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Title: From Immigrant to Inventor
Author: Michael Pupin
Release Date: December 5, 2021 [eBook #66886]
Language: English
Produced by: The Online Distributed Proofreading Team at
https://www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images
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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROM IMMIGRANT TO
INVENTOR ***
FROM IMMIGRANT TO INVENTOR
[Illustration: _From a photograph, copyright by Underwood & Underwood_
MICHAEL PUPIN]
FROM
IMMIGRANT TO INVENTOR
BY
MICHAEL PUPIN
PROFESSOR OF ELECTRO-MECHANICS, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, NEW YORK
[Illustration]
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
NEW YORK · LONDON
1949
COPYRIGHT, 1922, 1923, BY
CHARLES SCRIBNER’S SONS
Printed in the United States of America
Published September, 1923
Reprinted November, 1928; January, March, 1924
July, 1924
TO THE MEMORY OF MY MOTHER
PREFACE
Looking back over the development of this volume throughout the year or
more during which I have been writing it, it seems to me that I cannot
better express the end I have had in view than to repeat here what I
wrote at the beginning of Chapter XI:
“The main object of my narrative was, and still is, to describe the
rise of idealism in American science, and particularly in physical
sciences and the related industries. I was a witness to this gradual
development; everything that I have described so far was an attempt to
qualify as a witness whose testimony has competence and weight. But
there are many other American scientists whose opinions in this matter
have more competence and weight than my opinion has. Why, then, should
a scientist who started his career as a Serbian immigrant speak of
the idealism in American science when there are so many native-born
American scientists who know more about this subject than I do? Those
who have read my narrative so far can answer this question. I shall
only point out now that there are certain psychological elements in the
question which justify me in the belief that occasionally an immigrant
can see things which escape the attention of the native. Seeing is
believing; let him speak who has the faith, provided that he has a
message to deliver.”
MICHAEL PUPIN.
CONTENTS
CHAPTER PAGE
I. WHAT I BROUGHT TO AMERICA 1
II. THE HARDSHIPS OF A GREENHORN 43
III. THE END OF THE APPRENTICESHIP AS GREENHORN 72
IV. FROM GREENHORN TO CITIZENSHIP AND COLLEGE
DEGREE 100
V. FIRST JOURNEY TO IDVOR IN ELEVEN YEARS 138
VI. STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE 167
VII. END OF STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE 192
VIII. STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN 218
IX. END OF STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN 247
X. THE FIRST PERIOD OF MY ACADEMIC CAREER AT
COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 279
XI. THE RISE OF IDEALISM IN AMERICAN SCIENCE 311
XII. THE NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL 349
INDEX 389
ILLUSTRATIONS
Michael Pupin Frontispiece
Pupin’s Birthplace FACING PAGE 4
The Old Monument on Staro Selo 4
Olympiada Pupin, Mother of Michael Pupin 10
The Village Church in Idvor 36
Nassau Hall, Princeton University 68
An Early View of Cooper Union 74
Men of Progress--American Inventors 78
Photograph of Pupin Taken in 1883 136
Joseph Henry 204
John Tyndall 204
Michael Faraday 220
Herman von Helmholtz 232
The Hertzian Oscillator page 265
Henry Augustus Rowland 290
James Clerk Maxwell 290
Electrical Discharges Representing Two Types
of Solar Coronæ 294
Solar Corona of 1922 294
Sir J. J. Thomson 306
Wilhelm Konrad Rœntgen 306
Pupin’s Residence at Norfolk, Conn. 328
Dr. George Ellery Hale, Honorary Chairman of
the National Research Council 372
The National Research Council Building,
Washington, D. C. 372
Facsimile of Letter from President Harding page 386
FROM IMMIGRANT TO INVENTOR
I
WHAT I BROUGHT TO AMERICA
When I landed at Castle Garden, forty-eight years ago, I had only five
cents in my pocket. Had I brought five hundred dollars, instead of five
cents, my immediate career in the new, and to me a perfectly strange,
land would have been the same. A young immigrant such as I was then
does not begin his career until he has spent all the money which he
has brought with him. I brought five cents, and immediately spent it
upon a piece of prune pie, which turned out to be a bogus prune pie.
It contained nothing but pits of prunes. If I had brought five hundred
dollars, it would have taken me a little longer to spend it, mostly
upon bogus things, but the struggle which awaited me would have been
the same in each case. It is no handicap to a boy immigrant to land
here penniless; it is not a handicap to any boy to be penniless when he
strikes out for an independent career, provided that he has the stamina
to stand the hardships that may be in store for him.
* * * * *
A thorough training in the arts and crafts and a sturdy physique
capable of standing the hardships of strenuous labor do entitle the
immigrant to special considerations. But what has a young and penniless
immigrant to offer who has had no training in any of the arts or crafts
and does not know the language of the land? Apparently nothing, and
if the present standards had prevailed forty-eight years ago I should
have been deported. There are, however, certain things which a young
immigrant may bring to this country that are far more precious than any
of the things which the present immigration laws prescribe. Did I bring
any of these things with me when I landed at Castle Garden in 1874? I
shall try to answer this question in the following brief story of my
life prior to my landing in this country.
Idvor is my native town; but the disclosure of this fact discloses
very little, because Idvor cannot be found on any map. It is a little
village off the highway in the province of Banat, formerly belonging
to Austria-Hungary, but now an important part of the kingdom of the
Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. At the Paris peace conference, in 1919,
the Rumanians claimed this province; they claimed it in vain. They
could not overcome the fact that the population of Banat is Serb, and
particularly of that part of Banat where Idvor is located. President
Wilson and Mr. Lansing knew me personally, and when they were informed
by the Yugoslav delegates in Paris that I was a native of Banat,
the Rumanian arguments lost much of their plausibility. No other
nationality except the Serb has ever lived in Idvor. The inhabitants of
Idvor were always peasants; most of them were illiterate in my boyhood
days. My father and mother could neither read nor write. The question
arises now: What could a penniless boy of fifteen, born and bred
under such conditions, bring to America, which under any conceivable
immigration laws would entitle him to land? But I was confident that
I was so desirable an acquisition to America that I should be allowed
to land, and I was somewhat surprised that people made no fuss over me
when I landed.
* * * * *
The Serbs of Idvor from time immemorial always considered themselves
the brothers of the Serbs of Serbia, who are only a few gunshots away
from Idvor on the south side of the Danube. The Avala Mountain, near
Belgrade in Serbia, can easily be seen from Idvor on every clear day.
This blue and, to me at that time, mysterious-looking peak seemed
always like a reminder to the Serbs of Banat that the Serbs of Serbia
were keeping an eye of affectionate watchfulness upon them.
When I was a boy Idvor belonged to the so-called military frontier of
Austria. A bit of interesting history is attached to this name. Up
to the beginning of the eighteenth century the Austrian Empire was
harassed by Turkish invasions. At periodically recurring intervals
Turkish armies would cross her southern frontier, formed by the Rivers
Danube and Sava, and penetrate into the interior provinces. Toward the
end of the seventeenth century they advanced as far as Vienna, and
would have become a serious menace to the whole of Europe if the Polish
king Sobiesky had not come to the rescue of Vienna. It was at that time
that Emperor Leopold I, of Austria, invited Charnoyevich, the Serb
Patriarch of Pech, in old Serbia, to move with thirty-five thousand
picked families of old Serbia into the Austrian territory north of the
Danube and the Sava Rivers, to become its guardians. For three hundred
years these Serbs had been fighting the Turks and had acquired great
skill in this kind of warfare. In 1690 the Patriarch with these picked
families moved into Austria and settled in a narrow strip of territory
on the northern banks of these two rivers. They organized what was
known later as the military frontier of Austria. 1690 is, according to
tradition, the date when my native village Idvor was founded, but not
quite on its present site. The original site is a very small plateau a
little to the north of the present site.
[Illustration: IN THE HOUSE ON THE LEFT WITH THREE WINDOWS, A TYPICAL
PEASANT HOUSE OF IDVOR, PUPIN WAS BORN
On the right is the spire of the church on the
village green]
Banat is a perfectly level plain, but near the village of Idvor the
River Tamish has dug out a miniature canyon, and on the plateau of
one of the promontories of this canyon was the old site of Idvor.
It is connected to the new site by a narrow neck. The old site was
selected because it offered many strategical advantages of defense
against the invading Turk. The first settlers of the old village lived
in subterranean houses which could not be seen at a distance by the
approaching enemy. Remnants of these subterranean houses were still in
existence when I was a schoolboy in the village of Idvor, over fifty
years ago. The location of the original church was marked by a little
column built of bricks and bearing a cross. In a recess on the side of
the column was the image of St. Mary with the Christ Child, illuminated
by a burning wick immersed in oil. The legend was that this flame was
never allowed to go out, and that a religious procession by the good
people of Idvor to the old monument was sure to avert any calamity,
like pestilence or drought, that might be threatening the village. I
took part in many of these processions to the old deserted village,
and felt every time that I was standing upon sacred ground; sacred
because of the Christian blood shed there during the struggles of the
Christian Serbs of Idvor against the Turkish invaders. Every visit to
the old village site refreshed the memories of the heroic traditions
of which the village people were extremely proud. They were poor in
worldly goods, those simple peasant folk of Idvor, but they were rich
in memories of their ancient traditions.
[Illustration: THE OLD MONUMENT ON STARO SELO, THE OLD VILLAGE, WHERE
THE ORIGINAL SETTLERS OF IDVOR LIVED IN SUBTERRANEAN DWELLINGS]
As I look back upon my childhood days in the village of Idvor, I feel
that the cultivation of old traditions was the principal element in
the spiritual life of the village people. The knowledge of these
traditions was necessary and sufficient to them, in order to understand
their position in the world and in the Austrian Empire. When my people
moved into Austria under Patriarch Charnoyevich and settled in the
military frontier, they had a definite agreement with Emperor Leopold
I. It was recorded in an Austrian state document called Privilegia.
According to this ancient document the Serbs of the military frontier
were to enjoy a spiritual, economic, and political autonomy. Lands
granted to them were their own property. In our village we maintained
our own schools and our own churches, and each village elected its
own local administration. Its head was the Knez, or chief, usually a
sturdy peasant. My father was a Knez several times. The bishops and
the people elected their own spiritual and political heads, that is,
the Patriarch and the Voyvoda (governor). We were free and independent
peasant landlords. In return for these privileges, the people obligated
themselves to render military service for the defense of the southern
frontiers of the empire against the invading Turks. They had helped
to drive the Turks across the Danube, under the supreme command of
Prince Eugene of Savoy, in the beginning of the eighteenth century.
After the emperor had discovered the splendid fighting qualities of
the Serbs of the military frontier, he managed to extend the original
terms of the Privilegia so as to make it obligatory upon the military
frontiersmen to defend the empire against any and every enemy.
Subsequently the Serbs of the military frontier of Austria defended
Empress Maria Theresa against Frederick the Great; they defended
Emperor Francis against Napoleon; they defended Emperor Ferdinand
against the rebellious Hungarians in 1848 and 1849; and in 1859 and
1866 they defended Austria against Italy. The military exploits of the
men of Idvor during these wars supplied material for the traditions of
Idvor, which were recorded in many tales and stirring songs. Reading
and writing did not flourish in Idvor in those days, but poetry did.
Faithful to the old customs of the Serb race, the people of Idvor held
during the long winter evenings their neighborhood gatherings, and
as a boy I attended many of them at my father’s house. The older men
would sit around the warm stove on a bench which was a part of the
stove and made of the same material, usually soft brick plastered over
and whitewashed. They smoked and talked and looked like old senators,
self-appointed guardians of all the wisdom of Idvor. At the feet of
the old men were middle-aged men, seated upon low stools, each with a
basket in front of him, into which he peeled the yellow kernels from
the seasoned ears of corn, and this kept him busy during the evening.
The older women were seated on little stools along the wall; they
would be spinning wool, flax, or hemp. The young women would be sewing
or knitting. I, a favorite child of my mother, was allowed to sit
alongside of her and listen to the words of wisdom and words of fiction
dropping from the mouths of the old men and sometimes also from the
mouths of the middle-aged and younger men, when the old men gave them
permission to speak. At intervals the young women would sing a song
having some relation to the last tale. For instance, when one of the
old men had finished a tale about Karageorge and his historic struggles
against the Turks, the women would follow with a song describing a
brave Voyvoda of Karageorge, named Hayduk Velyko, who with a small band
of Serbians defended Negotin against a great Turkish army under Moula
Pasha. This gallant band, as the song describes them, reminds one of
the little band of Greeks at Thermopylæ.
Some of the old men present at these gatherings had taken part in the
Napoleonic wars, and they remembered well also the stories which they
had heard from their fathers relating to the wars of Austria against
Frederick the Great during the eighteenth century. The middle-aged men
had participated in the fighting during the Hungarian revolution, and
the younger men had just gone through the campaigns in Italy in 1859
and 1866. One of the old men had taken part in the battle of Aspern,
when Austria defeated Napoleon. He had received a high imperial
decoration for bravery, and was very proud of it. He also had gone to
Russia with an Austrian division during Napoleon’s campaign of 1812.
His name was Baba Batikin, and in the estimation of the village people
he was a seer and a prophet, because of his wonderful memory and his
extraordinary power of description. His diction was that of a guslar
(Serbian minstrel). He not only described vividly what went on in
Austria and in Russia during the Napoleonic wars in which he himself
participated, but he would also thrill his hearers by tales relating to
the Austrian campaigns against Frederick the Great, which his father
upon his return from the battle-fields of Silesia had related to him.
I remember quite well his stories relating to Karageorge of Serbia,
whom he had known personally. He called him the great Vozhd, or leader
of the Serbian peasants, and never grew weary of describing his heroic
struggles against the Turks in the beginning of the nineteenth century.
These tales about Karageorge were always received at the neighborhood
gatherings with more enthusiasm than any other of his stirring
narratives. Toward the end of the evening Baba Batikin would recite
some of the old Serbian ballads, many of which he knew by heart. During
these recitations his thin and wrinkled face would light up; it was the
face of a seer, as I remember it, and I can see now his bald head with
a wonderful brow, towering over bushy eyebrows through which the light
of his deep-set eyes would shine like the light of the moon through
the needles of an aged pine. It was from him that the good people of
Idvor learned the history of the Serb race from the battle of the field
of Kossovo in 1389 down to Karageorge. He kept alive the old Serb
traditions in the village of Idvor. He was my first and my best teacher
in history.
The younger men told tales relating to Austrian campaigns in Italy,
glorifying the deeds of valor of the men of Idvor in these campaigns.
The battle of Custozza in 1866, in which the military frontiersmen
nearly annihilated the Italian armies, received a great deal of
attention, because the men who described it had participated in it,
and had just returned from Italy. But I remember that every one of
those men was full of praise of Garibaldi, the leader of the Italian
people in their struggles for freedom. They called him the Karageorge
of Italy. I remember also that in my father’s house, in which these
winter-evening gatherings took place, there was a colored picture of
Garibaldi with his red shirt and a plumed hat. The picture was hung up
alongside of the Ikona, the picture of our patron saint; on the other
side of the Ikona was the picture of the Czar of Russia, who only a
few years before had emancipated the Russian serfs. In the same room
and hanging in a very conspicuous place all by itself was a picture of
Karageorge, the leader of the Serbian revolution. The picture of the
Austrian emperor was not there after 1869!
The Serb ballads recited by Baba Batikin glorified the great national
hero, Prince Marko, whose combats were the combats of a strong man in
defense of the weak and of the oppressed. Marko, although a prince
of royal blood, never fought for conquest of territory. According to
the guslar, Prince Marko was a true champion of right and justice.
At that time the Civil War in America had just come to a close, and
the name of Lincoln, whenever mentioned by Baba Batikin, suggested
an American Prince Marko. The impressions which I carried away from
these neighborhood gatherings were a spiritual food which nourished
in my young mind the sentiment that the noblest thing in this world
is the struggle for right, justice, and freedom. It was the love of
freedom and of right and justice which made the Serbs of the military
frontier desert their ancestral homes in old Serbia and move into
Austria, where they gladly consented to live in subterranean houses and
crawl like woodchucks under the ground as long as they could enjoy the
blessings of political freedom.
* * * * *
The military frontiersmen had their freedom guaranteed to them by
the Privilegia, and, in exchange for their freedom, they were always
ready to fight for the Emperor of Austria on any battle-field. Loyalty
to the emperor was the cardinal virtue of the military frontiersmen.
It was that loyalty which overcame their admiration for Garibaldi in
1866; hence the Austrian victory at Custozza. The Emperor of Austria
as a guardian of their freedom received a place of honor in the
selected class of men like Prince Marko, Karageorge, Czar Alexander the
Liberator, Lincoln, and Garibaldi. These were the names recorded in the
Hall of Fame of Idvor. When, however, the emperor, in 1869, dissolved
the military frontier and delivered its people to the Hungarians, the
military frontiersmen felt that they were betrayed by the emperor, who
had broken his faith to them recorded in the Privilegia. I remember
my father saying to me one day: “Thou shalt never be a soldier in the
emperor’s army. The emperor has broken his word; the emperor is a
traitor in the eyes of the military frontiersmen. We despise the man
who is not true to his word.” This is the reason why the picture of the
Emperor of Austria was not allowed a place in my father’s house after
1869.
As I look back upon those days I feel, as I always felt, that this
treacherous act of the Austrian emperor in 1869 was the beginning of
the end of the Austrian Empire. It was the beginning of nationalism in
the realm of Emperor Francis Joseph of Hapsburg. The love of the people
for the country in which they lived began to languish and finally died.
When that love dies, the country also must die. This was the lesson
which I learned from the illiterate peasants of Idvor.
[Illustration: OLYMPIADA PUPIN, MOTHER OF MICHAEL PUPIN
From a photograph taken in 1880]
* * * * *
My teacher in the village school never succeeded in making upon my
mind that profound impression which was made upon it by the men at
the neighborhood gatherings. They were men who had gone out into the
world and taken an active part in the struggles of the world. Reading,
writing, and arithmetic appeared to me like instruments of torture
which the teacher, who, in my opinion at that time, knew nothing of
the world, had invented in order to interfere as much as possible
with my freedom, particularly when I had an important engagement with
my chums and playmates. But my mother soon convinced me that I was
wrong. She could neither read nor write, and she told me that she
always felt that she was blind, in spite of the clear vision of her
eyes. So blind, indeed, that, as she expressed it, she did not dare
venture into the world much beyond the confines of my native village.
This was as far as I remember now the mode of reasoning which she
would address to me: “My boy, if you wish to go out into the world
about which you hear so much at the neighborhood gatherings, you must
provide yourself with another pair of eyes; the eyes of reading and
writing. There is so much wonderful knowledge and learning in the
world which you cannot get unless you can read and write. Knowledge
is the golden ladder over which we climb to heaven; knowledge is the
light which illuminates our path through this life and leads to a
future life of everlasting glory.” She was a very pious woman, and had
a rare knowledge of both the Old and the New Testaments. The Psalms
were her favorite recitations. She knew also the lives of saints. St.
Sava was her favorite saint. She was the first to make me understand
the story of the life of this wonderful Serb. This, briefly stated,
was the story which she told me: Sava was the youngest son of the Serb
Zhupan Nemanya. At an early age he renounced his royal titles and
retired to a monastery on Mount Athos and devoted many years to study
and meditation. He then returned to his native land, in the beginning
of the thirteenth century, and became the first Serbian archbishop and
founded an autonomous Serbian church. He also organized public schools
in his father’s realm, where Serbian boys and girls had an opportunity
to learn how to read and write. Thus he opened the eyes of the Serbian
people, and the people in grateful recognition of these great services
called him St. Sava the Educator, and praised forever his saintly name
and memory. Seven hundred years had passed since St. Sava’s time, but
not one of them had passed without a memorial celebration dedicated to
him in every town and in every home where a Serb lived.
This was a revelation to me. Like every schoolboy, I attended, of
course, every year in January, the celebrations of St. Sava’s day.
On these occasions we unruly boys made fun of the big boy who in a
trembling and awkward voice was reciting something about St. Sava,
which the teacher had written out for him. After this recitation, the
teacher, with a funny nasal twang, would do his best to supplement in
a badly articulated speech what he had written out for the big boy,
and finally the drowsy-looking priest would wind up with a sermon
bristling with archaic Slavonic church expressions, which to us unruly
boys sounded like awkward attempts of a Slovak mouse-trap dealer to
speak Serbian. Our giggling merriment then reached a climax, and so
my mischievous chums never gave me a chance to catch the real meaning
of the ceremonies on St. Sava’s day. My mother’s story of St. Sava
and the way in which she told it made the image of St. Sava appear
before me for the first time in the light of a saint who glorified the
value of books and of the art of writing. I understood then why mother
placed such value upon reading and writing. I vowed to devote myself to
both, even if that should make it necessary to neglect my chums and
playmates, and soon I convinced my mother that in reading and writing I
could do at least as well as any boy. The teacher observed the change;
he was astonished, and actually believed that a miracle had occurred.
My mother believed in miracles, and told the teacher that the spirit of
St. Sava was guiding me. One day she told him in my presence that in a
dream she saw St. Sava lay his hands upon my head, and then turning to
her say: “Daughter Piada, your boy will soon outgrow the village school
of Idvor. Let him then go out into the world, where he can find more
brain food for his hungry head.” Next year the teacher selected me to
make the recitation on St. Sava’s day, and he wrote out the speech for
me. My mother amended and amplified it and made me rehearse it for her
over and over again. On St. Sava’s day the first public speech of my
life was delivered by me. The success was overwhelming. My chums, the
unruly boys, did not giggle; on the contrary, they looked interested,
and that encouraged me much. The people said to each other that even
old Baba Batikin could not have done much better. My mother cried for
joy; my teacher shook his head, and the priest looked puzzled, and they
both admitted that I had outgrown the village school of Idvor.
* * * * *
At the end of that year my mother prevailed upon my father to send
me to a higher school in the town of Panchevo, on the Tamish River,
about fifteen miles south of Idvor, quite near the point where the
Tamish flows into the Danube. There I found teachers whose learning
made a deep impression upon me, particularly their learning in natural
science, a subject entirely unknown in Idvor. There I heard for the
first time that an American named Franklin, operating with a kite and
a key, had discovered that lightning was a passage of an electrical
spark between clouds, and that thunder was due to the sudden expansion
of the atmosphere heated by the passage of the electrical spark. The
story was illustrated by an actual frictional electrical machine. This
information thrilled me; it was so novel and so simple, I thought, and
so contrary to all my previous notions. During my visit home I eagerly
took the first opportunity to describe this new knowledge to my father
and his peasant friends, who were seated in front of our house and were
enjoying their Sunday-afternoon talks. I suddenly observed that my
father and his friends looked at each other in utter astonishment. They
seemed to ask each other the question: “What heresy may this be which
this impudent brat is disclosing to us?” And then my father, glaring
at me, asked whether I had forgotten that he had told me on so many
occasions that thunder was due to the rumbling of St. Elijah’s car as
he drove across the heavens, and whether I thought that this American
Franklin, who played with kites like an idle boy, knew more than the
wisest men of Idvor. I always had a great respect for my father’s
opinions, but on that occasion I could not help smiling with a smile of
ill-concealed irony which angered him. When I saw the flame of anger
in his big black eyes I jumped and ran for safety. During supper my
father, whose anger had cooled considerably, described to my mother the
heresy which I was preaching on that afternoon. My mother observed that
nowhere in the Holy Scriptures could he find support of the St. Elijah
legend, and that it was quite possible that the American Franklin was
right and that the St. Elijah legend was wrong. In matters of correct
interpretation of ancient authorities my father was always ready
to abide by the decisions of my mother, and so father and I became
reconciled again. My mother’s admission of the possibility that the
American Franklin might, after all, be wiser than all the wise men of
Idvor, and my father’s silent consent, aroused in me a keen interest in
America. Lincoln and Franklin were two names with which my early ideas
of America were associated.
During those school-days in Panchevo I passed my summer vacation in my
native village. Idvor, just like the rest of Banat, lives principally
from agriculture, and during harvest-time it is as busy as a beehive.
Old and young, man and beast, concentrate all their efforts upon the
harvest operations. But nobody is busier than the Serbian ox. He is
the most loyal and effective servant of the Serb peasant everywhere,
and particularly in Banat. He does all the ploughing in the spring,
and he hauls the seasoned grain from the distant fertile fields to
the threshing-grounds in the village when the harvesting season is
on. The commencement of the threshing operations marks the end of the
strenuous efforts of the good old ox; his summer vacation begins, and
he is sent to pasture-lands to feed and to rest and to prepare himself
for autumn hauling of the yellow corn and for the autumn ploughing of
the fields. The village boys who are not big enough to render much help
on the threshing-grounds are assigned to the task of watching over
the grazing oxen during their summer vacation. The school vacation
of the boys coincided with the vacation of the good old ox. Several
summers I passed in that interesting occupation. These were my only
summer schools, and they were the most interesting schools that I ever
attended.
The oxen of the village were divided into herds of about fifty head,
and each herd was guarded by a squad of some twelve boys from families
owning the oxen in the herd. Each squad was under the command of a
young man who was an experienced herdsman. To watch a herd of fifty
oxen was not an easy task. In daytime the job was easy, because the
heat of the summer sun and the torments of the ever-busy fly made the
oxen hug the shade of the trees, where they rested awaiting the cooler
hours of the day. At night, however, the task was much more difficult.
Being forced to hug the shade of the trees during daytime, the oxen
would get but little enjoyment of the pasture, and so when the night
arrived they were quite hungry and eagerly searched for the best of
feed.
* * * * *
I must mention now that the pasture-lands of my native village lay
alongside of territory of a score of square miles which in some years
were all planted in corn. During the months of August and September
these vast corn-fields were like deep forests. Not far from Idvor
and to the east of the corn-fields was a Rumanian settlement which
was notorious for its cattle-thieves. The trick of these thieves was
to hide in the corn-fields at night and to wait until some cattle
strayed into these fields, when they would drive them away and hide
them somewhere in their own corn-fields on the other side of their
own village. To prevent the herd from straying into the corn-fields
at night was a great task, for the performance of which the boys had
to be trained in daytime by their experienced leader. It goes without
saying that each day we boys first worked off our superfluous energy
in wrestling, swimming, hockey, and other strenuous games, and then
settled down to the training in the arts of a herdsman which we had
to practise at night. One of these arts was signalling through the
ground. Each boy had a knife with a long wooden handle. This knife
was stuck deep into the ground. A sound was made by striking against
the wooden handle, and the boys, lying down and pressing their ears
close to the ground, had to estimate the direction and the distance
of the origin of sound. Practice made us quite expert in this form
of signalling. We knew at that time that the sound travelled through
the ground far better than through the air, and that a hard and solid
ground transmitted sound much better than the ploughed-up ground. We
knew, therefore, that the sound produced this way near the edge of the
pasture-land could not be heard in the soft ground of the corn-fields
stretching along the edge. A Rumanian cattle-thief, hidden at night
in the corn-fields, could not hear our ground signals and could not
locate us. Kos, the Slovenian, my teacher and interpreter of physical
phenomena, could not explain this, and I doubt very much whether the
average physicist of Europe at that time could have explained it. It is
the basis of a discovery which I made about twenty-five years after my
novel experiences in that herdsmen’s summer school in Idvor.
* * * * *
On perfectly clear and quiescent summer nights on the plains of my
native Banat, the stars are intensely bright and the sky looks black
by contrast. “Thy hair is as black as the sky of a summer midnight”
is a favorite saying of a Serbian lover to his lady-love. On such
nights we could not see our grazing oxen when they were more than a
few score of feet from us, but we could hear them if we pressed our
ears close to the ground and listened. On such nights we boys had
our work cut out for us. We were placed along a definite line at
distances of some twenty yards apart. This was the dead-line, which
separated the pasture-lands from the corn-field territory. The motto
of the French at Verdun was: “They shall not pass!” This was our
motto, too, and it referred equally to our friends, the oxen, and to
our enemies, the Rumanian cattle-thieves. Our knife-blades were deep
in the ground and our ears were pressed against the handles. We could
hear every step of the roaming oxen and even their grazing operations
when they were sufficiently near to the dead-line. We knew that these
grazing operations were regulated by the time of the night, and this
we estimated by the position of certain constellations like Orion and
the Pleiades. The positions of the evening star and of the morning
star also were closely observed. Venus was our white star and Mars was
called the red star. The Dipper, the north star, and the milky way were
our compass. We knew also that when in the dead of the night we could
hear the faint sound of the church-bell of the Rumanian settlement
about four miles to the east of us, then there was a breeze from
the corn-fields to the pasture-lands, and that it carried the sweet
perfume of the young corn to the hungry oxen, inviting them to the
rich banquet-table of the corn-fields. On such nights our vigilance
was redoubled. We were then all eyes and ears. Our ears were closely
pressed to the ground and our eyes were riveted upon the stars above.
* * * * *
The light of the stars, the sound of the grazing oxen, and the faint
strokes of the distant church-bell were messages of caution which on
those dark summer nights guided our vigilance over the precious herd.
These messages appealed to us like the loving words of a friendly
power, without whose aid we were helpless. They were the only signs of
the world’s existence which dominated our consciousness as, enveloped
in the darkness of night and surrounded by countless burning stars,
we guarded the safety of our oxen. The rest of the world had gone
out of existence; it began to reappear in our consciousness when the
early dawn announced what we boys felt to be the divine command, “Let
there be light,” and the sun heralded by long white streamers began
to approach the eastern sky, and the earth gradually appeared as if
by an act of creation. Every one of those mornings of fifty years ago
appeared to us herdsmen to be witnessing the creation of the world--a
world at first of friendly sound and light messages which made us boys
feel that a divine power was protecting us and our herd, and then a
real terrestrial world, when the rising sun had separated the hostile
mysteries of night from the friendly realities of the day.
Sound and light became thus associated in my early modes of thought
with the divine method of speech and communication, and this belief
was strengthened by my mother, who quoted the words of St. John: “In
the beginning was the word, and the word was with God, and the word was
God.”
I believed also that David, some of whose Psalms, under the instruction
of my mother, I knew by heart, and who in his youth was a shepherd,
expressed my thoughts in his nineteenth Psalm:
“The heavens declare the glory of God....”
* * * * *
“There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard.”
Then, there is no Serb boy who has not heard that beautiful Russian
song by Lyermontoff, the great Russian poet, which says:
“Lonely I wander over the country road,
And in the darkness the stony path is glimmering;
Night is silent and the plains are whispering
To God, and star speaketh to star.”
Lyermontoff was a son of the Russian plains. He saw the same burning
stars in the blackness of a summer midnight sky which I saw. He felt
the same thrill which David felt and through his Psalms transmitted
to me during those watchful nights of fifty years ago. I pity the
city-bred boy who has never felt the mysterious force of that heavenly
thrill.
Sound and light being associated in my young mind of fifty years ago
with divine operations by means of which man communicates with man,
beast with beast, stars with stars, and man with his Creator, it is
obvious that I meditated much about the nature of sound and of light.
I still believe that these modes of communication are the fundamental
operations in the physical universe and I am still meditating about
their nature. My teachers in Panchevo rendered some assistance in
solving many of the puzzles which I met in the course of these
meditations. Kos, my Slovenian teacher, who was the first to tell me
the story of Franklin and his kite, was a great help. He soon convinced
me that sound was a vibration of bodies. This explanation agreed with
the Serbian figure of speech which says:
“My heart quivers like the melodious string under the guslar’s bow.”
I also felt the quivering air whenever during my term of service as
guardian of the oxen I tried my skill at the Serbian flute. Few things
excited my interest more than the operations of the Serbian bagpiper
as he forced the air from his sheepskin bellows and made it sing by
regulating its passage through the pipes. The operations which the
bagpiper called adjustment and tuning of the bagpipes commanded my
closest attention. I never dreamed then that a score of years later
I should do a similar operation with an electrical circuit. I called
it “electrical tuning,” a term which has been generally adopted in
wireless telegraphy. But nobody knows that the operation as well as the
name were first suggested to me by the Serbian bagpiper, some twenty
years before I made the invention in 1892.
Skipping over several sections of my story, I will say now that twenty
years after my invention of electrical tuning a pupil of mine, Major
Armstrong, discovered the electrical vacuum-tube oscillator, which
promises to revolutionize wireless telegraphy and telephony. A similar
invention, but a little earlier, was made by another pupil of mine,
Mr. Vreeland. Both these inventions in their mode of operation remind
me much of the operation of Serbian bagpipes. Perhaps some of those
thrills which the Serbian bagpiper stirred up in me in my early youth
were transferred to my pupils, Armstrong and Vreeland.
* * * * *
I was less successful in solving my puzzles concerning the nature of
light. Kos, the Slovenian, my first guide and teacher in the study of
physical phenomena, told me the story that a wise man of Greece with
the name of Aristotle believed that light originates in the eye, which
throws out feelers to the surrounding objects, and that through these
feelers we see the objects, just as we feel them by our sense of touch.
This view did not agree with the popular saying often heard in Idvor:
“Pick your grapes before sunrise, before the thirsty sunbeams have
drunk up their cooling dew.” Nor did it agree with Bishop Nyegosh, the
greatest of Serbian poets, who says:
“The bright-eyed dewdrops glide along the sunbeams to the heavens
above.”
The verse from Nyegosh I obtained from a Serbian poet, who was an
arch-priest, a protoyeray, and who was my religious teacher in
Panchevo. His name, Vasa Zhivkovich, I shall never forget, because it
is sweet music to my ears on account of the memories of affectionate
friendship he cherished for me.
According to this popular belief a beam of light has an individual
existence just like that of the melodious string under the guslar’s
bow. But neither the poet, nor the wise men of Idvor, nor Kos the
Slovenian, ever mentioned that a beam of light ever quivered, and if it
does not quiver like a vibrating body how can the sun, the moon, and
the stars proclaim the glory of God, and how can, according to David,
their voice be heard wherever there are speech and language? These
questions Kos would not answer. No wonder! Nobody to-day can give a
completely satisfactory answer to questions relating to radiation of
light. Kos was non-committal and did not seem to attach much importance
to the authorities which I quoted; namely, the Serbian poet Nyegosh,
the wise sayings of Idvor, and the Psalms of David. Nevertheless, he
was greatly interested in my childlike inquiries and always encouraged
me to go on with my puzzling questions. Once he invited me to his
house, and there I found that several of his colleagues were present.
One of them was my friend the poet-priest, and another was a Hungarian
Lutheran preacher who spoke Serbian well and was famous in Panchevo
because of his great eloquence. They both engaged me in conversation
and showed a lively interest in my summer vacation experiences as
herdsman’s assistant. The puzzling questions about light which I
addressed to Kos, and the fact that Kos would not answer, amused them.
My knowledge of the Bible and of the Psalms impressed them much, and
they asked me quite a number of questions concerning my mother. Then
they suggested that I might be transferred from the school in Panchevo
to the famous schools of Prague in Bohemia, if my father and mother did
not object to my going so far away from home. When I suggested that my
parents could not afford to support me in a great place like Prague,
they assured me that this difficulty might be fixed up. I promised to
consult my parents during the approaching Christmas vacation. I did,
but found my father irresistibly opposed to it. Fate, however, decreed
otherwise.
The history of Banat records a great event for the early spring of
1872, the spring succeeding the Christmas when my father and mother
agreed to disagree upon the proposition that I go to Prague. Svetozar
Miletich, the great nationalist leader of the Serbs in Austria-Hungary,
visited Panchevo, and the people prepared a torchlight procession
for him. This procession was to be a protest of Panchevo and of the
whole of Banat against the emperor’s treachery of 1869. My father had
protested long before by excluding the emperor’s picture from our
house. That visit of Miletich marks the beginning of a new political
era in Banat, the era of nationalism. The schoolboys of Panchevo turned
out in great numbers, and I was one of them, proud to become one of the
torch-bearers. We shouted ourselves hoarse whenever Miletich in his
fiery speech denounced the emperor for his ingratitude to the military
frontiersmen as well as to all the Serbs of Voyvodina. Remembering my
father’s words on the occasion mentioned above, I did not hesitate to
shout in the name of the schoolboys present in the procession: “We’ll
never serve in Francis Joseph’s army!” My chums responded with: “Long
five the Prince of Serbia!” The Hungarian officials took careful notes
of the whole proceeding, and a few days later I was informed that
Panchevo was not a proper place for an ill-mannered peasant boy like
me, and that I should pack up and return to Idvor. Kos, the Slovenian,
and protoyeray Zhivkovich interfered, and I was permitted to stay.
* * * * *
On the first of May, following, our school celebrated the May-day
festival. The Serb youngsters in the school, who worshipped Miletich
and his nationalism, prepared a Serbian flag for the festival march.
The other boys, mostly Germans, Rumanians, and Hungarians, carried
the Austrian yellow-black standard. The nationalist group among the
youngsters stormed the bearer of the yellow-black standard, and I was
caught in the scrimmage with the Austrian flag under my feet. Expulsion
from school stared me in the face. Again protoyeray Zhivkovich came to
my defense and, thanks to his high official position and to my high
standing in school, I was allowed to continue with my class until the
end of the school year, after promising that I would not associate with
revolutionary boys who showed an inclination to storm the Austrian
flag. The matter did not end there, however. In response to an
invitation from the protoyeray, father and mother came to Panchevo to a
conference, which resulted in a triumph for my mother. It was decided
that I bid good-by to Panchevo, a hotbed of nationalism, and go to
Prague. The protoyeray and his congregation promised assistance if the
financial burden attached to my schooling in Prague should prove too
heavy for my parents.
When the day for the departure for Prague arrived, my mother had
everything ready for my long journey, a journey of nearly two days on
a Danube steamboat to Budapest, and one day by rail from Budapest to
Prague. Two multicolored bags made of a beautifully colored web of
wool contained my belongings: one my linen, the other my provisions,
consisting of a whole roast goose and a big loaf of white bread. The
only suit of clothes which I had I wore on my back, and my sisters
told me that it was very stylish and made me look like a city-bred
boy. To tone down somewhat this misleading appearance and to provide
a warm covering during my journey for the cold autumn evenings and
nights, I wore a long yellow overcoat of sheepskin trimmed with black
wool and embroidered along the border with black and red arabesque
figures. A black sheepskin cap gave the finishing touch and marked
me as a real son of Idvor. When I said good-by to father and mother
on the steamboat landing I expected, of course, that my mother would
cry, and she did; but to my great surprise I noticed two big tears
roll down my father’s cheeks. He was a stern and unemotional person,
a splendid type of the heroic age, and when for the first time in my
life I saw a tear in his luminous eyes I broke down and sobbed, and
felt embarrassed when I saw that the steamboat passengers were taking a
sympathetic interest in my parting from father and mother. A group of
big boys on the boat took me up and offered to help me to orient myself
on the boat; they were theological students returning to the famous
seminary at Karlovci, the seat of the Serb Patriarch. I confided to
them that I was going to the schools of Prague, that I never had gone
from home farther than Panchevo, that I had never seen a big steamboat
or a railroad-train, and that my journey gave me some anxiety because
I could not speak Hungarian and had some difficulty in handling the
limited German vocabulary which I learned in Panchevo. Presently we saw
a great church-tower in the distance, and they told me that it was the
cathedral of Karlovci, and that near the cathedral was the palace of
his holiness, the Patriarch. It was at this place that the Turks begged
for peace in 1699, having been defeated with the aid of the military
frontiersmen. Beyond Karlovci, they pointed out, was the mountain of
Frushka Gora, famous in Serbian poetry. This was the first time I saw
a mountain at close range. One historical scene crowded upon another,
and I had some difficulty to take them all in even with the friendly
assistance of my theological acquaintances. When Karlovci was reached
and my theological friends left the boat, I felt quite lonesome.
I returned to my multicolored bags, and as I looked upon them and
remembered that mother had made them I felt that a part, at least, of
my honey-hearted home was so near me, and that consoled me.
* * * * *
I noticed that lunch was being served to people who had ordered it,
and I thought of the roast goose which mother had packed away in my
multicolored bag. I reached for the bag, but, alas! the goose was gone.
A fellow passenger, who sat near me, assured me that he saw one of the
young theologians carry the goose away while the other theologians
engaged me in conversation, and not knowing to whom the bags belonged,
he thought nothing of the incident. Besides, how could any one suspect
a student of theology? “Shades of St. Sava,” said I, “what kind of
orthodoxy will these future apostles of your faith preach to the Serbs
of Banat?” “Ah, my boy,” said an elderly lady who heard my exclamation,
“do not curse them; they did it just out of innocent mischief. This
experience will be worth many a roast goose to you; it will teach you
that in a world of strangers you must always keep one eye on what you
have and with the other eye look out for things that you do not have.”
She was a most sympathetic peasant woman, who probably had seen my
dramatic parting with father and mother on the steamboat landing. I
took her advice, and during the rest of my journey I never lost sight
of my multicolored bags and of my yellow sheepskin coat.
