Simon Newcomb

“ So he could not be Struve's man.
There is no welcome warmer than a Russian one, and none in any country warmer than that which the visiting astronomer receives at an observatory. Great is the contrast between the winter sky of a clear moonless night and the interior of a dining-room, forty feet square, with a big blazing fire at one end and a table loaded with eatables in the middle. The fact that the visitor had never before met one of his hosts detracted nothing from the warmth of his reception. ”

“ I had no very well marked object in view beyond continuing studies and researches in mathematical astronomy. Not long after my arrival in Cambridge some one, in speaking of Professor Peirce, remarked to me that he had a European reputation as a mathematician. It seemed to me that this was one of the most exalted positions that a man could attain, and I intensely longed for it. Yet there was no hurry. Reputation would come to him who deserved it by his works; works of the first class were the result of careful thought and study, and not of hurry. ”

“ Chase as Secretary of the Treasury, was my beau idéal of an administrator. In his personal make-up, he was as completely the opposite of General Sherman as a man well could be. Deliberate, impassive, heavy of build, slow in physical movement, he would have been supposed, at first sight, a man who would take life easy, and concern himself as little as possible about public affairs. But, after all, there is a quality in the head of a great department which is quite distinct from sprightliness, and that is wisdom. ”

“ The most execrated man in the scientific circle at this time was Leverrier. He had left Paris before the Prussian siege began, and had not returned. Delaunay assured me that this was a wise precaution on his part; for had he ventured into the city he would have been mobbed, or the Communists would have killed him as soon as caught. Just why the mob should have been so incensed against one whose life was spent in the serenest fields of astronomical science was not fully explained. The fact that he had been a senator, and was politically obnoxious, was looked on as an all-sufficient indictment. ”

“ At the time of my visit, it was much the fashion among astronomers elsewhere to speak slightingly of the Greenwich system. The objections to it were, in substance, the same that have been made to the minute subdivision of labor. The intellect of the individual was stunted for the benefit of the work. The astronomer became a mere operative. Yet it must be admitted that the astronomical work done at Greenwich during the sixty years since Airy introduced his system has a value and an importance in its specialty that none done elsewhere can exceed. ”

“ One fact is indisputable, and that is the wonderful success of the director in selecting young men who were to make the institution famous by their abilities and industry. If the highest problem of administration is to select the right men, the new director certainly mastered it. So far as liberty of research and publication went, the administration had the appearance of being liberal in the extreme. Doubtless there was another side to the question. Nothing happens spontaneously, and the singular phenomenon of one who had done all this becoming a much hated man must have an adequate cause. ”

“ If the faith of the public in the absolute certainty of all astronomical investigation is thereby impaired, what I have to say will be in the interest of truth; and I have no fear that our science will not stand the shock of the revelation. Of our leading astronomical observers of the present day—of such men as Burnham and Barnard—it may be safely said that when they see a thing it is there. But this cannot always be said of every eminent observer, and here is a most striking example of this fact. ”

“ The policy of the director recognized no end but scientific efficiency. The trustees, as the responsible administrators of the trust, felt that they had certain rights in the matter, especially that of introducing visitors to inspect the institution and look through the telescope. How fatal the granting of such courtesies is to continuous work with an instrument only astronomers know; and one of the most embarrassing difficulties the director of such an institution meets with is to effect a prudent compromise between the scientific efficiency of his institution and the wishes of the public. ”

“ The soul of generosity and the pink of honor, ever ready to lend a hand to a struggling youth whom he found deserving of help, enthusiastically devoted to his favorite science, pursuing it in the most exalted spirit, animated by not a single mean motive, it might have been supposed that all the facilities the world could offer would have been open to him in his career. ”

“ For the visiting astronomer at London scarcely a place in London has more attractions than the modest little observatory and dwelling house on Upper Tulse Hill, in which Sir William Huggins has done so much to develop the spectroscopy of the fixed stars. The owner of this charming place was a pioneer in the application of the spectroscope to the analysis of the light of the heavenly bodies, and after nearly forty years of work in this field, is still pursuing his researches. The charm of sentiment is added to the cold atmosphere of science by the collaboration of Lady Huggins. ”

“ During the period when the reputation of the Cambridge family was at its zenith, I was slow to believe that any other artist could come up to their standard. My impression was strengthened by a curious circumstance. During a visit to the Strasburg Observatory in 1883 I was given permission to look through its great telescope, which was made by a renowned German artist. I was surprised to find the object glass affected by so serious a defect that it could not be expected to do any work of the first class. One could only wonder that European art was so backward. ”

“ Saying nothing of the artistic and educational value of a beautiful piece of architecture, it would seem that such a structure has a peculiar power of impressing the minds of men with the importance of the object to which it is devoted, or of the work going on within it. Had Professor Henry been allowed to perform all the functions of the Smithsonian Institution in a moderate-sized hired house, as he felt himself abundantly able to do, I have very serious doubts whether it would have acquired its present celebrity and gained its present high place in the estimation of the public. ”

