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Old Friends at Cambridge and Elsewhere. John Willis Clark
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isbn 4064066152635
Автор произведения John Willis Clark
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In after years Whewell spoke of the good training he had received in arithmetic, geometry, and mensuration from Mr. Rowley; but it is believed that his recollections of his first school were not wholly agreeable; and probably he was not sorry when he was removed to the grammar school at Heversham, in Westmoreland. This took place in 1810. The reason for it was that he might compete for an exhibition of 50l. per annum, at Trinity College, which he was so fortunate as to obtain. At his second school he paid great attention to classical studies, and practised versification in Greek and Latin.
In October 1812 he commenced residence at Trinity College as a sub-sizar. His first University distinction was the Chancellor’s gold medal for English Verse, the subject being ‘Boadicea.’ In after years he was fond of expressing the theory that ‘a prize-poem should be a prize-poem’: by which he probably meant that the subject should be treated in a conventional fashion, with no eccentric innovations of style or metre. It must be admitted that his own work conformed exactly to this standard. The poem was welcomed with profound admiration in the family circle at home; but his old master took a different view of the question. Professor Owen relates that Mr. Rowley called one day at his mother’s house, and began as follows:
‘ “I’ve sad news for you, Mrs. Owen, to-day. I’ve just had a letter from Cambridge; that boy Whewell has ruined himself, he’ll never get his Wranglership now!” “Why, good gracious, Mr. Rowley, what has Whewell been doing?” “Why, he has gone and got the Chancellor’s gold medal for some trumpery poem, ‘Boadicea,’ or something of that kind, when he ought to have been sticking to his mathematics. I give him up now. Taking after his poor mother, I suppose.” ’
The letters which he wrote home give us some pleasant glimpses of his College life, which he evidently thoroughly enjoyed. For the first time in his life he had access to a good library—that of Trinity College—and he speaks of ‘an inconceivable desire to read all manner of books at once,’ adding that at that very moment there were two folios and six quartos of different works upon his table. The success which he afterwards achieved is a proof that he entered heartily into the studies of the place; and among his friends were men who were studious then, and afterwards became eminent. Among these we may mention Mr, afterwards Sir John, Herschel, Mr. Richard Jones, Mr. Julius Charles Hare, and Mr. Charles Babbage. A correspondent of his, writing so late as 1841, recalls the ‘Sunday morning philosophical breakfasts,’ at which they used to meet in 1815; and there are indications in the letters of similar feasts of reason and flows of soul. It must, on the other hand, be admitted that a few indications of an opposite character may be produced. He admits, in a half-bantering, half-serious way, that he had laid himself open to the charge of idleness; and he describes the diversions of himself and his friends during the long vacation of 1815 as ‘dancing at country fairs, playing billiards, tuning beakers into musical glasses,’ and the like. It need be no matter of surprise that a young man of high spirits and strong bodily frame, brought up in the seclusion of Lancashire, should have taken the fullest advantage of the first opportunity which presented itself of appreciating the lighter and brighter side of existence. This, however, was all. Whewell knew perfectly well where to stop. No scandal ever attached itself to his name; and he ‘wore the white flower of a blameless life’ through a period when the customs prevalent in the University were such as are more honoured in the breach than in the observance.
He proceeded to the degree of Bachelor of Arts in 1816, when he was second Wrangler and second Smith’s Prize-man. On both occasions he was beaten by a Mr. Jacob, of Caius College, who was his junior by two years. It is a Cambridge tradition that Mr. Jacob’s success was a surprise to everybody, for he had intentionally affected to be an idle man, and showed himself on most days riding out in hunting costume, the truth being that he kept his books at a farm-house, where he pursued his studies in secrecy and quiet. He was a young man of the greatest promise; and it was expected that he would achieve a conspicuous success at the Bar. But his lungs were affected, and he died of consumption at an early age. As Mr. Todhunter remarks, his fame rests mainly on the fact that he twice outstripped so formidable a competitor as the future Master of Trinity. Whewell mentions him as ‘a very pleasant as well as a very clever man,’ and adds, ‘I had as soon be beaten by him as by anybody else.’
The labours of reading for the degree over, Whewell had leisure to turn his studies in any direction whither his fancy led him. No doubt he fully appreciated the, to him, unusual position, for he tells his sister that few people could be ‘more tranquilly happy than your brother, in his green plaid dressing-gown, blue morocco slippers, and with a large book before him.’ The time had come, however, when he was to experience the first of the inevitable inconveniences of a College life. Two of his most intimate friends, Herschel and Jones, left Cambridge, and he bitterly deplores their loss. Indeed it probably needed all the attachment to the place, which he proclaims in the same letter, to prevent his following their example. He appears at one time to have thought seriously of going to the Bar. He began, however, to take pupils: an occupation which becomes a singularly absorbing one, especially when the tutor takes the interest in them which apparently he did. One of those with whom he spent the summer of 1818, in Wales, Mr. Kenelm Digby, afterwards author of the Broadstone of Honour, who admits that he was so idle that his tutor would take no remuneration from him, has recorded that—
‘I had reason to regard Whewell as one of the most generous, open-hearted, disinterested, and noble-minded men that I ever knew. I remember circumstances that called for the exercise of each of those rare qualities, when they were met in a way that would now seem incredible, so fast does the world seem moving away from all ancient standards of goodness and moral grandeur.’
This testimony is important, if only for comparison with the far different feelings with which his more official pupils regarded him in after years. In these occupations he spent the two years succeeding his degree; for the amount of special work done for the Fellowship Examination was probably not great. He was elected Fellow in October 1817; and in the summer of the following year was made one of the assistant-tutors. With this appointment the first part of his University career ends, and the second begins.
His connexion with the educational staff of Trinity College, first as assistant-tutor, then as sole tutor, lasted for just twenty years. These were the most occupied of his busy life; and in justification of what we said at the outset of the multifarious nature of his occupations, we proceed to give a rapid chronological sketch of them. His career as an author began, in 1819, with an Elementary Treatise on Mechanics. It went through seven editions, in each of which, as Mr. Todhunter says, ‘the subject was revolutionized rather than modified; and the preface to each expounded with characteristic energy the paramount merits of the last constitution framed.’ The value of the work was greatly impaired by these proceedings, for an author can hardly expect to retain the unwavering confidence of his readers while his own opinions are in constant fluctuation. In 1820 he was Moderator, and travelled abroad for the first time. In 1821 he was working at geology seriously, and took a geological tour in the Isle of Wight with Sedgwick, who had been made Woodwardian Professor three years before. Later in the year he explored the Lake Country, and was introduced to Mr. Wordsworth. Their acquaintance subsequently ripened into a friendship, which appears in numerous letters, and notably in the dedication prefixed to the Elements of Morality. A Treatise on Dynamics was published in 1823, which was treated in much the same fashion as its fellow on Mechanics. The summer vacation was spent in a visit to Paris for the first time, and an architectural tour in Normandy with Mr. Kenelm Digby. In 1824 he took a prominent part in the resistance to the Heads of Colleges in their attempt to nominate to the Professorship of Mineralogy; and later in the year he went again to Cumberland with Sedgwick, ‘rambling about the country, and examining the strata’; visiting Southey and Wordsworth; and, in the intervals of geology, seeing cathedrals and churches. In 1825, as the chair of Mineralogy was about to be vacated by Professor Henslow, promoted to that of Botany, Whewell announced himself a candidate; and by way of preparation spent three