* * * * *
The sight of Budapest, as the boat approached it on the following day,
nearly took my breath away. At the neighborhood gatherings in Idvor
I had heard many a story about the splendor of the emperor’s palace
on the top of the mountain at Buda, and about the wonders of a bridge
suspended in air across the Danube and connecting Buda with Pest. Many
legends were told in Idvor concerning these wonderful things. But what
I saw with my own eyes from the deck of that steamboat surpassed all
my expectations. I was overawed, and for a moment I should have been
glad to turn back and retrace my journey to Idvor. The world outside
of Idvor seemed too big and too complicated for me. But as soon as I
landed my courage returned. With the yellow sheepskin coat on my back,
the black sheepskin cap on my head, and the multicolored bags firmly
grasped in my hands, I started out to find the railroad-station. A
husky Serb passed by and, attracted by my sheepskin coat and cap and
the multicolored bags, suddenly stopped and addressed me in Serbian. He
lived in Budapest, he said, and his glad eye and hand assured me that
a sincere friend was speaking to me. He helped me with the bags and
stayed with me until he deposited me in the train that was to take me
to Prague. He cautioned me that at about four o’clock in the morning
my train would reach Gaenserndorf (Goosetown), and that there I should
get out and get another train which would take me to Prague. The name
of this town brought back to memory my goose which had disappeared at
Karlovci, and gloomy forebodings disturbed my mind and made me a little
anxious.
* * * * *
This was the first railroad-train that I had ever seen. It disappointed
me; the legendary speed of trains about which I had heard so much in
Idvor was not there. When the whistle blew and the conductor shouted
“Fertig!” (Ready!), I shut my eyes and waited anxiously, expecting to
be shot forward at a tremendous speed. But the train started leisurely
and, to my great disappointment, never reached the speeds which I
expected. It was a cold October night; the third-class compartment had
only one other passenger, a fat Hungarian whom I could not understand,
although he tried his best to engage me in a conversation. My sheepskin
coat and cap made me feel warm and comfortable; I fell asleep, and
never woke up until the rough conductor pulled me off my seat and
ordered me out.
“Vienna, last stop,” he shouted.
“But I was going to Prague,” I said.
“Then you should have changed at Gaenserndorf, you idiot!” answered
the conductor, with the usual politeness of Austrian officials when
they see a Serb before them. “But why didn’t you wake me up at
Gaenserndorf?” I protested. He flared up and made a gesture as if about
to box my ears, but suddenly he changed his mind and substituted a
verbal thrust at my pride. “You little fool of a Serbian swineherd, do
you expect an imperial official to assist you in your lazy habits you
sleepy mutton-head?”
“Excuse me,” I said with an air of wounded pride, “I am not a Serbian
swineherd; I am a son of a brave military frontiersman, and I am going
to the famous schools of Prague.”
He softened, and told me that I should have to go back to Gaenserndorf
after paying my fare to that place and back. When I informed him that I
had no money for extra travelling expenses, he beckoned to me to come
along, and after a while we stood in the presence of what I thought to
be a very great official. He had a lot of gold braid on his collar and
sleeves and on his cap, and he looked as stern and as serious as if the
cares of the whole empire rested upon his shoulders.
“Take off your cap, you ill-mannered peasant! Don’t you know how to
behave in the presence of your superiors?” he blurted out, addressing
me. I dropped my multicolored bags, took off my yellow sheepskin coat
in order to cover the bags, and then took off my black sheepskin cap,
and saluted him in the regular fashion of a military frontiersman. I
thought that he might be the emperor himself and, if so, I wondered if
he had ever heard of my trampling upon his yellow-black flag at that
May-day festival in Panchevo. Finally, I screwed up my courage and
apologized by saying:
“Your gracious Majesty will pardon my apparent lack of respect to my
superiors, but this is to me a world of strangers, and the anxiety
about my belongings kept my hands busy with the bags and prevented
me from taking off my cap when I approached your serene Highness.” I
noticed that several persons within hearing distance were somewhat
amused by this interview, and particularly an elderly looking couple, a
lady and a gentleman:
“Why should you feel anxious about your bags?” said the great official.
“You are not in the savage Balkans, the home of thieves; you are in
Vienna, the residence of his Majesty, the Emperor of Austria-Hungary.”
“Yes,” said I, “but two days ago my roast goose was stolen from one of
these bags within his Majesty’s realm, and my father told me that all
the rights and privileges of the Voyvodina and of the military frontier
were stolen right here in this very Vienna.”
“Ah, you little rebel, do you expect that this sort of talk will
get you a free transportation from Gaenserndorf to Vienna and back
again? Restrain your rebellious tongue or I will give you a free
transportation back to your military frontier, where rebels like you
ought to be behind lock and key.”
At this juncture the elderly looking couple engaged him in
conversation, and after a while the gold-braided mogul informed me that
my ticket from Vienna to Prague by the short route was paid for, and
that I should proceed. The rude conductor, who had called me a Serbian
swineherd a little while before, led me to the train and ushered me
politely into a first-class compartment. Presently the elderly looking
couple entered and greeted me in a most friendly, almost affectionate,
manner. They encouraged me to take off my sheepskin coat and make
myself comfortable, and assured me that my bags would be perfectly safe.
* * * * *
Their German speech had a strange accent, and their manner and
appearance were entirely different from anything that I had ever seen
before. But they inspired confidence. Feeling hungry, I took my loaf
of snowy-white bread out of my bag, and with my herdsman’s knife with
a long wooden handle I cut off two slices and offered them to my new
friends. “Please, take it,” said I; “it was prepared by my mother’s
hands for my long journey.” They accepted my hospitality and ate the
bread and pronounced it excellent, the best bread they had ever tasted.
I told them how it was made by mixing leaf-lard and milk with the
finest wheat flour, and when I informed them that I knew a great deal
about cooking and that I had learned it by watching my mother, the
lady appeared greatly pleased. The gentleman, her husband, asked me
questions about farming and taking care of animals, which I answered
readily, quoting my father as my authority. “You had two splendid
teachers, your father and your mother,” they said; “do you expect to
find better teachers in Prague?” I told them briefly what had sent
me to Prague, mentioning particularly that some people thought that
I had outgrown the schools not only of my native village but also of
Panchevo, but that in reality the main reason was because the Hungarian
officials did not want me in Panchevo on account of my showing a strong
inclination to develop into a rebellious nationalist. My new friends
gave each other a significant look and said something in a language
which I did not understand. They told me that it was English, and added
that they were from America.
“America!” said I, quivering with emotion. “Then you must know a lot
about Benjamin Franklin and his kite, and about Lincoln, the American
Prince Marko.”
This exclamation of mine surprised them greatly and furnished the
topic for a lively conversation of several hours, until the train had
reached Prague. It was conducted in broken German, but we understood
each other perfectly. I told them of my experience with Franklin’s
theory of lightning, and of its clash with my father’s St. Elijah
legend, and answered many of their questions relating to my calling
Lincoln an American Prince Marko. I quoted from several Serbian ballads
relating to Prince Marko which I had learned from Baba Batikin, and
at their urgent request described with much detail the neighborhood
gatherings in Idvor. They returned the compliment by telling me stories
of Benjamin Franklin, of Lincoln, and of America, and urged me to read
“Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” a translation of which I discovered some time
afterward. When the train reached Prague they insisted that I be their
guest at their Prague hotel, called the Blue Star, for a day, at least,
until I found my friends in Prague. I gladly accepted, and spent a
delightful evening with them. The sweetness of their disposition was
an unfathomable riddle to me. The riddle, however, was solved several
years later.
* * * * *
I mentioned above that the first sight of Budapest nearly took my
breath away. The first view of Prague filled me with a strange
religious fervor. The ancient gates, surmounted by towers with
wonderful stone carvings and inscriptions; the lofty domes, crowning
mediæval cathedrals, the portals of which were bristling with beautiful
images of saints; the historic public buildings, each of which told a
story of the old glories of Bohemia’s kingdom; the ancient stone bridge
across the Moldava River, supporting statues of Christian martyrs;
the royal palace on the hill of Hradchin, which seemed to rise way up
above the clouds--all these, and many other wonderful things, made me
feel that it was places like Prague which St. Sava visited when he
deserted his royal parents and went to the end of the world to seek new
knowledge. I saw then why the protoyeray of Panchevo had suggested that
I go to Prague; I even began to suspect that he expected the influence
of Prague to turn my attention to theology. I think now that it would
have done so if it had not been for that unpleasant goose incident at
Karlovci. Besides, there was another influence at Prague, which was
more powerful than any other influence in the Austrian Empire at that
time.
* * * * *
The sights of Prague interested me more than its famous schools, which
I was to enter and delayed entering. But finally I was enrolled, and
the boys in the school scrutinized me with a puzzled expression, as
if they could not make out what country or clime I came from. When
they found out that I hailed from the Serb military frontier, all
uncertainty vanished, and I knew exactly where I stood. The German
boys became very cold, the Czech boys greeted me in their own tongue
and hugged me when by my Serbian answer I proved not only that I
understood them but also that I expected them to understand my Serbian
greeting. They were all nationalists to the core and did their best to
make me join their ranks, which, after some reluctance, I finally did.
I showed them then two letters from protoyeray Zhivkovich introducing
me to Rieger and to Palacky, the great apostles of Panslavism and of
nationalism in Bohemia. From that day on I was one of their young
revolutionary set, and henceforth school lessons looked tame and lost
most of their charm to me.
* * * * *
The German victory in France two years prior to that time, resulting as
it did in the creation of a united Germany, had encouraged Teutonism to
run riot wherever it met a current opposing it, as it did in Prague.
Nationalism in Bohemia was a reaction against Austrian Teutonism in
those days, just as it was a reaction against Magyarism in Voyvodina
and in the military frontier. Hardly a day passed without serious
clashes between the Czech nationalist boys and their German classmates.
That which made my stay in Panchevo impossible met me in Prague in an
even more violent form. Loyal to the traditions of the Serbian military
frontiersmen, I liked nothing better than a good fight, and I had the
physique and the practice, gained in the pasturelands of Idvor, to lick
any German boy of my age or even older. The German pupils feared me,
and the German teachers condemned what they called my revolutionary
tendencies, and threatened to send me back to Idvor. As time went on,
I began to wish that they would expel me and give me a good excuse to
return to Idvor. I missed the wide horizon of the plains of Banat in
the narrow streets of Prague. My little bedroom in a garret, the only
living quarters that I could afford, was a sad contrast to my mode of
life on the endless plains of Banat, where for six weeks each summer
I had lived under the wide canopy of heaven, watching the grazing
oxen, gazing upon the countless stars at night, and listening to the
sweet strains of the Serbian flute. The people I met on the streets
were puffed up with Teutonic pride or with official arrogance; they
had none of the gentle manliness and friendliness of the military
frontiersmen. The teachers looked to me more like Austrian gendarmes
than like sympathetic friends. They cared more for my sentiments toward
the emperor and for my ideas about nationalism than for my ideas
relating to God and his beautiful world of life and light. Not one of
them reminded me of Kos, the Slovenian, or of protoyeray Zhivkovich in
Panchevo. Race antagonism was at that time the ruling passion. If it
had not been for the affectionate regard which the Czech boys and their
parents had for me I should have felt most lonesome; from Banat to
Prague was too sudden a change for me.
* * * * *
Another circumstance I must mention now which helped to brace me up. I
delivered, after many months of delay, my letters of introduction to
Rieger and to Palacky. I saw their pictures, I read about them, and
finally I heard them address huge nationalist meetings. They were great
men, I thought, and I could not screw up sufficient courage to call
on them, as the protoyeray wished me to do, and waste their precious
time on my account. But when I received a letter from the protoyeray
in Panchevo asking why I had not delivered the letters of introduction
he had given me, I made the calls. Rieger looked like my father: dark,
stern, reserved, powerful of physique, with a wonderful luminosity in
his eyes. He gave me coffee and cake, consuming a generous supply of
them himself. When I kissed his hand, bidding him good-by, he gave
me a florin for pocket-money, patted me on the cheek, and assured me
that I could easily come up to the protoyeray’s expectations and
surprise my teachers if I would only spend more time on my books and
less on my nationalist chums. This suggestion and indirect advice
made me very thoughtful. Palacky was a gentle, smooth-faced, old
gentleman, who looked to me then as if he knew everything that men
had ever known, and that much study had made him pale and delicate.
He was much interested in my description of the life and customs of
my native village, and when I mentioned St. Sava, he drew a parallel
between this saint and Yan Huss, the great Czech patriot and divine,
who was burned at the stake in 1415 at Constance because he demanded
a national democratic church in Bohemia. He gave me a book in which I
could read all about Huss and the Hussite wars and about the one-eyed
Zhizhka, the great Hussite general. He gave me no coffee nor cake,
probably because his health did not permit him to indulge in eatables
between meals, but assured me of assistance if I should ever need it. I
eagerly read the book about Yan Huss and the Hussite wars, and became
a more enthusiastic nationalist than ever before. I felt that Rieger’s
influence pulled me in one direction, and that Palacky encouraged me
to persist in the opposite direction which I had selected under the
influence of the spirit of Czech nationalism.
* * * * *
In my letters to my elder sisters, which they read to father and
mother, I described with much detail the beauties and wonders of
Prague, my receptions and talks with Rieger and Palacky, and elaborated
much the parallel between St. Sava and Yan Huss to which Palacky had
drawn my attention, and which I expected would please my mother; but
I never mentioned Rieger’s advice that I stick to books and leave the
nationalist propaganda of the boys alone. I never during my whole
year’s stay in Prague sent a report home on my school work, because I
never did more than just enough to prevent my dropping to the lower
grade. My mother and the protoyeray in Panchevo expected immeasurably
more. Hence, I never complained about the smallness of the allowance
which my parents could give me, and, therefore, they did not appeal to
my Panchevo friends for the additional help which they had promised.
I felt that I had no right to make such an appeal, because I did not
devote myself entirely to the work for which I was sent to Prague.
* * * * *
While debating with myself whether to follow Rieger’s advice and leave
nationalism in the hands of more experienced people and devote myself
to my lessons only, an event occurred which was the turning-point in my
life. I received a letter from my sister informing me that my father
had died suddenly after a very brief illness. She told me also that my
father had had a premonition that he would die soon and never see me
again when, a year before, he bade me good-by on the steamboat landing.
I understood then the meaning of the tears which on that day of parting
I had seen roll down his cheeks for the first time in my life. I
immediately informed my mother that I wanted to return to Idvor and
help her take care of my father’s land. But she would not listen, and
insisted that I stay in Prague, where I was seeing and learning so many
wonderful things. I knew quite well what a heavy burden my schooling
would be to her, and my school record did not entitle me to expect the
protoyeray to make his promise of assistance good. I decided to find
a way of relieving my mother of any further burdens so far as I was
concerned.
* * * * *
One day I saw on the last page of an illustrated paper an advertisement
of the Hamburg-American line, offering steerage transportation
from Hamburg to New York for twenty-eight florins. I thought of my
mellow-hearted American friends of the year before who bought a
first-class railroad-ticket for me from Vienna to Prague, and decided
on the spot to try my fortune in the land of Franklin and Lincoln as
soon as I could save up and otherwise scrape up money enough to carry
me from Prague to New York. My books, my watch, my clothes, including
the yellow sheepskin coat and the black sheepskin cap, were all sold
to make up the sum necessary for travelling expenses. I started out
with just one suit of clothes on my back and a few changes of linen,
and a red Turkish fez which nobody would buy. And why should anybody
going to New York bother about warm clothes? Was not New York much
farther south than Panchevo, and does not America suggest a hot climate
when one thinks of the pictures of naked Indians so often seen? These
thoughts consoled me when I parted with my sheepskin coat. At length I
came to Hamburg, ready to embark but with no money to buy a mattress
and a blanket for my bunk in the steerage. Several days later my ship,
the _Westphalia_, sailed--on the twelfth day of March, 1874. My mother
received several days later my letter, mailed in Hamburg, telling her
in most affectionate terms that, in my opinion, I had outgrown the
school, the teachers, and the educational methods of Prague, and was
about to depart for the land of Franklin and Lincoln, where the wisdom
of people was beyond anything that even St. Sava had ever known. I
assured her that with her blessing and God’s help I should certainly
succeed, and promised that I would soon return rich in rare knowledge
and in honors. The letter was dictated by the rosiest optimism that I
could invent. Several months later I found to my great delight that
my mother had accepted cheerfully this rosy view of my unexpected
enterprise.
* * * * *
[Illustration: THE VILLAGE CHURCH IN IDVOR]
The ship sailed with a full complement of steerage passengers, mostly
Germans. As we glided along the River Elbe the emigrants were all
on deck, watching the land as it gradually vanished from our sight.
Presently the famous German emigrant song rang through the air, and
with a heavy heart I took in the words of its refrain:
“Oh, how hard it would be to leave the homeland shores
If the hope did not live that soon we shall see them again.
Farewell, farewell, until we see you again.”
I did not wait for the completion of the song, but turned in, and in
my bare bunk I sought to drown my sadness in a flood of tears. Idvor,
with its sunny fields, vineyards, and orchards; with its grazing herds
of cattle and flocks of sheep; with its beautiful church-spire and
the solemn ringing of church-bells; with its merry boys and girls
dancing to the tune of the Serbian bagpipes the Kolo on the village
green--Idvor, with all the familiar scenes that I had ever seen there,
appeared before my tearful eyes, and in the midst of them I saw my
mother listening to my sister reading slowly the letter which I had
sent to her from Hamburg. Every one of these scenes seemed to start a
new shower of tears, which finally cleared the oppressiveness of my
spiritual atmosphere. I thought that I could hear my mother say to my
sister: “God bless him for his affectionate letter. May the spirit of
St. Sava guide him in the land beyond the seas! I know that he will
make good his promises.” Sadness deserted me then and I felt strong
again.
* * * * *
He who has never crossed the stormy Atlantic during the month of
March in the crowded steerage of an immigrant ship does not know
what hardships are. I bless the stars that the immigration laws were
different then than they are now, otherwise I should not be among the
living. To stand the great hardships of a stormy sea when the rosy
picture of the promised land is before your mind’s eye is a severe
test for any boy’s nerve and physical stamina; but to face the same
hardships as a deported and penniless immigrant with no cheering
prospect in sight is too much for any person, unless that person is
entirely devoid of every finer sensibility. Many a night I spent on the
deck of that immigrant ship hugging the warm smoke-stack and adjusting
my position so as to avoid the force of the gale and the sharpness of
its icy chilliness. All I had was the light suit of clothes which I
carried on my back. Everything else I had converted into money with
which to cover my transportation expenses. There was nothing left
to pay for a blanket and mattress for my steerage bunk. I could not
rest there during the cold nights of March without much shivering and
unbearable discomfort. If it had not been for the warm smoke-stack I
should have died of cold. At first I had to fight for my place there
in the daytime, but when the immigrants understood that I had no warm
clothing they did not disturb me any longer. I often thought of my
yellow sheepskin coat and the black sheepskin cap, and understood
more clearly than ever my mother’s far-sightedness when she provided
that coat and cap for my long journeys. A blast of the everlasting
gales had carried away my hat, and a Turkish fez such as the Serbs of
Bosnia wear was the only head-gear I had. It was providential that I
had not succeeded in selling it in Prague. Most of my fellow emigrants
thought that I was a Turk and cared little about my discomforts. But,
nevertheless, I felt quite brave and strong in the daytime; at night,
however, when, standing alone alongside of the smoke-stack, I beheld
through the howling darkness the white rims of the mountain-high waves
speeding on like maddened dragons toward the tumbling ship, my heart
sank low. It was my implicit trust in God and in his regard for my
mother’s prayers which enabled me to overcome my fear and bravely face
the horrors of the angry seas.
* * * * *
On the fourteenth day, early in the morning, the flat coast-line of
Long Island hove in sight. Nobody in the motley crowd of excited
immigrants was more happy to see the promised land than I was. It was
a clear, mild, and sunny March morning, and as we approached New York
Harbor the warm sun-rays seemed to thaw out the chilliness which I had
accumulated in my body by continuous exposure to the wintry blasts
of the North Atlantic. I felt like a new person, and saw in every
new scene presented by the New World as the ship moved into it a new
promise that I should be welcome. Life and activity kept blossoming
out all along the ship’s course, and seemed to reach full bloom as we
entered New York Harbor. The scene which was then unfolded before my
eyes was most novel and bewildering. The first impressions of Budapest
and of Prague seemed like pale-faced images of the grand realities
which New York Harbor disclosed before my eager eyes. A countless
multitude of boats lined each shore of the vast river; all kinds of
craft ploughed hurriedly in every direction through the waters of the
bay; great masses of people crowded the numerous ferry-boats, and gave
me the impression that one crowd was just about as anxious to reach
one shore of the huge metropolis as the other was to reach the other
shore; they all must have had some important thing to do, I thought.
The city on each side of the shore seemed to throb with activity. I did
not distinguish between New York and Jersey City. Hundreds of other
spots like the one I beheld, I thought, must be scattered over the vast
territories of the United States, and in these seething pots of human
action there must be some one activity, I was certain, which needed me.
This gave me courage. The talk which I had listened to during two weeks
on the immigrant ship was rather discouraging, I thought. One immigrant
was bragging about his long experience as a cabinetmaker, and informed
his audience that cabinetmakers were in great demand in America;
another one was telling long tales about his skill as a mechanician; a
third one was spinning out long yarns about the fabulous agricultural
successes of his relatives out West, who had invited him to come there
and join them; a fourth confided to the gaping crowd that his brother,
who was anxiously waiting for him, had a most prosperous bank in some
rich mining-camp in Nevada where people never saw any money except
silver and gold and hardly ever a coin smaller than a dollar; a fifth
one, who had been in America before, told us in a rather top-lofty way
that no matter who you were or what you knew or what you had you would
be a greenhorn when you landed in the New World, and a greenhorn has
to serve his apprenticeship before he can establish his claim to any
recognition. He admitted, however, that immigrants with a previous
practical training, or strong pull through relatives and friends, had
a shorter apprenticeship. I had no practical training, and I had no
relatives nor friends nor even acquaintances in the New World. I had
nothing of any immediate value to offer to the land I was about to
enter. That thought had discouraged me as I listened to the talks of
the immigrants; but the activity which New York Harbor presented to my
eager eyes on that sunny March day was most encouraging.
Presently the ship passed by Castle Garden, and I heard some one say:
“There is the Gate to America.” An hour or so later we all stood
at the gate. The immigrant ship, _Westphalia_, landed at Hoboken
and a tug took us to Castle Garden. We were carefully examined and
cross-examined, and when my turn came the examining officials shook
their heads and seemed to find me wanting. I confessed that I had only
five cents in my pocket and had no relatives here, and that I knew of
nobody in this country except Franklin, Lincoln, and Harriet Beecher
St owe, whose “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” I had read in a translation. One of
the officials, who had one leg only, and walked with a crutch, seemed
much impressed by this remark, and looking very kindly into my eyes
and with a merry twinkle in his eye he said in German: “You showed
good taste when you picked your American acquaintances.” I learned
later that he was a Swiss who had served in the Union army during the
Civil War. I confessed also to the examining officials that I had no
training in the arts and crafts, but that I was anxious to learn, and
that this desire had brought me to America. In answer to the question
why I had not stayed at home or in Prague to learn instead of wandering
across the sea with so little on my back and nothing in my pocket, I
said that the Hungarian and Austrian authorities had formed a strong
prejudice against me on account of my sympathies with people, and
particularly with my father, who objected to being cheated out of
their ancient rights and privileges which the emperor had guaranteed
to them for services which they had been rendering to him loyally
for nearly two hundred years. I spoke with feeling, and I felt that
I made an impression upon the examiners, who did not look to me like
officials such as I was accustomed to see in Austria-Hungary. They had
no gold and silver braid and no superior airs but looked very much like
ordinary civilian mortals. That gave me courage and confidence, and I
spoke frankly and fearlessly, believing firmly that I was addressing
human beings who had a heart which was not held in bondage by cast-iron
rules invented by their superiors in authority. The Swiss veteran who
walked on crutches, having lost one of his legs in the Civil War, was
particularly attentive while I was being cross-examined, and nodded
approvingly whenever I scored a point with my answers. He whispered
something to the other officials, and they finally informed me that
I could pass on, and I was conducted promptly to the Labor Bureau
of Castle Garden. My Swiss friend looked me up a little later and
informed me that the examiners had made an exception in my favor and
admitted me, and that I must look sharp and find a job as soon as
possible.
* * * * *
As I sat in the Labor Bureau waiting for somebody to come along and
pick me out as a worthy candidate for some job, I could not help
surveying those of my fellow immigrants who, like myself, sat there
waiting for a job. I really believed that they were in a class below
me, and yet they had had no trouble in being admitted. They had not
needed favors on the part of the officials in order to be admitted.
I had, and therefore, I inferred, they must have appeared to the
officials to be more desirable. It was true, I said, arguing with
myself, that they had a definite trade; they undoubtedly had some
money; and they certainly looked more prosperous than I did, judging
by their clothes. But why should the possession of a trade, of money,
or of clothes stand so much higher in America than it did in Idvor,
my native village? We had a blacksmith, a wheelwright, and a barber
in Idvor; they were our craftsmen; and we had a Greek storekeeper who
had a lot of money and wore expensive city-made clothes, but there
was not one respectable Serb peasant in Idvor, no matter how poor,
who did not think that he was superior to these people who had only
a transient existence in our historic village. The knowledge of our
traditions and our implicit belief in them made us feel superior
to people who wandered about like gypsies with no traditions, and
with nothing to anchor them to a definite place. A newcomer to our
village was closely scrutinized, and he was judged not so much by his
skill in a craft, nor by his money, nor by his clothes, but by his
personality, by the reputation of his family, and by the traditions of
the people to whom he belonged. The examiners at Castle Garden seemed
to attach no importance to these things, because they did not ask me
a single question concerning my family, the history of my village,
or the history of the military frontier and of the Serb race. It was
no wonder, said I, consoling myself, that I appeared to them less
desirable than many of the other immigrants who would never have been
allowed to settle in Idvor, and whose society on the immigrant ship had
interested me so little, and, in fact, had often been repulsive to me,
because I could not help considering many of them a sort of spiritual
muckers. My admission by a special favor of the examiners was a puzzle
and a disappointment to me, but it did not destroy the firmness of my
belief that I brought to America something which the examiners were
either unable or did not care to find out, but which, nevertheless, I
valued very highly, and that was: a knowledge of and a profound respect
and admiration for the best traditions of my race. My mother and the
illiterate peasants at the neighborhood gatherings in Idvor had taught
me that; no other lesson had ever made a deeper impression upon me.
II
THE HARDSHIPS OF A GREENHORN
My first night under the Stars and Stripes was spent in Castle Garden.
It was a glorious night, I thought; no howling of the gales, no
crashing of the waves, and no tumbling motion of the world beneath my
feet, such as I had experienced on the immigrant ship. The feeling of
being on _terra firma_ sank deep into my consciousness and I slept the
sound sleep of a healthy youth, although my bed was a bare floor. The
very early morning saw me at my breakfast, enjoying a huge bowl of
hot coffee and a big chunk of bread with some butter, supplied by the
Castle Garden authorities at Uncle Sam’s expense. Then I started out,
eager to catch a glimpse of great New York, feeling, in the words of
the psalmist, “as a strong man ready to run a race.” An old lady sat
near the gate of Castle Garden offering cakes and candies for sale.
A piece of prune pie caught my eye, and no true Serb can resist the
allurements of prunes. It is a national sweetmeat. I bought it, paying
five cents for it, the only money I had, and then I made a bee-line
across Battery Park, at the same time attending to my pie. My first
bargain in America proved a failure. The prune pie was a deception;
it was a prune pie filled with prune pits, and I thought of the words
of my fellow passenger on the immigrant ship who had said: “No matter
who you are or what you know or what you have you will be a greenhorn
when you land in America.” The prune-pie transaction whispered into
my ear: “Michael, you are a greenhorn; this is the first experience
in your life as a greenhorn. Cheer up! Get ready to serve your
apprenticeship as a greenhorn before you can establish your claim to
any recognition,” repeating the words of my prophetic fellow passenger
who had served his apprenticeship in America. No prophet ever uttered a
truer word.
The old Stevens House, a white building with green window-shutters,
stood at the corner of Broadway and Bowling Green. When I reached
this spot and saw the busy beehive called Broadway, with thousands
of telegraph-wires stretching across it like a cobweb between huge
buildings, I was overawed, and wondered what it meant. Neither
Budapest, nor Prague, nor Hamburg had looked anything like it. My
puzzled and panicky expression and the red fez on my head must have
attracted considerable attention, because suddenly I saw myself
surrounded by a small crowd of boys of all sizes, jeering and laughing
and pointing at my fez. They were newsboys and bootblacks, who appeared
to be anxious to have some fun at my expense. I was embarrassed and
much provoked, but controlled my Serbian temper. Presently one of the
bigger fellows walked up to me and knocked the fez off my head. I
punched him on the nose and then we clinched. My wrestling experiences
on the pasturelands of Idvor came to my rescue. The bully was down in a
jiffy, and his chums gave a loud cheer of ringing laughter. I thought
it was a signal for general attack, but they did not touch me nor
interfere in any way. They acted like impartial spectators, anxious to
see that the best man won. Suddenly I felt a powerful hand pulling me
up by the collar, and when I looked up I saw a big official with a club
in his hand and a fierce expression in his eye. He looked decidedly
unfriendly, but after listening to the appeals of the newsboys and
bootblacks who witnessed the fight he softened and handed me my fez.
The boys who a little while before had jeered and tried to guy me,
evidently appealed in my behalf when the policeman interfered. They
had actually become my friends. When I walked away toward Castle
Garden, with my red fez proudly cocked up on my head, the boys cheered.
I thought to myself that the unpleasant incident was worth my while,
because it taught me that I was in a country where even among the
street urchins there was a strong sentiment in favor of fair play even
to a Serbian greenhorn. America was different from Austria-Hungary.
I never forgot the lesson and never had a single reason to change my
opinion.
A gentleman who had witnessed the fight joined me on my return trip to
Castle Garden, and when we reached the employment bureau he offered
me a job. When I learned that one of my daily duties would be to
milk a cow, I refused. According to Serb traditions, milking a cow
is decidedly a feminine job. Another gentleman, a Swiss foreman on a
Delaware farm, offered me another job, which was to drive a team of
mules and help in the work of hauling things to the field preparatory
for spring planting. I accepted gladly, feeling confident that I knew
all about driving animals, although I had never even seen a mule in
all my experiences in Idvor. We left for Philadelphia that forenoon
and caught there the early afternoon boat for Delaware City, where we
arrived late in the afternoon.
As we passed through Philadelphia I asked the Swiss foreman whether
that was the place where a hundred years before famous Benjamin
Franklin flew his kite, and he answered that he had never heard of
the gentleman, and that I must have meant William Penn. “No,” said I,
“because I never heard of this gentleman.” “You have still to learn a
thing or two about American history,” said the Swiss foreman, with a
superior air. “Yes, indeed,” I said, “and I intend to do it as soon
as I have learned a thing or two about the English language”; and I
wondered whether the Swiss foreman who had never heard of Benjamin
Franklin and his kite had really learned a thing or two in American
history, although he had lived some fifteen years in the United States.
There were quite a number of farmers on the Delaware boat, every one
of them wearing a long goatee but no mustache; such was the fashion
at that time. Every one of them had the brim of his slouch hat turned
down, covering his eyes completely. As they conversed they looked
like wooden images; they made no gestures and I could not catch the
expression of their hidden eyes; without these powerful aids to
the understanding of the spoken word I could not make out a single
syllable in their speech. The English language sounded to me like an
inarticulate mode of speech, just as inarticulate as the joints of
those imperturbable Delaware farmers. I wondered whether I should ever
succeed in learning a thing or two in this most peculiar tongue. I
thought of the peasants at the neighborhood gatherings in Idvor, and of
their winged words, each of which found its way straight into my soul.
There also appeared before my mental vision the image of Baba Batikin,
with fire in his eye and a vibratory movement of his hand accompanying
his stirring tales of Prince Marko. How different and how superior
those peasants of Idvor appeared to me when I compared them with the
farmers on that Delaware boat! “Impossible,” said I, “that a Serb
peasant should be so much superior to the American peasant!” Something
wrong with my judgment, thought I, and I charged it to my being a
greenhorn and unable to size up an American farmer.
At the boat-landing in Delaware City a farm-wagon was awaiting us, and
we reached the farm at supper-time. The farm-buildings were fully a
mile from the town, standing all by themselves; there was no village
and there were no neighbors, and the place looked to me like a camp.
There was no village life among American farmers, I was told, and
I understood then why those farmers on the Delaware boat were so
devoid of all animation. The farm-hands were all young fellows, but
considerably older than myself, and when the foreman introduced me to
them, by my Christian name, I found that most of them spoke German with
a Swiss accent, the same which the foreman had who brought me from New
York. One of them asked me how long I had been in the country, and when
I told him that I was about twenty-four hours in the country, he smiled
and said that he thought so, evidently on account of the unmistakable
signs of a greenhorn which he saw all over me.
The first impression of an American farm was dismal. In the messroom,
however, where supper was served, everything was neat and lovely, and
the supper looked to me like a holiday feast. I became more reconciled
to the American farm. The farm-hands ate much and spoke very little,
and when they finished they left the dining-room without any ceremony.
I was left alone, and moved my chair close to a warm stove and waited
for somebody to tell me what to do next. Presently two women came in
and proceeded to clear the supper-table; they spoke English and seemed
to pay no attention to me. They probably thought that I was homesick
and avoided disturbing me. Presently I saw a young girl, somewhat
younger than myself. She pretended to be helping the women, but I soon
discovered that she had another mission. Her appearance reminded me of
a young Vila, a Serbian fairy, who in the old Serbian ballads plays a
most wonderful part. No hero ever perished through misfortune who had
the good fortune to win the friendship of a Vila. Supernatural both in
intelligence and in physical skill, the Vilæ could always find a way
out of every difficulty. I felt certain that if there ever was a Vila
this young girl was one. Her luminous blue eyes, her finely chiselled
features, and her graceful movements made a strange impression upon me.
I imagined that she could hear the faintest sound, that she could see
in the darkest night, and that, like a real Vila, she could feel not
only the faintest breezes but even the thoughts of people near her.
She certainly felt my thoughts. Pointing to a table in a corner of the
dining-room, she directed my attention to writing-paper and ink, placed
there for the convenience of farm-hands. I understood her meaning,
although I did not understand her words. I spent the evening writing a
letter to my mother. This was my wish, and the Vila must have read it
in my face.
One of the farm-hands, a Swiss, came in after a while in order to
remind me that it was bedtime and to inform me that early in the
morning he would wake me up and take me to the barn, where my job would
be assigned to me. He kept his word, and with lantern in hand he took
me long before sunrise to the barn and introduced me to two mules which
he put in my charge. I cleaned them and fed them while he watched and
directed; after breakfast he showed me how to harness and hitch them
up. I took my turn in the line of teams hauling manure to the fields.
He warned me not to apply myself too zealously to the work of loading
and unloading, until I had become gradually broken in, otherwise I
should be laid up stiff as a rod. The next day I was laid up, stiffer
than a rod. He was much provoked, and called me the worst “greenhorn”
that he ever saw. But, thanks to the skilled and tender care of the
ladies on the farm, I was at my job again two days later. My being a
greenhorn appealed to their sympathy; they seemed to have the same kind
of soul which I had first observed in my American friends who paid my
fare from Vienna to Prague.
One of my mules gave me much trouble, and the more he worried me the
more amusement he seemed to furnish to the other farm-hands, rough
immigrants of foreign birth. He did not bite, nor did he kick, as
some of the mules did, but he protested violently against my putting
the bridle on his head. The other farm-hands had no advice to offer;
they seemed to enjoy my perplexity. I soon discovered that the
troublesome mule could not stand anybody touching his ears. That was
his ticklish spot. I finally got around it; I never took his bridle off
on working-days, but only removed the bit, so that he could eat. On
Sunday mornings, however, when I had all the time I wanted, I took his
bridle off, cleaned it, and put it on, and did not remove it again for
another week. The foreman and the superintendent discovered my trick
and approved of it, and so the farm-hands lost the amusement which they
had had at my expense every morning at the harnessing hour. I noticed
that they were impressed by my trick and did not address me by the name
of greenhorn quite so often. They were also surprised to hear me make
successful attempts to speak English. Nothing counts so much in the
immigrant’s bid for promotion to a grade above that of a greenhorn as
the knowledge of the English language. In these efforts I received a
most unexpected assistance, and for that I was much indebted to my red
fez.
On every trip from the barnyard to the fields, my mules and I passed
by the superintendent’s quarters, and there behind the wall of neatly
piled-up cord-wood I observed every now and then the golden curls of my
American Vila. She cautiously watched there, just like a Serbian Vila
at the edge of a forest. My red fez perched up on a high seat behind
the mules obviously attracted and amused her. Whenever I caught her eye
I saluted in regular Balkan fashion, and it was a salute such as she
had never seen before in the State of Delaware. Her curiosity seemed to
grow from day to day, and so did mine.
One evening I sat alone near the warm stove in the messroom and she
came in and said: “Good evening!” I answered by repeating her greeting,
but pronounced it badly. She corrected me, and, when I repeated her
greeting the second time, I did much better, and she applauded my
genuine effort. Then she proceeded to teach me English words for
everything in the dining-room, and before that first lesson was over I
knew some twenty English words and pronounced them to her satisfaction.
The next day I repeated these words aloud over and over again during
my trips to the fields, until I thought that even the mules knew them
by heart. At the second lesson on the following evening I scored a
high mark from my teacher and added twenty more words to my English
vocabulary. As time went on, my vocabulary increased at a rapid rate,
and my young teacher was most enthusiastic. She called me “smart,”
and I never forgot the word. One evening she brought in her mother,
who two weeks previously had taken care of me when I was laid up from
overzealous loading. At that time she could not make me understand a
single word she said. This time, however, I had no difficulty, and she
was greatly surprised and pleased. My first examination in English was
a complete success.
At the end of the first month on the Delaware farm my confidence in the
use of the English language had grown strong. During the second month I
grew bold enough to join in lengthy conversations. The superintendent’s
wife invited me often to spend the evening with the family. My tales
of Idvor, Panchevo, Budapest, Prague, Hamburg, and the immigrant ship
interested them much, they said. My pronunciation and grammar amused
them even more than they were willing to show. They were too polite to
indulge in unrestrained laughter over my Serbian idioms. During these
conversations the Vila sat still and seemed to be all attention. She
was all eyes and ears, and I knew that she was making mental notes of
every mistake in my grammar and pronunciation. At the next lesson she
would correct every one of these mistakes, and then she watched at the
next family gathering to see whether I should repeat them. But I did
not; my highest ambition was to show myself worthy of the title “smart”
which she had given me.
One evening I was relating to the superintendent’s family how I had
refused the first offer of a job at Castle Garden, because I did not
care to accept the daily duty of milking a cow, which, according to my
Serbian notions, was a purely feminine job. I admitted that Serbian and
American notions were entirely different in this particular respect,
because, although over a hundred cows were milked daily on the farm,
I never saw a woman in any one of the many barns, nor in the huge
creamery. I confessed also that both the Vila and her mother would
be entirely out of place not only in the cow-barns but even in the
scrupulously clean creamery, adding that if the Vila had been obliged
to attend to the cows and to the creamery, she would not have found
the time to teach me English, and, therefore, I preferred the American
custom. Vila’s mother was highly pleased with this remark and said:
“Michael, my boy, you are beginning to understand our American ways,
and the sooner you drop your Serbian notions the sooner you will become
an American.”
She explained to me the position of the American woman as that of the
educator and spiritual guide of the coming generation, emphasizing the
fact that the vast majority of teachers in American primary schools
were women. This information astonished and pleased me, because I knew
that my mother was a better teacher than my schoolmaster, an old man
with a funny nasal twang. Her suggestion, however, that I should drop
my Serbian notions and become an American as soon as possible disturbed
me. But I said nothing; I was a greenhorn only and did not desire to
express an opinion which might clash with hers. I thought it strange,
however, that she took it for granted that I wished to become an
American.
The next day was Sunday, and I walked to church, which was in Delaware
City. The singing of hymns did not impress me much, and the sermon
impressed me even less. Delaware City was much bigger than my native
Idvor, and yet the religious service in Idvor was more elaborate. There
was no choral singing in the church of Delaware City, and there were
no ceremonies with a lot of burning candles and the sweet perfume of
burning incense, and there was no ringing of harmonious church-bells.
I was disappointed, and wondered why Vila’s mother expected me to drop
my Serbian notions and embrace America’s ways, which, so far as public
worship was concerned, appeared to me as less attractive than the
Serbian ways. Vila’s family met me in front of the church and asked me
to ride home with them. A farm-hand riding in a fine carriage with his
employer struck me as extraordinary, and I wished to be excused, but
they insisted. No rich peasant in Idvor would have done that. In this
respect Delaware farmers with their American ways appealed to me more.
Another surprise was in store for me: Vila’s mother insisted that I
share with the family their Sunday dinner, just as I had shared with
them the divine service. I saw in it an effort on her part to show an
appreciation of my religious habit and to encourage it, thus proving
in practice what she preached to me about the spiritual influence of
the American woman. During the dinner I described the Sundays of Idvor,
dwelling particularly upon the custom among the Serbian boys and girls
of kolo dancing on the village green in front of the church on Sunday
afternoons. Vila approved of the custom enthusiastically, but her
mother thought that a walk through the peach-orchards, which were then
in full bloom, was at least as good. Vila and I walked together that
Sunday afternoon. My attendance at church gained for me this favor also.
