Life and Scientific Work of Peter Guthrie Tait - School of Mathematics ...

FELLOW OF PETERHOUSE n
Library. The accompanying picture of the group containing Tait and
Steele, who are respectively first and third reckoning from the left, has
been reproduced from a somewhat faded photograph. Its probable date
is 1852.
Having taken his degree as Senior Wrangler and First Smith's Prizeman,
Tait was elected a Fellow of his College and began to establish himself as
a " coach." To quote from an address he gave to the Edinburgh Graduates
fourteen years later, he became one of those who,
"eagerly scanning examination papers of former years, and mysteriously finding
out the peculiarities of the Moderators and Examiners under whose hands their
pupils are doomed to pass, spend their lives in discovering which text-book a man ought to read and which will
pages of a
not be likely to '
pay.' The value
of any portion
question
as an intellectual exercise is never thought of; the all-important
is— Is it likely to be set ? I speak with no horror of or aversion to such
men ;
I was one of them myself, and thought it perfectly natural, as they all do.
But I hope that such a system may never be introduced here."
His hopes, it is to be feared, are being only partially realised.
Tait's experience as a coach was fortunately very limited. During the
two and a half years he continued to reside at Peterhouse he had hardly time
to establish a reputation. There is indeed a story' of "Tait's one Pupil,"
who had begun to read with Hopkins. So unsatisfactory was his progress
that Hopkins advised him to seek another tutor. Naturally the pupil
protested and said he would do his utmost not to keep the others back.
But Hopkins was obdurate. Accordingly the aspirant to Wrangler honours
became Tait's one pupil, and was taught to such good purpose that when the
Tripos list came out he was one place above Hopkins' best man. When
congratulated upon the success of his pupil Tait is said to have remarked,
"Oh, that's — I nothing could coach a coal scuttle to be Senior Wrangler."
Tait, however, was not a man to let time hang on his hands. He read
widely and thoroughly in all branches of mathematical physics. During these
years also he learned to read Italian with ease and made himself master of the
French and German languages.
' The story is given with full details in a letter from W. A. Porter, whose authority was
C. B. Clarke, 3rd Wrangler in 1856, and Mathematical Lecturer in Queens', 1857-65.