“ Had he entered public life at Washington, and any one had told me that he was guilty of a dishonest act, I should have replied, "You might as well tell me that he picked up the Capitol last night and carried it off on his back." The fact that one could say so much of any man, I have always looked upon as illustrating one of the greatest advantages of having a youth go through college. ”

“ I soon became conscious of the fact, which no one had previously taken much account of, that upon the plan of each man reducing his own observations, not only was there an entire lack of homogeneity in the work, but the more work one did at night the more he had to do by day. It was with some trepidation that I presented the case to Gilliss, who speedily saw that work done with the instruments should be regarded as that of the observatory, and reduced on a uniform plan, instead of being considered as the property of the individual who happened to make it. ”

“ He wants me to study law, maintaining that the wealth one can thereby acquire, and the prominence he may assume, will give him a higher position in society and public esteem than mere learning ever can. But I told him that if I could stand high in the esteem of twenty such men as Cayley, Sylvester, and Peirce, I cared nothing to be prominent in the eyes of the rest of the world. ”

“ The art of making the latter feel at home is not brought to such perfection on the Continent as in England; perhaps the French understand it less than any other people. But none can be pleasanter than the Germans, when you once make their acquaintance; and we shall always remember with pleasure the winter we passed in Berlin.
To-day, Auwers stands at the head of German astronomy. In him is seen the highest type of the scientific investigator of our time, one perhaps better developed in Germany than in any other country. ”

“ Being a student of Nature and her wonderful laws, as they operate in that subtle realm of human life,—the soul, for some years, I feel well prepared to answer inquiries pertaining to this almost unknown field of scientific research, and would do so with much pleasure, as I am desirous to contribute my mite to the enlightenment of mankind upon this most important of all subjects. ”

“ One, as it presents itself to my memory, is the great variety and picturesqueness of character which the university then presented. I would like to know whether the changes in men which one fancies he sees during his passage from youth to age are real, or only relative to his point of view. If my impressions are correct, our educational planing mill cuts down all the knots of genius, and reduces the best of the men who go through it to much the same standard. Does not the Harvard professor of to-day always dine in a dress coat? ”

“ One of the entertainments of Washington during the early years of the civil war was offered by President Lincoln's public receptions. We used to go there simply to see the people and the costumes, the latter being of a variety which I do not think was ever known on such occasions before or since. Well-dressed and refined ladies and gentlemen, men in their working clothes, women arrayed in costumes fanciful in cut and brilliant in color, mixed together in a way that suggested a convention of the human race. ”

“ By a custom extending through two centuries, each astronomer was to a large extent the master of his own work. Leverrier undertook to change all this in a twinkling, and, if reports are true, without much regard to the feelings of the astronomers. Those who refused to fall into line either resigned or were driven away, and their places were filled with men willing to work under the direction of their chief. Yet his methods were not up to the times; and the work of the Paris Observatory, so far as observations of precision go, falls markedly behind that of Greenwich and Pulkova. ”

“ The organizer of the observatory, and its first director, was Wilhelm Struve, father of the one who received me, and equally great as man and astronomer. Like many other good Russians, he was the father of a large family. One of his sons was for ten years the Russian minister at Washington, and as popular a diplomatist as ever lived among us. The instruments which Struve designed sixty years ago still do as fine work as any in the world; but one may suspect this to be due more to the astronomers who handle them than to the instruments themselves. ”

“ Here was a very tempting field into which astronomical speculators stepped, to clothe the invisible hemisphere of the moon with a beautiful terrestrial landscape, and people it as densely as they pleased with beings like ourselves. If these beings should ever attempt to explore the other half of their own globe, they would find themselves ascending to a height completely above the limits of their atmosphere. Hansen himself never countenanced such speculations as these, but confined his claims to the simple facts he supposed proven. ”

“ If the success of an organization is to be measured by the public support which it has commanded, by the extension of its work and influence, and by the gradual dying out of all opposition, it must be admitted that the plan of the academy was a brilliant success. It is true that a serious crisis had once to be met. While Mr. Cleveland was governor of New York, his experience with the survey of that State had led him to distrust the methods on which the surveys of the United States were being conducted. ”

“ We must first know by the most exact and refined observations that the astronomer can make exactly how a heavenly body does move. Its position, or, as we cannot directly measure distance, its direction from us, must be determined as precisely as possible from time to time. Its course has been mapped out for it in advance by tables which are published in the "Astronomical Ephemeris," and we may express its position by its deviation from these tables. Then comes in the mathematical problem how it ought to move under the attraction of all other heavenly bodies that can influence its motion. ”