He who has never seen the Delaware peach-orchards of those days in
full bloom, when in the month of May the ground is a deep velvety
green, and when the Southern sky seen through the golden atmosphere
of a sunny May day reminds one of those mysterious landscapes which
form the background in some of Raphael’s Madonna pictures--he who has
never seen that glorious sight does not know the heavenly beauty of
this little earth. No painter would dare attempt to put on canvas the
cloth of flaming gold which on that balmy Sunday afternoon covered the
ripples of the sun-kissed Delaware River. Vila asked me whether I had
ever seen anything more beautiful in Idvor, and I said no, but added
that nothing is as lovely and as sweet as one’s native village. When I
informed her that some day I expected to return to it, enriched by my
experiences in America, she looked surprised and said:
“Then you do not intend to become an American?”
“No,” said I; and after some hesitation I added: “I ran away from the
military frontier because the rulers of the land wanted to transform me
into a Hungarian; I ran away from Prague because I objected to Austrian
Teutonism; I shall run away from Delaware City also if, as your good
mother suggested, I am expected to drop my Serbian notions and become
an American. My mother, my native village, my Serbian orthodox faith,
and my Serbian language and the people who speak it are my Serbian
notions, and one might as well expect me to give up the breath of my
life as to give up my Serbian notions.”
“You misunderstood my mother, Michael,” said the Vila; “she only
referred to your notions about woman’s work, and you know that European
women are expected to do the hard work for which only men are strong
enough.”
“Very true,” said I; “the strongest and ablest men in Europe spend
the best part of their lives on battle-fields, or training for the
battle-fields; this is particularly true of the Serbian people. This
forces our Serbian women to do some of the hard work which men should
do.” This gave me a fitting opportunity to say a few things in favor of
the spiritual influence of the Serbian women by describing the position
of the Serbian woman as she is represented in the Serbian ballads--of
Chuchuk Stana, the wife of Hayduk Velyko, who urged her hero husband
to sacrifice his life rather than surrender the eastern frontier of
Serbia, which, during the Serbian revolution, he was defending against
vastly superior Turkish forces; of the maid of Kossovo, who at the
risk of her life and liberty visited the battle-field of Kossovo in
order to administer the last spiritual aid to the fallen and dying
heroes; of Yevrosima, mother of Prince Marko, the national hero of the
Serbian race, whose counsel and advice were the only guiding star to
Marko throughout his stormy life. I told her also that I should not
be a witness to that heavenly scene on the banks of the Delaware that
Sunday afternoon if it had not been for my mother, who had urged me to
go into the world and learn new things, which I could not learn in my
native peasant village. Young Vila was much impressed by my Serbian
tales, and by my pleading in behalf of the Serbian women, and then she
asked me whether I had ever heard of Martha Washington, the wife of
George Washington, the national hero of America. I confessed complete
ignorance. Pointing to the golden ripples of the sun-kissed Delaware
River, she said that it did not always look as bright and peaceful, and
then described its appearance when in the middle of winter its surface
is covered with broken ice, which, tossed by the waves of the angry
river, makes a passage across it next to impossible. But in January,
1777, George Washington, the commander of the retreating American
armies, crossed it, and on the other side of the river, near Trenton,
surprised the advancing victorious British armies and defeated them,
turning American defeat into American victory. “Washington,” she
said, “just like Hayduk Velyko, was ready to sacrifice his life while
crossing the treacherous ice-fields of the angry Delaware in order
to strike a timely blow for the safety of his country.” And she was
inclined to believe, she said, that Martha Washington acted at that
critical moment just as Chuchuk Stana did. From that day on, Washington
was to me the Hayduk Velyko of America, and the name of the Delaware
River inspired me always with thoughts of deep veneration. Vila showed
me that America, like Serbia, was also a land of heroes. The rest
of that glorious Sunday afternoon was spent in Vila’s answering my
numerous questions concerning George Washington and the war of the
American Revolution. It was the most inspiring afternoon which I had
experienced in America, and I felt that, after all, there might be many
things in America which were just as great as those great things of
which the Serbian guslar sings in the national ballads of Serbia. Vila
had succeeded in welding the first link between my Serbian traditions
and the traditions of America. I apologized to her for misunderstanding
her mother’s suggestion that I become an American as soon as possible,
and confessed that I was much less anxious than I had thought I was a
few moments before to run away from the shores of the historic Delaware.
After Vila discovered my lively interest in American history, she
continued her English lessons to me by telling me stories relating
to early American history, which I repeated to her. Jamestown, South
St. Mary, in southern Maryland, and Virginia figured big in these
tales. When I first heard of the _Mayflower_, a year or so later, and
of its landing at Plymouth Rock, I wondered why Vila never mentioned
that great historical event. She never mentioned Lincoln, and changed
conversation when I once called him the American Prince Marko. America
north of the Delaware River was very little in her mind, and even
Philadelphia was mentioned only on account of the Liberty Bell and the
Declaration of Independence.
One evening, Vila’s mother asked me about my mother and her hopes for
my future. Remembering her remarks concerning the spiritual influence
of the American women upon the coming generation, I gave her a glowing
account of my mother, and wound up by saying that she did not expect
me to become an American farmer, and that I came to America to learn
what I could not learn in a peasant country like that of my native
village. She was much touched, and then in simple and solemn language
she revealed to me a new truth which I never forgot and which I found
confirmed by all my experiences in this great land, the truth, namely,
that this is a country of opportunities which are open equally to all;
that each individual must seek these opportunities and must be prepared
to make good use of them when he finds them. She commended me warmly
for making good use of all the opportunities which I had found on the
farm, and advised me strongly to go in search of new opportunities.
Vila agreed with her, and I prepared to leave the hospitable shores of
Delaware.
I made my return trip to Philadelphia on the same boat which had
brought me to Delaware City. Things looked different from what they
had on my first trip. The farmers of Delaware, my fellow passengers on
the boat, did not look like wooden images, and their speech was not
inarticulate. I understood their language, and its meaning found a
sympathetic response in me. The trip reminded me much of the trip on
the Danube some eighteen months prior to that time. One of my fellow
passengers, a youngster of about my age, pointed out a place to me
which he called Trenton, and assured me that the boat was passing over
the spot where Washington crossed the Delaware. His geography was
faulty as I found out much later. But it was swallowed by a greenhorn
like me and it thrilled me, and I remembered then the first view of the
Cathedral of Karlovci, the seat of the Serbian Patriarch, which was
pointed out to me from the Danube boat by the theological students. I
felt the same thrill in each case, and I knew that America was getting
a hold upon my Serbian heart-strings. My appearance attracted no
attention, either on the boat or at Philadelphia after we landed. My
hat and clothes were American, but my heavy top-boots, so useful on the
farm, were somewhat too heavy for the warm June days in Philadelphia.
The Swiss foreman had directed me to a Swiss acquaintance of his who
had a small hotel in Philadelphia. He was very eager to have me take
all my meals at the hotel, but my total capital of ten dollars made
me cautious; besides, my days from early morning till late at night
were spent in the heart of the city. No other human being ever saw so
much of Philadelphia during a stay of five days as I did, hunting for
a job, searching new opportunities, as Vila’s mother expressed it.
But I searched in vain. I gained new information about William Penn
and Benjamin Franklin and saw many buildings the history of which is
attached to these two great names, and I wondered why Benjamin Franklin
ever deserted Boston to search new opportunities in a place like
Philadelphia. But he did it, and succeeded. I was sure that neither
he nor any other human being could walk more or chase after a job
more diligently than I did, but then he was an American boy and he
had a trade, and I was a Serbian greenhorn who did not know anything
in particular, except how to drive a pair of mules. Besides, thought
I, Philadelphia might have lost its wealth of opportunities since
Franklin’s days. Such was my consolation while resting on a bench in
Fairmount Park, near the grounds which were being prepared for the
Centennial Exposition of 1876. I was lunching on a chunk of bread and
thinking what would happen when the last three dollars, the remnant of
my ten dollars which I brought from the Delaware farm, disappeared. A
husky farmer approached me and addressed me in English, asking whether
I wanted a job. “I do,” said I; “I have been chasing after one nearly
a week, and I can’t chase much longer, because I see that my weary
farm-boots are showing many signs of distress in their long daily
struggles against these hot Philadelphia pavements.”
A day later found me in South St. Mary, in southern Maryland. I
expected great things here, having heard so much of its early history
from Vila. I was engaged to drive a pair of mules, dragging cultivators
through corn and tobacco fields. As far as skill and physical exertion
were concerned, the job was easy. But the climate was deadly, and
social life was even more so. The only interesting people whom I found
there were those buried in the old cemetery, some two hundred years
prior to that time, when South St. Mary was quite an important place,
and when the original settlers brought many fine things from England,
and even bricks with which they built their houses. The only diversion
I found was to read the legends on the tombstones in the old cemetery
near the village church. Chesapeake Bay and the Potomac River and
the many inlets of the bay bordered by luxuriant vegetation gave the
country a most picturesque appearance. The flourishing corn and tobacco
fields suggested prosperity, but the only people who stirred and showed
any activity were darkies, whose language I could not understand. I
felt that as far as human speech was concerned, I was in a valley of
silence, although the air was full of incessant sounds from all kinds
of insects and water-animals. Mosquitoes, gnats, and flies, and the
most oppressive, almost tropical, heat of the sun made work in the
fields unbearable. Many a time while driving the phlegmatic mules
through the broiling atmosphere of the tobacco-fields I thought of
the icy blasts of the North Atlantic which I had experienced on the
immigrant ship less than three months before, and I prayed that one
of those icy breaths of the polar regions might wander astray and
reach the flatlands of Chesapeake Bay. My prayer was not heard, and
I was happy to be still alive at the end of the month, and then I
took my wages of fifteen dollars and made a bee-line for the north.
I hoped that in New York I might be able to catch some of the cold
North Atlantic breezes and, after cooling off, pick up one of the many
opportunities in the metropolis, which on the day when the immigrant
ship landed me at Hoboken seemed to be seething with life and activity
and brimful of all kinds of opportunities.
The Chesapeake boat landed me at Baltimore in the early hours of a
Sunday morning, and the sound of beautifully tuned church-bells greeted
me. I was told that Baltimore was a Catholic city and that the bells
belonged to a Catholic cathedral. They almost persuaded me to stay in
Baltimore and become a Roman Catholic, so sweet and soothing was their
effect upon my soul. It recalled to my memory the lovely harmony of the
church-bells of my native Idvor, and with that memory there appeared
in my imagination the vision of my strongly orthodox mother and of St.
Sava. This vision reminded me that I must say good-by to Roman Catholic
Baltimore.
Forty-two years later I met Cardinal Gibbons in Baltimore during a
visit to that city, when Johns Hopkins University conferred upon me
the honorary LL.D. degree. I told him of the incident just referred
to; he was in a jocular mood and said: “Too bad that you did not
yield to the first effect of the Baltimore church-bells; you might be
to-day the archbishop of this diocese, and perhaps even a cardinal.”
“But, in that case, I should not have to-day the honorary LL.D. degree
of Johns Hopkins; I would not exchange that for any other honor,”
said I, returning jest for jest and watching the merry twinkle in
the cardinal’s fluorescent eyes. Some months later President Butler,
of Columbia University, and I happened to be descending in the same
lift at the Shoreham Hotel in Washington. Presently Cardinal Gibbons
entered, and President Butler introduced me to his Eminence, who,
recalling our former meeting in Baltimore, said, “I know Professor
Pupin, and it is a great honor, indeed, to ride in the same lift with
two eminent men who carry so many distinguished academic honors,” and,
as he looked at me with a genial smile which was brimful of Irish
humor, I knew that he wished to remind me in a good-natured way of my
high rating of an honorary Johns Hopkins degree in comparison with the
honors attached to the titles of archbishop and cardinal.
The Pennsylvania train from Baltimore to New York delivered me to a
ferry-boat, which landed me on West Street, where I found a small hotel
kept by a German, a native of Friesland. He was a rugged old fellow who
loved his low-German dialect, which I did not understand. He spoke in
English to me, which, according to his son Christian, was much worse
than mine, although he had been in America some twenty years. Christian
was a yellow-haired and freckle-faced lad, of about my age, and we hit
it off very well, forming a cross-matched team. He would have given
anything, he said, to have my black hair and dark-red complexion. His
almost white eyebrows and eyelashes and mischievous gray eyes and
yellow freckles fascinated me. He was born in Hoboken and understood
his father’s low-German dialect, but whenever addressed in it, by his
father or by the Friesland sailors who frequented his father’s inn, he
always answered in English, or, as he called it, “United States.”
Christian managed somehow to get away every now and then from the
little hotel and to accompany me on my many long errands in search
of a job. His familiarity with the town helped me much to master the
geography of New York, and to find out what’s what and who’s who in
the great metropolis. He seemed to be the only opportunity which New
York offered to me, and it was a great one. Every other opportunity
which appeared in newspaper advertisements had hundreds of applicants,
and they were lined up at the place of the promised opportunity, no
matter how early Christian and I reached the place. I was quite sure
that those opportunity-chasers lined up soon after the first issue of
the morning papers. I was told that the year before (in 1873) occurred
the Black Friday panic, and that New York had not yet recovered from
it. There were thousands of unemployed, although it was summer. One
morning Christian told me that he had found a fine job for me, and he
took me to a tug anchored quite near his father’s hotel. There were
quite a number of husky laborers on the tug, which took us to the
German docks in Hoboken. We were to stay there and help in the loading
of ships, replacing the longshoremen who were on strike. The job
assigned to me was to assist the sailors who were painting the ship and
things on the ship. We never left the docks until the strike was over,
which lasted about three weeks. At its termination I was paid and the
tug delivered me to the little hotel on West Street, where Christian
received me with open arms. I had thirty dollars in my pocket, and
Christian told me that I looked as rich as Commodore Vanderbilt, whom
Christian considered to be the richest man in New York. Christian took
me to Chatham Square to buy a new suit of clothes and other wearing
apparel, and I thought that the Jewish clothing dealers would cause
a riot fighting for my patronage. The next day when I appeared at
the breakfast-table in my new togs, Christian’s father could hardly
recognize me, but when he did he slapped me on the back and exclaimed:
“Who would ever think that you are a Serbian greenhorn?” “Nobody,”
said Christian, resenting his father’s remark, and then he added with
some hesitation: “But who would ever think that you are not a German
greenhorn?” Christian’s father rebuked him and assured me that he meant
no offense when he jokingly called me a Serbian greenhorn.
Christian was anxious to have me replenish my fortune, which was
considerably reduced by my purchases in Chatham Square. He called my
attention that morning to a big German who was drinking beer at the
hotel bar after delivering several baskets filled with bread, rolls,
and pies, and said that he was a rich and stingy baker, whose wagon,
standing in front of the hotel, needed painting badly. I saw that
the lettering needed speedy restoration. I assured my chum that my
experience as assistant to the sailor painters on the Hoboken docks,
in addition to my natural skill in free-hand drawing, qualified me
for the job of restoring the lettering; Christian chuckled and made a
bee-line for the stingy German baker. I got the contract to restore the
lettering for five dollars and my meals, he to pay for the paints and
the brushes, which were to remain my property. Christian formulated
the contract and specified its terms very clearly; he was my business
manager, and he enjoyed it hugely. The next day I lunched with the
baker’s family, according to the terms of the contract, and after
luncheon, as soon as the wagon had returned from its daily route, I
started the work, interrupted by the supper only, and at nine o’clock
in the evening the job was finished to the full satisfaction of the
party of the first part. That evening found me richer by five dollars,
several paint pots and brushes, a huge home-made apple pie, and a new
and encouraging experience. Christian, for some reason unknown to me
at that time, seemed to look upon the whole affair as a joke, but
nevertheless he paid many compliments to my success as an artist. The
next day we left bright and early for his father’s house in Hoboken,
where in accordance with a plan conceived by Christian we were to spend
some time in painting and papering several of the rooms. Profiting by
the instructions which we received in sundry places, and after making
several unsuccessful attempts, we managed to master the art and to
finish the rooms to the full satisfaction of Christian’s father, who
confessed that no Hoboken expert could have done better. “This painting
is much better than that which you did on the baker’s wagon,” he said,
“because you added some dryer to the paint.” “Right you are,” said
Christian, “but I am to blame, because I purposely avoided telling
Michael to use some dryer on the baker’s wagon. I wanted to make two
jobs out of one.” “There will be several jobs, I am afraid,” said
Christian’s father, “because on the day after the lettering was done
the baker’s wagon was caught in a shower and all the fresh paint has
been washed off, and the wagon looks like a show.” Christian roared
with laughter, but seeing that I looked worried he whispered in my ear:
“Don’t worry, it serves him right; he wanted a twenty-dollar job done
for five dollars, because he took you for a greenhorn.” Christian made
a new arrangement for the relettering of the wagon and I earned another
five dollars, but no home-made apple pie. The German baker in Goerck
Street was neither as cordial nor as hospitable as he was before.
Christian encouraged me in the belief that I was a painter and
paper-hanger, and I felt that I had a trade; that feeling gave me much
confidence. Christian’s mental attitude was a revelation to me. He
actually believed that a boy can learn anything quickly and well enough
to earn a living, if he will only try. He certainly could do anything,
I thought, as I watched him in his little carpenter-shop in Hoboken.
He also had a lathe and was quite expert in wood and metal turning,
although he never served apprenticeship, as they do in Europe, in order
to learn these things. When I told Christian that, according to my
information on the immigrant ship, I was doomed to serve in America my
apprenticeship as a greenhorn, he said that a European greenhorn must
have told me that, and added, in an offhand manner, that I would be a
greenhorn as long only as I thought that I was one. My description of
a European apprenticeship amused him much, and he called it worse than
the slavery which was abolished here by the Civil War only a few years
prior to that date. When I asked him where he got all those strange
notions, he told me that these notions were not strange but genuine
American notions, and that he first got them from his mother, who was
a native American. His father and his father’s German friends, he
admitted, had the same notions as that greenhorn on the immigrant ship.
Christian certainly looked like a Friesland German, but his thoughts,
his words, and his manner of doing things were entirely different from
anything I ever saw in Europe. He was my first glimpse of an American
boy, just as the Vila on the Delaware farm was my first vision of an
American girl, and her mother my first ideal of a noble American woman.
They were the first to raise that mysterious curtain which prevents
the foreign-born from seeing the soul of America, and when I caught a
glimpse of it I loved it. It reminded me of the soul of my good people
in Idvor, and I felt much more at home. The idea of being a greenhorn
lost many of its horrifying features.
Christian left New York during that autumn to go into a shop in
Cleveland. Without him, West Street had no attractions for me. I
moved to the East Side of New York, so as to be near Cooper Union and
its hospitable library. I spent many hours in it after my days of
labor, or after my numerous unsuccessful daily trips in search of
employment. It was my spiritual refuge when things looked black and
hopeless. As winter approached, jobs grew alarmingly scarce, and my
money was rapidly approaching the zero level. My hall-room in Norfolk
Street was cheerless and cold, worse even than my little attic in
Prague. Neither the room nor its neighborhood attracted me in daytime;
I preferred to walk along the endless avenues. This exercise kept me
warm and gave me a chance to make frequent inquiries for a job at
painters’ and paper-hangers’ shops. When the prospects for work of
this kind appeared hopeless, I struck a new idea. Instead of walking
more or less aimlessly, in order to keep myself warm and familiarize
myself with the ways of the great city, I followed coal-carts, and
when they dropped the coal on the sidewalk I rang the bell and offered
my services to transfer the coal from sidewalk to cellar. I often got
the job, which sometimes was a stepping-stone to other less humble and
more remunerative employment. After placing the coal in the cellar and
getting my pay, I would often suggest to the owner that his cellar and
basement needed painting badly; most cellars and basements do. The
owner on being informed that I was a painter out of work, a victim of
the economic crisis, often yielded. The idea of a young and ambitious
painter being compelled to carry coal from sidewalk to cellar at fifty
cents a ton made a strong plea, stronger than any eloquence could make.
The scheme worked well; it did not lead to affluence, but my room-rent
was always paid on time, and I never starved. Often and often, however,
I had to keep my appetite in check. I always had enough to buy my bowl
of hot coffee and a brace of crullers for breakfast in a restaurant on
wheels, stationed near Cooper Union, where Third Avenue car-drivers
took their coffee on cold winter mornings.
During periods of financial stringency my lunches were a bowl of bean
soup and a chunk of brown bread, which the Bowery Mission supplied
for five cents. It was a splendid meal on those cold winter days. But
the Bowery Mission supplied a prayer-meeting with red-hot speeches as
dessert; some of these addresses I really enjoyed; there were speakers,
however, who offended me, because they confessed that they were
reformed drunkards and godless men, and they assured their hearers,
victims of the economic crisis just like myself, that they would
prosper if they would only sign the pledge and vow to return to Jesus.
I neither drank nor had I ever deserted Jesus; the reformed drunkard’s
views of human life depressed me and drove me away from the Bowery
Mission and from the Bowery.
Carrying coal from sidewalks to cellars and shovelling snow from
sidewalks during that memorable winter were healthful jobs and cheerful
enough, but not very remunerative; painting cellars and basements on
Lexington Avenue was more remunerative, but fearfully depressing. To
spend one’s time day after day in dark cellars and basements and pass
the night in a cheerless hall-room in Norfolk Street, surrounded by
neighbors who were mostly foreign-born of the most unattractive type,
was too much for a Serbian youth who knew the beautiful world as one
sees it from the pasture-lands of his native village and from the
banks of golden Delaware. The reading-room of the Cooper Union library
relieved somewhat my mental depression, although it was packed with
sad-looking victims of the economic crisis, who found their way from
the Bowery to the reading-room in order to keep warm. I longed to see
God’s world of the country again.
The opportunity came, and about the middle of April of that year, 1875,
I was on a farm in Dayton, New Jersey. My employer’s family consisted
of his wife and an elderly daughter, and I was the only farm-hand on
the place. They were apparently pleased with my work, and the ladies
took much interest in my personal welfare. But the farmer, call
him Mr. Brown, took it into his head that a youth who had lived one
whole winter in Norfolk Street, New York, near the ungodly Bowery,
needed spiritual regeneration. He was a very pious Baptist, and I
soon discovered that in his everlasting professions of omissions and
commissions he was even worse than that reformed drunkard whose sermons
had driven me away from the Bowery Mission and its vigorous bean soup.
Every Sunday his family took me to church twice and made me sit between
the female members of the family. I felt that the congregation imagined
that Mr. Brown and his family were trying their best to convert a
godless foreign youth and make a good Baptist out of him. Mr. Brown
seemed to be in a great hurry about it, because every evening he made
me listen for an hour at least to his reading of the Bible, and before
we parted for the night he would offer a loud and fervent prayer that
the Lord might kindle his light in the souls of those who had been
wandering in darkness. I know now that he had in mind the words of St.
Luke, “To give light to them that sit in darkness,” but at that time I
fancied that he referred to my painting operations in the cellars and
basements of Lexington Avenue, and interpreted his prayers as having a
special reference to me.
The joy of life which during the day I inhaled in the fresh fields of
the early spring was smothered in the evening by Mr. Brown’s views of
religion, which were views of a decrepit old man who thought of heaven
only because he had no terrestrial problems to solve. He did his best
to strip religion of every vestige of its poetic beauty, and of its
soul-stirring spiritual force, and to make it appear like a mummy of a
long-departed Egyptian corpse. A Serbian youth who looks to St. Sava,
the educator, and to the Serbian national ballads for an interpretation
of the Holy Scriptures, could not be expected to warm up for the
religion which farmer Brown preached. I thought of Vila and her mother
on the banks of the golden Delaware, and of the glorious opportunities
which they pointed out ahead of me, and I wondered whether farmer
Brown was one of these opportunities; if so, then there were some
opportunities in America from which I wished to run away.
[Illustration: NASSAU HALL, PRINCETON UNIVERSITY]
One Sunday evening, after the church service, farmer Brown introduced
me to some of his friends, informing them that I was a Serbian youth
who had not enjoyed all the opportunities of American religious
training, but that I was making wonderful progress, and that some day
I might even become an active member of their congregation. The vision
of my orthodox mother, of the little church in Idvor, of the Patriarch
in Karlovci, and of St. Sava, shot before my eyes like a flash, and
I vowed to furnish a speedy proof that farmer Brown was wrong. The
next day I was up long before sunrise, having spent a restless night
formulating a definite plan of deliverance from the intolerable boredom
inflicted upon me by a hopeless religious crank. The eastern sky was
like a veil of gold and it promised the arrival of a glorious April
day. The fields, the birds, the distant woods, and the friendly country
road all seemed to join in a melodious hymn of praise to the beauties
of the wanderer’s freedom. I bade good-by to the hospitable home of
farmer Brown and made a bee-line for the distant woods. There the merry
birds, the awakening buds on the blushing twigs, and the little wild
flowers of the early spring seemed to long for the appearance of the
glorious sun in the eastern sky. I did not, because I was anxious to
put as much distance as possible between farmer Brown and myself before
he knew that I had departed. When the sun was high in the heavens I
made a halt and rested at the edge of woods on the side of a hill. A
meadow was at my feet, and I, recalling the words of poet Nyegosh,
watched for “the bright-eyed dewdrops to glide along the sunbeams to
the heavens above.” The distant view as seen from the elevation of my
resting-place disclosed, near the horizon, the silhouette of a town
with towers and high roofs looking like roofs of churches. After some
three additional hours of wandering, I crossed a bridge over a canal
and found the distant town. There seemed to be one street only where
business was done; the rest of the town appeared to me like so many
beautiful convents. The tramp of many miles through woods and meadows
without any breakfast had made me ravenously hungry and somewhat tired.
The peaceful aspect of the monastic-looking town invited me to sit
down and rest and enjoy some food. I bought a shining loaf of bread
and, selecting a seat under an elm near a building which looked like
the residence of the Archbishop of Prague, I started my breakfast.
It consisted of bread only, and I enjoyed it as I had never enjoyed
breakfast before. Many boys, looking like students, passed by on
their way to the ecclesiastical-looking building; one of them watched
my appetite as if he envied it, and inquired whether I should like
some Italian cheese with my bread. He evidently thought that I was
an Italian, being misled by my ruddy cheeks and dark-brown hair. I
answered that Serbian cheese would suit me better. He laughed and said
that Serbia and Serbian cheese were unknown at Princeton. I answered
that some day perhaps Princeton might hear from Serbia. It is a curious
fact that, in 1914, I was the first man who was invited to Princeton to
give an address on the subject of the Austrian ultimatum to Serbia. The
late Moses Taylor Pyne was my host, and I pointed out to him the elm
in front of Nassau Hall where I had breakfasted some forty years prior
to that time. The students received my address very enthusiastically;
Dernburg addressed them two weeks later, and their heckling broke up
the meeting.
After finishing the loaf, I basked in the warm rays of the mellow
April sun, and fell asleep and dreamed that in the building where the
students went there was a large assembly of people who had gathered
there for the purpose of conferring some academic honor upon me. When
I woke up, I thought of the letter which I had written to my mother
from Hamburg, a year before, promising that I would soon return rich
in learning and in distinguished honors. The dream reminded me that my
promise was carefully recorded in the mechanism which controlled my
consciousness.
Princeton was unlike anything that I had ever seen up to that time.
I had read about Hilendar, the famous monastery on Mount Athos, on
the Ægean Sea, founded by St. Sava in the twelfth century. I had seen
pictures of its buildings, where monks lived the life of solitude and
study. Princeton, with its many monastic-looking buildings, I imagined
was such a place, where young men were given every opportunity to
study and become learned men so as to be able to devote their lives
effectively to such work as St. Sava did. As I walked slowly and
thoughtfully toward the railroad-station, a student met me and engaged
me in conversation. He was a little older than myself; kindness and
intelligence beamed from every feature of his handsome face. He knew a
great deal about Serbia, and even about the Serbs of Austria-Hungary,
and when I told him that I had come to America in search of knowledge,
he expressed the hope that he might some day see me enrolled as a
student in Princeton. A student at Princeton! With fellow students and
friends like this divinely handsome and gentle youth who accompanied
me to the station! Impossible! thought I, as I looked through the
car-window and saw the academic halls of Princeton gradually disappear
in the distance and realized at the same time that the train was
taking me back to the Bowery. Eight years later I read the letter
which I wrote to my mother describing Princeton, in which, in order
to encourage her, I had expressed a strong hope that some day I might
write to her and sign myself a student at Princeton.
I may add here that my good friend Henry Fairfield Osborn, the
distinguished scientist, was a sophomore at Princeton during that year.
He might have looked just like that gentle youth who showed me the way
to the railroad-station. President Wilson entered Princeton in the
autumn of that year.
III
THE END OF THE APPRENTICESHIP AS GREENHORN
The visions of Princeton persisted in my mind like after effects of
strong light upon the retina. That gentle youth’s suggestion that he
might some day see me enrolled as a student at Princeton kept ringing
in my ears, and sounded like mockery. A peasant boy from a Serb
village who a little over two years previously was wearing a peasant’s
sheepskin coat and cap to become a fellow student of those youths who
looked like young aristocrats seemed impossible. A European aristocrat
would never have suggested such a thing, and that puzzled me. I saw
an endless chain of difficult things between me and my enrolment
as a student at Princeton, the home for gentle American youth.
Social unpreparedness, I felt, was a much more serious difficulty
than unpreparedness in things which one can learn from books. This
difficulty could not be overcome by associating with people east of the
Bowery, and I was heading that way. The nearer the train approached New
York the less anxious I was to return to it. From Nassau Hall to the
Bowery was too abrupt a change, and from the Bowery to Nassau Hall the
change would have been even more abrupt. I compromised and looked up
Christian’s home on West Street.
Christian was still in Cleveland, but his father received me with open
arms and promised to find me a job. In less than a week he found me one
in a famous cracker factory on Cortlandt Street. An acquaintance of his
with the name Eilers, a Frieslander and distant relative of a famous
German writer of that name, was employed there; he steered me during
my first experiences in the factory. A place was given me in a squad of
boys and girls who punched the firm’s name upon a particular kind of
biscuit. The job was easy from the point of view of physical strength,
but it required much manual dexterity. In spite of my ambition to
advance to a high place in the squad I progressed very slowly. I soon
discovered that in manual dexterity the American boys and girls stood
very high; my hands moved fairly rapidly after some practice, but
theirs vibrated. I made up my mind that America was not a field in
which I should gather many laurels by efforts requiring much manual
dexterity. That idea had occurred to me before, when I first observed
Christian handling his lathe. One day I was at the delivery desk of the
Cooper Union Library, showing my library check to a youth behind the
desk who countersigned it before a book was delivered to me. I noticed
that he wrote rapidly, using sometimes his right hand and sometimes his
left with equal ease and with much skill. “How can I ever compete with
American boys,” said I, “when they can write with either hand better
than I can write with my right hand!”
There never was a doubt in my mind that American adaptability which
I observed on every occasion was in a great measure due to manual
training which young people used to get here. Christian’s suggestion,
mentioned above, that “a boy can learn anything quickly and well
enough to earn a living if he will only try,” I saw in a new light,
when I watched the work of those boys and girls in the factory. Yes,
American boys can, but not European, thought I. Lack of early manual
training was a handicap which I felt on every step during my early
progress in America. My whole experience confirmed me in the belief
that manual training of the youth gives them a discipline which
school-books alone can never give. I discovered later that three of
the greatest characters in American history, Franklin, Jefferson, and
Lincoln, excelled in practical arts requiring dexterity, and that the
constructive genius of the American nation can, in part, be traced to
the discipline which one gets from early manual training.
[Illustration: _Reproduced by permission of Cooper Union_
AN EARLY VIEW OF COOPER UNION]
The great opportunities which, according to my good friends on the
Delaware farm, awaited me in this country were certainly not in the
direction of arts requiring great manual dexterity. The country of
baseball offered, I thought, very few opportunities in this direction
to a foreign-born boy. I was convinced of that every time I made a
comparison between myself and the other boys who were doing the same
manual work in the factory that I did. They were my superiors. In one
thing, however, I thought I was their superior. They did not know
much about the latest things described in the _Scientific American_,
nor in the scientific supplements of the Sunday _Sun_, which I read
assiduously with the aid of a pocket dictionary. The educational
opportunities in the factory also escaped them. Jim, the boiler-room
engineer and fireman of the factory, became interested in my scientific
reading and encouraged me by paying several compliments to my interest
in these things. He once suggested that some day, perhaps, I might
become his scientific assistant in the boiler-room, if I did not mind
shovelling coal and attending to the busy fires. He was joking, but I
took him seriously. Every morning before the factory started I was with
Jim, who was getting the steam up and preparing to blow the whistle
and start the wheels going. I volunteered to assist him “shovelling
coal and attending to the busy fires,” and after a time I understood
the manipulations in the boiler-room quite well, according to Jim.
The steam-engine excited my liveliest interest. It was the first
opportunity that I had ever had to study at close range the operations
of a steam-engine, and I made the most of it, thanks to Jim’s patient
interest in my thirst for new information. He was my first professor in
engineering.
One exceptionally hot afternoon during that summer found Jim prostrated
by heat and I volunteered to run the boiler-room until he got well.
I did it during the rest of that afternoon, much to the surprise of
everybody, but was not allowed to continue, because a fireman’s license
was required for that. When Jim returned I urged him to help me get
a license, but he answered that an intelligent boy, eager to learn,
should not cross the Atlantic for the purpose of becoming a fireman.
“You must aim higher, my lad,” said Jim, and he added that if I
continued to make good use of my pocket dictionary and of my scientific
reading I should soon outgrow the opportunities offered by the New
England Cracker Factory in Cortlandt Street. He never missed a chance
to encourage me and to promise new successes for new efforts. In that
respect he reminded me much of my mother.
Jim was a humble fireman and boiler-room engineer; his early education
was scanty, so that he was not much on books; but he stood in awe in
the presence of books. Referring to my habit of carrying a pocket
dictionary in my hip pocket and looking up in it the meaning and the
pronunciation of every word which was new to me, he would exclaim,
jokingly, “Look in the book,” whenever some obscure points arose in our
boiler-room discussions. His admiration for books was much increased
when I related to him the story of James Watt and his experiments with
the steam-engine, a story which I had dug out in an old encyclopædia in
the Cooper Union Library. When I told him that James Watt had perfected
his steam-engine and thus started the development of the modern
steam-engine several years before the Declaration of Independence,
he dropped a remark which I never forgot. He said: “The English made
us write the Declaration of Independence, and they also gave us the
steam-engine with which we made our independence good.” Jim was not
much on learning but he was brimful of native practical philosophy.
Jim had a relative attending classes at Cooper Union and encouraged me
to join several of its evening classes, which I did. I reported to him
regularly the new things which I learned there. This practice benefited
me even more than it did Jim, because in trying to explain to him the
laws of heat phenomena, which were explained to me in the evening
lectures at Cooper Union, I got a very much better hold of them. The
first ideas of sound and light I caught on the pasture-lands of my
native village; the first ideas of the phenomena of heat I caught in
the boiler-room in Cortlandt Street and at Cooper Union lectures. These
lectures, supplemented by Jim’s boiler-room demonstrations, proved
much more effective than the instruction which I had received from my
teacher Kos, in Panchevo. Kos was a Slovene, a native of that beautiful
valley in Carniola, in the very bosom of the Dolomites; it is nearer
to being an ideal dreamland than any other spot in Europe. To Kos, as
to every true Slav, and particularly to the Slovenes of Carniola, the
poetical side of physical phenomena appealed most strongly. Hence his
patient listening to my enthusiastic professions of the belief that
sound and light were different forms of the language of God. But as I
watched the busy flames under Jim’s boilers, and understood how they
were sustaining the strenuous efforts of steam to supply every hustling
wheel in the factory with driving power, I understood for the first
time that there is also a prose in physics not a bit less impressive
than its poetry. It is this prose which interested Jim, the fireman,
just as it did the Cooper Union lecturer. Their chief concern was what
heat can do and not what it is. My Slavonic craving for knowing what
heat is was soon satisfied by reading a poem in prose concerning the
nature of heat. But of that later.
During my very first visits to the Cooper Union Library I saw a great
painting hung up in the northwest corner of its large reading-room.
It was called “Men of Progress,” and represented a group of very
learned-looking men. I admired the painting, but took no pains to
find out its meaning. One day, while reading in the Cooper Union
Library, I saw quite near me an old gentleman standing and carefully
scrutinizing what was going on. I imagined, at first, that he had
stepped out of that painting. I looked again and found that the figure
in the painting which I fancied had walked out was still there and
that the old gentleman near me was undoubtedly the original from
which the artist had painted that figure. The ambidextrous youth
behind the library-desk told me afterward that the old gentleman was
Peter Cooper, the founder of Cooper Union, and that he was one of the
group of famous men represented in the great painting. He looked as I
imagined the Patriarch of Karlovci must have looked. He was a striking
resemblance to St. Sava, the Educator, as he is represented on an ikon
in our church in Idvor. The same snowy locks and rosy complexion of
saintly purity, and the same benevolent look from two luminous blue
eyes. Peter Cooper was then eighty-five years of age, but he looked
as lively as if he were going to live another eighty-five years. His
personality as revealed by his appearance inspired me with awe, and I
read everything I could lay my hands on concerning his life; then I
read about the lives of the other great men who were associated with
Peter Cooper in that historical painting. Some of these men were:
Morse, the first promoter of the electric telegraph; Joseph Henry,
the great physicist, head of the Smithsonian Institution, and founder
of scientific bureaus in Washington; McCormick, the inventor of the
reaper; Howe, the inventor of the sewing-machine; Ericsson, the
engineer of the _Monitor_, and so forth. My study of their lives was a
timely preparation for my visit to Philadelphia, to see the Centennial
Exposition, the preparatory work for which I had seen two years prior
to that time, when, returning from the Delaware farm, I stopped at
Philadelphia to search for opportunities.
[Illustration: _From an engraving by John Sartain after a painting by
J. Schussele, reproduced by the courtesy of Cooper Union_
Dr. Morton Colt Saxton
Bogardus
McCormick
Peter Cooper Professor Henry Ericsson
Goodyear Dr. Mott
Mott Sickles
Bigelow
Burden Jennings
Morse Hoe Blanchard Howe
MEN OF PROGRESS--AMERICAN INVENTORS]
The work of those great captains of industry forming the group in the
great painting, “Men of Progress,” was in evidence in every nook and
corner of the Centennial Exposition. This great show impressed me as
a splendid glorification of all kinds of wonderful mechanisms, driven
by steam and animal power, which helped to develop the great resources
of the United States. All scientific efforts exhibited there concerned
themselves with the question of what things can do, rather than what
they are. The show was also a glorification of the great men who first
formulated, clearly stated, and fought for the ideals of the United
States. I saw that fact proclaimed in many of the historical features
of the exposition, and I did not fail to understand clearly that the
show took place in Philadelphia because the Liberty Bell and the
Declaration of Independence were first heard in Philadelphia. When I
left Philadelphia and its show I carried away in my head a good bit of
American history. The Americanization process which was going on within
me was very much speeded up by what I saw at the Centennial Exposition.
On my return to New York I told Jim, the fireman, that he was
right when he said: “The English made us write the Declaration of
Independence, and they also gave us the steam-engine with which we
made our independence good.” But, instructed by my study of the lives
of men who were represented in the painting “Men of Progress,” and
by what I learned at the Philadelphia exposition of these men and of
the leaders of the American Revolution, I suggested to Jim that the
steam-engine without great men behind it would have been of little
avail. “Yes,” said Jim, “the Declaration of Independence without men of
character and brains behind it would also have been of little avail;
and the great aims of the Civil War without men like Lincoln and Grant
behind them would have ended in a foolish fizzle. This country, my
lad,” exclaimed Jim with much warmth, “is a monument to the lives of
the men of brains and character and action who made it.” Jim threw out
this chunk of wisdom with the same ease and in the same offhand manner
which he displayed when he threw a few shovelfuls of coal upon the
busy fires under his boilers. To him it was an obvious truth; to a lad
like myself, who was accustomed to look upon countries as monuments to
kings and princes and their victorious armies, it was a revelation; and
I said so. This brought from Jim another epigrammatic remark to the
effect that my trip to America would teach me nothing if it did not
teach me first to squeeze out of my mind all foolish European notions
and make room for new ideas which I might pick up here and there in
this new world. Jim’s sayings were always short and to the point and
their record in my mind never faded.
Jim was very popular with everybody in the factory, and the fact that
he thought well of me improved my standing much. A Mr. Paul, the
youngest and most active member of the New England Cracker Factory in
Cortlandt Street, paid frequent visits to the boiler-room. I had an
idea that Jim’s views of things interested him just as much as the
operations of the boiler-room. One morning he made a very early visit
before the steam-whistle had blown and the steam-engine had started on
its daily routine, and he found me in the boiler-room, a busy volunteer
fireman. Jim introduced me to him in a jocular way as a student who
found his way from Princeton to Cortlandt Street, where in daytime I
was rapidly learning every trick of the biscuit industry while in the
evening I was absorbing all the wisdom of Cooper Union. A few days
later Mr. Paul informed me that my fame as a painter of baker-wagons
and of basements on Lexington Avenue, and also my record as a student
in mechanical drawing in the evening classes of Cooper Union, had
reached the board of directors of the New England Cracker Factory, and
that they had resolved to offer me a new job. I was advanced to the
position of assistant to the shipping clerk. It meant not only more pay
but also social advancement. I was no longer a workman in the factory,
who worked for wages; I was a clerk who received a salary. I felt as
people in England probably feel when peerage is conferred upon them.
