nothing can possibly be accomplished without system. System is certainly of manifold importance in washing dishes and making beds, and in the asylum kitchens the Gargantuan repasts which are served up every day are both cooked and distributed by system. By rigorous system the great building is kept spotlessly clean, and by system the work of each day is allotted and performed. Still, system is not everything, and where it is embraced as a gospel it has its elements of danger. A patient cannot be studied and cured according to a ⚫ formula. The moral as well as the physical needs of these most interesting human beings cannot be supplied according to a diagram. Sympathy is not systematic.

There is also danger of falling into the prison regimen. While it is perhaps easier to take care of patients as prisoners are cared for, it is a fatal mistake to turn the hospital for insane into a gaol.

On the other hand, the esprit de corps of a military camp might appear to some just about the proper thing. While an army of soldiers may thrive, however, as passive parts of a system of machinery, the best results are not gained in the case of the insane, by making the attendants non-commissioned officers and the patients private soldiers.

The main end is not to amuse and delight the idle spectator nor to astound visitors with novelties un

dreamed of. The gaol and the barracks idea are each preferable to the asylum where every step taken is for exhibition purposes. Fortunately there are few such institutions, and none in Ontario at all.

Nor must the patients for one moment be regarded as the deodands of science. They are all equally important and interesting, from the standpoint of humanity, however much more interest may be entertained for one by the physician, from the scientific standpoint, than for another. These institutions are not built exclusively for the convenience of enthusiastic and earnest specialists any more than for the delectation of the visiting public. All reasonable liberty should of course be allowed the alienist in making independent research, but mere fads of the moment, and it would seem to the reader of the current medical journals that no moment was without a fad of its own, should be discountenanced, however lauded by ardent professional men. Conservatism in medicine is very important in an age when the manufacturing pharmacist is filling the world with all kinds of drugs, and the more credulous physician is deluded into using them.

The recovery of recoverable patients, and the comfort of all, are the real criteria; and by these standards the Toronto asylum holds its present pre-eminent place among asylums for the insane.

THE death of a man when at the very zenith of his strength is always a cause of sorrow; but when the one who passes away has given evidence of supreme mental power exercised in pure devotion to the world's highest needs, the pain is very greatly enhanced. In the case of James Clerk Maxwell not only was all the above true, but besides, his personal character was the union of nobility and goodness.

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At the age of forty-two, in 1873, he published his great work on Electricity and Magnetism," and though there has been unexampled activity in the study and applications of electricity since that time, still that work is acknowledged as the top-notch standard. Oliver Lodge refers to it as "one of those immortal productions which exalt one's idea of the mind of man, and which has been mentioned by competent critics in the same breath as the Principia' itself." Indeed the rudiments of almost every advance since its publication can be found clearly outlined in the work, and it would therefore seem that its influence can hardly be overestimated.

Clerk Maxwell was born in Edinburgh, November 13, 1831. His grandfather was Captain James Clerk, of Penicuik, who had two sons. The elder, Sir George Clerk, succeeded to the estate at Penicuik, and to the younger, John, fell the estate of Middlebie, in Kirkcudbright. This had come into the family through marriage in a previous generation with Agnes Maxwell, and along with the estate John Clerk assumed the surname Maxwell. James was an only son, and his mother, whose maiden-name was Cay, died when he was eight years old. His father had been called to the Scottish bar, but never practised

as an advocate, preferring to retire to his house at Glenlair, near Dalbeattie, on his estate, where most of his time was occupied in taking care of his son.

The father was a somewhat eccentric man. He was warm-hearted and sincere, and had a peculiar interest in all kinds of manufactures. This practical turn he carried so far as to cut out the clothes for himself and his son, and as he cared rather for utility and comfort, they were not generally according to the prevailing fashions. They may have been well-fitting and sensible from many points of view, but being so different from his fellows the youth who wore them was subject to considerable school-boy sport which was painful to his sensitive nature.

Before he was three years old the boy began to show an active interest in all he saw. He would investigate the doors, locks, keys, etc., and was always asking, "Show me how it doos." To understand the bell-wires he would send a servant to the different rooms to ring while he stood in the kitchen, or he would drag his father about the house to show him the holes where the wires went through the walls. What's the go of that?" was his constant question, and to a vague answer he would say, "But what's the particular go of it?" His father took especial delight in explaining the mechanisms to the boy, and this he continued until the scholar became the teacher and explained more fully to the devoted father the construction of the universe.

