268. JAMES CLERK MAXWELL
direct interest in things released him from conventionality.
He designed the last for his own square-toed shoes and
chose the leather for their manufacture. He cut out his
own and his son's shirts, and drew the working-plans for the
outbuildings of his house with his own hand. James Clerk
Maxwell's biographer, Lewis Campbell, has remarked,
with much insight, that the effects of John Clerk Maxwell's
habits and characteristics are apparent in the construction
of the Cavendish Laboratory. He would not have been
incorrect if he had said that the effects of his habits and
characteristics are apparent in the history of British and of
human scientific culture. John Clerk Maxwell's interest
in the development of the technology created by capitalism
was an essential factor that helped James Clerk Maxwell
to reform the study of physical science in Cambridge, and
to adapt it to the needs of .the culture of the new governing
class of industrialists.
Before James was three years old the degree of his
curiosity was noted in letters-;,. In ,childhood he continually
asked "What's the go o' that?" and'if vaguely answered he
reiterated: "But what's the particular go of it?"
It is recorded that Maxwell's oldest recollection was of
lying on the grass before his father's house and looking at
the sun and wondering.
His cousin, Mrs. Blackburn, was a talented draughts-
woman and has left some delightful drawings of Maxwell
in his childhood. From the age of six he is frequently
depicted in intense observation or in making something.
He had a very powerful memory and knew the 11 gth Psalm
by heart when he was eight. From childhood he had a
minute knowledge of the Bible and of Milton's works.
His mother died apparently from cancer in her forty-eighth
year, when James was eight years old. His father now had to
manage his life and accomplished the delicate work with
wonderful understanding. It is interesting to note that the
two great Scottish physicists of the nineteenth century were
both motherless from their early childhood, and that their
rearing was done by their fathers. Educationists might
make an instructive study of the educational effectiveness