When he turned 17, Newton's mother called him home to Woolsthorpe, and hired a trustful servant to teach him about running the farm. Newton did not take well to this. He was set to watch sheep but, he would instead build model waterwheels, and other gadgets, and the sheep would often escape. His uncle and his school master watched him constantly from a distance, and recommended that his mother send him back to school to prepare for university. She conceded when the school master agreed to drop the fee for school attendance.
When Newtons uncle William Ayscough persuaded his mother that it was the right thing to do, Isaac was allowed to return to the Free Grammar School in Grantham in 1660 to complete his school education. During this time he lived with the Stokes family, who was the headmaster of the school. It appeared that Newton had more schooling ability than he was granted in his previous time there.
Nothing is known about what Newton learned to prepare for the university, but Stokes almost certainly gave Isaac private tutoring and a good home. It is said that a mechanical ability which Isaac displayed at school his skills in making models of machines, particularly clocks and windmills.
Newton started at his uncle's old College, Trinity College Cambridge, on June 5, 1661. He was older than most of the students in there but, despite the fact that his mother was financially well off, he entered as a sizar. A sizar at Cambridge was a student who received an allowance toward college expenses in exchange for acting as a servant to other students. .
Newton's goal at Cambridge was a degree in law. Instruction at Cambridge was by philosophy of Aristotle. Some freedom of study was allowed in the third year of the course. Newton studied the philosophy of Descarte, Gassendi, Hobbes, and in particular Boyle. He also studied the mechanics of the astronomy of Galileo, which was said to attract him to study also studied Kepler.