Early Life | James Clerk Maxwell | 1831-1879
In still earlier childhood, when he returned from walking with his nurse, she had generally a lapful of curiosities (sticks, pebbles, grasses, etc.) picked up upon the paths through the wood, which must be stored upon the kitchen dresser till his parents had told him all about each one. In particular, she remembers his interest in colours " that (sand) stone is red ; this (whin) stone is blue." " But how d'ye know it's blue?" he would insist. He would catch insects and watch their movements, but would never hurt them. His aunt, Miss Cay, used to confess that it was humiliating to be asked so many questions one could not answer " by a child like that."
But the child was not always observing, or asking questions. Ever and anon he was engaged in doing, or in making, which he liked better still. And here his inventiveness soon showed itself. He was not long contented with " tossing his hat about," or fishing with a stick and a string (as in an early picture of Miss Cay's) ; but whenever he saw anything that demanded constructive ingenuity in the performance, that forthwith took his fancy, and he must work at it. And in the doing it, it was ten to one but he must give it some new and unexpected turn, and enliven it with some quirk of fancy. At one time he is seated on the kitchen table, busily engaged in basket -making, in which all the domestics, probably at his command, are also employed. At another he is "making seals" with quaint devices, or improving upon his mother's knitting. For he must early have attained the skill, of which an elaborate example still exists, in " Mrs. Wedderburn's Abigail," which will be described in the next chapter, and was worked by him in his twelfth year.
Of his education in the narrower sense during this period little is known, except that his mother had the entire charge of it until her last illness in 1839, and that she encouraged him to " look up through Nature to Nature's God." She seems to have prided herself upon his wonderful memory, and it is said that at eight years old he could repeat the whole of the 119th Psalm. His knowledge of Scripture, from his earliest boyhood, was extraordinarily extensive and minute ; and he could give chapter and verse for almost any quotation from the Psalms. His knowledge of Milton also dates from very early times. These things were not known merely by rote. They occupied his imagination, and sank deeper than anybody knew.
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Biography and references at http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/history/Biographies/Maxwell.html