My fellow workers in the factory, including Eilers, who first got me
the job, showed no envy. They agreed with Jim, who told them that I
was “smart.” Jim used the same word which my Vila on the banks of the
Delaware had used whenever I made a good recitation in English, and I
saw in it a good omen. Jim and Vila and Christian of West Street were
my authorities, who expressed what I considered a competent opinion
upon my apprenticeship as greenhorn, and that opinion was favorable. I
felt assured that the apprenticeship was soon coming to an end.
My duties as assistant to the shipping clerk were to superintend the
packing of biscuits, to help address with brush and paint the boxes
in which they were packed, and to see to it that they were shipped on
time. A squad of some thirty girls did the packing and they seemed at
first inclined to file objections whenever I found fault with their
packing. They seemed to resent being bossed by an immigrant youth whose
foreign accent would “stop a train,” as they sometimes expressed it. I
found out from Jim that the principal object of their resentment was to
make me angry, because when my Serbian temper was up my accent became
most atrocious and that furnished them a most hilarious amusement. I
soon became convinced that my success as assistant to the shipping
clerk demanded a perfect control of my temper and a speedy improvement
of my accent, each of them a most difficult task.
My efforts to control my temper were frequently put to severe tests.
Now and then a biscuit, well aimed, would hit me on the head, and my
Serbian blood would rush to my cheeks and I would look daggers at the
supposed offender. “Look at the bashibozouk,” one of the girls would
sing out on these occasions, and another would add: “Did you ever see
such a Bulgarian atrocity?” These words were in everybody’s mouth at
that time and they referred to the incidents of the Balkan War of
1876-1878, which Serbia, Montenegro, and Russia were waging against the
Turks. A third girl would stick her tongue out and make funny faces
at me in response to my savage glare. She evidently tried to make me
laugh, and I did laugh. Then a fourth girl would sing out: “Oh, look at
the darling now; I just love him when he smiles.” Then they all would
sing:
“Smile, Michael, smile,
I love your sunny style.”
I did smile, and every day I smiled more and more, after I had
discovered that the girls did not really dislike me, but just loved to
tease me whenever I showed any signs of a European greenhorn. I dropped
the airs put on by European superiors in authority and gradually the
girls became friendly and began to call me by my first name instead
of mockingly addressing me as “Mister” as they addressed the old
shipping clerk. “You are getting on swimmingly, my lad,” said Jim one
day, and he added something like this: “The girls are calling you
Michael, just as they call me Jim. We are popular, my boy, but don’t
let this popularity mislead you into foolish notions. Just watch me; I
have enjoyed this popularity for twenty years, and here I am still a
bachelor, and an old bachelor at that. You have controlled your temper
well, but how about controlling your heart, my lad?” Jim grinned and
winked and placed his index finger in front of his forehead, as if to
indicate that many a wise experience is stored in the practical head
of a canny old fireman. I understood his meaning, but did I heed its
warning? I knew that it contained a warning, and I suspected strongly
that Jim had discovered one of my deepest secrets.
There was one girl among the thirty biscuit-packers who, in my opinion,
never made a mistake in packing. I never took pains to inspect her
work, and why should I when I was sure of her perfection? But I watched
her and feasted my eyes upon her whenever I had spare time and was sure
that nobody was observing me. She became conscious of it and every now
and then she would suddenly look up and catch my admiring but cautious
gaze. A bashful blush would give me away in spite of my efforts to
hide my thoughts and feelings. She guessed them and she smiled as if
greatly pleased and much amused, but she cleverly avoided giving me an
opportunity to make a confession. I might have done it in spite of my
extreme bashfulness. My note-books were full of her pictures, which I
drew and signed under them her name, Jane Macnamara. Perhaps Jim had
seen these pictures among my many sketches of the boiler-room and its
contents, and hence his warning to me.
One Monday morning Jane did not appear at her usual place in the
packing-room; her friend, another packing girl, told me that Jane had
been married on the previous Saturday. I tried my best to appear as if
I received the news with indifference, but failed. The girls observed
a change; I neither smiled nor did I frown, but I thought a lot, and
the girls seemed to take quite an interest in my thoughtfulness, but
studiously avoided annoying me. Only now and then one of the girls
would whisper to me: “Penny for your thoughts, Michael.” Jim, I was
sure, also observed the change, but said nothing, as if he had observed
nothing. One day he introduced me to an acquaintance of his whom he
called Fred, who looked like a middle-aged man. He had wonderful
deep furrows in his face, and his hands were large and very bony and
looked as if the daily toil had rubbed off all the superfluous flesh
and fat from them. Jim told me that Fred was far from middle age, but
barely over thirty, and that some twelve years before he had plans and
ambitions just as big as mine, backed by at least as much brains as he
thought I had. Fred’s friends expected big things from him, said Jim,
but suddenly Fred lost his heart and married and raised a big family
of children somewhere in Jersey City. “To-day,” said Jim, “Fred is
mentally just where he was twelve years ago, and if he did not have
the contract of making the wooden packing-boxes for this factory he
would look even older than he is looking now,” and then he added, in
his usual offhand manner by way of illustration, that corn-stalks
cease to grow as soon as the ears of corn appear and all the sap of
the corn-stalk is served to the ears. Referring to Fred’s numerous
children, Jim finished his picture by saying that Fred looked like a
withering corn-stalk with many small ears of corn on it, and that he
hoped that the withering corn-stalk would hold out until the numerous
ears of corn had ripened. He admitted, however, that he himself was a
withering corn-stalk with no ears of corn at all; that his life was the
other extreme from Fred’s, and that neither he nor Fred had in their
younger days studied and applied in practice the controlling regulators
of life. Jim’s sermons on self-control always hit the mark; and when,
referring to his advice to me to control my temper, my heart, and my
speech, I suggested that according to him life was a series of all
kinds of controls difficult to manage, he answered that nothing is
difficult when it becomes a habit. “Just examine my boiler-room,” he
said, “and you will find that everything is controlled. The centrifugal
governor controls the speed of the engine; the safety-valve limits
the pressure of steam; every fire has a regulator of its air draft,
and every oven has a temperature indicator. I know them all and I
watch their operations without knowing that I am doing it. Practice
makes perfect, my lad, and perfection knows no difficulties even in a
boiler-room as full of all kinds of tricks as human life is.” Jim’s
sermons were always short and far ahead of anything I had ever heard
in the churches in Delaware City, or in Dayton, New Jersey, or in the
Bowery Mission, or in any other church which up to that time I had
visited in this country; and, moreover, they were not accompanied
by congregational singing, which bored me. I understood why so many
blacksmiths and other people of small learning made a great success as
preachers in this country, whereas in my native village the priest, who
prided himself upon his learning, was obliged to read those sermons
only which were sent to him by the bishop of the diocese. I suggested
to Jim in a jocular way to quit the boiler-room and become a preacher,
and he answered that the boys and girls of the New England Cracker
Factory in Cortlandt Street furnished a sufficiently large field for
his religious and educational mission. Jim’s assistance helped me much
to let the dream about Jane fade away gradually and make room in my
imagination for the dreams which I first saw at Princeton under that
elm-tree in front of Nassau Hall.
The factory in Cortlandt Street was in many respects a college in which
Jim was the chaplain; and it had a professor who should be mentioned
here. It also had a dormitory; several of the young fellows employed in
the factory lived on the top floor of the building. I was one of them,
and I did not change my quarters when I was advanced to the position
of assistant to the shipping clerk. Two great attractions kept me
there. One was that the other fellows were out every evening visiting
theatres and music-halls, so that I had the whole loft, and, in fact,
the whole factory all to myself and to a chum of mine, who was much
older than I in years but not in his position in the factory. His name
was Bilharz, and he was the second attraction. He was the opposite to
Jim and to every human being I had ever met. He knew nothing of nor did
he care for the concrete or practical things of life, but always lived
in dreams about things which happened centuries ago. He knew Latin and
Greek and all kinds of literatures, but never made any attempts to make
any use of his knowledge. Factory work of the humblest kind was good
enough for him, and I believed that he would have been satisfied to
work for his board only, if pay had been refused him. He informed me
once by an accidental slip of the tongue that he had studied theology
at the University of Freiburg, in southern Germany, and would have
become a priest if an unfortunate love-affair had not put an end to
his ecclesiastical aspirations. He had no other aims when he came to
America, he said, than to work for a modest living and to lead a life
of profound obscurity, until the Lord called him away from this valley
of tears, as he expressed it. He used a German expression and called
the earth a “Thraenenthal.” Although a German he spoke English well,
being a finished scholar and having lived in America for a number
of years, and having a memory for sound which impressed me as most
remarkable. He sang like a nightingale, but only on evenings when we
were all alone. Ecclesiastical music was his favorite, and during many
an evening the strains of “Gloria in Excelsis Deo,” “Ave Maria,” and
“I Know That My Redeemer Liveth” rang forth from the spacious lofts of
the New England Cracker Factory and lost themselves in the silence
of night among the deserted buildings of Cortlandt Street, which were
alive in daytime only. I never tired listening to his recitations
of Latin and Greek poetry, although I did not understand it, and of
selected passages from Shakespeare and Goethe, which I did understand.
He loved the art of articulate speech and of melody, and he thought of
things only that happened three thousand years ago when Homer sang and
the Olympian gods guided the destinies of men, but he cared for nothing
else. The steam-engine and every other kind of mechanism were to him a
deadly prose which, in his opinion, Satan had invented for the purpose
of leading astray the spirit of man. “They are the weapons by which
people like you are keeping in slavery people like me,” he said once,
jokingly, referring to my interest in the boiler-room operations and to
my admiration of the great captains of industry whose lives I studied
and whose work I had seen and admired at the Philadelphia exposition.
I sometimes suspected that he felt alarmed by what he considered my
worship of false gods, and that this impelled him to do everything he
could for my redemption from heathenism. My admiration for his learning
was great, but my sympathy for his misfortunes was even greater. His
hands were once caught in a machine and most of his fingers had become
stiff and crooked so that they looked like the talons of a falcon. His
sharp features, a crooked nose and protruding eyes, supported this
suggestion of a falcon, but his awkward, flat-footed walk suggested a
falcon with broken wings; to say nothing of his other misfortunes which
made him in spirit also a falcon with broken wings.
I felt that he knew a great deal more about the Jane incident than he
cared to disclose to me. One day I referred to her as the Minnehaha
of Cortlandt Street. “Minnehaha, laughing water,” exclaimed Bilharz:
“where did you ever get that, you boiler-room bug?” and he laughed
as if he had never heard a funnier thing in his life. “From Jim, the
boiler-room hermit, to Longfellow, one of the greatest of American
poets, is a tremendous jump, a _salto mortale_, as they call it in a
circus,” said Bilharz; and then, growing more serious and thoughtful,
he added something like this: “It is really wonderful what the eyes
of a woman can do! They are just like the stars in the heavens,
encouraging us poor mortals to aim at celestial heights. But many a
sky-rocket seemed to be sailing for the stars and suddenly it found
itself buried in mud. I am one of these sky-rockets,” said Bilharz;
“you are not, thanks to the timely intervention of a kindly divinity.”
He meant Jim. Then, continuing in his usual dramatic manner, he recited
in Latin an ode of Horace, in which the poet speaks of a youth trusting
to the beaming countenance of his lady-love as a mariner trusting to
the sunlit ripples of a calm sea who is suddenly upset by a treacherous
squall and, being rescued, gratefully offers his wet garments in
sacrifice to Neptune, the god of the sea. After translating the ode and
explaining its meaning to me he urged me to hang my best clothes in the
boiler-room as a sacrifice to Jim, the divinity which had rescued me
from the treacherous waves of “Minnehaha, laughing water.” “You are the
luckiest of mortals, my boy,” said Bilharz to me; “some day you will
provoke the envy of the gods and then look out for stern Nemesis!” I
did not understand the full meaning of these classical allusions, but
he assured me that some day I should. I told Bilharz that my luck, of
which he spoke so often, was mostly due to my being so near to a man of
his learning, and that I thought he ought to be a professor in Nassau
Hall at Princeton. He declined the honor, but offered to prepare me for
it, and I accepted.
Bilharz was very moody and for days and days he had nothing to say to
anybody, not even to me! Nobody else cared, because nobody understood
him, but I did care. When he discovered that I sincerely admired his
learning and was interested in his puzzling personality he became
more communicative, sometimes almost human. His English accent was
excellent, and I asked his opinion about my accent and he assured me
with childlike frankness that it was rotten, but that it could be
fixed up if I submitted to a course of training prescribed for me by
my Vila on the Delaware farm. “I could not be your Vila, deformed as
I am,” said he, referring to his crippled fingers and to his awkward
walk, “but I will gladly be your satyr and teach you how to imitate
not only the sounds of human language but also, if you wish it, the
melodies of birds and the chirping of bugs. The satyrs are great in
that.” I knew that he could, because many an evening while I was on
the dormitory loft of the factory reading the Mayflower Compact, the
Declaration of Independence, the American Constitution, Patrick Henry’s
and Daniel Webster’s speeches, and Lincoln’s speech at Gettysburg,
Bilharz, in another part of the building, would be imitating sounds
of all kinds of birds and bugs, after he had grown tired reciting
Greek and Latin poetry and singing ecclesiastical songs. That was
his only amusement, and he enjoyed it when he was sure that nobody
was listening; he made an exception in my case. We finally made the
start in what he called my preparation for Nassau Hall. In the course
of less than a month I finished reciting to Bilharz the Declaration
of Independence, the American Constitution, and Lincoln’s speech at
Gettysburg, submitting to many corrections and making many efforts
to give each word its proper pronunciation, and finally he accepted
my performance as satisfactory. By that time I knew these documents
by heart and so did Bilharz, and he, in spite of himself, liked them
so well that he accused me of conspiring to make an American out of
him. “You are sinking rapidly, my boy, in the whirlpool of American
democracy, and you are dragging me down with you,” said Bilharz one
evening, when I objected to some of the amendments which he offered in
order to harmonize the American theory of freedom with the principles
of German socialism. He admitted that he, a loyal Roman Catholic, did
not care much for German social democracy, but that he often wondered
why the American enthusiasts for democracy did not take German social
democracy and save themselves the trouble of writing the Declaration
of Independence. I called his attention to the fact that American
democracy is much older than German social democracy, and he, somewhat
irritated by that suggestion and by my defense of American democracy,
as I understood it, suggested that he should resign his position as
my teacher and become my pupil. His flippant criticism of American
democracy and my stiff defense of it helped me much to see things which
otherwise I should have missed, but these discussions threatened the
entente cordiale between Bilharz and myself. Finally we compromised and
changed our course of reading, dropping things relating to political
theories and taking up poetry. Longfellow’s and Bryant’s poetry were
my favorites. “The Village Blacksmith” and “Thanatopsis” I knew by
heart and enjoyed reciting to Bilharz, who was greatly pleased whenever
in these recitations I avoided making a single serious break in my
pronunciation. After reading some of Shakespeare’s dramas which Booth
and other famous actors like Lawrence Barrett and John McCullough
were playing at that time, I visited the theatre often, and from my
modest gallery seat I would analyze carefully the articulation of every
syllable which Booth and the other actors were reciting. Booth did
not have a big voice; it was much smaller than the voice of Lawrence
Barrett or of powerful John McCullough, but I understood him better.
Bilharz explained it by saying that Booth had a perfect articulation.
“Articulation is an art which the Greeks invented; big voice is brute
force common among the Russians,” he used to say, protesting whenever
he had an opportunity against mere physical strength, which was natural
considering his scanty physical resources. He hated both the Russians
and the Prussians, because, in his opinion, they both were big brutes.
In those days the southern Germans had no love for the Prussians. He
never missed a single chance to sing the praises of Greek drama and
of the Greek theatre and of everything which flourished during the
classical age. He called my attention to the enormous size of Greek
theatres and to the necessity of perfect articulation on the part of
Greek actors if they were to be heard. “They were great artists,” said
he; “our actors are duffers only. We are all duffers! Give me the
Greeks, give me Homer, Pindar, Demosthenes, Plato, Praxiteles, Phidias,
Sophocles, and hundreds of others who spoke the language of the gods
and did things which only the divine spirit in man can do, and you
can have your Morse, McCormick, Howe, Ericsson, and the rest of the
materialistic crew who ran the show at Philadelphia.” He certainly
told many a fine story when he spoke of the great poets, orators,
philosophers, and sculptors of Greece, and his stories impressed me
much because they were great revelations to me; they were the first
to arouse my interest in the great civilization of Greece. They would
have impressed me even more if Bilharz had not displayed a glaring
tendency to exaggerate, in order to create a strong contrast between
what he called the idealism of classical Greece and what he called the
realistic materialism of modern America. According to him the first had
its seat among the gods on the ethereal top of Mount Olympus and the
second one was sinking deeper and deeper through the shafts of coal
and iron mines into the dark caverns of material earth. “No action,”
said Bilharz, “which needs the assistance of a steam-engine or of any
other mechanism can trace its origin to idealism nor can it end in
idealism.” I suggested that every animal body is a mechanism and that
its continuous evolution seems to indicate that the world is heading
for a definite ideal. Bilharz flew up like a hornet when he heard the
word evolution.
A lively discussion was going on in those days between the biological
sciences and theology, Huxley and many other scientists championing
the claims of Darwin’s evolution theory and the theologians defending
the claims of revealed religion. I was too young and too untutored to
understand much of those learned discussions, but Bilharz followed them
with feverish anxiety. His theological arguments did not appeal to me,
and so far as I was concerned they lost even the little force they had
when Bilharz turned them against what he called American mechanism
and materialism, which he tried to make responsible for the alleged
materialism of the evolution theory. His political and philosophical
theories based upon blind prejudice created a gap between him and me
which widened every day. Here are some illustrations of it.
When I described to him the election day of 1876, telling him that I
and thousands of others had stood quietly and patiently hours and hours
in drenching rain in front of the New York _Tribune_ building waiting
for the returns which would tell us whether Hayes or Tilden was to be
the supreme executive head of the United States during the coming four
years; how the next day some of the newspapers had raised a howl of
“fraud,” accusing the Republican party of tampering with the election
returns in one of the States, but that the people of New York City
and of the whole country had paid no attention, trusting implicitly
to the machinery of government to straighten out crookedness if it
existed, and how this dignity of American democracy thrilled me when I
compared it with the rows and scandals accompanying elections in the
countries of the military frontier of Austria-Hungary, he only laughed
and ridiculed the whole procedure of electing by ignorant voters the
supreme executive head of a nation. He told me a story of Aristides of
Athens, who, being requested by a voter to write upon a shell the name
of the man who was to be condemned for some crime which was not quite
clear to the Athenian voter, wrote down his own name, and Aristides,
the just, the noblest character of Athens, was condemned. But the
condemnation of this just and noble and innocent man was, according to
Bilharz, a condemnation of the Athenian democracy, whose shortcomings
brought the downfall of Greek civilization, and he added that the
shortcomings of American democracy would bring the downfall of the old
European civilization. The Aristides story interested me much, but the
inference he drew from it made me think of Christian of West Street,
and of his blunt remark: “A European greenhorn must have told you
that.” Jim was present at this discussion. He was a strong Presbyterian
and ridiculed on every occasion what he called Bilharz’s Roman Catholic
views. This time he quoted Lincoln by saying “that government of the
people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the
earth.” Then he added for the edification of Bilharz that religion
in the Roman Catholic church is of the church, by the church, for
the church, and that this was the real reason why Bilharz, trained
in this kind of theology, would never understand American democracy.
This shocked me, because I expected a fist fight between my two best
friends, but ... the fist fight did not take place.
I enjoyed taking long walks on Broadway whenever I had free time, going
up on one side and coming down on the other, inspecting every window in
bookstores and art stores and looking at the latest things in pictorial
art, at the titles of the latest things in literature, and at the
photographs and engravings of prominent men of the day. This gave me
quite an idea of what was going on in the American world of intellect.
Bilharz never joined me because, he said, there was nothing worth
seeing on these inspection tours of mine. Once during the noon recess I
managed to take him around the corner of Cortlandt Street and Broadway
trusting to luck to meet a certain great person whom I had seen several
times before and recognized because I saw his photograph in the
shop-windows of Broadway. I succeeded, for there in the midst of the
Broadway crowd appeared before us William Cullen Bryant, the author of
“Thanatopsis”! He was then the editor of _The Evening Post_, which was
located on Broadway not far from Cortlandt Street. I pointed him out;
Bilharz held his breath and, referring to the wonderful appearance of
the great poet, he said: “There is the only man in this materialistic
land of reapers and mowing-machines and chattering telephone disks who
could take a seat among the gods on Mount Olympus and be welcomed there
by the shades of the great idealists of Greece.”
At another time I managed to take him as far as City Hall; it was some
holiday, and the papers had announced that President Hayes and his
secretary of state, William Evarts, would be at City Hall at noon,
and they were there. Bilharz and I stood in a huge crowd, but we had
a good view of the President and of his secretary of state, and we
heard every word of their short speeches. They were dressed just like
everybody else, but their remarkable physiognomies and their scholarly
words convinced me that they belonged to the exalted position into
which the vote of the people had placed them. The New York Sun was a
bitter opponent of President Hayes and published his picture on the
editorial page of every one of its issues. In this picture the letters
spelling “fraud” were represented as branded across the expansive
brow of the President. But as I looked at him standing in front of
City Hall and beheld the light which was reflected from his smooth and
honest brow I knew that the New York Sun was wrong, and I vowed never
to read it again until that picture disappeared from its editorial
pages. Bilharz did not understand my admiration of the scene which we
had witnessed: the democratic simplicity of the highest officials in
the great United States and the very informal reception given to them
in the great metropolis, New York, was all due, according to him, to
a lack of artistic taste on the part of vulgar democracy. I thought
of the multicolored uniforms loaded with shining decorations, of the
plumed hats and long sabres, and of the numerous glaring flags with
imperial eagles displayed on such occasions in the Austrian Empire,
and I told Bilharz that if that monkey business was all due to a
profusion of artistic taste, then give me the simplicity of vulgar
democracy. Bilharz shrugged his shoulders and pitied me, and I pitied
him for having to pass, as he assured me often, the rest of his days in
this--to him--the most uninteresting part of the valley of tears, das
Thraenenthal, as he called this terrestrial globe.
Such were the many differences of mental attitude which widened the gap
between Bilharz and myself. He clung to the notions which were handed
down to the Old World from generations long departed; I, following
Jim’s suggestion, was trying to pick up wherever I could new ideas in
the New World. Much learning hath made him mad, thought I, whenever
I analyzed the strange ideas which Bilharz had of the United States
of America. I came to the conclusion that his term of apprenticeship
as greenhorn would never end. It is a national calamity that the vast
majority of our immigrants never see the end of their apprenticeship as
greenhorns.
I wished to believe that I was no longer a greenhorn, and I certainly
did not wish to listen to opinions of a greenhorn such as were the
opinions of Bilharz in matters outside of Greek and Roman history and
of the civilization which it described. His eyes were continually
turned to a sunset the glory of which had faded long ago; my eyes
watched just as eagerly for the daily sunrise as they did on the
pasturelands of my native village, and each sunrise showed me something
new in this--to me--still unknown land. He contemplated the past, and I
explored the present and dreamed about the future. I thought of Jim’s
prophecy which said that some day I should outgrow the opportunities
of Cortlandt Street, and I felt confident that the day had arrived. My
mind was made up to search for new opportunities, but Jim, and Bilharz
also, in spite of his shortcomings, were still a great attraction, and
I moved slowly.
One day, after leaving Cooper Union library, I walked along the upper
Bowery, refreshing my memories of the hard winter of 1874-1875. In
Broome Street near the Bowery I saw a store with a sign bearing the
name of Lukanitch. The man of that name must be a Serb, thought I, and
I walked in, longing to hear the language which I had not heard for
over three years. It was a hardware store dealing principally in files
and tools made of hardened steel. Behind the desk stood an elderly man,
and he, much surprised, answered my Serbian greeting in the Serbian
language with an accent reminding me of Kos, my Slovene teacher in
Panchevo. Lukanitch told me that he was a Slovene and that in his young
days he was a pedler, a Kranyats, as they called the Slovenian pedlers
in my native village. His annual summer tours took him to my native
Banat. A Kranyats travels on foot hundreds of miles, carrying on his
back a huge case with numerous small drawers, each drawer containing a
different line of goods: pins, needles, and threads; pens and pencils,
cheap jewelry and gaily colored handkerchiefs; cotton, linen, silk,
and all kinds of things which the peasants are apt to buy. A Kranyats
was a familiar sight in my native village, and he was always welcome
there, because he was a Slovene, a near kin to the Serb; and the Serb
peasants of the Banat plains loved to hear a Kranyats describe the
beauties of the mountainsides of little Slovenia on the eastern slope
of the Dolomites. When I disclosed my name to Lukanitch he asked me for
my father’s name, and when I told him that it was Constantine and that
he lived in Idvor, Banat, his eyes looked like two scintillating stars.
He gave me a big hug and a big tear threatened to roll down his cheek
when he said: “Ko che ko Bog?” (Who can fathom the will of God?) After
relating to me that my father had befriended him nearly thirty years
prior to that time and that he had often stayed as guest at my father’s
house whenever his annual tours as Kranyats took him through Idvor,
he begged me to come to his house on the following Sunday and dine
with his family. I did, and there I met his good wife, a fine Slavonic
type, and also his son and daughter, who were born in this country and
who looked like young Slavs with Americanism grafted upon them. His
son was about to graduate from a high school, and his daughter was
preparing for Normal College. They were both American in manner and
sentiment, but father and mother, although deeply devoted to the United
States, the native country of their children, were still sincerely
attached to the beautiful customs of the Slovene land. The children
preferred to speak English, but they delighted in Slovene music, which
they cultivated with much enthusiasm. That made their parents most
happy. Their home was a beautiful combination of American and Slovene
civilization. Once they invited me to an anniversary party and I found
the whole family dressed in most picturesque Slovenian costumes; but
everybody in the party, including even old Lukanitch and his wife
and all the Slovenian guests, spoke English. Most of the guests were
Americans, but they enjoyed the Slovenian dishes and the Slovenian
music, singing, and dancing as much as anybody. To my great surprise
the American girls, friends of Miss Lukanitch, played Slovenian music
exceedingly well, and I thought to myself that a sufficiently frequent
repetition of parties of that kind would soon transform the American
population in the vicinity of Prince Street into Slovenians. This
interaction between two very different civilizations gave me food for
thought, which I am still digesting mentally.
Lukanitch and his family became my devoted friends, and they were
just as interested in my plans and aspirations as if I had been a
member of their family. The old lady had a tender heart, and she shed
many a tear listening to bits of my history from the time when I bade
good-by to father and mother at the steamboat landing on the Danube,
five years before. The disappearance of my roast goose at Karlovci,
my first railroad ride from Budapest to Vienna, my dialogues with the
train conductor and the gaudy station-master at Vienna, and my free
ride in a first-class compartment from Vienna to Prague in company with
American friends amused her and her husband hugely. I had to repeat
the story many a time for the benefit of her Slovenian friends. She
begged me repeatedly to tell the story of my crossing of the Atlantic
and of my hardships as greenhorn, being evidently anxious to have her
children hear it. I did it several times, scoring much success on each
occasion, and as a reward she loaded me with many little gifts and with
many enjoyable feasts on Sundays and holidays. My interpretation of
the American theory of freedom, which I had derived from reading the
lives and the utterances of the great men who made this country and
from my three years’ struggles as greenhorn, found a most appreciative
audience in the Lukanitch family. They applauded Jim’s sentiment, that
this country is a monument to the great men who made it, and not to
a single family like the Hapsburgs of Austria-Hungary. Old Lukanitch
offered to engage me as his teacher in American history, and young
Lukanitch offered to get me an invitation from the principal of his
high school to deliver an oration on the Declaration of Independence.
The offers were not meant very seriously, but there was enough
sincerity in them to make me believe that my training in America was
recognized as having substantial value by people whose opinion deserved
respect. I saw in it the first real recognition referred to in the
prophecy of my fellow passenger on the immigrant ship who said: “No
matter who you are or what you know or what you have, you will be a
greenhorn when you land in the New World, and a greenhorn has to serve
his apprenticeship as greenhorn before he can establish his claim to
any recognition.” I said to myself: “Here is my first recognition small
as it may be, and I am certainly no longer a greenhorn.”
No longer a greenhorn! Oh, what a confidence that gives to a
foreign-born youth who has experienced the hardships of serving his
apprenticeship as a greenhorn! Then there were other sources of
confidence: I had a goodly deposit in the Union Dime Savings Bank and
it was several thousand times as big as the nickel which I brought to
Castle Garden when I landed. Besides, I had learned a thing or two in
the evening classes at Cooper Union, and my English was considered
good not only in vocabulary and grammar, but also in articulation,
thanks to Bilharz. Young Lukanitch assured me that my knowledge of
English, mathematics, and science would easily take me into college. He
even prophesied a most successful college career, pointing at my big
chest and broad shoulders and feeling my hard biceps. “You will make
a splendid college oarsman,” said he, “and they will do anything for
you at Columbia if you are a good oarsman, even if you do not get from
Bilharz so very much Greek or Latin.” At that time Columbia stood very
high in rowing. One of her crews won in the Henley Regatta, and its
picture could be seen in every illustrated paper. I had seen it many
a time and remembered the looks of every member of that famous crew.
Young Lukanitch was so enthusiastic about it that he would have gone
to Columbia himself if his father had not needed him so much in his
steel-tool business. He did his best to turn my eyes from Nassau Hall
to Columbia. He succeeded, but not so much on account of my prospects
in rowing as on account of other things, and among them was the
official name of that institution: “Columbia College in the City of New
York.” The fact that the college was located in the city of New York
carried much weight, because New York appealed to my imagination more
than any other place in the world. The impression which it made upon my
mind as the immigrant ship moved into New York Harbor on that clear and
sunny March day when I first passed through Castle Garden, the Gate of
America, never faded. My first victory on American soil was won in New
York when I fought for my right to wear the red fez.
IV
FROM GREENHORN TO CITIZENSHIP AND COLLEGE DEGREE
The Columbia boat-race victory at Henley occurred in 1878. By that time
I had already with the assistance of Bilharz finished a considerable
portion of my Greek and Latin preparation for Princeton--or, as I
called it, for “Nassau Hall.” My change of allegiance from Princeton to
Columbia was gradual.
Columbia College was located at that time on the block between Madison
and Park Avenues and between Forty-ninth and Fiftieth Streets in New
York City. One of its proposed new buildings was, according to report,
to be called Hamilton Hall, in honor of Alexander Hamilton. When I
learned this I looked up the history of Alexander Hamilton. One can
imagine how thrilled I was when I found that Hamilton left the junior
class at Columbia College and joined Washington’s armies as captain
when he was barely nineteen, and at twenty was lieutenant-colonel and
Washington’s aide-de-camp! What an appeal to a young imagination! Few
things ever thrilled me as much as the life of Alexander Hamilton.
Every American youth preparing for college should read the history of
Hamilton’s life.
One cannot look up the history of Hamilton’s life without running
across the name of another great Columbia man, John Jay, first
Secretary of Foreign Affairs, appointed by Congress, and the first
Chief Justice of the United States, appointed by Washington, and a
stanch backer of brilliant Hamilton. Chancellor Livingston, another
great Columbia man, administered the first constitutional oath of
office to Washington; he also completed the purchase of Louisiana from
France. The more I studied the history of Hamilton’s time the more I
saw what tremendous influence Columbia’s alumni exerted at that time.
Cortlandt Street being near Trinity Church, I walked there to look at
the Hamilton monument in the Trinity churchyard. This monument was the
first suggestion to me of a bond of union between Trinity Church and
Columbia College. Before long I found many other bonds of union between
these two great institutions.
Every time I passed Columbia College in my long walks up-town and
looked at the rising structure of Hamilton Hall, I thought of these
three great Columbia men. What student of Hamilton’s life could have
looked at Hamilton Hall on Madison Avenue without being reminded of the
magnificent intellectual efforts which two young patriots, Hamilton
and Madison, made in the defense of the federalist form of the new
American Republic? It happened thus that my memory of Nassau Hall at
Princeton gradually faded, although it never vanished. The famous
boat-race victory of a Columbia crew at Henley would not alone have
produced this effect. It was produced by three great New York men of
the Revolutionary period who were alumni of “Columbia College in the
City of New York.” Columbia had at that time a school of mines and
engineering, separate from the college. I was much better prepared for
it than for Columbia College, thanks to the evening lectures at Cooper
Union, and to my natural inclination to scientific studies, but I
imagined that the spirit of Hamilton, Jay, and Livingston hovered about
the academic buildings of Columbia College only.
Bilharz rejoiced when I informed him of my decision to put on extra
pressure in my classical studies preparatory for Columbia College, and
congratulated himself, as I found out later, that he had succeeded in
rescuing me from the worship of what he called scientific materialism.
The good old fellow did not know that at that very time I was spending
many hours of my spare time reading Tyndall’s “Heat as a Mode of
Motion,” and Tyndall’s famous lectures on Sound and Light, which he
delivered in this country with great success in the early seventies.
These popular descriptions of physical phenomena were the poems in
prose to which I referred before. Another book of a similar character
came into my hands at that time through the Cooper Union library. I
have a copy of it now, having received it over thirty years ago as a
present from the late General Thomas Ewing. It is called “The Poetry
of Science,” published in 1848 by Robert Hunt. It starts with the
following quotation from Milton:
“How charming is Divine Philosophy!
Not harsh and crabbed as dull fools suppose,
But musical as is Apollo’s lute
And a perpetual feast of nectar’d sweets,
Where no crude surfeit reigns.”
Tyndall’s and Hunt’s writings appealed to my imagination at that
time in the same way as Milton’s “Paradise Lost,” or as Longfellow’s
“Hiawatha,” or as William Cullen Bryant’s “Thanatopsis.” They convinced
me that the Slavs were not the only people who, as I had been inclined
to think, see the poetical side of science, but that everybody sees
it, because science on its abstract side is poetry; it is Divine
Philosophy, as Milton calls it. Science is a food which nourishes not
only the material but also the spiritual body of man. This was my pet
argument whenever I was called upon to defend science against Bilharz’s
attacks.
My progress in Greek and Latin grammar under the guidance of Bilharz
was rapid even before I had decided to steer for Columbia. It was
a question of memory and of analysis. My memory had had a stiff
linguistic training during the several years preceding that date,
in trying to master the English language with all its vagaries in
spelling and pronunciation. These vagaries I did not find in the
grammars of the classical languages, which appeared to me to be as
definite and as exact as the geometrical theorems in Euclid. Hadley’s
Greek Grammar did not differ much, I thought, from Davies’ Legendre’s
Geometry. Mathematics was always my strong point, and good memory is a
characteristic virtue of the Serb race; I, therefore, had an easy road
in my classical studies with Bilharz.
As the time went on I saw that entrance into Columbia College was
within easy reach so far as my studies were concerned. But here
again the old question arose which I first asked myself three years
before, when the train, taking me from Nassau Hall to the Bowery, was
approaching New York. “Social unpreparedness” stared me in the face. I
could not define it, but I felt its existence. I shall try to describe
it. Columbia College, a daughter of great Trinity Church, an alma mater
of men like Hamilton, Jay, Livingston, and of many other gentlemen and
scholars who guided the destiny of these great United States--can that
great American institution, I asked myself, afford to enroll a raw
Serbian immigrant among its students; train me, an uncouth employee of
a cracker factory, to become one of its alumni? I thought of the first
sentence in the Declaration of Independence, but it did not persuade me
that I was an equal of the American boy who was prepared to meet all
the requirements necessary for entrance into Columbia College, because
I was convinced that in addition to entrance examinations there were
other requirements for which no prescribed examinations existed. The
college of Hamilton and of Jay expected certain other things which
I knew I did not have and could not get from books. A jump from the
Cortlandt Street factory to Columbia College, from Jim and Bilharz to
patriarchal President Barnard and the famous professors at Columbia,
appeared to me like a jump over Columbia’s great and venerable
traditions. Old Lukanitch and his family and their American friends
helped me much to start building a bridge over this big gap, but the
more I associated with these people, who lived around humble Prince
Street, not far from the Bowery, the more I saw my shortcomings in what
I called, for want of a better name, “social preparedness.” “How shall
I feel,” I asked myself, “when I begin to associate with boys whose
parents live on Madison and Fifth Avenues, and whose ancestors were
friends of Hamilton and of Jay?” Their traditions, I was sure, gave
them an equipment which I did not have, unless my Serbian traditions
proved to be similar to their American traditions. My native village
attached great importance to traditions, and I knew how much the
peasants of Idvor would resent it if a stranger not in tune with their
traditions attempted to settle in their historic village.
The examination of immigrants which I saw at Castle Garden, when I
landed, had made me think that traditions did not count for much in
Castle Garden. But my principal acquisition from my apprenticeship
as greenhorn had been the recognition that there are great American
traditions, and that the opportunities of this country are inaccessible
to immigrants who, like Bilharz, do not understand their meaning and
their vital importance in American life. Vila’s mother on the Delaware
farm, my experiences with Christian of West Street, and Jim’s little
sermons in the Cortlandt Street boiler-room had impressed this idea
upon my mind very strongly. The mental attitude of a young Serb from
the military frontier was naturally very receptive to impressions of
that kind. My respect for the traditions of my own race had prepared me
to respect the traditions of the country which I expected to adopt,
and hence I was afraid that my cultural equipment was not up to the
standards of the college boys who were brought up in accordance with
American traditions. My subsequent experience showed me that my anxiety
was justifiable.
I have already mentioned that a short time before I ran away from
Prague and headed for the United States I had read a translation of
Harriet Beecher Stowe’s “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.” It had been recommended
to me by my American friends who gave me a free ride in a first-class
compartment from Vienna to Prague. My mention of the name of this great
woman, together with the names of Lincoln and of Franklin, as Americans
that I knew something about, had won me the sympathy of the immigration
officials at Castle Garden, who, otherwise, might have deported me.
Her name was deeply engraved upon the tablets of my memory. The famous
Beecher-Tilton trial was much discussed in those days in the New York
press, and when I heard that Henry Ward Beecher was a brother of the
author of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin” my opinion of Tilton was formed, and no
judge or jury could have changed it. Beecher’s photographs, which I
saw in my inspection tours on Broadway, confirmed me in my belief that
he was a brother worthy of his great sister. Young Lukanitch and his
sister knew of Beecher’s fame and, although strict Roman Catholics,
they consented to accompany me on my first pilgrimage to Beecher’s
Plymouth Church, and there I saw the great orator for the first time.
His face looked to me like that of a lion and his long gray locks,
reaching almost to his shoulders, supported this illusion. The church
provided a setting worthy of his striking appearance. The grand organ
behind and above the pulpit supplied a harmonious musical background to
the magnificent singing of the large choir. I felt that the thrilling
music was tuning me up for the sermon which the great orator was
about to preach, and I was right. The sermon was free from involved
theological analysis; it dealt with simple questions of human life
and its determination by human habits. It was a dramatic and poetic
presentation of the little sermons which Jim preached in the Cortlandt
Street boiler-room, but in a very plain form of statement. The fact,
however, that I found many spiritual bonds between great Plymouth
Church and Jim’s humble boiler-room shows me to-day why Beecher touched
the heart-strings of the plain people. He helped them to solve some of
their problems of life just as Jim tried to help me solve mine. But
Jim was not a cultured man and he delivered his chunks of practical
wisdom in the same offhand manner in which he fed shovelfuls of coal
to the busy fires under his boilers. Beecher, on the other hand, was a
great orator and a great poet, and every little grain of wisdom stored
up in human life was placed before his congregation with all the force
of his overpowering personality and with all the embellishments with
which the imagination of a poetical nature could clothe it. I felt
thrills creeping over my whole body as I listened, and the effect was
not only mental and spiritual, but also physical, undoubtedly because
of the quickening of the blood’s circulation produced by the mental
exhilaration. Bilharz, although a rigid Roman Catholic, admitted, after
hearing Beecher several times, that great sermons are possible even
without any theological flavoring. “But,” said he in his usual dramatic
way, “everything is possible to a poetic soul which is propelled by the
wings of a genius.” A remarkable concession from a man of Bilharz’s
training and mental attitude!
Jim, who was a strict Presbyterian, rejoiced that I had picked out
a Congregational Church for religious worship, and old Lukanitch
confessed that if I persuaded his children to go with me to Plymouth
Church very often they might desert the Roman Catholic faith of their
ancestors. I felt assured, however, that St. Sava and the Orthodoxy
of my mother would never lose me through the influence of Beecher’s
genius, because Beecher was preaching to all humanity and not to a
particular creed. His words were like the life-giving radiation of the
sun, which shines upon all things alike. I saw in him a living example
of that type of American who, like Hamilton, Jay, Livingston, and the
other great men of whom I had heard at the Philadelphia exposition,
were the spiritual and the intellectual giants of the Revolutionary
period. My study of the history of Hamilton’s life had shown me
that the number of these giants was large; many of them signed the
Declaration of Independence. I did not fail to see in this a most
propitious omen of a great future for the country. What a spiritual
giant Lincoln must have been, I thought, when I heard Beecher refer to
him with humblest veneration! Beecher was the sunrise which dispelled
much of that mist which prevented my eyes, just as it prevents all
foreign eyes, from seeing the clear outline of American civilization.
