In 1645, Mrs. Newton took as a second husband the Rev. Barnabas
Smith, and on moving to her new home, about a mile from Woolsthorpe,
she entrusted little Isaac to her mother, Mrs. Ayscough. In due
time we find that the boy was sent to the public school at Grantham,
the name of the master being Stokes. For the purpose of being near
his work, the embryo philosopher was boarded at the house of Mr.
Clark, an apothecary at Grantham. We learn from Newton himself that
at first he had a very low place in the class lists of the school,
and was by no means one of those model school-boys who find favour in
the eyes of the school-master by attention to Latin grammar. Isaac's
first incentive to diligent study seems to have been derived from the
circumstance that he was severely kicked by one of the boys who was
above him in the class. This indignity had the effect of stimulating
young Newton's activity to such an extent that he not only attained
the desired object of passing over the head of the boy who had
maltreated him, but continued to rise until he became the head of the
school.
The play-hours of the great philosopher were devoted to pursuits very
different from those of most school-boys. His chief amusement was
found in making mechanical toys and various ingenious contrivances.
He watched day by day with great interest the workmen engaged in
constructing a windmill in the neighbourhood of the school, the
result of which was that the boy made a working model of the windmill
and of its machinery, which seems to have been much admired, as
indicating his aptitude for mechanics. We are told that Isaac also
indulged in somewhat higher flights of mechanical enterprise. He
constructed a carriage, the wheels of which were to be driven by the
hands of the occupant, while the first philosophical instrument he
made was a clock, which was actuated by water. He also devoted much
attention to the construction of paper kites, and his skill in this
respect was highly appreciated by his school-fellows. Like a true
philosopher, even at this stage he experimented on the best methods
of attaching the string, and on the proportions which the tail ought
to have. He also made lanthorns of paper to provide himself with
light as he walked to school in the dark winter mornings.
The only love affair in Newton's life appears to have commenced while
he was still of tender years. The incidents are thus described in
Brewster's "Life of Newton," a work to which I am much indebted in
this chapter.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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