sure to write me the result. I will
see Mrs. Morrieson, and I think I will call on Dr. Gloag to
congratulate him. He has at least three pupils gaining honours.”

His friends in Edinburgh were greatly pleased. “I get congratulations on all hands,” his father writes,[18] “including Professor Kelland and Sandy Fraser and all others competent.... To-night or on Monday I shall expect to hear of the Smith’s Prizes.” And again, February 6th, 1854:--“George Wedderburn came into my room at 2 a.m. yesterday morning, having seen the Saturday _Times_, received by the express train.... As you are equal to the Senior in the champion trial, you are very little behind him.”

Or again, March 5th, 1854:--

“Aunt Jane stirred me up to sit for my picture, as she said you
wished for it and were entitled to ask for it _qua_ Wrangler. I
have had four sittings to Sir John Watson Gordon, and it is now
far advanced; I think it is very like. It is kitcat size, to be
a companion to Dyce’s picture of your mother and self, which
Aunt Jane says she is to leave to you.”

And now the long years of preparation were nearly over. The cunning craftsman was fitted with his tools; he could set to work to unlock the secrets of Nature; he was free to employ his genius and his knowledge on those tasks for which he felt most fitted.