Four years previously I had for the first time attended an American
church service in Delaware City, and had carried away the impression
that in matters of public worship America was not up to the standards
prescribed by the Serbian Church. Beecher and his Plymouth Church
changed my judgment completely. Beecher’s congregation seemed to me
like a beehive full of honey-hearted beings. Each of them reminded
me of the Americans who had befriended me at the railroad-station in
Vienna, and had rescued me from the official dragon who threatened
to send me back to the prisons of the military frontier. I firmly
believed that Beecher was preaching a new gospel, the American gospel
of humanity, the same gospel which his great sister had preached. Every
member of his congregation looked to me like a faithful disciple of
this doctrine.
One of those honey-hearted disciples was a Doctor Charles Shepard,
of Columbia Heights, Brooklyn. He and his family were Unitarians, I
think, but they often attended Plymouth Church on account of their
great admiration for Beecher. Doctor Shepard’s family was, in my
opinion, a family of saints; generosity, refinement, and spiritual
discipline filled the golden atmosphere of their home. When I disclosed
my plans to the good doctor, he offered to help me carry them out.
He was an ardent advocate of the curative powers of hydropathy in
conjunction with proper diet and total abstinence from alcohol and
tobacco. “Cleanliness is next to godliness” was his motto, and by
cleanliness he meant freedom from unclean habits of every kind. His
theory was successfully practised in his hydropathic establishment, and
he flourished, and his institution was famous. His very old father,
over eighty years of age, who managed the office of the establishment,
needed assistance, and Doctor Shepard offered me the position and
spoke of getting a friend of his to help me prepare for entrance to
Columbia. His friend was Professor Webster, who taught Greek and Latin
at the Adelphi Academy in Brooklyn. I jumped at Doctor Shepard’s offer,
although the prospect of deserting Jim and Bilharz made me hesitate.
But Jim applauded my decision and he recalled his prophecy that I
should soon outgrow the opportunities of the New England Cracker
Factory. Bilharz expressed his gratification that he had contributed to
my progress, and he certainly had, both by what he praised and by what
he condemned. He was sincere in both, but his praise was founded upon a
rare knowledge of classical literatures, while his condemnation was due
to prejudice against science and against American democracy. The real
secret of his grip upon my imagination I shall disclose later.
Professor Webster was an ideal pedagogue; his pupils were boys and
girls from some of the best families of Brooklyn. Their teacher was
to them an apostle of classical culture, in which they were much
interested, partly because of their admiration for their beloved
teacher. After a few private lessons he invited me to join his classes
in Greek and Latin, where I was received with many signs of cordiality
from both the boys and the girls. Like myself, they were preparing for
college. I attended these classes three times a week and entertained
them much by my continental pronunciation of Greek and Latin, which
I had learned from Bilharz, who had also taught me to recite the
Greek and Latin hexameter with proper intonation. This delighted the
heart of Professor Webster and of his pupils. Recitations of Greek
and Latin verses with faultless rhythm were all which at first I
could offer to the entertainment of my classmates. After a while I
entertained some of them with Serbian poetry and also with Serbian kolo
dancing. I made every effort to make them forget that I was a Balkan
barbarian; but everybody, as if reading my thoughts, assured me that
I was contributing more to the Adelphi Academy than I was getting in
return. I knew better. I felt that the association with those splendid
boys and girls and with Professor Webster contributed much more to my
preparation for Columbia than all the book work which I had ever done
anywhere.
Doctor Shepard and his family saw the rapid change in me, I thought,
and many of their evidences of approval were very encouraging. When
I first met Doctor Shepard he was strongly pro-Turkish whenever the
Balkan war, which was raging at that time, was discussed. He had a
notion that the Serbians were a rebellious and barbarous race. During
the early part of 1879 he gradually shifted to the Serbian side, and I
was bold enough to take all credit for it to myself. I considered his
and his family’s approval the best test of the success of my efforts to
understand the American standards of conduct. This success meant much
more to me in my preparation for college than the success in my studies.
In an interscholastic athletic contest I volunteered to run in a
ten-mile race without any previous training, and won. From that day on
my friends at the Adelphi Academy regarded me as one of their number,
and it was a liberal education to me to listen to their eulogies of
_my loyalty to them and to their institution_, which, they said, I
displayed when I fought under the Adelphi banner on the athletic
field. Legends began to grow up among the Adelphi boys and girls about
a Serbian youngster who had won the ten-mile race without previous
training. When your young and enthusiastic friends begin to indulge
in legends about you, be assured that you are getting on some. But
legends, like nursery rhymes, will lull you to sleep if you are not
very, very wide-awake. This experience made me see clearly what young
Lukanitch had meant when he told me what oarsmanship might do for me at
Columbia even if I did not know much Greek and Latin. I was confirmed
in this when the boys of the Adelphi Academy who expected to enter
Yale or Princeton used much of their persuasive powers to steer me to
these colleges. It encouraged me much and diminished greatly my anxiety
about “social unpreparedness.” But my answer was that the college of
Hamilton, Jay, and Livingston, in the City of New York, was the port
for which I was sailing, and that Beecher’s church in Brooklyn would be
one of the anchors to keep me there, and that Beecher, as far as I was
concerned, would be a part of Columbia College.
The summer vacation of 1879 was approaching, and I knew that all my
academic friends in New York and Brooklyn would leave for the country.
There was nothing to keep me in Brooklyn except my obligations to good
Doctor Shepard. He excused me when I told him that I wished to devote
all my time during that summer to study, so as to insure my passing
with a high mark all my entrance examinations in the following autumn.
A high mark would gain me freedom from all tuition fees at Columbia,
a very serious consideration. Doctor Shepard approved, and I moved to
what I called, jokingly, my summer “villa” on the Passaic River, near
Rutherford Park, New Jersey. It was a tiny little cottage near the bank
of the river; it had not been occupied for a long time, and it was
looked after by an old Danish woman who lived quite near it. She kept
two cows and a lot of chickens and ducks and sold butter and eggs and
fowl. Her son Christopher peddled kindling-wood in Passaic, Belleville,
and Newark, New Jersey. The old lady consented to let me live in the
cottage until a permanent tenant should appear, and she was willing to
take care of me for a certain payment per week. I accepted her terms on
condition that she allow me to work off a certain part of the agreed
amount by sawing kindling-wood from ten to twelve in the morning and
from four to six in the afternoon. My suggestion made her thoughtful,
and she finally confessed her fear that my exercises before meals might
give me such an appetite that I should eat her out of house and home.
We agreed to try the scheme for a week, and we were both satisfied with
the result. She took good care of me, and I furnished her with more
kindling-wood for her son’s trade than she had ever expected. Moreover,
the regular help, who was hired for the specific purpose of cutting
kindling-wood, increased his output, in order to keep up with me. I
enjoyed the work hugely as means of splendid exercise, and rejoiced in
making the output as large as possible. The old lady was delighted with
the unexpected result. Every two-hour period of sawing and splitting
of kindling-wood was followed by a dip and swim in the Passaic River,
and by the end of the summer I was all muscle and could have run a
race of twenty miles without any previous training. This proved a very
valuable asset in the beginning of my college career; muscle and brawn
are splendid things to take along when one enters college, and have
while in college. Several incidents in my college career bear upon the
interesting feature of athletics in American college life, and I shall
describe them later even at the risk of appearing egotistical. This
feature is characteristically American and is quite unknown on the
continent of Europe.
Eight hours each day I devoted to study: three in the morning to Greek,
three in the afternoon to Latin, and two in the evening to other
studies. It was a most profitable summer outing of over three months,
and it cost me only thirty dollars; the rest was paid in sawing and
splitting of kindling-wood. Whenever I read now about the Kaiser’s
activities at Doorn, I think of my summer activities in 1879, and I
wonder who in the world suggested my scheme to William Hohenzollern!
During the last week of September of that year I presented myself at
Columbia for entrance examinations. They were oral, and were conducted
by the professors themselves and not by junior instructors. The first
two books of the Iliad, excepting the catalogue of ships, and four
orations of Cicero, I knew by heart. My leisure time at my Passaic
River “villa” had permitted me these pleasant mental gymnastics; I
wanted to show off before Bilharz with my Greek and Latin quotations;
to say nothing of the wonderful mental exhilaration which a young
student gets from reading aloud and memorizing the words of Homer and
of Cicero. The professors were greatly surprised and asked me why I
had taken so much trouble. I told them that it was no trouble, because
Serbs delight in memorizing beautiful lines. The Serbs of Montenegro,
for instance, know by heart most of the lines which their great poet
Nyegosh ever wrote, and particularly his great epic “The Mountain
Glory.” I told them also of illiterate Baba Batikin, the minstrel of
my native village, who knew most of the old Serbian ballads by heart.
Besides, I assured the professors, I wanted to do in Greek and Latin
as well as I possibly could, so as to gain free tuition. For the other
studies I was not afraid, I told them, and they assured me that my
chances for free tuition were certainly good. The other examinations
gave me no trouble, thanks to my training with Bilharz and with the
lecturers in the evening classes at Cooper Union. A note from the
Registrar’s office informed me a few days later that I was enrolled as
a student in Columbia College with freedom from all tuition fees. There
was no person in the United States on that glorious day happier than I!
The college atmosphere which I found at Columbia at that time gave me
a new sensation. I did not understand it at first and misinterpreted
many things. The few days preceding the opening of the college sessions
I spent chasing around for a boarding-house, while my classmates were
hanging around the college buildings, making arrangements to join this
or that fraternity, and also solidifying the line of defense of the
freshmen against the hostile sophomores. There was a lively process of
organization going on under the leadership of groups of boys who came
from the same preparatory schools. These groups led and the others
were expected to follow without a murmur. Insubordination or even
indifference was condemned as lack of college spirit. This spirit was
necessary among the freshmen particularly, because, as I was informed
later, there was a great common danger--the sophomores! I saw some of
this feverish activity going on, but did not understand its meaning
and hence remained outside of it, as if I were a stranger and not a
member of the freshman class, which I heard described, by the freshmen
themselves, as the best freshman class in the history of Columbia.
The sophomores denied this in a most provoking manner; hence the
hostility. Nobody paid any attention to me; nobody knew me, because I
did not come from any of the preparatory schools which prepared boys
for Columbia. One day I saw on the campus two huge waves of lively
youngsters beating against each other just like inrolling waves of
the sea lifting on their backs the returning waves which had been
reflected from the cliffs of the shore. The freshmen were defending
a cane against fierce attacks of the sophomores. It was the historic
Columbia cane rush, I was told by Michael, the college janitor,
who stood alongside of me as I looked on. It was not a real fight
resulting in broken noses or blackened eyes, but just a most vigorous
push-and-pull contest, the sophomores trying to take possession of a
cane which a strong freshman, surrounded by a stalwart body-guard of
freshmen, was holding and guarding just as a guard of fanatic monks
would defend the sacred relics of a great saint. This freshmen group
was the centre of the scrimmage and it stood there like a high rock in
the midst of an angry sea. Coats and shirts were torn off the backs of
the brave fighters, some attacking and others defending the central
group, but not a single ugly swear-word was heard nor did I see a
single sign of intentional bloodshed. Members of the junior and senior
classes watched as umpires. Michael, the janitor, who knew everybody
on the college campus as a shepherd knows his sheep, was not quite
certain about my identity. He asked me whether I was a freshman, and
when I said “yes,” he asked me why in the world I was not in the rush,
defending the freshmen body-guard. He looked so anxious and worried
that I felt sure of being guilty of some serious offense against old
Columbia traditions. I immediately took off my coat and stiff shirt
and plunged into the surging waves of sophomores and freshmen and
had almost reached the central body-guard of freshmen, eager to join
in its defense, when a sophomore, named Frank Henry, grabbed me and
pulled me back, telling me that I had no business to cross the line of
umpires at that late moment. I did not know the rules of the game and
shoved him aside and we clinched. He was the strongest man in Columbia
College, as I learned later, but my kindling-wood operations on the
banks of the Passaic River had made me a stiff opponent. We wrestled
and wrestled and would have wrestled till sunset like Prince Marco and
the Arab Moussa Kessedjia in the old Serbian ballads, if the umpires
had not proclaimed the cane rush a draw. The main show being over,
the side show which Henry and I were keeping up had no further useful
purpose to serve, and we stopped and shook hands. He was glad to stop,
he admitted, and so was I, but he told my classmates that “if that
terrible Turk had been selected a member of the freshmen body-guard
the result of the cane rush might have been different.” I told him
that I was a Serb, and not a Turk, and he apologized, saying that he
could never draw very fine distinctions between the various races in
the Balkans. “But, whatever race you are,” said he, “you will be a good
fellow if you will learn to _play the game_.” Splendid advice from a
college boy! “_Play the game_,” what a wonderful phrase! I studied it
long, and the more I thought about it the more I was convinced that one
aspect of the history of this country with all its traditions is summed
up in these three words. No foreigner can understand this country who
does not know the full meaning of this phrase, which I first heard from
a Columbia College youngster. No foreign language can so translate the
phrase as to reproduce its brevity and at the same time convey its full
meaning. But, when I heard it, I thought of the bootblacks and newsboys
who, five years previously, had acted as umpires when I defended my
right to wear a red fez. To “play the game” according to the best
traditions of the land which offered me all of its opportunities was
always my idea of Americanization. But how many immigrants to this
land can be made to understand this?
Some little time after this incident I was approached by the captain
of the freshman crew, who asked me to join his crew. I remembered
young Lukanitch’s opinion about oarsmanship at Columbia, and I was
sorely tempted. But, unfortunately, I had only three hundred and eleven
dollars when I started my college career, and I knew that if I was to
retain my free tuition by high standing in scholarship and also earn
further money for my living expenses I should have no time for other
activities. “Study, work for a living, no participation in college
activities outside of the recitation-room! Do you call that college
training?” asked the captain of the freshman crew, looking perfectly
surprised at my story, which, being the son of wealthy parents, he
did not understand. I admitted that it was not, in the full sense of
the word, but that I was not in a position to avail myself of all the
opportunities which Columbia offered me, and that, in fact, I had
already obtained a great deal more than an immigrant could reasonably
have expected. I touched his sympathetic chord, and I felt that I had
made a new friend. The result of this interview was that my classmates
refrained from asking me to join any of the college activities for
fear that my inability to comply with their request might make me
feel badly. I had their sympathy, but I missed their fellowship, and
therefore I missed in my freshman year much of that splendid training
outside of the classroom which an American college offers to its
students.
At the end of the freshman year I gained two prizes of one hundred
dollars each, one in Greek and the other in mathematics. They were won
in stiff competitive examinations and meant a considerable scholastic
success, but, nevertheless, they excited little interest among my
classmates. Results of examinations were considered a personal matter
of the individual student himself and not of his fellow classmen. The
prizes were practically the only money upon which I could rely to
help carry me through my second year. The estimated budget for that
year, however, was not fully provided for, and I looked for a job
for the long summer vacation. I did not want a job in the city. My
kindling-wood activity of the preceding summer suited me better, and
after some consultation with my friend Christopher, the kindling-wood
peddler of Rutherford Park, I decided to accept a job on a contract
of his to mow hay during that summer in the various sections of the
Hackensack lowlands. No Columbia athlete ever had a better opportunity
to develop his back and biceps than I had during that summer. I made
good use of it, and earned seventy-five dollars net.
When my sophomore year began I awaited the cane rush which, according
to old Columbia custom, took place between the sophomores and the
freshmen at the beginning of each academic year, and I was prepared
for it; I knew also what it meant to “play the game.” This time my
class had to do the attacking and I helped with a vengeance. The
muscles which had been hardened in the Hackensack meadows proved most
effective and the result was that shortly I had the freshmen’s cane on
the ground, and was lying flat over it, covering it with my chest. The
pressure of a score of freshmen and sophomores piled up on top of me
threatened to squeeze the cane through my chest bone, which already, I
imagined, was pressing against my lungs, my difficult breathing leading
me to think that my last hour had come. Fortunately, the umpires
cleared away the lively heap of struggling boys on top of me, and I
breathed freely again. Some freshmen were found stretched alongside
of me with their hands holding on to the stick. An equal number of
sophomores held on, and, consequently, the umpires declared the rush
a draw. Nobody was anxious to have another rush, and it was proposed
by the freshmen to settle the question of class superiority by a
wrestling-match, two best out of three falls, catch as catch can. They
had a big fellow who had some fame as a wrestler of great strength, and
they issued a defiant challenge to the sophomores. My classmates held
a meeting in order to pick a match for the freshman giant, but nobody
seemed to be quite up to the job. Finally I volunteered, declaring
that I was not afraid to tackle the freshman giant. “Do you expect to
down him with Greek verses and mathematical formulæ?” shouted some of
my classmates, who had grave doubts about the muscle and the wrestling
ability of a fellow who had won Greek and mathematical prizes. They
knew nothing about my strenuous mowing in the Hackensack meadows
during three long months of that summer. The captain of the class crew
approached me, felt my biceps, my chest, and my back, and shouted,
“All right!” The wrestling-match came off, and the freshman giant
had no show with a boy who had learned the art of wrestling on the
pasture-lands of Idvor, and had held his own against experienced mowers
in the Hackensack meadows. The victory was quick and complete, and my
classmates carried me in triumph to Fritz’s saloon, not far from the
college, where many a toast was drunk to “Michael the Serbian.” From
that day on my classmates called me by my first name and took me up as
if I had been a distinguished descendant of Alexander Hamilton himself.
My scholastic victory in Greek and mathematics meant nothing to my
classmates, because it was a purely personal matter, but my athletic
victory meant everything, because it was a victory of my whole class.
Had I won my scholastic victory in competition with a representative
from another college, then the matter would have had an entirely
different aspect. _Esprit de corps_ is one of those splendid things
which American college life cultivates, and I had the good fortune to
reap many benefits from it. He who pays no attention to this _esprit de
corps_ in an American college runs the risk of being dubbed a “greasy
grind.”
The sophomore year opened auspiciously. Eight of my classmates formed
a class, the Octagon, and invited me to coach them in Greek and in
mathematics, twice a week. The captain of the class crew was a member
of it. I suspected that he remembered my reasons for refusing to join
the freshman crew and wanted to help. The Octagon class was a great
help in more ways than one. I gave instruction in wrestling also to
several classmates, in exchange for instruction in boxing. This was
my physical exercise, and it was a strenuous one. Devereux Emmet,
a descendant of the great Irish patriot, was one of these exchange
instructors; he could stand any amount of punishment in our boxing
bouts, which impressed upon my mind the truth of the saying that
“blood will tell.” Before the sophomore year was over my classmates
acknowledged me not only a champion in Greek and in mathematics, but
also a champion in wrestling and boxing. The combination was somewhat
unusual and legends began to be spun about it, but they did not turn
my head, nor lull me to sleep, not even when they led to my election
as class president for the junior year. This was indeed a great
compliment, for, because of the junior promenade, the dance given
annually by the junior class, it was customary to elect for that year
a class president who was socially very prominent. A distinguished
classmate, a descendant of three great American names, and a shining
light in New York’s younger social set, was my chief opponent and I
begged to withdraw in his favor; a descendant of Hamilton inspired awe.
But my opponent would not listen to it. He was a member of the most
select fraternity and not at all unpopular, but many of my classmates
objected to him, although he was the grandson of a still living
former Secretary of State and chairman of the board of trustees of
Columbia College. They thought that he paid too much attention to the
fashion-plates of London, and dressed too fashionably. There were other
Columbia boys at that time who, I thought, dressed just as fashionably,
and yet they were very popular; but they were fine athletes, whereas
my opponent was believed to rely too much upon the history of his long
name and upon his splendid appearance. He certainly was a fine example
of classical repose; his classmates, however, admired action. He was
like a young Alcibiades in breeding, looks, and pose, but not in action.
Some of the old American colleges have been accused from time to time
of encouraging snobbery and a spirit of aristocracy which is not in
harmony with American ideas of democracy. My personal experience as
student at Columbia gives competency to my opinion upon that subject.
Snobs will be found in every country and clime, but there were fewer
snobs at Columbia in those days than in many other much less exalted
places, although Columbia at that time was accused of being a nest
of dudes and snobs. This was one of the arguments advanced by those
friends of mine at the Adelphi Academy who tried to persuade me to
go to Princeton or Yale. The spirit of aristocracy was there, but it
was an aristocracy of the same kind as existed in my native peasant
village. It was a spirit of unconscious reverence for the best American
traditions. I say “unconscious,” and by that I mean absence of noisy
chauvinism and of that racial intolerance by which the Teutonism of
Austria and the Magyarism of Hungary had driven me away from Prague
and from Panchevo. A name with a fine American tradition back of it
attracted much attention, but it was only a letter of recommendation.
He who was found wanting in his make-up and in his conduct when
weighed by the best Columbia College traditions--and they were a
part of American traditions--had a lonely time during his college
career, in spite of his illustrious name or his family’s great wealth.
Foreign-born students, like Cubans and South Americans, met with a
respectful indifference so long as they remained foreigners. Needless
to say, many of them adopted rapidly the attractive ways of the
Columbia boys. But nobody would have resented it, or even paid any
attention to it, if they had retained their foreign ways. A hopeless
fellow became a member of that very small class of students known at
that time as “muckers.” They complained bitterly of snobbery and of
aristocracy. I do not believe that either the spirit of plutocracy,
or of socialism and communism, or of any other un-American current
of thought could ever start from an American college like Columbia
of those days, and bore its way into American life. That type of
aristocracy which made the American college immune from contagion
by un-American influence existed; it was very exacting, and it was
much encouraged. But when American college boys, accused of bowing to
the spirit of aristocracy, have among them a Hamilton, a Livingston,
a DeWitt, and several descendants of Jay, and yet elect for class
president the penniless son of a Serbian peasant village, because they
admire his mental and physical efforts to learn and to comply with
Columbia’s traditions, one can rest assured that the spirit of American
democracy was very much alive in those college boys.
My success with the Octagon class established my reputation as a doctor
for “lame ducks.” This was the name of those students who failed in
their college examinations, usually examinations in Greek, Latin, and
mathematics. Lame ducks needed a special treatment, called coaching.
I became quite an expert in it, and presently I saw a flock of lame
ducks gathering around me, offering liberal rewards for a speedy cure.
My summer vacations no longer called me to the Passaic River to cut
kindling-wood, nor to the Hackensack meadows to strain my back to
the utmost trying to keep up with experienced mowers. Coaching lame
ducks was incomparably more remunerative and also left me with plenty
of leisure time for tennis, horseback riding, or swimming and diving
contests. During the college sessions I usually had in charge several
bad cases of academic lameness, cases that could not be cured during
the summer vacations, but had to be carefully nursed throughout the
whole academic year. Financially I fared better than most of my young
professors, and I saved, looking ahead for the realization of a pet
dream of mine. My coaching experience was remunerative not only from
the material but also from the cultural side; it brought me in touch
with some of the best exponents of New York’s social life, where I
found a hearty welcome, a friendly sympathy, and many lessons which I
considered as among the most valuable acquisitions in my college life.
One of them deserves special mention here.
Lewis Morris Rutherfurd, a trustee of Columbia College, was at that
time the head of the famous Rutherfurd family. He was a gentleman of
leisure and devoted himself to science and particularly to photographic
astronomy, just as did his famous friend, Doctor John William Draper,
the author of the “History of the Intellectual Development of Europe.”
Rutherfurd was a pioneer worker in this field of astronomy, and his
photographs of the moon and of the stars were always regarded by the
scientists of the world as most valuable contributions to astronomy.
The historic Rutherfurd mansion, with its astronomical observatory,
was on Eleventh Street and Second Avenue. Rutherfurd’s sons, Lewis and
Winthrop, were my fellow students at Columbia; Lewis was a year ahead
of me and Winthrop was a year below me. Through their cousin, a chum
and classmate of mine, I became acquainted with them. No handsomer boys
ever sat in Hamilton Hall: tall, athletic, and graceful, just like
two splendid products of the physical culture of classical Greece.
One of them held the American championship in racquets, and the Long
Island hunt clubs counted them among their best steeplechase riders.
Lewis just squeezed his way through college, but Winthrop, owing to
circumstances beyond his control, threatened to drop by the academic
roadside; the load of some seven conditions was too heavy and too
discouraging.
My chum, Winthrop’s cousin mentioned above, was a brilliant raconteur,
and he used to spin out with wonderful skill many a funny tale about
my coaching experiences, describing in a grotesque manner how an
audacious youngster, straying over here from a Serbian peasant village,
was bullying young aristocrats of New York, and how these aristocrats
were submitting to it like little lambs. Rutherfurd, senior, who was
my chum’s uncle, heard some of these humorous tales. He enjoyed them
hugely, and they suggested to him a scheme for diminishing somewhat
his son’s heavy load of conditions. He and his family were to spend
the summer of 1882 in Europe, and he suggested that Winthrop and I go
to his country place, where we could rule supreme and spend the summer
preparing for Winthrop’s autumn examinations. Winthrop consented, in
order to please his family, and he agreed to the definite programme of
work which I prescribed. Rutherfurd, senior, was anxious that Winthrop
should breathe the atmosphere of Columbia College for four years, even
if he should not get the full benefit of the college curriculum. He
had a view of college education which was somewhat novel to me and
made me understand more clearly the question which the captain of the
freshman crew had addressed to me in my freshman year: “Study, work
for a living, no participation in college activities outside of the
recitation rooms! Do you call that college training?” But I shall
return to this a little later.
“Winthrop is very fond of you,” said Rutherfurd, senior, before he
sailed for Europe, “and if you fail to pull him through, that will be
the end of his college career. Your job is a difficult one, almost
hopeless, but if you should succeed you would place me under a very
great obligation.” I was already under great obligations to him, for he
had disclosed a view of the world of intellect before my eyes such as
nobody else ever had. New York never produced a finer type of gentleman
and scholar than was Lewis Rutherfurd. His personality impressed me
as Henry Ward Beecher’s had, and I could easily have persuaded myself
that he was the reincarnation of Benjamin Franklin. I vowed to spare no
effort in my attempts to “place” him “under a very great obligation.”
Winthrop co-operated at first. But Winthrop’s friends at the Racquet
Club, at the Rockaway Hunt Club, and at Newport were puzzled, and they
inquired what strange influences kept Winthrop in monastic seclusion
at the Rutherfurd Stuyvesant estate in the backwoods of New Jersey.
Besides, a stableful of steeplechasers, which had won many prizes,
stood idle and looked in vain for their master, Winthrop, to train
them. Even the servants on the estate looked puzzled and could not
decipher the mysterious change that had come over their young autocrat.
A foreign-born youngster, a namesake of Michael, the Irish gardener on
the estate, seemed to be supreme in authority, and that puzzled the
servants still more. Winthrop was making great scholastic efforts, in
order to please his distinguished father, but he was a high-strung
youth and after a while his behavior began to suggest the fretting of
a thoroughbred protesting against the bit handled by the heavy touch
of an unskilled trainer. I saw a crisis approaching, and it finally
came. Winthrop suddenly refused to do another stroke of work unless the
programme of work was greatly modified to permit him to make occasional
trips to the Racquet Club, to the Rockaway Hunt Club, and to Newport.
I knew what that meant, and promptly refused; a hot discussion
followed, and some harsh words were spoken, resulting in a challenge
by Winthrop; I accepted and agreed that the best man was to have his
way during the remainder of the summer. Winthrop, the great racquet
player of America, the famous steeplechase rider of Long Island, and
the young aristocrat, kept his word, and responded eagerly to my calls
for additional scholastic efforts. He was a noble, handsome, and manly
American youth whose friendship I was proud to possess.
In the autumn Winthrop got rid of most of his conditions, proceeded
with his class, and eventually graduated from Columbia in 1884. My
imaginative chum, Winthrop’s cousin, composed a great tale describing
this incident and called it: “A Serbian Peasant versus an American
Aristocrat.” Those who had the good fortune to enjoy the humor of this
tale (and among them was F. Marion Crawford, the novelist and cousin
of my chum) pronounced it a great literary accomplishment, and they
all agreed that Winthrop was the real hero of the story; he had played
the game like a thoroughbred. Mr. Rutherfurd, senior, enjoyed the tale
as much as anybody, and he was delighted with the result of our summer
work. Winthrop’s behavior did not surprise him, because, he assured
me, Winthrop played the game as every American gentleman’s son would
have played it. “Every one of your classmates,” exclaimed this trustee
of Columbia College, “would have done the same thing; or he would be
unworthy of a Columbia degree.” The first function of the American
college, according to him, was to train its students in the principles
of conduct becoming an American who is loyal to the best traditions of
his country.
My senior year opened even more auspiciously than my sophomore or
my junior year had. Lewis Rutherfurd, trustee of Columbia College,
gentleman and scholar, and famous scientist, became my mentor.
Winthrop’s success was to place him under very great obligations to me,
he had said before he sailed for Europe in the spring, and after his
return his actions proved that he had meant even more than he had said.
A father could not have been more solicitous about my future plans than
he was, and his advice indicated that he understood my case much better
than I did myself. At the beginning of my senior year I was still
undecided as to what I was to do after graduation, and I began to feel
anxious; my mentor’s advice was most welcome, and it certainly was one
of the determining factors of my future plans.
* * * * *
In my preceding account of my preparations for college and of my
life in college there is much which sounds like a glorification of
muscle and of the fighting spirit. I feel almost like apologizing
for it, but do I really owe an apology? My whole life up to this
point of my story was steered by conditions which demanded muscle and
the fighting spirit. To pass six weeks during each one of several
summers as herdsman’s assistant in company with twelve other lively
Serb youngsters as fellow assistants, meant violent competitions in
wrestling, swimming, herdsman’s hockey, and other strenuous games for
hours and hours each day, and one’s position in this lively community
depended entirely upon muscle and the fighting spirit. Magyarism in
Panchevo and Teutonism in Prague produced a reaction which appealed
to muscle and to the fighting spirit, which finally drove me to the
land of Lincoln. Muscle and the fighting spirit of the bootblacks and
newsboys on Broadway met me on the very first day when I ventured
to pass beyond the narrow confines of Castle Garden, in order to
catch my first glimpse of the great American metropolis. No sooner
had I finished serving my apprenticeship as greenhorn, and advanced
to a higher civic level, than I encountered again muscle and the
fighting spirit of the college boys. In the beginning of my college
career I found very little difference between the pasture-lands of my
native village and the campus of the American college. The spirit of
playfulness and the ferment of life in the hearts of youth were the
same in both, and were manifested in the same way, namely, in athletics
which encourage a glorification of muscle and of the fighting spirit.
This was most fortunate for me, because it offered me a wide avenue
by which I could enter with perfect ease into that wonderful activity
called college life. Other avenues existed, but to a Serbian youth who
but a few years before had been a herdsman’s assistant these other
avenues were practically closed. I have described the avenue which
was open to me, but with no intention to indulge in an egotistical
glorification of that avenue.
Rutherfurd, my mentor, scholar, scientist, and trustee of Columbia
College, did not believe as some people do that athletics would ever
cause our colleges to degenerate into gladiatorial schools. Athletics
in the form of wrestling and boxing did not interfere in the least
with my scholarship. Healthy young people and healthy young nations
are prone to worship the heroic element in human life, thought trustee
Rutherfurd, and, according to him, the Greeks, by the art of physical
culture, prevented this exuberance of youth from degenerating into
brutality. He was longing forty years ago, and I am still longing
to-day, for the time when American colleges will have a four years’
course in physical culture, conducted by medical and athletic experts.
His sons, he thought, practised this art by their devotion to the game
of racquets and of steeplechase riding. They were splendid athletes,
but nevertheless they were mellow-hearted and gentle youths. The fact
that their scholarship was not high did not disturb their learned
father, because much of his own scholarship and scientific learning,
he told me, had been acquired long after he had graduated from Williams
College.
Many of my fellow students were, just like myself, very fond of
athletics and of other activities outside of the college curriculum,
and yet we were enthusiastic students of Greek literature, of history
and economics, of constitutional history of the United States, and of
English literature. But here was the secret: Professor Merriam was a
wonderful expounder of the great achievements of Greek civilization;
Professor Monroe Smith made every one of us feel that history was an
indispensable part of our daily life; Professor Richmond Mayo-Smith
made us believe that political economy was one of the most important
subjects in the world; and Professor Burgess’ lectures on the
Constitutional History of the United States made us all imagine that
we understood the spirit of 1776 just as well as Hamilton did. These
professors were the great scholars of Columbia College when I was a
student there, and they had most attractive personalities too. The
personality of the professors, like that of the famous Van Amringe,
and their learning, like that of the venerable President Barnard,
were the best safeguards for students who showed a tendency to
devote themselves too much to the worship of muscle and the fighting
spirit, and of activities outside of the college curriculum. Fill
your professorial chairs in colleges with men of broad learning, and
of commanding personality, and do not worry about the alleged evil
influences of athletics, and of other college activities outside of
the recitation-room. That was the recommendation of trustee Rutherfurd
forty years ago; to-day I add: the college needs great professors just
as much as the various research departments of a university need them;
perhaps even more.
Literary societies, college journalism, glee-club practice, and
exercises in the dramatic art consumed, when I was a college student,
just as much of the college student’s time as athletics did. They
and athletics constituted the outside college activities. The
recitation-room brought the student into touch with the personalities
of the professors; college activities outside of the recitation-room,
whether they were athletics or anything else, brought the student
into touch with the personalities of his fellow students. Each one
of these influences had, according to the experiences of my college
life, its own great value, and contributed its distinct share to what
is usually called the character-forming of the college student, but
what Rutherfurd, the Columbia College trustee, called training in the
principles of conduct becoming an American who is loyal to the best
traditions of his country. Neither one nor the other influence can be
weakened without crippling seriously that great object which trustee
Rutherfurd called “the historical mission of the American college.”
There was another educational activity which should be mentioned
here. My regular attendance at Plymouth Church I considered one of
my most important college activities outside of the recitation-room.
Beecher’s sermons and Booth’s interpretations of Shakespeare were
sources of stirring inspiration. They occupied a very high place among
my spiritual guides. Beecher, Booth, and several other men of genius
who were active in New York in those days were, as far as my college
training was concerned, members of the Columbia College faculty. This
is what I probably meant when I said to my friends at the Adelphi
Academy that “Columbia College in the City of New York” was the port
for which I was sailing and that Beecher’s church in Brooklyn was a
component part of Columbia College. Taking college activities in this
broader sense I always believed that the spiritual, intellectual, and
artistic activities in the city of New York were component parts of
Columbia College; they certainly contributed much to the fulness of
my college life. I often wondered whether this was in the minds of
those who framed the official name “Columbia College in the City of New
York,” when the old name “King’s College” was abandoned in 1787.
* * * * *
I have nearly finished the story of my college career, and I am aware
that it is silent on a subject which was always dear to my heart; that
subject is science. A young lad who was stimulated so much by the lives
of the men represented in the Cooper Union library painting, entitled
“Men of Progress”; by the splendid scientific exhibits in Philadelphia
in 1876; by Jim’s boiler-room demonstrations supplemented by Cooper
Union lectures on heat; by Tyndall’s and Hunt’s poetic descriptions of
scientific achievements; and above all by his own visions concerning
physical phenomena on the pasture-lands of his native village--that lad
goes through college, and the story of his college career is nearly
closed without saying anything about his scientific studies at Columbia
College! That certainly looks strange, and suggests the inference that
after all Bilharz had finally succeeded in tearing me away completely
from what he called the worship of scientific materialism. Bilharz did
not succeed in that, but what he actually did is worth relating here.
After my departure from Cortlandt Street, Bilharz felt quite lonesome
and tried to get companionship and consolation from a Tyrolean zither
which he managed well in spite of his stiff fingers. Knowing my
fondness for Homer’s heroic verse and for the lyric verse in the chorus
of Greek dramas, he practised reciting them with zither accompaniment.
He thus imitated most successfully a Serbian guslar’s recitations of
old Serbian ballads, accompanied by the single-string instrument,
called _gusle_. In recognition of the success of his clever scheme,
which, I was sure, he had devised for my special benefit, I called him
the Greek guslar. He who has seen huge multitudes of Serbs assembled
around a blind guslar in the midst of some great festive gathering,
listening by the hour in spellbound silence to his recitations, will
understand how Bilharz managed to attract me to many a neighborhood
gathering on the top loft of the Cortlandt Street factory. Every
time I listened to the zither accompanying his chanting of familiar
Greek verses I imagined that Baba Batikin’s spirit was transferred
from the little peasant village of Idvor to the great metropolis of
America! Whenever I told him that, he seemed to be immensely pleased,
because the life of a blind guslar appealed to him much. Professor
Merriam was certainly a great Greek scholar, but Bilharz was a great
Greek guslar, and when he chanted the verses of the Iliad with zither
accompaniment I was tempted to imagine that he was a reincarnation of
Homer. Between Bilharz and Merriam I could not help devoting much of
my time in college to the study of Greek. I have never regretted it,
but I do regret that the academic halls of the American colleges of
to-day do not resound any more with that solemn Greek rhythm which I
first heard on the top loft of the Cortlandt Street factory. Bilharz
disappeared from Cortlandt Street a short time before I graduated, and
he left me his zither as a souvenir, and also an old edition of Homer’s
Iliad by the famous German philologist Dindorf. I have not seen him
since that time, but I shall never forget him. He was the first to call
my attention to an old and magnificent civilization, the spiritual
beauty of which appealed to my young imagination with increasing force
as my knowledge of it increased. I often recall his almost fanatical
dislike of mechanisms, and wonder what he would say to-day if he
heard the pianola, the phonograph, and some of the distortions of
radio broadcasting, to say nothing of the dramatic atrocities of the
kinematograph!
On the other hand, the growth of my understanding from the first day
of my landing at Castle Garden was due to my feeding upon the spiritual
food offered to me daily by a civilization in which I was living, and
which I wished to understand but did not understand. My preparation
for college lifted here and there the mist which prevented my vision
from seeing the clear outline of American civilization. Columbia
College brought me into touch with the college life of American boys
and with men of great learning and wonderful personalities, and they
helped me to dispel every particle of that mist, and there in the clear
sunshine of their learning I saw the whole image of what I believed to
be American civilization: a beautiful daughter of a beautiful mother,
which is the Anglo-Saxon civilization. The memory of this vision always
recalled to my mind the ode of Horace which opens with the line:
“O matre pulchra filia pulchrior!”
The study and the contemplation of these two civilizations, the ancient
civilization of Greece and the new civilization of the Anglo-Saxons,
which appealed to me as the two greatest civilizations of human
history, made every other study in my college curriculum appear
insignificant, although I gained several prizes in the exact sciences,
and although I never gave up the idea that my future work would be in
the field of science.
But there is another and perhaps the most potent reason why science
figures so little in the preceding part of the story of my college
career. Instruction in the exact sciences in those days was most
elementary, not only at Columbia College but also in most American
colleges. For instance, laboratory work in physics and in chemistry was
not a part of the Columbia College curriculum, and the lecture-room
told me less about physics than I had known from my studies of
Tyndall’s popular publications and from the Cooper Union instruction
before I entered college. The question “What is Light?” I brought with
me from the pasture-lands of my native village, and the professor of
physics at Columbia College offered no answer to it except to refer to
vibrations in an ether, the physical properties of which he admitted
he could not satisfactorily describe. On this point he did not seem
to be much wiser than my humble teacher Kos in Panchevo. My mentor,
Rutherfurd, was always interested in this question, as in many other
advanced questions in science, and he took much delight in discussing
them with me. He was the first to inform me that the great question,
“What is Light?” would probably be answered when we understood more
clearly a new electrical theory advanced by a Scotch physicist, Maxwell
by name, who was a pupil of the great Faraday.
One day toward the end of my senior year I told my mentor, Rutherfurd,
of a lecture-room experiment performed by Rood, his friend, at that
time professor of physics at Columbia College. This experiment was the
first announcement to me that Faraday was one of the great discoverers
in electrical science. The experiment was simplicity itself, and
consisted of a loose coil of copper wire, held in the left hand of the
lecturing professor, the terminals of the coil being connected to a
galvanometer supported on the wall of the lecture-room, so that its
needle could be seen by every student in the room. When Rood, like
a magician manipulating a wand, moved with his right hand a small
magnet toward the coil, the distant galvanometer needle, impelled by
a force which up to that time was a mystery to me, swung violently in
one direction, and when the magnet was moved away from the coil the
galvanometer needle swung just as violently in the opposite direction.
When one terminal, only, of the coil was connected to the galvanometer,
and thus the electric circuit of the coil was broken, the motion of
the magnet produced no effect. “_This is Faraday’s discovery of
Electromagnetic Induction._” said Rood with a deep sigh, and ended
the lecture without any further comment, as if he wished to give me
a chance to think it over before he added additional information.
Rutherfurd knew Rood’s picturesque mannerism, and my description of
the experiment amused him. He suggested that the good professor was
very fond of mystifying his students. I certainly was much mystified
and did not wait for the next lecture to clear the mystery, but spent
all day and most of the night reading about Faraday’s wonderful
discovery. It was made over fifty years before that time, but I had
never known anything about it, although Edison’s dynamos in his New
York Pearl Street station had been supplying for over a year thousands
of customers with electric power for incandescent lighting. Columbia
College was not one of these customers for a long time after my
graduation. When I finished my description of the experiment, and
assured Rutherfurd that it was the most thrilling physical phenomenon
that I had ever seen, and that I had remained awake almost all night
after seeing it, he looked pleased, and informed me that this very
phenomenon was the basis of Maxwell’s new Electrical Theory.