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The father was very fond of a day's shooting, but the son was exceptionally solicitous for the life of every living thing. He had no horror of any creature. He would play with the frogs and tadpoles,

He would pick up a young frog, handle him gently, listen for his low squeak, then put him into his mouth and let him jump out again. One of his favourite sports was to paddle about a small pond or on the river in a large tub which he managed with considerable skill.

When the boy was eight or nine years old a tutor was engaged, but the experiment was not a great success. The scholar was reported slow, but it was soon discovered that the teacher was somewhat rough. James did not like to be driven, though he would not complain. It is suspected that the harsh treatment he received was partially responsible for a certain hesitation and indirectness of speech from which Maxwell never entirely recovered.

In 1841, he was sent to the Edinburgh Academy, where, in 1845, he gained the medal in geometry, and in 1847 the medal in mathematics. In this latter year he became a student at Edinburgh University, and for three years he pursued his studies very much as he pleased, not taking the regular course but working in the chemical and physical laboratories without superintendence or assistance.

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Before Maxwell was fifteen years old his father had shown Professor Kelland a paper which the son had prepared "On the Description of Oval Curves." This was presented to the Royal Society of Edinburgh and printed in the proceedings for 1846. While at the university young Maxwell presented two more papers, On the Theory of Rolling Curves," and "On the Equilibrium of Elastic Solids," both requiring considerable mathematical skill. The last paper, however, was the outcome of some experimenting. In 1848 he paid a visit to the optician Nicol, the inventor of the "Nicol prism," who showed him some beautiful coloured effects produced by unannealed glass when placed in

polarized light. This seems to have started Maxwell in his optical researches. On returning home he made a polariscope with glass reflectors, prepared some of the unannealed glass and then sketched in water-colours some of the beautiful effects. These sketches he sent to Nicol, who was greatly pleased and presented the boy with a pair of very excellent prisms of his own manufacture. These were always highly prized, and about three weeks before the owner's death were deposited in a show-case in the Cavendish laboratory.

In October, 1850, Maxwell went to Cambridge, entering as an undergraduate at Peterhouse. His first term was not very happy. His fellows at Peterhouse were all devoted to classics or pure mathematics, and he received little sympathy in his physical work. So in December he migrated to Trinity, where he found many congenial spirits and was looked up to as their leader by a band of his admirers. In 1852, while still an undergraduate, he stayed a few weeks with Rev. C. B. Taylor, the brother of a college friend. While there he was taken with a serious illness, and the great care and kindness with which he was nursed was always a bright spot in his memory, and was an important factor in the formation of his noble Christian character.

In 1854 he graduated as second wrangler, the first being Dr. Routh of Peterhouse, but the two of them were tied for the Smith prize. While at Trinity many things showed his odd independence. At one time he took his exercise for half an hour, from 2 a.m., by running along the corridors and up and down stairs, and very often he received volleys of boots, brushes, etc., in so doing. At this time he is described as slightly above the average in stature, with a weighty forehead. His hair and incipient beard were raven black, his eyes of a

very dark brown and his dress exceedingly simple and natural.

In 1855, Maxwell was elected a fellow of Trinity and put on the staff of lecturers, and in the next year he became Professor of Natural Philosophy in Marischal College, Aberdeen. Here he taught for three seasons, until, in 1860, Marischal and King's colleges were amalgamated to form the University of St. Andrews. Almost immediately afterwards he succeeded Professor Goodeve in the chair of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy in King's College, London. After the death of his father he retired, in 1865, to his estate at Glenlair, and here he remained until 1871, when he was asked to become the first Cavendish Professor of Experimental Physics at Cambridge. The Duke of Devonshire, then chancellor, had offered to build and equip a laboratory, and on Maxwell's acceptance of the position offered him, it became his duty to superintend the construction of the building, and he remained there until his death in 1879. During these eight years Maxwell's influence was very strongly felt at Cambridge. Indeed there was a genuine revival of physical science, and in nearly every phase of it Maxwell's hand is plainly seen.

It

As a teacher it cannot be said Maxwell was a great success. seemed impossible for him to distinguish between the easy and the hard, and the very quickness of his imagination was a hindrance. The advice he suggested to a friend preaching to an ordinary congregation that he "give it to them thinner" would have been very applicable to his own case. It has been remarked that "between his students' ignorance and his vast knowledge it was hard to find a common measure." But when, as at Cambridge, his class consisted of a picked few who were able to appreciate his instruction, the admiration of these his true disciples was

akin to worship. I might mention the names of other eminent scientists, certainly not good popular lecturers, and yet honoured by almost every learned society in the world.

