Meanwhile the future philosopher was acquiring a taste for reading and study, delving into old volumes whenever he found an opportunity. These habits convinced his relatives that it was useless to attempt to make a farmer of the youth, as had been their intention. He was therefore sent back to school, and in the summer of 1661 he matriculated at Trinity College, Cambridge. Even at college Newton seems to have shown no unusual mental capacity, and in 1664, when examined for a scholarship by Dr. Barrow, that gentleman is said to have formed a poor opinion of the applicant.