That was the experiment which helped me to decide a very weighty
question. Professor Rood had informed me that in recognition of my high
standing in science as well as in letters I could choose either of two
graduate fellowships, one in letters or one in science, each worth
five hundred dollars a year. Either would have meant an additional
three years of graduate study at Columbia. I was much tempted to turn
to letters and continue my work with Merriam, the idol of all Columbia
College students, including myself, who had felt the wonderful charm
of his personality and of his profound and at the same time most
picturesque classical scholarship. But the magic experiment which
had told me the first story of Faraday’s great discoveries, and had
aroused my dormant enthusiasm for physics, caused me to bid good-by
to Merriam and turn to science, my first love. Nevertheless, I did
not accept the fellowship in science and stay three years longer at
Columbia; I preferred to take up the study of Faraday and of Maxwell
in the United Kingdom, where these two great physicists were born
and where they had made their great discoveries. Trustee Rutherfurd
and his young nephew, my chum and classmate, John Armstrong Chanler,
applauded my decision, and promised to assist me in my undertaking
whenever assistance should be needed. Rutherfurd assured me that I
should certainly succeed as well in my scientific studies in European
universities as I had succeeded in my general cultural studies at
Columbia College, if the revelations of the new world of physics,
certainly in store for me, could arouse in me the same enthusiasm which
had been aroused by the revelations of that new spirit and that new
current of thought which had given birth to the American civilization.
That this enthusiasm would not be wanting was amply demonstrated, he
said, by the effect which Faraday’s fundamental experiment had produced
in my imagination.
[Illustration: PHOTOGRAPH OF PUPIN TAKEN IN 1883 WHEN HE GRADUATED
AT COLUMBIA]
Professor Burgess, my teacher in constitutional history, had assured
me, toward the end of the senior year, that I was fully prepared for
American citizenship, and I had applied for my naturalization papers.
I received them on the day before I was graduated. Two ceremonies
which are recorded in my life as two red-letter days took place on two
successive days; it is instructive to give here a brief comparison
between them. The ceremony which made me a citizen of the United States
took place in a dingy little office in one of the municipal buildings
in City Hall Park. I received my diploma of Bachelor of Arts in the
famous old Academy of Music on Fourteenth Street on the following
day. There was nobody in the naturalization office to witness the
naturalization ceremony except myself and a plain little clerk. The
graduation ceremonies in the Academy of Music were presided over by
the venerable President Barnard; his luxuriant snowy-white locks and
long beard, and his luminous intelligence beaming from every feature
of his wonderful face, gave him the appearance of Moses, as Michael
Angelo represents him; and the academy was crowded with a distinguished
and brilliant audience. The little clerk in the office handed me my
naturalization papers in an offhand manner, thinking, apparently,
of nothing but the fee due from me. President Barnard, knowing of
my high standing in the graduating class and of my many struggles
to get there, beamed with joy when he handed me my diploma amidst
the applause of my numerous friends in the audience. When I left the
naturalization office, carrying my precious multicolored and very
ornate naturalization papers, the crowd in City Hall Park was moving
about as though nothing had happened; but when I stepped down from the
academy stage, with my Columbia diploma in hand, my old friend Doctor
Shepard handed me a basket of roses with the best wishes of his family
and of Henry Ward Beecher; Mr. and Mrs. Lukanitch were there, and the
old lady kissed me, shedding tears copiously and assuring me that if my
mother were there to see how well I looked in my academic silk gown she
also would have shed many a tear of joy; numerous other friends were
there and made much fuss over me, but all those things served only to
increase the painful contrast between the gay commencement ceremonies
and the prosy procedure of my naturalization on the preceding day. One
ceremony made me only a Bachelor of Arts. The other made me a citizen
of the United States. Which of the two should have been more solemn?
There was a picture which I had conjured up in my imagination when
first I walked one day from the Cortlandt Street factory to Wall
Street to see the site of old Federal Hall. The picture was that of
Chancellor Livingston administering the constitutional oath of office
to President Washington. To me it was a picture of the most solemn
historical act which New York or any other place in the world ever had
witnessed. When the little clerk in the naturalization office handed me
my naturalization papers, and called upon me in a perfunctory way to
promise that I would always be loyal to the Constitution of the United
States, the picture of that historical scene in Federal Hall suddenly
reappeared to me, and a strange mental exaltation made my voice tremble
as I responded: “I will, so help me God!” The little clerk noticed
my emotion, but did not understand it, because he did not know of my
long-continued efforts throughout a period of nine years to prepare
myself for citizenship of the United States.
* * * * *
As I sat on the deck of the ship which was taking me to the
universities of Europe, and watched its eagerness to get away from the
busy harbor of New York, I thought of the day when, nine years before,
I had arrived on the immigrant ship. I said to myself: “Michael Pupin,
the most valuable asset which you carried into New York harbor nine
years ago was your knowledge of, and profound respect and admiration
for, the best traditions of your race ... the most valuable asset which
you are now taking with you from New York harbor is your knowledge of,
and profound respect and admiration for, the best traditions of your
adopted country.”
V
FIRST JOURNEY TO IDVOR IN ELEVEN YEARS
It was a beautiful June afternoon when from the gay deck of the _State
of Florida_ I saw the low coast-line of Long Island disappear in the
distance. With it disappeared the land the first glimpse of which I
had caught so eagerly on that sunny March morning nine years before,
when the immigrant ship _Westphalia_ carried me into New York harbor.
As I had approached this coast my busy imagination had suggested that
it was the edge of the cover of a great and mysterious book which I
had to read and decipher. I had read it for nine long years, and my
belief that I had deciphered it made me confident that I was quite rich
in learning. Besides, there were my Bachelor of Arts diploma and my
naturalization papers; and, of course, I thought, they were the best
evidence in the world that I was returning to see my mother again rich
in learning and in academic honors, as I had promised her nine years
before in that letter from Hamburg.
The sky was clear, the sea was smooth, and its sharp and even horizon
line toward which the ship was heading promised a peaceful temper of
the powers which controlled the motions of the air above and of the
waters below our ship. The comforts of the ship and the fair prospects
of a fine voyage were recorded in the smiling faces of my fellow
passengers. A group of lively schoolgirls from Washington, making
their first trip to Europe under the guidance of an old professor with
long gray hair and shaggy beard, looked like so many nymphs playing
around a drowsy Neptune. They formed the central group of the happy
passengers. There were a number of college boys on board. Some of
them had friends among the Washington nymphs; by clever manœuvring it
was arranged that the college boys, including myself, should sit at
the same table with the playful nymphs. The gray-locked professor,
whom I called Father Neptune (and the title stuck to him), was
somewhat reluctant at first, but finally he gave his consent to this
“wonderful” proposition, as the girls called it, and he sat at the
head of the table, presiding with a dignity which fully demonstrated
that he deserved the title “Father Neptune.” The jolly captain assured
us that his good old ship never carried a more exuberant company of
youngsters across the Atlantic. But this was not the fierce Atlantic
which I had seen nine years before. It was an Atlantic which apparently
studied to please and to amuse. All kinds of pleasant things happened
during the voyage, as if arranged purposely for our amusement. Many
schools of porpoises approached the merry ship, and I suggested that
they visited us in order to pay their respects to Father Neptune and
his beautiful nymphs. This suggestion was accepted with vociferous
acclamation, and it was agreed that free play be granted to our
imaginations. Let your fancy take any course at your own risk, was
our motto. When the visiting porpoises hustled off like a squadron
of reconnoitring horsemen leaping gaily over the smooth waves, as if
in a merry steeplechase, it was suggested by one of the girls with a
lively imagination that they were anxious to report to the chief of
staff of a great host which, hidden in the depths of the quiescent
Atlantic, controlled the ocean waves. She, the oracle, as we called
her, prophesied that when these heralds had delivered the report that
Father Neptune and his fair nymphs were passing in triumphal procession
through their watery realm, then all things in the heavens above and in
the sea below would bow to the will of Neptune and his playful crew.
Two spouting whales appeared one day in the distance, and our busy
imaginations suggested that they were two men-o’-war, sent by the
friendly submarine host to pay their homage to Neptune and his nymphs,
and to serve as escort to our speedy ship. Nothing happened which did
not receive a fanciful interpretation by our playful imaginations.
The wonderful phosphorescence of the waves, which were ploughed up
in the smooth sea by the gliding ship, supported the illusion that
our voyage was a triumphal procession along an avenue illuminated
by the mysterious phosphorescent glow. We were headed for Scotland,
by a route which passed to the north of Ireland, and as our course
approached the northern latitudes the luminous twilights of the North
Atlantic made us almost forget that there ever was such a thing as a
dark night. Good old Neptune had quite a job to round up his nymphs in
the late hours of the evening and make them turn in and exchange the
joys of the busy days for the blessings of the restful nights. His job
was hopeless when the northern midnights displayed the awe-inspiring
streamers of the northern lights, and that happened quite frequently.
Those wonderful sights in themselves would have made it worth while
crossing the Atlantic. On such evenings the exuberance of the college
boys and of the schoolgirls from Washington was wide awake until after
midnight, watching the luminous and continuously changing streamers of
the polar regions, telling stories, and singing college songs. These
evenings reminded me much of the neighborhood gatherings in Idvor. One
of them was devoted to original stories; each member of the gay party
had to spin out an original tale. My story was called “Franciscus of
Freiburg,” and it referred to Bilharz, the Greek guslar of Cortlandt
Street. The disappointments of his youth, the calm resignation with
which in his more mature years he passed his hermit days on a top loft
in Cortlandt Street, and his search for consolation in the poetry of
Rome and Greece made quite an impression; and to my great surprise
there was not a single giggle on the part of the irrepressible nymphs.
This was the first story that I ever composed, and it made a hit,
but its success was completely ruined when, prompted by modesty, I
suggested that any tale describing disappointments in love is sure to
be taken very seriously and sympathetically by young girls. A violent
protest was filed by the girls, and I pleaded guilty of the offense
of disturbing public peace. A mock trial, with Father Neptune as the
presiding judge, condemned me and imposed the fine that I tell at once,
and without preparation, another original tale. I described the first
speech of my life on St. Sava’s day, some thirteen years earlier, and
its unexpected effect upon my mischievous chums in Idvor, comparing
it with the unexpected effect of my Franciscus story. I regretted it,
because the fairies from Washington had an endless chain of questions
about Idvor and my prospective visit to it. Never before had I had
a better opportunity to observe the beautiful relationship between
American boys and girls. Its foundation I recognized to be the idea of
the big brother looking after the safety, comfort, and happiness of
his sister, the same idea which is glorified in the Serbian national
ballads.
One pleasant incident followed another in quick succession during
our triumphant procession over the northern Atlantic, and all the
powers which control the temper of the ocean were most kind and
generous to us, just as our fair oracle had prophesied it. When the
cliffs of Scotland hove in sight, reminding us that our voyage was
approaching its end, there was no thrill of joy such as there was
when the immigrant ship, which first took me into New York harbor,
approached the Long Island coast. Not even the countless sea-gulls
which gracefully circled around the black cliffs, and with their shrill
notes welcomed us to the hospitable shores of Scotland, were able to
dispel the gloom which the sight of land produced among the members of
Neptune’s table. Nobody in our congenial company seemed to be anxious
to say good-by to the good old ship and to the golden atmosphere of the
sweet-tempered Atlantic. Most of them had never crossed the Atlantic
before, and since the voyage was practically over I thought that
there was no harm in describing to them some of the terrors of the
Atlantic, which I had experienced when I crossed it nine years before.
The pictures of those experiences were like the pictures from another
world, and not from the same Atlantic which thrilled us with its
sunshine, twilight, phosphorescent glows, and glorious streamers of the
northern lights. The comparison between my wretched fellow passengers
on the storm-tossed immigrant ship and the radiant company on the ship
which brought us to Scotland afforded me a splendid opportunity to
thank Father Neptune for permitting me to join his beautiful court.
His favor, I said, was almost as great as the favor of the immigrant
officials at Castle Garden, who had allowed me to land with only five
cents in my pocket. The professor complimented me upon my word pictures
which showed the glaring contrasts between the two voyages, and then
he referred to two pictures which, he said, he had in his mind. They
also showed, he said, in glaring contrasts, the difference between a
certain youngster on the immigrant ship to which I referred, and a
Columbia College graduate, who had contributed his share to the comfort
and happiness of Neptune’s court. When he suggested that he would give
much to be with me when I met my mother, and that he wondered whether
she would recognize me, my young friends suggested, quite seriously,
that they would all go to Idvor if I joined them in their continental
tour. I replied that their tour was along a meandering line through the
great places of Europe, whereas mine was a straight line from Greenock
to little Idvor, so little that it cannot be found on any map.
There was just one thing which delayed my straight-line journey to
Idvor. A visit to Cambridge was necessary in order to arrange for my
work at this university during the coming academic year, and I lost
no time in reaching it. The sight of the Firth of Clyde, with its
wonderfully green slopes, of Greenock, of Glasgow, and even of London
made feeble impressions. My mind was centred upon one thought only:
the speedy return to Idvor. This also explains why my first sight of
Cambridge impressed me much less than my first sight of Princeton when,
eight years before, I had enjoyed my loaf of bread under an elm-tree
in front of Nassau Hall. F. Marion Crawford, the novelist, had given
me a letter of introduction to Oscar Browning, a fellow of King’s
College; and George Rives, the late chairman of the Board of Trustees
of Columbia University, had given me a letter to W. D. Niven, a fellow
of Trinity College. Rives, after graduating at Columbia College, won a
prize scholarship in classics at Trinity College, and gained there many
scholastic honors.
* * * * *
The man at the ancient gate of King’s College informed me that Mr.
Oscar Browning was away on his summer vacation. At Trinity College I
had better luck, and the man at the still more ancient gate of Trinity
College took me to Mr. Niven, who reminded me much of Professor
Merriam, the great Greek scholar of Columbia College; the same kindly
expression of a most intelligent face, and the same gentle light from
two thoughtful eyes. As I looked into his eyes I felt that I was
catching a glimpse of a world full of those beautiful things which
make life worth living. I informed Niven that I wished to come to
Cambridge and study under Professor James Clerk Maxwell, the creator of
the new electrical theory. Niven looked puzzled and asked me who had
told me of this new theory, and when I mentioned Rutherfurd, he asked
me what Rutherfurd had told me about it. “That it will probably give
a satisfactory answer to the question: ‘What is Light?’” I answered,
and watched for his reaction. “Did not Mr. Rutherfurd tell you that
Clerk Maxwell died four years ago?” asked Niven, and when I said no,
he asked me whether I had not seen it in the preface to the second
edition of Maxwell’s great book which Niven himself had edited. This
question embarrassed me, and I confessed frankly that Rutherfurd’s son,
my chum Winthrop, had presented me with this book on the day of the
sailing of my ship; that it was packed away in my bags; and that I did
not have any time to examine it during the voyage, because I was too
busy helping to entertain twelve beautiful schoolgirls from Washington,
who were making their first trip to Europe. Niven laughed heartily and
admitted, jokingly, that twelve beautiful girls from Washington were
certainly more attractive than any theory, not excepting even Maxwell’s
great electrical theory. He suggested then that I could study at
Cambridge under Lord Rayleigh, who had succeeded Maxwell as professor
of physics. I declined the suggestion on the ground that I had never
heard of Lord Rayleigh before. Niven laughed again, even more heartily
than before, and assured me that Lord Rayleigh was a great physicist
in spite of the fact that his great fame had never reached my ears.
An English lord a great physicist! The idea struck me as strange, but
Niven looked so friendly and so sincere that I could not help believing
that he really meant what he said. He invited me to lunch, and before
we parted I assured him that I would come back to Cambridge in the
following October and place myself under his guidance.
This conference with Niven sobered me up very considerably; it
convinced me that my great aspiration and my small preparation in
physics were far from being of the same order of magnitude. I confessed
to Niven that my success in winning prizes in science at Columbia
College had led to my belief that I knew more physics than I really
did. “Confession is a splendid thing for the soul,” said Niven, and
added: “But do not permit that anything I have said dampen your
courage. A physicist needs courage, and few mortals were braver than
Maxwell. The world knows only a little of his great electrical theory,
but it knows even less of his great moral courage.” He gave me a copy
of Campbell’s life of Maxwell; I read it from cover to cover before
I left London, and it contributed much to the learning which I had
promised to bring to Idvor. It certainly convinced me that Maxwell had
a vastly better knowledge of physics when he graduated at Cambridge
than I had picked up at Columbia. That gave me much healthy food for
serious thought.
A straight line from London to Idvor passes through Switzerland, and I
proposed to follow that line in my journey as closely as practicable.
My ticket took me from London to Lucerne directly; the journey from
Lucerne to Idvor I left undetermined until I reached Lucerne. I had
no time nor inclination to explore the wonders of London, Paris, or
of any other great place in Europe before I had seen Idvor again.
Mother, Idvor, and Maxwell’s new electrical theory had brought me to
Europe, and I wished to see them as soon as possible, and in the order
named; everything else could wait. Besides, I sincerely believed that
these places had little to offer to a fellow like me, who knew the
great things of New York. I was much disposed to look down upon things
in Europe, a mental attitude which is not uncommon among American
immigrants when they go back to pay a temporary visit to Europe. I had
it quite strongly, but sobering experiences like the conference with
Niven in Cambridge helped me to apply suitable correction factors to
this mental attitude. The following brief description of one of these
experiences bears upon this point.
* * * * *
The London-Lucerne train crossed the Franco-Swiss frontier very early
in the morning, somewhere near Neuchâtel. The delay necessary for the
rearrangement of the train gave the passengers ample time to enjoy
their breakfast in the garden of the station restaurant. A look to
the east caught a sight which made me almost forget my breakfast.
The distant snow-covered Alps, bathed in the early sunshine and
projected against the background of the luminous blue sky of a July
morning, furnished a picture never to be forgotten. I had never seen
the Alps before, and this first view of them was of overpowering
beauty. An Englishman, a fellow traveller, sitting opposite me at the
breakfast-table, noticed my mental exaltation, and asked: “You have
never seen the Alps before, have you?” “No,” said I. “Oh, what a lucky
lad you are!” said the Englishman, adding that he would give much to be
in my place. He confessed that he had to climb the peaks of the Alps in
order to get those thrills which in former days, when he was of my age,
he got by looking at them from the valleys below. At his suggestion
we continued our journey to Lucerne in the same compartment, and the
stories of his climbing exploits stirred up mightily my imagination,
which was already throbbing under the inspiration of the Alpine view
which had greeted me that morning. When I informed him that I was in
a hurry to reach my native village of Idvor, otherwise I might try
some climbing myself, he assured me that a ten days’ delay in Lucerne
would suffice to prepare me for climbing one of the lesser peaks, and
he mentioned Titlis, not far from Lucerne. He prescribed the training
which would provide me with sufficiently steady Alpine legs. From the
peak of the Titlis, he said, I could see old Switzerland where the
famous legend was born which relates how Tell drove the fear of God
into the hearts of the Austrians. I always loved that legend, perhaps
because I did not love the Austrian tyrants. When the train had
reached Lucerne I saw the wonderful Alpine panorama spread out like an
amphitheatre of snow-covered Alpine peaks around its deep-blue lake,
and I knew that in spite of my great haste to reach Idvor I would not
leave this fairy-land before I had reached the snow-covered peak of
Titlis.
I immediately hired a rowboat for a week, and, clad in a rowing shirt
with blue and white Columbia stripes and thin tennis trousers, I spent
that afternoon exploring the beauty spots of the meandering shore of
the historic lake. The joy of rowing and the busy rays of the July sun
made me yield to the invitation of the clear waters of the lake to
plunge in and hug the waves, which once upon a time carried Tell to
safety after he had sent his arrow through the heart of the Austrian
tyrant, Gessler. As if imitating the example of Tell, I jumped in
just as I was, trusting that subsequent rowing and the sun would dry
my scanty attire, and they did. A glorious feeling of freedom from
all earthly restraints came over me as, floating on my back, I beheld
the blue sky above and the snow-covered peaks around me. It was the
same sky and the same luminous peaks, I thought, which five hundred
years before saw William Tell chase away the Austrian tyrants from
the historic cantons surrounding the lake; from Uri, Schwyz, and
Unterwalden. I felt that I was floating in the very cradle where real
freedom first saw the light of day. No other spot on earth was more
worthy of that immortal fame. My admiration for it never faded after
that memorable July afternoon. Europe rose in my estimation; I was
much less inclined to look down upon things European.
The next day I was up very early, feeling “as a strong man ready to
run a race,” the same feeling which I had experienced at Castle Garden
when, nine years before, I woke up early in the morning and hurried
off to catch my first glimpse of the great American metropolis. I
was just as anxious to hurry off and catch from some mountain-top my
first glimpse of Switzerland. Mindful of the suggestions of my English
acquaintance on the train, I started with the easiest climb, the Rigi
Culm. It is a very easy effort, but I made it difficult by rowing first
some ten miles to Weggis, going up to the Rigi and walking down, and
then rowing back to Lucerne again on the same day, in the waning hours
of the afternoon. An unexpected squall upset my boat, and I had quite
a struggle to get back to Lucerne, very late in the evening. The hotel
proprietor noticed my mussed-up appearance, but said nothing, seeing
that I was not in a communicative mood.
The same strenuous method of preparatory training for the Titlis climb
took me up to Mount Pilatus on the next day. But I was not allowed to
return on the same day on account of a fierce thunder-storm raging
in the valley below, which I watched from the top of the Pilatus.
The innkeeper congratulated me upon my rare luck, not only because I
had a chance to see the beautiful sight of a thunder-storm as viewed
from a point above the thundering clouds, but principally because
this thunder-storm prevented me from running the serious risk of
descending and rowing back to Lucerne on the same day. Commenting upon
the overconfidence of youth, the innkeeper said that every person has
a guardian angel, but people intoxicated by wine or by exuberance of
youth have two, one on each side. That was his explanation for the
alleged fact, he said, that young people and intoxicated people seldom
meet with serious accidents in mountain climbing. Some Americans, he
thought, should have several guardian angels. This sarcasm was aimed at
me, and it did not miss its mark.
Nevertheless, when on my fifth day in Lucerne I started out very
early for the Titlis, I adopted the same strenuous method: rowing to
Stansstadt, walking to Engelberg, and climbing to the hospice where I
arrived at 11 P. M. I reached at sunrise of the following morning the
top of Titlis, and saw the glories of Uri, Schwyz, and Unterwalden as
my English friend had promised. But I reached it much exhausted, and if
it had not been for the skilled assistance of my trusty Swiss guide,
the last four lines of Longfellow’s “Excelsior” would have described my
Titlis climb quite accurately. I quote the lines:
“There in the twilight cold and gray,
Lifeless, but beautiful, he lay,
And from the sky, serene and far,
A voice fell, like a falling star,
Excelsior!”
Returning from Titlis, I ran into my English friend, and he remarked
that I looked a little overtrained. We dined together, and when I told
him the story of my six days’ Alpine experience, he begged me to hustle
off to Idvor and see my mother first, and then return if I cared to
pursue my own methods of exploring the beauties of Switzerland. “If
you continue pursuing these methods now, I am afraid that your mother
will never see you again, because there are not enough guardian angels
in all the heavens to prevent you from breaking your neck.” I agreed,
but assured him that my overstrenuous method of climbing Titlis was
worth the risk; it had humbled my vanity and false pride, and made me
more respectful to some of the slow ways of old Europe. It convinced
me that even after serving my apprenticeship as greenhorn in the
United States, I could still be a most verdant greenhorn in Europe.
The railroad journey from Lucerne to Vienna afforded me much leisure
time for philosophic reflections upon this matter. Thanks to Niven in
Cambridge and to my English friend in Lucerne, I reached Vienna with
a mental attitude considerably different from and certainly much less
exalted than that which I had taken along when I sailed from New York
four weeks before.
* * * * *
The railroad-station at Vienna where I took the train for Budapest
looked quite familiar, although I had seen it but once before. I did
not discover the great and mighty station-master who at my first
appearance there, eleven years before, nearly sent me back to the
prisons of the military frontier. The conductor, however, who called
me “Gnaediger Herr” (gracious sir), when near Gaenserndorf he asked me
for my first-class ticket, was the same man who, eleven years before,
had called me a Serbian swineherd. I recognized him easily, although he
looked very humble and had lost the fierceness which he had displayed
when he roughly pulled me off my seat on that memorable first railroad
journey from Budapest to Vienna. He failed to recall to memory the
Serbian boy with yellow sheepskin coat and cap and the gaily colored
bag. I gave him a generous tip as a reward for driving me into the arms
of my good American friends who had seen me safely landed in Prague,
and the memory of whose kind act had suggested my running off to the
land of Lincoln.
“America is the land of rapid changes,” he said, when I told him that
I was that boy, and he added: “You must have changed much, looking
as you do like a real American; but we here and our dear old Austria
are like all old people; we do not change except to grow older and
more decrepit.” He expressed exactly what I felt as I looked to the
right and to the left of the train which was taking me to Budapest.
Everything seemed to move slowly, with the deliberate step of feeble
old age. Budapest looked small, and the suspension bridge, which had
nearly taken my breath away eleven years before, when I first saw it,
looked puny in comparison with the Brooklyn suspension bridge.
I spent no time in looking around to explore the virtues of the Magyar
metropolis, but hustled, and presently I was on the boat which eleven
years before had brought me to Budapest. I could hardly believe that it
was the same boat. It must have shrunk incredibly, I thought, or else
my life in America had changed the vision of my eyes. Everything I saw
looked small and shrivelled up, and if I had not seen the snow-covered
giants of Switzerland as viewed from the top of Titlis, Europe itself
might have appeared to me as small and shrivelled up.
When supper was served I noticed that everybody had atrocious table
manners, even people of high official rank, several of whom I
discovered among my fellow passengers. Eleven years before everybody
on the boat had looked so high and mighty that I was almost afraid
to look at them, but this time I was much tempted to imagine that
I was considerably above most of my fellow passengers. I resisted
the temptation. It was a good thing that my climbing of the Titlis
had nearly floored me; it suppressed much of that haughtiness which
naturalized American immigrants bring with them when they visit Europe.
* * * * *
The next morning I noticed a group of Serb students who were returning
home from the universities of Vienna and Budapest. They were from my
native Voyvodina, and not from Serbia, as I found out later. Their
appearance did not impress me very agreeably, but nevertheless I
quivered with delight when I heard their Serb language. They spoke
freely, although they must have noticed that they attracted my
attention. One of them remarked that I could pass for a Serb, if it
were not for my manner, my dress, and my very ruddy complexion. The
voyage across the Atlantic and a week’s tramping in Switzerland were
responsible for my exaggerated ruddiness. A second one thought that
young Serb peasants in Banat are just as ruddy, particularly during
the harvest season, but he admitted that my appearance did not suggest
that my occupation was that of a peasant. Another one suggested that
I was probably a rich South American with very much red Indian blood
in my veins. I laughed and, introducing myself, informed him, speaking
Serb with some difficulty, that I was neither a South American nor an
Indian, but just a Serb student who was a citizen of the United States.
A Serb from the United States was a very rare bird in those days and,
needless to say, I was invited most cordially to join the group,
which I did. Not one of them reminded me of the alert, well-groomed,
athletic, and playful American college boys. They all had long hair
brushed back in a careless fashion, affecting the appearance of dreamy
poets or disciples of radical doctrines. Most of them had slouch hats
with wide brims, indicating radical tendencies. Their faces looked
pale and suggested excessive indoor confinement in Vienna and Budapest
cafés, playing chess or cards, or discussing radical doctrines. Most
of them would have been hazed if they had matriculated in any American
college without modifying much their appearance and manner. They
certainly took themselves very seriously. They knew, I thought, many
things which they had read in books, principally in books dealing
with radical social-science theories. Tolstoy’s name was mentioned
quite often, and the latest apostles of socialistic doctrines also had
their share of adulation. They must have observed that conversation
about these things bored me, and they asked me, with some display
of sarcasm, I thought, whether American college students took any
interest in modern advanced thought. “They do,” said I, considerably
irritated, “and if it were not for Maxwell’s new electrical theory and
for other advanced theories in modern physics I should not have come
to your moribund old Europe.” “Advanced thought in social and not in
physical sciences,” they said, explaining their original question,
and I answered that the most popular American doctrine in social
science still rested upon foundations laid a hundred years before
that time, in a document called the Declaration of Independence. They
knew very little about it, and I knew even less about their radical
social-science theories, and we changed the subject of our conversation.
Late in the afternoon the boat approached Karlovci and the hills of
Frushka Gora. I could not help reminiscing, and entertained my Serb
acquaintances with a description of my experiences with the theological
students eleven years before, including the disappearance of my roast
goose. My Serbian vocabulary was quite shaky, but nevertheless I
made quite a hit, and they begged me to go on with my reminiscences.
Whenever I was at a loss for a word, they helped me out. Toward sunset
Belgrade hove in sight, and its majestic appearance thrilled me and
made my Serb vocabulary run as smoothly as ever. I saluted Belgrade as
the acropolis of all the Serbs, and expressed the hope that it might
soon become the metropolis of all the southern Slavs. “This is the
kind of advanced thought in social and political science that American
students are interested in,” I said, reminding them of their former
question, and I added a few sarcastic remarks about advanced thoughts
in social and political science which are not born in the heart of
a nation but imported from the dens of French, German, and Russian
theorists. They quickly caught what I called the American point of
view, but they did not oppose it, for fear, I thought, of offending
me. They saw the American chip on my shoulder, and did not care to
knock it off.
I had not seen Belgrade since I was a little boy, and as the boat
approached it I saw its high fort rising like a Gibraltar above
the waters of the Danube and looking anxiously across the endless
plains of Austria-Hungary, which, like wide-open jaws of a hungry
dragon, seemed to threaten to swallow it up. Everything I saw in
Austria-Hungary looked small and shrivelled up, but Belgrade looked
to me as if its proud head would touch the stars. The history of the
long-suffering Serb race was grouped around it, and that lifted it up
in my imagination to sublime heights. I was much tempted to stop there
and climb up to the top of Mount Avala, near Belgrade, and from there
send my greetings to heroic Serbia, just as I had sent my greetings to
heroic Switzerland from the top of snow-covered Titlis. But I was told
to look sharp if I wished to catch the last local boat to Panchevo,
and so I bade good-by and au revoir to white-towered Belgrade, as the
Serbian guslars call it.
When the local boat arrived in Panchevo a delegation of young men,
including one of the Serb students who had come with me from Budapest,
transferred me to another boat, which was crowded with what looked like
a gay wedding-party. The singing society of Panchevo had chartered
this boat to take it and its friends to Karlovci, where a great
national gathering of Serbs was to take place on the following day.
The earthly remains of the great Serb poet Branko Radichevich were to
arrive there from Vienna, where, when still a youth, he died and had
been buried thirty years before. His body was to be transferred to and
buried near Karlovci, on Strazhilovo hill, which was glorified by his
immortal verses. His lyrics were messages to all Serbs, calling upon
them to nurse their traditions and prepare for their national reunion.
Representative Serbs from all parts of Serbdom were to assemble in
Karlovci to escort the earthly remains of the popular poet to his last
resting-place. I was to represent America, hence the invitation to join
the Panchevo delegation. Serb nationalism flamed up in my heart again.
Our boat arrived at Karlovci in the early hours of the following
morning, and there we found many singing societies and delegates
from Voyvodina, Serbia, Bosnia, Hercegovina, and Montenegro--a most
picturesque gathering of splendid-looking young men and women, many
of them in their national costumes of brilliant colors. The funeral
procession started early in the afternoon. The singing societies from
the principal centres of Serbdom, lined up in the march in proper
succession, took up in turn the singing of the solemn and wonderfully
harmonious funeral hymn: “Holy God, almighty God, immortal God, have
mercy upon us.”
The Orthodox church permits no instrumental music. Those who have had
the good fortune to listen to Russian choirs know the power and the
spiritual charm of their choral singing. Serb choirs are not their
inferiors. No music appeals to our hearts so strongly as the music
of the human voice. Every one of the singers in that procession at
Karlovci felt that he was paying his last vocal tribute to the sacred
memory of the national poet, and his voice rose up to the heavens above
as if carried there by the wings of his inspired soul. The effect was
irresistible, and there was not a single dry eye in the great national
gathering. A dismembered nation united in tears was a most solemn
and inspiring spectacle. One could not help feeling that these tears
were welcome to the thirsty soil which nourished the roots of Serb
nationalism. A nation which is united in song and in tears will never
lose its unity. If the governments of Vienna and Budapest had foreseen
the emotions which that solemn ceremony would arouse in the hearts of
that vast and representative gathering coming from every part of the
dismembered Serbdom, they would never have permitted it. But that would
have meant the exercise of the perceptions of subtle psychology, which
these governments never had.
When the boat returned to Panchevo, Protoyeray Zhivkovich, the
poet-priest, who had first suggested my transference from Panchevo to
Prague, was watching for my arrival, and received me with tears of
joy in his eyes. He was a protecting friend and adviser of my boyhood
days, and he always considered himself indirectly responsible for my
wandering away to the distant shores of America. When I thanked him for
the choice feast which he had prepared for me, he assured me that his
feast was only a feast of food, whereas the feast which I spread out
before him when I answered his questions about America was a feast for
his soul. I certainly did it, if I interpreted correctly the luminous
flashes of his intelligent eyes. He was a man of about sixty, but his
vigorous eye was still just as eloquent as the stirring verses of his
younger days. “Tell your mother,” he said, “that I am happy to bear the
whole responsibility for your wandering away to distant America. It is
no longer distant; it is now in my heart; you have brought America to
us. It was a new world in my terrestrial geography; it is now a new
world in my spiritual geography.” His generous enthusiasm threatened to
undo some of the sobering effects of Niven’s conference at Cambridge.
During my several visits at his house that summer I had to repeat again
and again my description of Beecher and of his sermons. He called him
the brother of Joan of Arc of the new spiritual world; her flaming
sword, he said, was “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”
My older sister and her husband drove to Panchevo and escorted me to
Idvor. When Idvor’s territory was reached I begged them to make a
detour which would take me through the pasturelands and vineyards of
Idvor, where I had seen my happiest boyhood days. There, as if in a
dream, I saw the boys of Idvor watching herds of oxen just as I used
to do, and playing the same games which I used to play. The vineyards,
the summer sky above them, and the river Tamish in the distance, where
I had learned to swim and dive, looked the same as ever. Presently the
familiar church-spire of Idvor hove in sight, and gradually the sweet
sound of the church-bells, announcing vespers, awakened countless
memories in my mind and I found it difficult to control my emotions. As
we drove slowly through little Idvor everything looked exactly as it
had looked eleven years before. There were no new houses, and the old
ones looked as old as ever. The people were doing the same work which
they always did during that season of the year, and they were doing it
in the same way. When we reached the village green I saw the gate of
my mother’s yard wide open, a sign that she expected a welcome guest.
She sat alone on the bench under a tree in front of her house, and
waited, looking in the direction from which she expected me to come.
When she saw my sister’s team, I observed that suddenly she raised her
white handkerchief to her eyes, and my sister whispered to me: “Mayka
plache!” (“Mother is weeping!”) I jumped out of the wagon and hastened
to embrace her. Oh, how wonderful is the power of tears, and how
clear is our spiritual vision when a shower of tears has purified the
turbulent atmosphere of our emotions! Mother’s love and love for mother
are the sweetest messages of God to the living earth.
Everything in Idvor looked the same, but my mother had changed; she
looked much older, and much more beautiful. There was a saintly light
in her eyes which disclosed to me the serene firmament of the spiritual
world in which she lived. Raphael and Titian, I thought, never painted
a more beautiful saint. I gazed and worshipped and felt most humble.
“Come,” she said, “and walk with me; we shall be alone; I want to
hear your voice and see the light of your face, undisturbed.” We
walked slowly, and my mother recalled many things, reminding me of the
familiar objects of my boyhood days, as: “Here is the path on which you
walked to school; there is the church where you read the epistles on
Sundays and holidays; there is the mill with the funnel-shaped thatched
roof from the top of which you once removed the shining new tin star,
imagining that it was a star from heaven; there is the house where Baba
Batikin, of blessed memory, lived and taught you so many ancient tales;
there is the house where old Aunt Tina cured your whooping-cough with
charms and with herbs steeped in honey; here lived old Lyubomir, of
blessed memory, who was so fond of you, and made your sheepskin coats
and caps; here is the field where every evening you brought our horses
to the chikosh (the village herdsman) to take them to the pasturelands.”
By that time we had reached the end of the little village, but my
mother prolonged our leisurely walk and presently we stood at the gate
of the village cemetery. Pointing to a cross of red marble my mother
said that it marked the grave of my father. When we reached it I kissed
the cross, and, kneeling upon the grave, I prayed. My mother, loyal
to Serb traditions, addressed the grave, saying: “Kosta, my faithful
husband, here is your boy whom you loved more dearly than your own
life, and whose name was on your lips when you breathed your last.
Accept his prayer and his tears as his affectionate tribute to your
blessed memory, which he will cherish forever.”
On the way back we stopped at the church and kissed the icons of our
patron saint and of St. Sava, and lighted two wax candles which mother
had brought with her. I confessed to her that I felt as if a sacred
communion had reunited me with the spirit of Idvor. That was her wish,
she said, because she did not want Idvor to think that I was like a
proud stranger from a proud, strange land. “I did not recognize you,”
she said, “when I first saw you in your sister’s wagon until you smiled
with the smile of your boyhood days, and then I shed the sweetest tears
of my life. You looked so learned and so far above us plain folks of
Idvor that nobody will recognize the Misha they used to know, and whom
they long to see, unless you show them the boy that they used to know.”
My promise to return to Idvor “rich in learning and academic honors”
was evidently made good, according to my mother’s opinion. But did not
this learning and these academic honors carry with them an air which
did not harmonize with the old-fashioned notions of Idvor? This, I
believed, was in my mother’s mind, and I made a careful note of it.
Idvor came to see me, and it assured me that there was no youngster
in all the great plains of Voyvodina who was nearer to the heart of
his native village than Misha. This affectionate regard was won by my
strict observance of all the old customs of Idvor, as, for instance,
kissing the hand of the old people of Idvor, and in return being
kissed by them on the forehead. On the other hand, young peasant boys
and girls of Idvor kissed my hand, and I kissed them on the cheek and
petted them. My cousin, much older than I, was an ex-soldier and a
stern _Knez_ (chief) of the village. He was the oldest male member
and, therefore, the head of the Pupins. I was expected to keep this in
mind constantly, and I did it whenever I stood in his mighty presence.
American citizenship eliminated my allegiance to the Emperor of
Austria-Hungary but not to the autocratic _Knez_ of Idvor. There was
another great person in Idvor whose presence inspired awe. He was my
_koum_ (godfather). My mother had lost all her children that were born
in her earlier years, and was left childless for many years. She then
bore two daughters when she was over thirty. I was born when she was
over forty, in answer to her fervent prayer, she firmly believed, that
God grant her a son. A boy born late in life, if he is to live, must,
according to a popular belief in Idvor, be handed out through the front
window to the first person who comes along, and that person has to
carry the baby to church quickly and have it baptized. In this manner
a very poor and humble peasant of Idvor became my _koum_. A _koum’s_
authority over his godchild is, theoretically at least, unlimited,
according to Serbian custom. In practice, a godchild must eat humble
pie when the _koum_ is present. Between my cousin, who, as _Knez_,
was at the head of the village, and my _koum_, who was somewhere near
the bottom of the village, I had some difficulty to steer the correct
course of conduct. I succeeded, thanks to my efforts to please my
mother; and the peasants of Idvor most cheerfully admitted that America
must be a fine Christian country, since it had given me a training
which harmonized so well with the Christian traditions of Idvor. My
presidency in the junior year at Columbia College, my undisputed
authority among some of the young aristocrats of New York, and the
many scholastic successes in my academic career had sown some seeds of
vanity and false pride in my heart. But these seeds were smothered by
the inexorable rigors of Idvor’s traditions. Humility is the cardinal
virtue in a youth among the peasants of Idvor.
Needless to say, the story of my life since I had left Idvor was
retold many a time, until my mother and my sisters knew it by heart.
It was sweet music to their ears. I enjoyed it, too, because summer
evenings in a Serbian garden are most conducive to the spinning out of
reminiscent tales. The village worthies spent many Sunday afternoons in
my mother’s garden asking many, many a question about America. Tales
about things like the Brooklyn Bridge, the elevated railroad, the tall
buildings in New York, and the agricultural operations of the West were
received with many expressions of wonder, but at times also, I thought,
with some reserve. A simple peasant mind could not accept without
considerable reserve the statement that a machine can cut, bind, and
load the seasoned wheat, all at the same time, with nothing but a few
stupid horses to drag it along. After a while my store of information
became exhausted, and I had much less to say, but the wise men of
Idvor urged me to go on. They met my apologies with the statement that
peasant Ghiga had never left Idvor in all his life until one day he
went to a neighboring village, about ten miles away, and saw the county
fair. He returned to Idvor on the same day, and for six weeks he never
ceased talking about the great things which he had seen at that county
fair. “Just imagine,” said the priest, “how much he would have had to
say if he had been nine years in great America!”