I have noted above Maxwell's earliest contributions to science; his others are so many in number that it will be unwise to mention them in detail. In 1857, he obtained the Adams prize (instituted in honour of the discovery of the planet Neptune), the subject of his essay being, "The Motion of Saturn's Rings." He proved mathematically that the rings cannot be either solid or liquid, but must consist of numerous small bodies revolving about the planet, those nearest the body having the greatest velocity. Ever since the publication of this paper in 1859, this hypothesis has been accepted, but only during the present year has this conclusion been directly demonstrated. On April 9th and 10th, 1895, Professor J. E. Keeler, of the Allegheny Observatory (near Pittsburg, Pa.,) took two spectroscopic photographs, which, when examined with his remarkable skill, showed clearly that Maxwell's views were entirely correct.

Another of the great studies of Maxwell's life was that on the kinetic theory of gases. According to this theory a gas consists of a myriad of small bodies, the pressure produced by it being due to the continuous impact of these gaseous molecules on the containing vessel. The beginnings of the theory can be traced back more than a hundred years, but little progress was made in it until about the middle of the present century. Maxwell made numerous experiments and calculations, and must be regarded as one of the greatest champions of the theory.

In 1873, Maxwell delivered before the British Association at Bradford his famous "Discourse on Molecules," which has been oftener quoted than any other of his writings. He con

tended that the spectroscope shows that the most distant worlds, between which no material thing could pass, are built up of molecules of the same kind as those we find on the earth. The absolute uniformity possessed by these minute bodies cannot be accounted for by a process of evolution. He concludes as follows: "They continue this day as they were created-perfect in number and measure and weight; and from the ineffaceable characters impressed on them we may learn that those aspirations after accuracy in measurement, and justice in action, which we reckon among our noblest attributes as men, are ours because they are essential constituents of Him who in the beginning created, not only the heaven and the earth, but the materials of which heaven and earth consist."

Heat," which is

The treatise on 66 one of a series of text-books "adapted for the use of artisans," is well known. Much of it is not difficult to follow, but in some places very close thinking is required.

But it was in the domain of electricity and magnetism that Maxwell did his greatest work. As early as 1855 he had prepared an important paper on "Faraday's Lines of Force," and in 1864 he read before the Royal Society his "Dynamical Theory of the Electro-Magnetic Field." In 1873 appeared his great treatise on the subject. Before starting out to prepare it he had most carefully read Faraday's "Experimental Researches in Electricity," and he says he aimed simply to translate Faraday's ideas into mathematical language. The distinguishing feature of the methods of these two men is the attention they give to the space about an electrified body rather than to the body itself. The actions take place across this medium, and so they studied the medium, not the conductor alone. Maxwell's confidence in Faraday's experiments was not misplaced. In

recent years almost every research has tended to confirm their views. Maxwell believed that electro-magnetic action is transmitted through a medium just as light is; indeed he believed the light vibrations have their origin in electric disturbances. As early as January, 1865, in a letter he says, "I have also a paper afloat, with an electromagnetic theory of light, which, till I am convinced to the contrary, I hold to be great guns."

Within the last half-dozen years most remarkable confirmations of these theories have been obtained. Hertz, a young German professor who died on the first day of 1894 in his thirty-seventh year, devised methods for detecting these electromagnetic waves, and directly measured their velocity, which he found very close to that of light. At the present day the prominent names in electrical theory are Faraday, Maxwell and Hertz. The first made the fundamental experiments, the second outlined the theory and the third verified it.

Maxwell was married in 1858 to Katherine Dewar, daughter of the principal of Marischal College. She entered sympathetically into his projects, and he gave her a life-long devotion. When away from home he wrote to her almost every day, with comments on portions of Scripture which he knew she would be reading at that time. Until 1877 Maxwell's health was very good, but in the spring of that year he was troubled with some dyspeptic symptoms. Nothing was said about it for a couple of years and by that time the ailment had clearly told on his constitution. In June, 1879, he went as usual to Glenlair, but made little improvement. In October, he returned to Cambridge, where it was hoped skilful treatment would restore him, but he gradually failed.

Until the very last his intellect was clear and active, and when he was too weak to dwell on scientific