I was overwhelmed with invitations to attend concerts and festivals
in many places of my native Banat, and when I attended I was often
called upon to say something about America, and, of course, I spoke
about my favorite subject: “The American Doctrine of Freedom.” People
talked and papers wrote about it. One day the Fehispan, the governor of
Torontal, where Idvor belonged under the new division of Hungary, sent
for me, and appointed the hour for a conference. I went, carrying my
American citizenship papers and my Columbia diploma in my pocket. When
I entered his office I saw a handsome young man of about thirty, quite
athletic in appearance, and looking like an English aristocrat in dress
and in manner. I was told beforehand that he was a young Hungarian
nobleman who prided himself upon his English university training. I
wondered how he would act when he saw before him a Serb youth from
the peasant village of Idvor who prided himself upon his American
college training. He looked puzzled when I entered and saluted him with
a Serbian “Dobroytro gospodine!” (“Good morning, sir”), accompanying
my salute with an Anglo-Saxon bow, that is a jerky motion of the head
from the shoulders up. The bow of continental Europe is much more
elaborate. After some hesitation he asked me to sit down, and then,
as if by an afterthought, he brought a chair himself and offered it
to me. We spoke in English, since I did not understand Hungarian, and
he did not care to speak Serb. By way of introduction I showed him
my American citizenship papers and my diploma, and he remarked that
these documents agreed with my appearance and manner, adding quickly
that he meant a compliment. He asked me how I liked Idvor and Hungary.
Then I told him that I never had known much about Hungary, but that
Budapest and even its famous bridge looked to me small and shrivelled
up, probably because I compared things there with things in New York.
“It is big enough, is it not, to be the metropolis of the southern
Slavs in Hungary?” he asked. “It undoubtedly is,” said I, “but somewhat
inconvenient and unnatural.” I volunteered this opinion, seeing from
his somewhat inquisitorial manner that he knew much about my doings,
and that he had heard of my salute to Belgrade when my boat from
Budapest approached it a month earlier.
“This, I suppose, is the doctrine which you preached at Karlovci,
at the national gathering there?” asked the handsome and genial
inquisitor, and I answered: “No; I had no time; I was too busy
carrying the body of the great poet to Strazhilovo. Besides, the
Karlovci ceremony itself was really a grand sermon which glorified
that doctrine, and some day it may prevail, when the slow mind of the
southern Slav wakes up and does the natural thing.” “The quick mind
of the Hungarian crown may wake up sooner and do the natural thing,”
said the young Fehispan, and added: “What you say now confirms my
information that in your public utterances you deny the divine right of
the crown and proclaim the divine right of the people.” “That is one
of the messages of our American Declaration of Independence,” said I,
“and I delivered that message to people here who were anxious to hear
something about America.” Then I added that Kossuth, while in America,
was glorifying the divine right of the Hungarian people and denying the
divine right of the Hapsburg crown in Hungary. I had heard this and
many other Hungarian democratic doctrines from Henry Ward Beecher, who
was a great friend and admirer of Kossuth, and I told him that. He saw
that my trigger was ready if he attempted any further moves in this
direction. “You are certainly frank and honest, like all real Americans
that I know; that makes them most attractive. But why don’t you
naturalized Americans mind your own business when you visit us?” He was
much less stern and serious when he said this, and I was only too glad
to play a more cheerful tune, and said: “Our most important business
here is our mission to make you, our poor relations here, happy and
prosperous by having you adopt the American point of view.”
He was a wealthy Hungarian magnate who owned several villages, each
of them bigger than Idvor, and this answer coming from a son of poor
Idvor amused him much. From that moment on our conference was much
less formal, and became even cordial when he offered me coffee and
cigarettes. I jokingly told him that Magyarism and Teutonism had driven
me away from Panchevo and Prague, and now that I was back for a visit I
wished to pay them back with a little present of a few American ideas.
“Your American ideas,” he retorted jokingly, “will make you even less
popular here than your Serb nationalism did eleven years ago. Drop them
while you are here. You’ll have more fun shooting wild ducks in the
lowlands of the Tamish River near Idvor than clearing up to dullards
the American point of view. The duck season is on, and it is a pity
to miss a single day. I’ll lend you an American gun which is just
right for that sort of business.” He did, and that gun kept me busy
and saved him the trouble of watching my movements. The village notary
accompanied me on my shooting tramps; he was an expert fisherman and
shot, and spared no pains to please me and--the Fehispan. A two weeks’
tramp in the marshes of the Tamish River, chasing the elusive duck,
diminished my haste to harmonize the political point of view of the
Serbs in the Voyvodina with American ideas.
When the vintage was over, toward the end of September, I made ready to
start for Cambridge. I was sorry to leave, because the merry season in
Voyvodina is on when the vintage is over and the new wine has ceased
fermenting. The golden crops are then all in, and the lazy pigs are fat
and round, and ready to be served at wedding-feasts. In other lands it
is the springtime when the young man’s fancy turns to thoughts of love;
in the Serb Voyvodina it is the autumn season which has that mysterious
power. It is in the autumn when marriage-bells never cease ringing, and
the bagpipes with the merry songs of wedding-feasts stir up the hearts
from one end of the Banat plains to the other. But my mother diverted
my attention to more serious thoughts, and she assured me that she
was even more happy preparing me for my journey to Cambridge than she
was when, eleven years before, she was preparing me for my journey to
Prague.
A few days prior to my departure the village worthies prepared a
fish-supper in my honor. The Tamish fishermen cooked it in their
traditional way over a wood fire burning under the open sky. The
little supper-party reached the fishermen’s hut on the bank of the
Tamish River just about sunset. The western sky was all aglow with the
golden light of the parting day, and so was the surface of the tranquil
Tamish River, made luminous by the image of the western sky. The
rest of the landscape looked dark by contrast, excepting the glowing
faces of the patient supper-party, who sat around the busy fires and
watched the boiling kettles and the broiling pans. At some distance,
and standing at the very end of a fisherman’s barge, was the dark
silhouette of a tall young shepherd, who stood there lonely like some
solitary dark spectre hovering over the golden surface of the Tamish
River. It was just the spot for one who sought seclusion and longed
for quiet meditation. No ripple in the water or in the air disturbed
his dreams, if he had any, and I thought that he had. His sheep had
been watered, and he had finished his frugal supper long ago, before
the light of the day had retired below the distant horizon line of the
Banat plains. The silence of the approaching night awakened emotions
which only his tuneful flute could express, and suddenly he poured his
soul into a melody which surely was not addressed to mere phantoms
of the vacuous space. I felt that the quivering air was conveying
through the evening silence a message of love to some maiden, who was
perhaps just then spinning under some thatched roof of drowsy Idvor and
thinking of him. The priest approached me to tell me that the fish was
ready and that the feast would soon begin. I told him that my feast
had already begun and called his attention to the heavenly melody. He
said: “Oh, that’s Gabriel, the son of my neighbor Milutin. He entered
the village school when you left Idvor, and he finished it long ago.
He will be married on St. Michael’s day, and what you hear now is his
sefdalia (song of sighs) for his future bride, who is over there in our
drowsy village.” When he jokingly suggested that I might be looking
forward to the enjoyment of the sweets of simple pastoral life which
were in store for Gabriel, if I had not turned my back on Idvor eleven
years before, I answered that perhaps it was not too late to correct
the error. The priest looked astonished, and asked me whether I had
crossed and recrossed the Atlantic in order to become a shepherd of
Idvor. I said nothing, but I knew that Gabriel’s melody had disclosed
to me another world in which the question “What is Light?” is by no
means the most important question. There were other great questions of
human life, the answers to which can perhaps be found in Idvor without
a knowledge of Maxwell’s electrical theory.
VI
STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
A long-continued struggle with no let-up will wreck a feeble
constitution. It produces in a strong and healthy constitution a
tuning-up of continuously rising pitch under the tension of which even
the strongest constitution may snap in two. My struggle had been going
on for nine years when I was returning to Europe on my way to Idvor,
hence my pitch was very high. Nervous tension resulting in a lack of
poise was the diagnosis of my ailment, according to my English friend
in Lucerne, who urged me to abandon the exploration of the beauties
of the Alps and seek the solitude of my native village; otherwise, he
said, not even all the guardian angels in heaven could prevent me from
breaking my neck. A two months’ vacation in the soporific atmosphere
of Idvor was a blessing; my pitch was lowered through several octaves,
and I did not vibrate violently in response to every impulse that came
along. I recognized, for instance, that the Serbs of the Voyvodina
could wait a little longer for their political salvation, which I
confidently expected from their adoption of the American point of view.
I also recognized that to many human beings a knowledge of the modern
theories of physics was not indispensable to happiness. There was not
a single person in Idvor who cared two straws about these things, and
yet most of these good people were happy, as, for instance, Gabriel,
who was to be married on St. Michael’s day. Gabriel did not know much,
I said to myself, but the little knowledge he had was very definite.
He knew that he loved the girl he was about to marry, and he also knew
that his life, following in the footsteps of his peasant ancestors,
had a definite object in view which, as everybody in his village knew,
was easily attainable. I knew more than Gabriel did, but my knowledge
was not as definite as his. My aim in life was, I thought, much higher
than his; but was it attainable? And, if attainable, was it worth the
struggle? Two months earlier such a question could not have occurred to
me even in a dream. But Gabriel’s melody and the dreamy atmosphere of
Idvor suggested it.
My mother observed that a change had occurred, but she was not alarmed.
I spoke less often of my future plans, and was less anxious about my
departure for Cambridge. The wedding celebrations in my native Banat
were already ushered in by the gay autumn season, and the beautiful
kolo dancers, whirling around the merry bagpipes, engaged my interest
much more than when I had come to Idvor two months before. One evening
my mother recalled an incident which happened in my early boyhood days
and which I remembered well. She said something like this:
“Do you remember when Bukovala’s mill with its high conical roof was
rethatched?” I said, “Yes,” and she continued: “You were then a little
shaver, but you certainly remember still the shining tin star which the
workmen had planted upon the top of the conical roof after they had
finished their work of thatching. The children of Idvor thought that
it was a real star from heaven; it looked so bright when the sunlight
was shining upon it. One day the tin star disappeared, and everybody
wondered how anybody could have climbed up that smooth and steep roof
and taken the star away. Old Lyubomir, who loved you so dearly and
delighted in making sheepskin coats for you, was sure that it was you,
and he suggested that special prayers of thanksgiving be read in church
for your miraculous escape. Old Lyubomir was right, as you know, and
I always believed that God had saved you for a mission in life much
higher than that of young Gabriel, whose happy lot you seem to envy.
Blessed America has taught you how to climb a roof much steeper than
that of Bukovala’s mill, and on its top and all the way up to it you
will find many a real star from heaven. You are not far from the top
and you cannot stop nor turn back now any more than you could when you
saw the peak of Titlis in the distance, but felt too fatigued to finish
your climb. Gabriel’s magic flute and his mellow sefdalia, song of
sighs, have turned your thoughts to things which are now in everybody’s
mind: to wedding-feasts and kolo dancing, and to other diversions which
fill the hearts of Idvor’s youth during this merry autumn season.
You are dreaming now some of the idle dreams of youth, but when you
return to Cambridge you will wake up again and see that all this was
a pleasant dream only, which you saw in your restful hours in drowsy
Idvor. The real things are waiting for you at Cambridge.”
I confessed my weakness and pleaded extenuating circumstances. I tried
to persuade her that her tender affection and watchful ministering
to what she insisted should be my pleasures and comforts during that
summer had transformed a hardy youth into a soft and pampered pet. She
answered: “The blacksmith softens his steel before he forges it into a
chain; you are just right for the blacksmiths of Cambridge.”
* * * * *
When I returned to Cambridge from drowsy little Idvor things looked
different from what they had on my former visit two months before.
Things which, in my feverish haste, I had scarcely noticed then filled
me now with awe. The ancient college buildings inspired a feeling
of wonder and of veneration. I saw in them just so many monumental
records of the ancient traditions of English learning. I began to
understand, I thought, how it happened that a little nation on a
little island in the northern Atlantic became the leader in the world’s
empire of intellect, and the cradle of a great civilization. This
first impression made upon me by these ancient monuments was greatly
amplified as soon as I caught even the first glimpses of the daily
activity of Cambridge. The forenoons appeared serious and sombre to an
outside observer; everybody wore a black cap and gown and everybody
did apparently the same thing, going somewhere in search of sources of
learning and inspiration. The intellect of Cambridge seemed to be in
full action during the forenoons, and hence the solemn seriousness of
the university town during the early half of the day. But the scene
changed as if by magic when the midday had passed. The black caps
and gowns disappeared, and in their places white flannel trousers
and gaily colored blazers and caps adorned the college youths and
many college dons. The same youths who in the forenoon, like sombre
monks, were making a pilgrimage to some miracle-working fountains of
wisdom joined in a gay procession in the afternoon, hastening to the
sparkling fountains of athletic recreation. The intellectual activity
of the forenoon was succeeded by the physical activity of Cambridge
in the afternoon. To a stranger like myself, who knew practically
nothing of the famous university town, the change of scene between
morning and afternoon was bewildering. It looked to me as if I saw a
monastic-looking procession of serious and thoughtful men suddenly
changed into gay groups of lively youths whose only thoughts were on
the games which awaited them. By counting the different colors of
blazers and caps and the coats of arms which adorned the athletic
youths one could easily count the number of different colleges in
the old university. These colors and coats of arms had a meaning, I
thought, and I asked myself whether they did not, like the ancient
college buildings, record the ancient traditions of the venerable
seat of learning. They certainly did; they were a part of the symbolic
language which told the story of the university’s customs and
traditions. It was clear to me that while at Cambridge my work was to
be done in the morning and evening, and my playing in the afternoon,
in accordance with the local customs. I stayed at a hotel for several
days and watched these external pictures of Cambridge life before I
called on Mr. Niven of Trinity and on Mr. Oscar Browning of King’s. I
wished to get some picture of the daily activities at Cambridge before
I presented myself to these learned men, and I got it.
Niven was expecting me and was ready with a programme of work which
he had promised me in June, and I gladly accepted it. Both Niven and
Browning assured me that at that late date lodgings in any college
were out of the question, and that I must get lodgings in the town
for one academic year at least. It did not matter, because very many
students resided outside of the college buildings. I really preferred
it, because I had not come to Cambridge to seek the opportunities
offered by its college life; I had come to study physics and find out
how Maxwell answered the question “What is Light?” That was the only
definite point in the programme which I had brought to Cambridge; the
rest was hazy and reminded me often of a Serbian figure of speech
which speaks of a goose groping around in a fog to find its way. But
I had groped like a goose in a fog when I landed at Castle Garden and
finally found my way. The saying, “Where there’s a will there’s a way,”
comforted me much.
My residence in lodgings outside of the college precincts had one great
advantage. It gave me an opportunity to study English life from what
I considered a somewhat novel point of view. It is the point of view
which discloses to the foreigner English domestic life through the
unique personality of the English landlady. During my eighteen months’
stay at the University of Cambridge, I had an opportunity to study her
wonderful ways, not only in Cambridge, but also in London, Hastings,
Brighton, and Folkestone, where I used to spend my Easter and Christmas
vacations. She was the same everywhere: dignified, reticent, punctual,
and square; neat and clean in all her ways; willing and anxious to
render service, but not a servant; possessing a perfect understanding
of her own business, which she minded scrupulously, but avoiding
carefully minding anybody else’s business.
At Mr. Browning’s request a Mr. Ling, the leading tenor of King’s
College choir, took me around to look for lodgings. He belonged to the
town and not to the gown, and was quite anxious to impress me with the
many virtues of the town. He transformed our trip into an elaborate
inspection tour of the student lodgings, because he was proud of them
and considered them a very essential part of the great university.
At that time I thought that he, a very enthusiastic townsman, was
perhaps exaggerating the importance of this subsidiary instrumentality
of the university. But when I got to know the Cambridge landlady and
to understand her importance, I became convinced that Mr. Ling was
right. I had not been in Cambridge more than a week before I learned
the fundamentals of English domestic life, and I admired its wholesome
simplicity. My landlady taught me these fundamentals, and in her
wonderfully tactful ways she enforced their operation without my being
aware that I was led around by her intelligent and forceful hand.
I take off my hat to the English landlady, who, in her humble and
unostentatious ways, is one of the eloquent interpreters of Anglo-Saxon
civilization. She was one of my trusty guides and sympathetic
assistants during my strenuous eighteen months at the University of
Cambridge.
I started my work at Cambridge unattached to any college. But later
I made up my mind to attach myself to King’s College, yielding to
repeated suggestions from my friend, Mr. Oscar Browning. But I did not
change my lodgings. King’s had less than a hundred students and many
dons. Not one of them was a star in physics, and therefore the college
had no attractions for me on account of the learning of its dons.
But it had a beautiful chapel and a famous choir. The stained-glass
windows of King’s College chapel were famous as far back as Cromwell’s
time and they are still so. Every time I attended service in this
glorious chapel I went away feeling spiritually uplifted. I attended
regularly, although, as a member of the Orthodox faith, I was excused
from all religious services. What the other students, belonging to
the established church, considered a stern duty, I considered a rare
privilege. The chapel gave me a spiritual tonic whenever I needed it,
and I needed it often. I yielded also to Mr. Browning’s suggestions
to try for a place in the college boat, and succeeded. Rowing was the
only exercise which I took at Cambridge after I had become attached
to King’s, but before that I took long walks, usually with one of the
younger dons or with a student who was engaged in the same book work
in which I was engaged. They helped me to make myself familiar with
the history of Cambridge and of the surrounding country. Everybody in
Cambridge took his daily exercise just as regularly as he took his
daily bath and food. I followed the universal custom; it suited me well
and, besides, that was the best way to get along in Cambridge.
Physical as well as intellectual activity of the students at Cambridge
was a matter of daily routine, regulated by customs and traditions.
But these regulators were different for different groups of students.
The student studying for honors arranged his work differently from
the arrangement which suited the needs of a Poll student, that is,
the ordinary student who did not aspire to academic honors. Their
previous training also had been different. The students who aspired
to academic honors in mathematics were quite numerous, more numerous
than the students in any other honor class. Cambridge, ever since the
time of Newton, had become the nursery of the mathematical sciences
in the British Empire. There were about five of these honor groups at
Cambridge in those days. Niven advised me to join the honor group in
mathematics, the so-called mathematical tripos group, and he picked
out a coach for me. Just as one straight line, only, can be drawn
through two points, so the line of the student’s intellectual activity
at Cambridge was fixed when he had picked out the honor class and the
tutor or coach to train him for the examinations prescribed for that
honor class. To join the honor class in mathematics meant to work
alongside of students who expected to become Cambridge _wranglers_.
To understand the meaning of this it suffices to know that no greater
honor was in store for the ambitious youths in the university than to
be a _senior wrangler_ or to stroke a victorious varsity boat. The
preparations for these glorious honors were just as careful as the
preparations of a Grecian youth for participation in the Olympian
games. I had no ambition to become a Cambridge wrangler, but Niven
pointed out that a prospective physicist who wished to master some day
Maxwell’s new electrical theory must first master a good part of the
mathematical work prescribed for students preparing for the Cambridge
mathematical tripos examinations.
“Doctor Routh could fix you up in quicker time than anybody,” said
Niven with a smile, and then he added cautiously, “that is, if Routh
consents to your joining his private classes, and if you can manage
to keep up the pace of the youngsters who are under his training.”
Three months before, when I first called on Niven, and when my pitch
was very high, I would have resented this; but Idvor had lowered my
pitch several octaves and I swallowed Niven’s bitter pill without the
slightest sign of mental distress. My humility pleased him, because it
probably relieved him of some anxiety about the question of managing me.
John Edward Routh, fellow of Peterhouse College, was the most famous
mathematical coach that Cambridge University had ever seen. In his
lifetime he had coached several hundred wranglers, and for twenty-two
consecutive years he had coached the senior wrangler of each year.
This is really equivalent to saying that a certain jockey had ridden
the Derby winner for twenty-two consecutive years. He was a senior
wrangler himself in 1854, when great James Clerk Maxwell was second
wrangler, and he divided with Maxwell the famous Smith’s prize in
mathematics. To be admitted by Routh into his private classes was
flattering, according to Niven, but to be able to keep up with them
would be a most encouraging sign. Niven was anxiously waiting for that
sign. Routh accepted me, but gave me to understand that my mathematical
preparation was much below the standard of the boys who came to
Cambridge to prepare for the mathematical tripos examinations, and that
I should have to do considerable extra reading. He also cautioned me
that all this meant very stiff work for a good part of the academic
year. I went to Cambridge to study physics and not mathematics; but,
according to Niven and Routh, my real desire, as far as they could make
it out, was to study mathematical physics, and they assured me that my
training with Routh, if I could keep the pace, would soon lay a good
foundation for that. Lord Rayleigh lectured on mathematical physics and
so did famous Professor Stokes (later Sir George Gabriel Stokes); but
according to Routh and Niven I was not prepared to attend any of these
lectures, and much less to read Maxwell’s famous mathematical treatise
on his new electrical theory. Niven reminded me once of my first visit
to Cambridge, when I had insisted that Cambridge without Maxwell had no
attractions for me, and he asked me, jokingly, whether Lord Rayleigh’s
lectures were good enough for me. I answered that they certainly were,
but that, unfortunately, I was not good enough for the lectures. “Next
year you will be,” said Niven, consoling me; and I, unable to suppress
my feeling of disappointment, answered: “Let us pray that the starving
jackass does not drop dead before the grass is green again.” “What’s
that?” asked Niven, somewhat puzzled. “That is a free translation of a
Serbian proverb, and I am the jackass,” said I, and refused to furnish
any further explanations. But Niven figured it out correctly in the
course of the evening and then laughed heartily. He confessed that
Serbo-American humor was somewhat involved and required considerable
analysis.
The Cambridge colleges, some nineteen in number, resembled our
American colleges in many ways. The career of the Cambridge Poll men
was essentially the same as that of our American college boys. But
our American colleges had no class of students corresponding to the
Cambridge honor men. Referring particularly to the honor men who
prepared for the so-called mathematical tripos, they came to Cambridge
after graduating at some college outside of Cambridge. For instance,
Maxwell came to Cambridge from the University of Edinburgh, and Routh
came there from the University College, London. Both of them migrated
to Cambridge, because their teachers in mathematics, like illustrious
De Morgan, the first mathematical teacher of Routh, were mathematicians
of distinction, and discovering in their young pupils extraordinary
mathematical talents they developed them as far as they could, and then
sent them to Cambridge for further development under the training of
famous coaches who prepared them for the mathematical tripos. These
teachers were usually former Cambridge wranglers, apostles of the
Cambridge mathematical school, and they were always on the lookout for
a fresh supply of mathematical genius for the nursery which regarded
great Newton as its founder. This was the type of boys which I met in
Routh’s classes. They did not seem to know as much of Greek and Latin,
of history and economics, of literature and physical sciences, as I
did, but their training in mathematics was far superior to mine. They
were candidates for the mathematical tripos, and no American college of
those days had a curriculum which could turn out candidates with the
preliminary mathematical training which those boys brought to Cambridge.
Routh had warned me that stiff work was before me for a good part of a
whole academic year, if I was to keep up with the young mathematical
athletes whom he was training, and he was right. I experienced many
moments of despondency and even despair, and I needed all the tonic
which King’s College chapel could give me; I needed it very often, and
I got it. Routh was a splendid drill-master even for those students
who, like myself, had no tripos aspirations. He certainly was a
wonder, and everything he did was done with ease and grace and in
such an offhand manner that I often thought that he considered even
the stiffest mathematical problems mere amusing tricks. Problems over
which I had puzzled in vain for many hours he would resolve in several
seconds. He was a virtuoso in the mathematical technique, and he
prepared virtuosos; he was the great master who trained future senior
wranglers. I never felt so small and so humble as I did during the
early period of my training with Routh. Vanity and false pride had no
place in my heart when I watched Routh demolish one intricate dynamical
problem after another with marvellous ease. I felt as a commonplace
artist feels when he listens to a Paderewski or to a Fritz Kreisler.
Long before the end of the academic year, I finished Routh’s
preliminary tripos course in dynamics and much of the auxiliary
mathematics demanded by it, and became quite skilled in solving
dynamical problems. I had much difficulty in keeping pace with Routh’s
classes, but I succeeded, and Niven was pleased. But I was not pleased;
I did not think that I had found there what I had expected to find. In
the course of time I discovered that I was not alone in my opinion;
many Cambridge men failed to find in tripos drills the stimulating
elements of that scientific spirit which leads to original research. I
was a goose which groped around in a fog when I came to Cambridge; but,
if I had come from an English college as a promising tripos candidate,
with my work cut out for me by my superiors and in accordance with
old customs and traditions of Cambridge, I should not have discovered
that there was in Cambridge at that time an epoch-making movement, the
significance of which cannot be overestimated. I shall return to this
point later.
Many a time during my early experiences in Routh’s drill school I
thought of my mother’s words which described the steep and slippery
climb which awaited me, and which was leading, as she had expressed it,
to real stars from heaven. I felt the steepness of the climb, but I
saw no star ahead of me. Routh was a great master of the mathematical
technique, but he was not a creative genius; he was a virtuoso but
not a composer. His principal concern was to drill his students in
the art of solving those conventional problems which usually formed
part of tripos examinations. The poetical element of dynamics, which
thrills, was absent from his businesslike drills. The only star, I
thought, which his students saw ahead of them was a high place in the
tripos examinations, and that star did not attract me; recalling my
mother’s story, I called it a tin star. I loved Routh and admired him
much, but I did not admire the Cambridge tripos method of laying a
foundation for mathematical physics. When Niven discovered my state of
mind he sympathized, and he gave me a little book called “Matter and
Motion” by Maxwell, a very small book written by a very great author.
“You are not up to the mathematics of Maxwell’s great electrical
treatise,” said Niven, as he handed me the little book, “but you will
find no difficulties of that kind in this little book, which covers
a very great subject.” It was first published in America in the _Van
Nostrand Magazine_. No magazine ever performed a greater educational
service. There was not only much poetical beauty and philosophical
depth in this tiny and apparently most elementary book on dynamics,
but there were also many illustrations of the close connection between
this fundamental science and other departments of physical science.
Maxwell’s presentation roused, and it also stimulated, the spirit of
inquiry. Routh’s elaborate system of clever tripos problems in dynamics
appeared to me for the first time as little parts, only, of a complex
and endless art which had grown out of a simple and beautiful science,
the science of dynamics, which first saw the light of day at Trinity
College, Cambridge. The exquisite art as practised by Routh and the
subtle science as described by Maxwell, the two leading Cambridge
wranglers of 1854, disclosed to me the real meaning of Newton, the
greatest among the great Cambridge men, the creator of the science
of dynamics. I knew then that I had seen one of the real stars of
heaven of which my mother spoke. But without the light of Maxwell
I would not have seen the light of Newton. It will be seen further
below that Maxwell and Routh, Cambridge wranglers of 1854, were the
representatives of different mental attitudes in Cambridge: Maxwell was
the apostle of the new and Routh of the old spirit of Cambridge. Niven
was very fond of reminding me of my first visit when I had told him
that Cambridge without Maxwell had no attraction for me. After reading
Maxwell’s little classic I told Niven that my opinion was, after all,
not so funny and strange as he represented it.
* * * * *
A short digression is timely now. I went to Trinity College
occasionally to spend a Sunday evening with Mr. Niven. One Sunday
evening I walked around the historical Trinity quadrangle, waiting
until Mr. Niven returned to his rooms from the evening service in the
college chapel. The mysterious-looking light streaming through the
stained-glass windows of the chapel and the heavenly music radiating
from the invisible choir and organ commanded my attention. I stood
motionless like a solitary spectre in the middle of the deserted
and sombre quadrangle, and gazed, and listened, and dreamed. Yes, I
dreamed of great Newton, the greatest of all Trinity dons; and I saw
how, two centuries before, he was treading over the same spot where I
was standing whenever he was returning from a Sunday evening service
in the very chapel at which I was gazing. I dreamed also of Maxwell,
another great Trinity don; and remembered that, five years before, the
very same choir and organ to which I was listening had paid their last
tribute to this great Cambridge man, when his earthly remains left the
grief-stricken university on their last pilgrimage to Maxwell’s native
Scotland. But I knew that his spirit had remained at Cambridge to
inspire forever the coming generations of ambitious students.
I dreamed of other great Trinity College men whose spirits seemed to
hover about the sombre quadrangle, rejoicing in the heavenly light
and sound which radiated from the historical chapel where Newton and
Maxwell worshipped in days gone by. I longed for the day when my alma
mater, Columbia College, and other colleges in America, could offer
such an inspiring scene to its students; and I wondered how soon that
day would come. Niven told me the following story which, he thought,
might answer this question:
A don of Magdalen College, Oxford, was asked by an American friend how
long it would take to raise, in America, a lawn like the famous lawn of
Magdalen College. “I do not know,” said the don, “but it took us over
two centuries to do it here in Oxford.” Niven implied, of course, that
it will take much more than two centuries to create at any American
college that atmosphere which surrounded me at the Trinity College
quadrangle on that memorable Sunday evening. It was the mysterious
charm of that atmosphere which held me chained to Cambridge in spite
of the fact that I did not believe that the Cambridge tripos method of
laying a foundation in mathematical physics was fitting my particular
case.
Students shift from university to university in continental Europe,
migrating to places where they are attracted by the reputations of
teachers who happen to be there. I went to Cambridge because I thought
that Maxwell was there. But at Cambridge, and at Oxford too, it was
not only the teacher who was there but also the teachers who had lived
there during generations long past who determined the choice made by
ambitious students. The great teachers in the mathematical sciences
when I was there were Lord Rayleigh, the successor of Maxwell; John
Crouch Adams, who, with Leverrier in France, shared in the great
distinction of calculating from the perturbations in the orbit of
Uranus the position of the still unknown planet Neptune; George Gabriel
Stokes, the greatest mathematical physicist in Europe at that time, and
the occupant of the professorial chair once held by great Newton. But
that which brought the students in mathematical sciences to Cambridge
was not only the lustre of the reputations of these great professors,
but also the existence at Cambridge of a historical educational policy,
to the development of which many great Cambridge mathematicians of
generations long past had made lasting contributions. The mathematical
tripos was the most concrete expression of this traditional policy.
It can be inferred from what I have already said that this traditional
policy did not suit me. I do not think that it would have suited any
American student of those days who had a taste for physics. I said
once to a Cambridge friend that my landlady, Routh, and rowing shaped
the daily events of my life. He saw my point and admitted that each
one of them represented a powerful determining factor in the life of
a Cambridge student who was preparing for the mathematical tripos
examinations. Each one of them had its deep roots in ancient traditions
from which it was difficult to deviate. Routh was a rare product and
a loyal apostle of the tradition called the Mathematical Tripos. It
was perhaps the most powerful of all Cambridge traditions and stood
as immovable as the rock of Gibraltar; its great strength was the
fact that it had produced many distinguished men of science. But
nevertheless some of the greatest living Cambridge physicists of those
days felt that it had defects and called for remedies. It was claimed
that its method, having no direct connection with the nascent problems
of scientific research, was artificial and unproductive.
Sir William Thomson, known later as Lord Kelvin, was among the first
who called for speedy remedies. He was the second wrangler in 1845 and
Stephen Parkinson was the senior wrangler. Thomson left Cambridge and
went to Paris to get from the famous physicist Regnault what he could
not get at Cambridge. After a year, when only twenty-two years old,
he accepted a professorship in physics and directorship in physical
research at the University of Glasgow. The long-headed Scotch were
fully thirty years ahead of Cambridge in establishing a research
laboratory in physics. Here Thomson worked out the scientific elements
of the first Atlantic cable, and invented the instruments necessary
for its operation. When I was in Cambridge the name of Thomson was
attached to most measuring instruments employed in the electrical
industries at that time, and he was also one of the leaders of abstract
scientific thought. He represented in the popular mind the new spirit
of Cambridge. Stephen Parkinson, Thomson’s superior in the tripos test
of 1845, was still in Cambridge when I was there, and had to his credit
a text-book on geometrical optics, with stereotyped problems, suitable
for tripos examinations. He was not among those who called for a change
in the traditional mathematical tripos examinations at Cambridge.
Maxwell, undoubtedly inspired by Thomson, was one of the earliest
leaders of the Cambridge movement which demanded a modification of the
mathematical tripos, favoring more the spirit of research and less the
art of solving cleverly formulated mathematical problems. The Cavendish
Physics Laboratory, organized by Maxwell and first opened in 1874, was,
according to Niven, a concrete expression of this movement.
A similar movement was taking place in the United States in those days.
Among its leaders were President Barnard of Columbia College, and
Joseph Henry, the first and the most distinguished secretary of the
Smithsonian Institution. The date of the foundation of Johns Hopkins
University falls within the early period of this movement. Niven told
me that what Maxwell had been doing in the Cavendish Laboratory at
Cambridge was being done also by Maxwell’s friend, Professor Rowland,
at Johns Hopkins, founded in Baltimore in 1876. Maxwell thought very
highly of his young American friend, and undoubtedly recommended him
strongly for the physics professorship at Johns Hopkins. Just as
the establishment of the Cavendish Physics Laboratory in Cambridge
marks the beginning of a great epoch in the development of physics in
Cambridge and in Great Britain, so the organization of the physics
laboratory at Johns Hopkins by Rowland marks a new and most fruitful
era of scientific research in the United States. Rowland’s influence
had not yet been felt at Columbia College when I was a student there,
nor at many other American colleges of those days. But the forward
movement soon commenced; and the people of this country do not
understand yet as fully as they should how much they owe to the late
Henry Augustus Rowland, whom I had the honor of knowing personally and
whose friendship I enjoyed for several years. One of the aims of this
simple narrative is to throw more light upon some obscure spots of this
kind which need more illumination, and particularly upon the work of
men like “Rowland of Troy, the doughty knight,” as Maxwell referred to
him in his verses.
Another historical fact must be mentioned here which is very
characteristic of the state of the science of physics in those days,
and which is closely connected with the progress of this science as it
appeared to me in the course of the last forty years. I mention now
another great American physicist whose name, like that of Rowland, I
first heard mentioned at Cambridge at that time, and that was Professor
Josiah Willard Gibbs, of Yale. I know that many of my young colleagues
will find it strange that I never had heard of Lord Rayleigh, of
England, before I graduated at Columbia. What will they say when they
hear that at that time I never had heard of famous Willard Gibbs, of
Yale, New Haven, U. S. A.? Will they charge me with extraordinary
ignorance, for which Columbia of those days was to blame? That would be
unjust, as the following story will prove. One evening, after dinner,
I was enjoying at the University Club, New York, the company of some
twelve Yale graduates, and one of them was the learned Professor
William Welch, dean of the Johns Hopkins Medical School. He was then
president of the National Academy of Sciences. Most of my Yale friends
present were of about my age or even older. I offered to wager that
the majority of them would fail to give the name of the scientist who,
in Doctor Welch’s opinion and in mine, was the greatest scientist that
Yale had ever graduated. Not one of them mentioned Willard Gibbs. When
I mentioned his name they frankly confessed that they had never heard
of him before. Neither they nor Yale College of those days were to
blame. Did my fellow students at Cambridge, who were training for the
mathematical tripos, ever hear of him before they came to Cambridge?
If they did, it was by accident, just as I heard of him by accident.
Such was the spirit of the times in those days; and it was against this
spirit that President Barnard of Columbia took up arms. He considered
its existence a national calamity. But I shall return to this point
later.
I will now describe the accident just mentioned, because it is closely
connected with the main thread of my narrative. In the beginning of the
Easter term, the third term of my training under Routh, I had caught up
with my class and had spare time for outside reading. Niven was greatly
impressed by my enthusiastic eulogies of Maxwell’s little book, “Matter
and Motion,” and he suggested that I take up the reading of another
of Maxwell’s little classics, “Theory of Heat.” It was written with
the same elegant simplicity as his “Matter and Motion.” This little
text-book on heat was the first to give me a living physical picture
of the mode of operation by which heat is transformed into mechanical
work, an operation which I had watched so often in the Cortlandt
Street boiler-room. I had watched it, but I had never dreamed that the
operation could be described as Maxwell described it. According to
him it may be considered as the resultant action of non-coordinated
activities of an immense number of busy little molecules, each of
which, as far as human observers can tell, moves about lustily
according to its own sweet will. But behold the miracle: the average
activity of the countless crowd obeys with mathematical accuracy the
fundamental law for heat transformations, the so-called second law of
thermodynamics discovered by Sadi Carnot, the great French engineer. It
was Maxwell’s little classic which also informed me that in all cases
of very large numbers of individuals, whether they be active molecules
or busy human beings, exhibiting as far as an observer can tell
non-coordinated activities, we must apply the so-called statistical
method of inquiry, that is, the method which statisticians employ in
recording the activity of a nation. Newton’s dynamics, which at that
time had been the food of Cambridge for two centuries, said nothing
about that. It was a new idea in the heads of new men, who, under the
leadership of Maxwell, were creating a new and far-reaching science.
Up to that time Tyndall’s poetical description of “Heat as a Mode
of Motion” was my gospel regarding thermal phenomena, but Maxwell’s
plain and modest text-book, intended to stimulate the imagination of
the inquisitive mind of the young student, was the first to assist me
in forming my own judgment on the doctrines described by Tyndall and
illustrated by beautiful experiments. Routh’s training-table of tripos
athletes offered no such morsels of stimulating food, because these
athletes were training for tripos examinations and not for research in
physics. I will say now that it was in Maxwell’s theory of heat that
I first saw the name of Willard Gibbs, and I heard from Niven that
Maxwell held Gibbs in very high esteem. I must say also that Gibbs was
the first in this country to write a splendid treatise on statistical
mechanics.
* * * * *
When the Easter term approached its end in May I began to think of my
summer vacation. I needed one. Seven months of steady drilling under
Routh, supplemented by extra reading prescribed by him, and also by
the reading of Maxwell’s inspiring books, had produced results with
which I was satisfied, and so was Mr. Niven, my Trinity College mentor.
I certainly did not feel any more like a goose wandering in a fog;
I saw much light ahead, and felt much more confident that I saw the
goal for which I was steering. But my pitch was very high and I needed
de-tuning. I finally decided to visit some little place in France
and selected Pornic, on the French Atlantic coast, in the department
called Loire Inférieure. I knew nothing about it except what I had
read in Baedeker, but it looked to me like a quiet little place where
in addition to complete change of scene I should have a good chance
to learn French. The names of Laplace, La Grange, and Ampère were
mentioned so often and with so much veneration by Maxwell, that I felt
ashamed of my ignorance of the language of France. Pornic was only a
day’s journey from Cambridge, and off I went with no other books in my
bag beside Campbell’s “Life of Maxwell” and a French grammar.
The Pornic landlady was not up to the standard of my Cambridge
landlady, but I did not complain nor make any invidious comparisons;
the English were not very popular in those days on the Atlantic coast
of France, where the oldest fishermen had not yet forgotten the
operations of the English fleet during the Napoleonic wars. I was the
only stranger in town, and when it became known that I was an American
who had come to Pornic to study the language of France the village was
mine. I engaged the village schoolmaster to give me French conversation
lessons. I met him in his garden every evening and we talked to our
hearts’ content. He was a most entertaining little fellow, with a
bald head, a red nose, and a big snuff-box to which he appealed very
frequently for a fresh supply of interesting topics of conversation.
He boasted among the villagers that his reputation as a French scholar
had reached the United States and, _voilà_, had brought me to Pornic.
I never denied it, but on the contrary I often walked through the
village streets with the good old _maître d’école_ and listened most
attentively to his French accents as if they were the rarest pearls of
wisdom.
When the villagers found out that I was not only an American but also
a student of a great English university, then the stock of the little
schoolmaster rose sky-high. My landlady informed me that the old
curé had become quite jealous of the little man’s rapid rise in the
community. An old but renovated Norman castle was a part of Pornic;
it stood on the very edge of the steep coast and it was inhabited in
summer by a rich merchant of Nantes. The castle had a thick grove of
stately old trees, and there the nightingales revelled. On moonlight
nights I spent many watchful hours listening to their mellow notes,
accompanied by the solemn rhythm of the Atlantic waves striking gently
upon the cliffs of the rocky coast, which appeared in my imagination,
as I listened, like towering pipes of a giant organ. In daytime I
selected lonely spots on the coast and there I spent my days from early
morning till late in the afternoon memorizing my French grammar and
vocabulary. Every evening I practised for an hour or so in conversation
with my beloved _maître d’école_. This advanced my knowledge of French
very rapidly and before one month was over I could converse tolerably
well. My circle of acquaintances expanded rapidly as my knowledge of
French increased, until it took in the nightingale grove, including
the family of the merchant from Nantes. Between my friends in the
nightingale grove and my schoolmaster’s garden my conversation in
French became so fluent that it astonished the natives. They pronounced
it perfect. But discounting this enthusiastic estimate by even fifty
per cent I was still secure in my belief that I was enriched by a good
knowledge of the language of a great civilization. A two months’ visit
to Pornic had been my plan; its end was very near, and my trip was a
success. I bade good-by to my friends in little Pornic and arrived in
Paris on the following day, the fourteenth of July, 1884.
Paris was gay, celebrating the national holiday of France, the
anniversary of the storming of the Bastille in 1789. This gave me a
chance to see many of the striking characteristics of the gay side
of Paris in a single day. The next day, while visiting the great
Sorbonne and the Collège de France in the Quartier Latin, I found a
great treasure in a second-hand bookshop: La Grange’s great treatise,
“Méchanique Analytique,” first published under the auspices of the
French Academy in 1788. La Grange, the Newton of France! There was no
student of dynamics who had not heard of his name and of his great
treatise. My two months’ stay in Pornic had enabled me to appreciate
fully the beauty of the language of this great work, and my training
with Routh had eliminated many difficulties of the mathematical
technique. I was convinced of that in my very first attempts in Paris
at deciphering some of its inspiring pages. I describe this short stay
in France at some length, because I wish to refer to it later for the
purpose of showing how little things can exert a big influence in the
shaping of human life.
* * * * *
I had promised my mother to visit her again during that summer, and
off I went, deserting without delay the gay scenes of Paris. On my
journey to Idvor I wasted no time looking to the right or to the left
of my speeding train; villages and towns, rivers and mountains, and the
busy folks in the yellow fields who were gathering in the blessings
of the harvest season appeared like so many passing pictures which
did not interest me. La Grange was talking to me, and I had neither
eyes nor ears for anybody or for anything else. Oh, how happy I was
when I saw Idvor in the distance, where I knew I should be free for
nearly two months during that summer to read and to reflect, free from
all restraints of the Cambridge routine. By the end of that heavenly
vacation I had mastered a good part of La Grange’s classical treatise,
and in addition I had reread carefully Campbell’s “Life of Maxwell,”
and I understood many things which I had seen in Cambridge but had not
understood before. The Cambridge movement described above was clearly
revealed to me in the course of that summer, by a careful study of
Campbell’s “Life of Maxwell.”
Idvor was never rich in books nor in people who paid much attention to
books. To think that a native of Idvor would ever read a La Grange in
his humble peasant home seemed incredible. The natives of Idvor noticed
that, during my second visit, I was much less communicative than during
the first, on account of my devotion to what they considered some
strange books, which to those who saw them suggested sacred books. The
company of La Grange and of Maxwell kept me a prisoner in my mother’s
garden. I told my mother that Maxwell and La Grange were two great
saints in the world of science, and she regarded my reading during that
summer as a study of the lives of saints. That made her happy, but it
puzzled the good people of Idvor. Studies of this kind they associated
with priests and bishops; and, noticing that I paid much less attention
to bagpipes and kolo dancers and to other worldly things, they began to
whisper about that Misha was getting ready to enter monastic life. What
a pity, they said, to gather so much knowledge in great America and
then bury it in a monastery!
My mother paid no attention to these idle whisperings. She knew better.
When I described to her the ancient college buildings and the beautiful
chapels of Cambridge, and the religious life of the students and of
the dons, she listened spellbound. When I related to her the many
traditions of the old university, and informed her that one learned
there, not only from the teachers living there at that time, but also
from great teachers who had long departed, a luminous expression in her
eyes told me that she was about to reveal to me an original thought.
“I go to church, my son,” she said, “not so much because I expect the
priest to reveal to me some new divine truth, but because I wish to
look at the icons of saints. That reminds me of their saintly work,
and through the contemplation of their work I communicate with God.
Cambridge is a great temple consecrated to the _eternal truth_: it is
filled with icons of the great saints of science. The contemplation of
their saintly work will enable you to communicate with the spirit of
_eternal truth_.”
With this thought in her mind my mother was most happy when I bade her
good-by and, repeating her own words, told her that I must go back
to “Cambridge, the great temple which is consecrated to the _eternal
truth_.” “Go back, my son,” she said, “and may God be praised forever
for the blessings which you have enjoyed and will continue to enjoy in
your life among the saints of Cambridge.”
VII
END OF STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CAMBRIDGE
When I returned to Cambridge from little Idvor I often thought of my
mother’s words saying that I was living among the saints of Cambridge.
These words sounded like the language which the minstrel of the old
Serbian ballads would have used, to convey the meaning which she wished
to convey. Whenever I saw one of the great dons of Cambridge, like the
famous mathematician Cayley, or the still more famous mathematical
physicist George Gabriel Stokes, the discoverer of fluorescence, I
asked myself: “Are they the saints of Cambridge?” The answer was in
the negative; most of these men were too mobile to pass for saints.
One of them, for instance, although quite old and blind, was the
stroke of a boat which was very prominent on the river Cam. Its crew
consisted of Cambridge dons. When this aged stroke was not rowing he
was riding a spirited horse, usually galloping briskly, with his young
daughter chasing alongside of him, her long golden hair, like that of
a valkyrie, lashing the air as she made strenuous efforts to keep up
with her speedy father. It was impossible to associate one’s idea of
saints with men of that type. But, nevertheless, my mother was right:
Cambridge had its saints; their memory was the great glory of Cambridge.
_Nature_, published in London, was then, as it is to-day, the most
popular scientific weekly in the United Kingdom. Many scientists of
Cambridge used it as a medium for discussing in a popular way the
current scientific events of the day. Among the files of _Nature_,
which I consulted often, I found once a beautiful steel engraving
of Faraday, together with a brief account of Faraday’s work. It was
written by Maxwell, as I found out later. Speaking of the activity of
teachers of science, the writer said that they are expected “to bring
the student into contact with two main sources of mental growth, _the
fathers of sciences_, for whose personal influence over the opening
mind there is no substitute, and the material things to which their
labors first gave meaning.” In the light of this thought I saw that
in his two little classics, “Matter and Motion” and “Theory of Heat,”
Maxwell had brought me into contact with the fathers of dynamical
sciences, and that La Grange, in his “Méchanique Analytique,” had shown
me the men who were the fathers of the science of dynamics, and that
for this service I owed them everlasting gratitude.
Jim, the humble fireman in the Cortlandt Street factory, told me once:
“This country, my lad, is a monument to the lives of men of brains and
character and action who made it.” From that day on the name “United
States of America” recalled to my mind Washington, Hamilton, Franklin,
Lincoln, and the other great men who are universally regarded as the
fathers of this country; and when I learned to know and to appreciate
them I felt that I was qualified to consider myself a part of this
country. Maxwell and La Grange had taught me that Archimedes, Galileo,
Newton, Carnot, Helmholtz, and other great investigators had made the
dynamical sciences; and from that time on these sciences like monuments
recalled to my mind the names of the men who made them. I never saw a
man handling a crowbar without remembering that it was the historic
lever which in the philosophy of Archimedes served as the earliest
foundation for the science of statics. The word _force_ always recalled
the picture of Galileo dropping heavy bodies from the Leaning Tower
of Pisa, and watching their uniformly accelerated motions, produced
by the force which was impelling the falling body to the earth. The
picture reminded me that by these ideally simple experiments Galileo
had banished forever the mediæval superstition that bodies fall because
they are afraid of the vacuum above, and had substituted in its place
the simple law of accelerating force, which prepared the foundation for
the science of dynamics. I never saw a moving train being brought to
a standstill by the frictional reactions of the brakes without seeing
in my imagination the image of Newton formulating his great law of
equality between physical actions and physical reactions, the crowning
point of modern dynamics. These pictures illustrated what Maxwell meant
when he spoke of the material things to which the labors of Archimedes,
Galileo, and Newton gave a meaning, and when I caught that meaning I
felt that I was no longer a stranger in the land of science. Their
highest meaning, I knew, was the recognition that the truth which they
conveyed was a part only of what my mother called the “Eternal Truth.”
My work in Cambridge, guided principally by Maxwell and La Grange,
reminded me, therefore, continually of the fathers of the sciences
which I was studying and of the material things to which their labors
gave a meaning. These thoughts gave me a satisfactory interpretation
of my mother’s words: “Cambridge is a great temple consecrated to the
eternal truth; it is filled with icons of the great saints of science.
The contemplation of their saintly work will enable you to communicate
with the spirit of eternal truth.” My description of the scientific
activity of Cambridge had produced this image in her mind, which was
dominated by a spirit of piety and of reverence. This spirit, I always
thought, is needed in science just as much as it is in religion. It was
the spirit of Maxwell and of La Grange.
The atmosphere of Cambridge was most favorable to the cultivation of
a spirit of reverence in scientific thought. At that time, just as
to-day, Newton’s name was the glory of Trinity College, and the name
of Darwin was regarded with the same feeling of reverence at Christ
College. Every college at Cambridge had at least one great name which
was the glory of that college. These, one may say, were the names of
the patron saints of Cambridge; their spirit was present everywhere,
and its influence was certainly wonderful. It reminded me of my
mother’s words: “May God be praised forever for the blessings which you
have enjoyed and will continue to enjoy in your life among the saints
of Cambridge.”
It may seem strange that a Cambridge student of science should have
worried so much about interpreting his pious mother’s words in terms
of his expanding scientific knowledge. But that student was once a
Serb peasant in whose early childhood the old Serbian ballads were
his principal spiritual food. The central figure of these ballads
was Prince Marko, the national hero, who at critical moments of his
tempestuous life never appealed for aid to any man. When he needed
counsel he asked it from his aged mother Yevrosima, and when he needed
help in combat he appealed to Vila Raviyoyla, Marko’s adopted sister,
the greatest of all the fairies of the clouds. A mother can have a
wonderful influence over her boy whose early mental attitude is moulded
by impressions of that kind. When she has that influence, then she is
her boy’s oracle, and no amount of subsequent scientific training will
disturb that relationship.
I often think of an old idea which I first conceived while a student
at Cambridge. It is this: Our American colleges and universities
should have days consecrated to the memories of what Maxwell called
the fathers of the sciences, like Copernicus, Galileo, Newton,
Faraday, Maxwell, Darwin, Helmholtz. I mention these names, having
physical sciences in mind, but similar names can be mentioned in
other departments of human knowledge. Why should not science follow
the beautiful example of religion, which has its saints’ days? On
these memorial days, say Newton’s birthday, an address on Newton and
his work should tell the young student why Newton is the father of the
science of dynamics. Dynamics is not a mere collection of inexorable
physical laws which to a young student often sound like dry scientific
facts and mute formulæ. Many text-books, unfortunately, represent
it that way. It is a record of the life-work of men who lived human
lives and became what my mother called “saints of science,” because
they devoted their life-efforts to the deciphering of divine messages
which, through physical phenomena, God addresses to man. The young
mind should know as early as possible that dynamics had its origin
in the heavens, in the motions of heavenly bodies, and that it was
brought to earth by Galileo and Newton when they had deciphered the
meaning of the divine message conveyed to them by these celestial
motions. The Greeks of old sacrificed to their gods a hecatomb of
oxen whenever one of their philosophers discovered a new theorem in
geometry, and the philosopher’s memory was praised forever. The modern
nations should not remain indifferent to the memory of the “saints of
science,” whose discoveries have advanced so much the physical and
the spiritual welfare of man. My life among the saints of Cambridge
suggested this idea, and my students, past and present, know that I
have always been loyal to it, because I always believed that in this
manner every American college and university could raise an invisible
“temple consecrated to the eternal truth” and fill it with “icons of
the great saints of science.” A spirit of reverence for the science
which the student is studying should be cultivated from the very start.
I observed that spirit among my friends, the mathematical tripos men,
at Cambridge; it was there as a part of local traditions. I certainly
felt its influence, and the longer I stayed at Cambridge the more I
felt convinced that “Cambridge is a great temple consecrated to the
eternal truth.” This enabled me to recognize while still at Cambridge
that nothing was more characteristic of the mental attitude of many
scientific men in America and in England at that time than their
reverence for the “saints of science” and their strong desire to build
great temples “consecrated to the eternal truth.” Maxwell was one of
their leaders, and the best illustration of that mental attitude. I
have already referred to this in my short allusion to the Cambridge
craving for scientific research, and I shall now attempt to describe
a much wider intellectual movement of which this craving was a local
manifestation only. I felt the force of its current during my Cambridge
days, and I recognize to-day that at that time I moved along following
more or less unconsciously the stream-lines of this current.
The completion of the mathematical training under Routh recommended by
Niven was approaching its end, and I was satisfied with its results.
I could follow without much effort the lectures of Stokes and Lord
Rayleigh, and I could handle the mathematics of Maxwell’s theory of
electricity with considerable ease; but I did not understand his
physics.
President Barnard, of Columbia College, said once in an address of
fifty years ago that a young student in America at that time lacked a
“knowledge of visible things and not information about them--knowledge
acquired by the learner’s own conscious efforts, not crammed into
his mind in set forms of words out of books.” His statement fitted
admirably my own case; I lacked that knowledge of visible things which
one gets from his own conscious efforts; I had no knowledge of physics
acquired from my own conscious efforts in a physical laboratory.
Neither Columbia College nor any other college in the United States,
with very few exceptions, offered at that time this opportunity to the
student. I suspected that this was the real secret of my inability to
understand Maxwell’s physics; I longed for work in a real physical
laboratory and made preparations to enter the Cavendish Laboratory at
Cambridge. But I learned, in the beginning of 1885, that Lord Rayleigh
had given up the directorship of this laboratory, and that a Mr. J.J.
Thomson of Trinity College had been appointed as his successor, the
same Thomson who is to-day Sir John Joseph Thomson, Master of Trinity
College, and the leading physicist in the world. The new director was
only twenty-eight years of age in the year of his appointment--at the
end of 1884. Although a second wrangler in the mathematical tripos
test of 1880, he was four years later already a sufficiently famous
experimental physicist to be appointed director of the Cavendish
Laboratory. The new director was only two years older than myself, but
he was already a famous experimental physicist, whereas I had never
had a physical apparatus in my hand. What will he think of me, thought
I, when I present myself to him and ask for permission to work as a
mere beginner in the Cavendish Laboratory! I blushed when I thought of
it, and I was afraid that I should blush even more when he compared
me to his younger students who had already acquired much skill in
physical manipulations. The failure of my competition with boys and
girls in the speed tests of punching biscuits in the Cortlandt Street
cracker factory came back to my memory; and I bemoaned, just as I did
in Cortlandt Street nine years before, my hard luck of having had no
earlier training. Many an American college student of physics bemoaned
in those days his lack of early laboratory training. When I say this
I am touching the principal point of my narrative; it is the point at
which my narrative begins to sail on the back of a wave which started
actually when Johns Hopkins University was organized, in 1876, but the
motive power of which had been gathering long before that, perhaps at
the same time when the motive power of the Cambridge movement in favor
of scientific research was gathering, resulting, as it had, in the
establishment of the Cavendish Laboratory. But I must resume the thread
of my story and return later to the point just mentioned.
My lack of what Barnard called “knowledge of visible things ...
acquired by the learner’s own conscious efforts ...” gave me much
anxiety; and I often thought that it would, perhaps, be better to go
to some other university where the director of the physical laboratory
was an older man, who would not notice my age as much as would the new
and extremely young director of the Cavendish Laboratory. That thought,
however, did not console me much, because I was very much attached
to Cambridge and did not wish to give up what my mother called “life
among the saints of Cambridge.” Just then, as if by an act of kind
providence, a letter from President Barnard of Columbia College reached
me, enclosing a letter of introduction to John Tyndall, the famous
physicist, colleague and successor of Faraday in the direction of the
Royal Institution. Barnard informed me that Columbia had received a
generous sum of money from Tyndall, representing a part of the net
proceeds from his famous course of public lectures on light, which
he had delivered in the United States in 1872-1873; that the income
of this sum would be given as a fellowship to a Columbia graduate to
assist him in his study of experimental physics; that the fellowship
would be called a John Tyndall Fellowship, netting over five hundred
dollars annually; and that he and Rood, professor of physics at
Columbia, considered me a suitable candidate. Unexpected things of
this kind happen every now and then, and when they do they certainly
encourage the belief that there is such a thing as luck.
I called on Tyndall without much delay, and delivered Barnard’s letter
of introduction. One may imagine how I felt when I saw and spoke to the
very man whose descriptions of physical phenomena had been the first
to disclose to me on the top loft of the Cortlandt Street factory the
poetical side of the physical sciences. I expected to find a scientist
looking like a poet and a dreamer, but I did not. He looked exactly
what he was: a plain and benevolent Irishman. I had seen many an old
Irishman, among my New York friends and acquaintances, who looked
exactly as Tyndall looked; and when he spoke there was also the fire,
the vigor, and the humor of the agile Irish mind. In less than the time
it takes to tell this he made me feel that I had always known him, and
that he was my old and generous friend. His questions were wonderfully
direct, just as direct, I thought, as the questions which he addressed
to physical phenomena when in his famous lectures he was deciphering
their hidden meaning. He deciphered me very quickly, I thought, as if I
were the simplest physical phenomenon which he had ever observed. The
fact, however, that I held his attention encouraged me. He apparently
attached no very great importance to my lack of early training in
experimental physics, but advised me to avoid further delay. He
informed me, by way of encouraging me, that he was over thirty when
he took his doctor’s degree at the University of Marburg, in Germany.
A lack of early advantages, he thought, could always be overcome by
redoubling one’s efforts in later years. His own career proved that.
He called my attention to a short account of the work of the famous
Helmholtz, written for _Nature_ by no less a man, he said, than
great Maxwell. This story, he thought, would show me that the great
professor at the University of Berlin did not have early advantages in
experimental physics, and that he became a professor of physics when
he was already fifty years of age. He encouraged me to apply for the
new fellowship at Columbia as soon as it became operative, and to make
up my mind quickly to migrate to the best physical laboratory that I
could find. I asked him what laboratory he would recommend and he again
directed my attention to Maxwell’s account of the work of Helmholtz.
When I was about to leave, promising, at his request, to call again, he
gave me a copy of his lectures on light, which he had delivered in the
United States thirteen years before. “Read them,” he said, “and when
you come again I shall be glad to discuss with you some of the points
of this little book; they will explain to you the full meaning of
President Barnard’s letter, and of its historical background. Read also
volume VIII of _Nature_.”
I had read Tyndall’s lectures on light before I entered Columbia
College, but upon reading them again I found there very many things
which I had missed before. They did not, of course, describe
satisfactorily the physical properties of the luminiferous ether--no
lectures ever did--but they did describe, I thought, a bit of the
history of physical sciences in the United States which was a
revelation to me, and was, as I know now, a most important contribution
to the history of the development of scientific thought in the United
States. It deserves a prominent place in this narrative, because I had
been a witness of this development during the past forty years.
* * * * *
[Illustration: JOSEPH HENRY (1799-1878)]
Joseph Henry, the most distinguished American physicist, together with
other distinguished American scientists, among them President Barnard
of Columbia College, invited Tyndall, in 1872, to deliver a course of
lectures in some of the principal cities in the United States. The
object of these lectures was, quoting Tyndall’s words, “to show the
uses of experiment in the cultivation of natural knowledge,” hoping
that this “would materially promote scientific education in this
country.” Tyndall delivered his famous course of six lectures on light
in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, and Washington. Joseph
Henry, as secretary of the Smithsonian Institution and president of the
National Academy of Sciences, took them under his personal direction.
The success of these lectures surpassed even the most sanguine
expectations. At the farewell dinner to Tyndall some of the wisest
scientific intellects of the land were heard, and their words indicated
clearly what was the uppermost thought in the minds of the scientific
men of the United States when they invited Tyndall. I quote here some
of the words spoken by these men.
President Barnard of Columbia, the first American expounder of the
undulatory theory of light, said:
I say, then, that our long-established and time-honored system of
liberal education ... does not tend to form original investigators
of nature’s truths....
Among the great promoters of scientific progress ... how large is
the number who may, in strict propriety, be said to have educated
themselves? Take, for illustration, such familiar names as those
of William Herschel, and Franklin, and Rumford, and Rittenhouse,
and Davy, and Faraday, and Henry. Is it not evident that nature
herself, to those who will follow her teachings, is a better guide
to the study of her own phenomena than all the training of our
schools? And is not this because nature invariably begins with the
training of the observing faculties?
The moral of this experience is, that mental culture is not secured
by pouring information into passive recipients; it comes from
stimulating the mind to gather knowledge for itself.... If we would
fit man properly to cultivate nature ... our earliest teachings
must be things and not words.
Doctor John William Draper, the world-renowned American investigator of
the laws of radiation from hot bodies, said:
Nowhere in the world are to be found more imposing political
problems than those to be settled here; nowhere a greater need
of scientific knowledge. I am not speaking of ourselves alone,
but also of our Canadian friends on the other side of the St.
Lawrence. We must join together in generous emulation of the best
that is done in Europe.... Together we must try to refute what De
Tocqueville has said about us, that communities such as ours can
never have a love of pure science.
Andrew White, President of Cornell, said:
I will confine myself to the value, in our political progress,
of the spirit and example of some of the scientific workers of
our day and generation. What is the example which reveals that
spirit? It is an example of _zeal_, zeal in search for the truth
... of _thoroughness_--of the truth sought in its wholeness ... of
_bravery_, to brave all outcry and menace ... of _devotion_ to duty
without which no scientific work can be accomplished ... of _faith_
that truth and goodness are inseparable.
The reverence for scientific achievement, the revelation of the
high honors which are in store for those who seek for truth in
science--the inevitable comparison between a life devoted to
the great pure search, on the one hand, and a life devoted to
place-hunting or self-grasping on the other--all these shall come
to the minds of thoughtful men in lonely garrets of our cities, in
remote cabins of our prairies, and thereby shall come strength and
hope for higher endeavor.
Tyndall responded in part as follows:
It would be a great thing for this land of incalculable destinies
to supplement its achievements in the industrial arts by those
higher investigations from which our mastery over nature and over
industrial art itself has been derived.... To no other country is
the cultivation of science, in its highest form, of more importance
than to yours. In no other country would it exert a more benign
and elevating influence.... Let chairs be founded, sufficiently
but not luxuriously endowed, which shall have original research
for their main object and ambition.... The willingness of American
citizens to throw their fortunes into the cause of public education
is, as I have already stated, without parallel in my experience.
Hitherto their efforts have been directed to the practical side of
science.... But assuredly among your men of wealth there are those
willing to listen to an appeal on higher grounds.... It is with
the view of giving others the chance that I enjoyed,[I cannot find
a reason for this comma, it results in a pause where there should
not be one] among my noble and disinterested German teachers, that
I propose, after deducting, with strict accuracy, the sums which
have been actually expended on my lectures, _to devote every cent
of the money which you have so generously poured in upon me to the
education of young American philosophers in Germany_.
[Illustration: JOHN TYNDALL (1820-1893)
From a photograph taken about 1885]
What a splendid example to the men of wealth to whom Tyndall was
appealing! We shall see later that the appeal was not made in vain.
But the sentiments expressed at this dinner were echoes, only, of
Tyndall’s thundering voice, to which America listened spellbound when
he delivered the last of his course of six lectures on light. In the
last part of this lecture, called “Summary and Conclusions,” he first
erected what my mother would have called “a temple consecrated to the
eternal truth” which we call light, and in that temple he placed what
she would have called “the icons of the saints of the science” of
light. The names of Alhazan, Vitellio, Roger Bacon, Kepler, Snellius,
Newton, Thomas Young, Fresnel, Stokes, and Kirchhoff stood there like
so many icons of saints which one sees on the altars of orthodox
churches. In this he surpassed, I thought, even Maxwell and La Grange,
and that was saying a great deal. He stood in the middle of that temple
and challenged the statement once made by De Tocqueville that “the man
of the North has not only experience but knowledge. He, however, does
not care for science as a pleasure, and only embraces it with avidity
when it leads to useful applications.” Tyndall proceeded to draw a
clear distinction between science and its applications, pointing out
that technical education without original investigations will “lose
all force and growth, all power of reproduction,” just “as surely as a
stream dwindles when the spring dies out.” “The original investigator,”
said Tyndall, “constitutes the fountainhead of knowledge. It belongs
to the teacher to give this knowledge the requisite form; an honorable
and often difficult task. But it is a task which receives its final
sanctification when the teacher himself honestly tries to add a rill to
the great stream of scientific discovery. Indeed, it may be doubted
whether the real life of science can be fully felt and communicated
by the man who has not himself been taught by direct communion with
nature. We may, it is true, have good and instructive lectures from
men of ability, the whole of whose knowledge is second-hand, just as
we may have good and instructive sermons from intellectually able and
unregenerate men. But for that power of science which corresponds to
what the Puritan fathers would call experimental religion in the heart,
you must ascend to the original investigator.”
Many more passages could be quoted from Tyndall’s “Summary and
Conclusions” of his American lectures. Suffice it to say here that the
cause of scientific research in this country never had a more eloquent
advocate than Tyndall. The message which he delivered in his American
lecture tour in 1872-1873 was heard and heeded in every part of the
United States and of the British Empire. It is no exaggeration to say
that the response to this call was the movement for scientific research
in American colleges and universities which dates from those memorable
years. It was in its earliest days under the leadership of the famous
Joseph Henry, President Barnard, and other American scientists who had
associated themselves in the National Academy of Sciences which was
chartered by an act of Congress in 1863.
I shall try to show in the course of this narrative that it was the
greatest intellectual movement in the United States, producing results
of which nobody could even have dreamed fifty years ago; and the end is
not yet in sight.
Tyndall had called my attention to volume VIII of _Nature_. The
article on Faraday I had read before, but there were a large number
of other communications advocating strongly the stimulation of
scientific research in colleges and universities. Tyndall’s “Summary
and Conclusions” had aroused a deep interest in my mind for these
things, and besides, they furnished a most welcome sidelight upon the
Cambridge movement which, as described above, I had felt before I
met Tyndall. The University of Cambridge was severely criticised in
these communications by some Cambridge dons themselves on account of
the alleged entire absence of the scientific research stimulus. One
of these criticisms is so characteristic of the feeling of Cambridge
in 1873 that it deserves a special reference. It is in volume VIII
of _Nature_ and is entitled: “A Voice from Cambridge.” A very brief
abstract follows:
It is known all over the world that science is all but dead in
England. By science, of course, we mean that searching for new
knowledge which is its own reward.... It is also known that science
is perhaps deadest of all at our universities. Let any one compare
Cambridge, for instance, with any German university; nay, with even
some provincial offshoots of the University of France.... What,
then, do the universities do? They perform the functions, for too
many of their students, of first-grade schools merely, and that
in a manner about which opinions are divided; and superadded to
these is an enormous examining engine, on the most approved Chinese
model, always at work....
Not even President Barnard could have uttered a more severe criticism!
The most forcible appeal was made by the president of the British
Association for the Advancement of Science at its meeting in Bradford,
in September, 1873. This I also found in volume VIII of _Nature_. These
stirring appeals were published several months after Tyndall’s lecture
tour in the United States, and they all sounded to me like so many
echoes of the thundering voice with which he delivered the “Summary and
Conclusions” of his American lectures.
These studies, recommended by Tyndall, gave me a view of science
which I did not have before. I caught a glimpse of it from the books
of Maxwell and La Grange, to which I referred above. The realms of
science are a strange land to a youth who enters them, just as the
United States was a strange land to me when I landed at Castle Garden.
Maxwell, La Grange, and Tyndall were the first to teach me how to
catch the spirit of the strange land of science, and when I caught it
I felt as confident as I did in Cortlandt Street after I had read and
understood the early historical documents of the United States. I knew
that soon I should be able to apply for citizenship in that great state
called science. These were the thoughts which I carried with me when I
started out for my second visit to Tyndall.
When I called on Tyndall again, a month or so after my first visit,
I took along a definite plan for my future work. This pleased him,
because he had advised me that every youth must think through his own
head, the same advice which was given me some years later by Professor
Willard Gibbs, of Yale. I assured Tyndall that my second reading of the
“Summary and Conclusions,” his sixth American lecture, had cleared my
vision, and that I knew perfectly what my next step should be. He was
much amused when I told him how, eighteen months before, I had wandered
into Cambridge like a goose into a fog, and asked me where I got that
expression. I told him that it was a Serbian saying, and he looked
perfectly surprised when I told him that I was a Serb by birth.
“Well, I did not decipher you as quickly as you said I did. I thought,”
said he, referring to my habit of emphasizing the sound of the letter
_r_ in my pronunciation, “that you were a native American of Scotch
ancestry.” “Why not of Irish?” asked I, entering into his jocose mood.
“Ah, my young friend,” said he, with a merry twinkle in his eye, “you
are too deliberate and too cautious to suggest the Irish type. I do not
know what I would have thought had I seen you when you wandered into
Cambridge ‘like a goose into a fog.’”
He was evidently much impressed by my careful analysis of his “Summary
and Conclusions” and of its effect upon the minds of American and
English scientists. Seeing that he enjoyed informal conversation and
encouraged it, I told him of my Alpine experiences in Switzerland and
of the anxiety I caused to my English acquaintance because I was far
from being “too deliberate and too cautious.” “Well,” said he, “I might
have suspected an Irish ancestry if I had met you in Switzerland twenty
months ago. But you have changed wonderfully since that time, and if
you keep it up the goose that came to Cambridge may be quite a swan
when it departs from Cambridge.”
I informed Tyndall that Maxwell’s glowing account of Helmholtz, which
I had seen in Campbell’s life of Maxwell, and in _Nature_, to which he
had referred me, had decided me to migrate from Cambridge to Berlin
and take up the study of experimental physics in Helmholtz’s famous
laboratory. He looked pleased, and referring good-naturedly to my goose
simile again, he said jokingly: “You are no longer a goose in a fog.
Let Helmholtz decide whether you are a swan or not.” Then, growing more
serious, he added: “You will find in the Berlin laboratory the very
things which my American and British friends and I should like to see
in operation in all college and university laboratories in America and
in the British Empire. In this respect the Germans have been leading
the world for over forty years, and they have been splendid leaders.”
This, then, was the reason, I thought, why, twelve years before,
Tyndall said to his New York friends: “I propose ... to devote every
cent of the money which you have so generously poured in upon me to the
education of young American philosophers in Germany.”
I ventured to address to the very informal Tyndall the following
informal question: “Since in your opinion I am no longer a goose in a
fog, you will have no objection if I apply to the Columbia authorities
to send me as their ‘young American philosopher,’ as their first
Tyndall fellow, to Berlin, will you?” “No, my friend,” said he, “I have
already urged you to do so. Remember, however, that a Tyndall fellow
must never permit himself to wander like a goose in a fog, but must
strive to carry his head high up like a swan, his body floating upon
the clear waters of stored-up human knowledge, and his vision, mounted
on high, searching for new communications with the spirit of eternal
truth, as your mother expressed it so well.” He liked my mother’s
expressions, “temple consecrated to the eternal truth,” and “the icons
of the great saints of science.”
I will add here that Tyndall’s mental attitude toward science appeared
to me to be the same as my mother’s mental attitude toward religion.
God was the great spiritual background of her religion, and the works
of the prophets and of the saints were, according to her faith, the
only sources from which the human mind can draw the light which will
illuminate this great spiritual background. Hence, as I said before,
her fondness for and her remarkable knowledge of the words of the
prophets and the lives of saints. The “eternal truth” was, according
to my understanding at that time, the sacred background of Tyndall’s
scientific faith, and the works of the great scientific discoverers,
their lives, and their methods of inquiry into physical phenomena were
the only sources from which the human mind can draw the light which
will illuminate that sacred background. He nourished that faith with
a religious devotion, and his appeals in the name of that faith were
irresistible. His friends in America and in England, who were glad to
have him as their advocate of the cause of scientific research, had the
same faith that he had, and they nourished it with the same religious
devotion. I know to-day, and I suspected it at that time, that this
faith was kindled and kept alive in the hearts of those men both here
and in the British Empire by the light of the life and of the wonderful
discoveries of Michael Faraday, and by the prophetic vision which led
this great scientist to his discoveries. He was their contemporary and
his achievements, like a great search-light, showed them the true path
of scientific progress.
My last visit to Tyndall took place toward the end of the last, that
is, the Easter, term, and when I returned to Cambridge I informed my
friends that at the end of the term I would migrate to Berlin. It was
not necessary for me to assure them how badly I felt to leave what they
often heard me call “the saints and the sacred precincts of Cambridge”;
they knew of my reverence for the place and they also knew my reasons
for that reverence. They understood my reverent devotion to the memory
of Newton, but they did not quite understand my similar devotion to the
memory of Maxwell. How could they? None of his classics were necessary
in order to solve the problems usually served before the candidates
for the mathematical tripos honors. Neither could they understand my
admiration for La Grange, who, in their opinion, was only an imperfect
interpreter of Newton. Helmholtz they appreciated more, but the exalted
opinion which Maxwell had of Helmholtz had not yet penetrated among my
mathematical chums at Cambridge. They were sorry to lose me, they said,
but they did not envy me, because they did not see that Berlin had
anything which Cambridge did not have. This never was the opinion of
Maxwell and it was not at that time the opinion of Tyndall.
Tyndall was the only physicist that I had ever met who had known
Faraday personally. He was Faraday’s co-worker in the Royal Institution
for many years, and to him and Maxwell I owe my earliest knowledge
of Faraday’s wonderful personality. Tyndall conducted me into that
knowledge by word of mouth, and his conversation about Faraday’s
personality and scientific temperament thrilled me. I told him that
I had bought in a Cambridge second-hand book-shop three volumes of
Faraday’s “Electrical Researches” for three shillings, and Tyndall
remarked: “Faraday is still quite cheap at Cambridge.” Then, after some
meditation, he added: “Read them; their story is just as new and as
stirring to-day as it was when these volumes were first printed. They
will help you much to interpret Maxwell.” He presented me with a copy
of his story, “Faraday as a Discoverer,” which closes with the words:
“Just and faithful knight of God.”
In this book Tyndall drew the same picture of Faraday which Campbell
had given me of Maxwell. One can imagine what it meant to the world to
bring these two spiritual and intellectual giants into personal contact
during the period of 1860-1865, when Maxwell was professor at King’s
College, London, and Faraday was at the Royal Institution, where he
had been for nearly sixty years. It was significant that at the close
of that period, that is, in January, 1865, Maxwell, in a letter to an
intimate friend, said this:
“I have a paper afloat, with an electromagnetic theory of light, which,
till I am convinced to the contrary, I hold to be great guns.”
A very strong claim made by the most modest of men! The paper was
presented during that year to the Royal Society and was “great guns.”
It marks, like Newton’s discovery of the law of gravitation and his
formulation of the laws of dynamics, a new epoch in science. In Maxwell
I saw a Newton of the electrical science, but I confess that in those
days nothing more substantial than my youthful enthusiasm justified
me in that opinion. I was aware that my knowledge of Faraday’s
discoveries and of Maxwell’s interpretation of them was quite hazy,
and I made up my mind to get more light before I started out for Berlin.
The summer vacation was on and I decided to take Faraday’s “Electrical
Researches” to Scotland, the land of Maxwell. In the preface to his
great--and to me, at that time, enigmatic--electrical treatise Maxwell
modestly had stated that he was an interpreter, only, of Faraday. But
I was delighted when I heard Tyndall’s suggestion that Faraday would
help me to interpret Maxwell. Perhaps, thought I, the invigorating air
of Maxwell’s native Scotland would help me to catch some of the ideas
which Maxwell had caught when he was reading Faraday. I selected what
I thought would be a quiet and secluded spot, the island of Arran.
It belonged to the Duke of Hamilton, and I was told that his grace
had imposed so many restrictions upon his tenants that the island
had become an ideal spot for those who sought seclusion. I found
there a neat little inn at Corrie. It was surrounded by several tiny
cottages for summer visitors who took their meals at the inn. It was
popular with people from Glasgow, Greenock, and Paisley. Every one
of the visiting families was blessed with numerous daughters. They
were very athletic and played tennis from early morning till late in
the afternoon, interrupted now and then by swimming contests in the
frigid waters of the Firth of Clyde. In the evening there was lively
dancing--not easy-going waltzing, but the real fling and reel of the
strenuous Highland type. “What a sturdy race this is,” I said to
myself, as I watched the dancers working themselves up into a frenzy
of rhythmic movements, one hand resting upon the hip, the other raised
high up in the air, while their joyful limbs were pumping up and down
in perfect rhythm as if they were busy pulling up from mother earth all
the earthly joys stored up there for mortal man. The whole scene was
particularly thrilling to me when a piper came along and furnished the
music. The bagpipes reminded me of my native Idvor, and made me feel at
home in bonny Scotland before I had been much over a week in Arran. The
Scotch and the Serbs have many things in common, and I always believed
that somewhere back in the history of Iran they must have belonged to
the same tribe. I am told that at the Macedonian front the Scotch and
the Serbian soldiers got along beautifully, as if they had known each
other from time immemorial, and they had little use for the other races
assembled there. I got along at Corrie as if I had known the Scotch all
my life. But that had its disadvantages also. I came to Corrie looking
for seclusion where, undisturbed, I could communicate with Faraday.
But the lively lassies from Glasgow, Greenock, and Paisley, the tennis
and the swimming contests, the fascinating sound of the bagpipes
accompanying the stirring Highland dances--all these things whispered
into my ear: “Faraday can wait, but your friends here cannot.” Then I
remembered a passage in one of Maxwell’s letters, given in Campbell’s
life of Maxwell, which said: “Well, work is good and reading is good,
but friends are better.” What a splendid excuse for joining the lassies
and the lads at Corrie and revelling in the healthful pursuits of their
youthful exuberance! Besides, said I to myself, have I not accomplished
enough during my eighteen months’ drilling under Routh, Maxwell, La
Grange, Rayleigh, Stokes, and Tyndall to deserve a complete change of
mental and physical activity? When a person looks for an excuse to do
what he or she likes to do a splendid excuse can always be found, and
so I bade a temporary farewell to Faraday’s “Electrical Researches,”
and joined the playful activities of my Corrie friends, challenging
them to go the limit. In tennis and swimming I held my own, but the
Highland reels floored me every time, until Madge, one of the sturdy
lassies from Greenock, by persistent private instruction finally
succeeded in initiating me into the mysteries of the Highland rhythm.
Glen Sannox, near Corrie, with its rich bed of heather, watched me
often by the hour making many futile efforts to catch this rhythm and
make my limbs obey it. Nobody else watched these efforts in lonely
Glen Sannox excepting Madge, and she, I told her, had more fun than
a Bosnian gypsy training his bear. I can still hear the slopes of
Glen Sannox echoing the clear notes of her ringing laughter, whenever
I made an awkward and clumsy movement in my persistent efforts to
master the Highland fling or reel. She could not help it, and I did
not mind it, because I had made up my mind to do the trick or die.
Finally I did it, not very well, but well enough for a fellow who was
not a Scotchman, and Madge presented me with my portrait in pencil,
which she drew during the intermissions between my efforts to master
the art of the Highland dances. That was my reward and it was a very
good one; she was a most promising young artist who had won several
prizes in the Greenock art school. The memory of this experience always
recalled to my mind the thoughts which went through my head at that
time--the thoughts, namely, that Scotch originality, individuality,
and sturdiness are hard to follow, not only when a foreigner meets
these wonderful qualities in the mental activity of a Scot, like the
mental activity of a Maxwell, but also in physical activity like that
displayed in the national dances of Scotland. One does not appreciate
fully the wonderful qualities of the Scot until he tries to master
the theory and the practice of the Highland fling or reel. Maxwell’s
electrical theory, I thought, might be just as different from other
electrical theories as the Highland dances are different from the
dances of other nations. I found out later that my guess was not very
far from the truth.
Several years ago I was driving through the streets of London,
visiting England again after an absence of many years. Suddenly I saw
a crowd watching a Scotch dancer. The dancer was a young woman in
Highland costume, and she was dancing the sword dance exquisitely;
her husband was playing the bagpipes, marching up and down with all
the swagger of the Scotch Highlander. I stopped my cab, got out, and
watched. The memories of Corrie and Oban and of the gathering of the
clans there which I witnessed while at Arran came back, and I was
thrilled. Presently the dancer reached me in her tour soliciting
voluntary contributions. I threw a sovereign into her plate and she
looked surprised and asked me whether I had not made a mistake.
“Yes,” said I, “I did make a mistake when I went out with only one
sovereign in my pocket. If I had two you should have them both.” “Are
you a Scotchman, sir?” she asked jokingly, and when I said “No” she
smiled and said: “I did not think you were.” She knew that there was a
fundamental difference between a Scot and a Serb.
After I had been at Corrie for about a month a letter arrived from
my mother, written by my oldest sister, telling me how happy she was
that I had decided to spend my summer in Scotland for the purpose of
meditating over the life and the work of one of the greatest “saints of
science.” I meant Faraday when I wrote to her. She also told me that
Idvor was fearfully dusty on account of a long-continued drought, and
that the crops were poor and the vintage prospects even poorer, and
that Idvor was not a very cheerful place during that summer for anybody
who wished to meditate free from complaints of grumbling neighbors.
“Berlin, I am told, is much nearer to Idvor and when you are there you
can always run down to Idvor, much more easily than you can now,” she
said, closing her letter, in which logic and motherly love vied with
each other to furnish her with a consolation for my absence from Idvor
during that summer.
My mother’s letter made me feel guilty and it called for a
reconsideration of my first resolution, adopted a month earlier, which
authorized me to bid a temporary farewell to Faraday’s “Electrical
Researches”; and I passed another resolution rescinding my first.
But the question arose, how to carry it into effect. The answer was
obvious: bid good-by to Corrie. My friends, however, suggested a less
obvious but certainly a much more agreeable answer. “Go up and live in
the Macmillan homestead, and read your Faraday there in the morning
and come down to Corrie for dinner, late in the afternoon,” suggested
Madge, and the suggestion was adopted without a dissenting voice on the
part of my young friends.
The Macmillan homestead was a very humble old cottage located half-way
between Corrie and the top of Goat Fell Mountain, the highest point on
the island of Arran. An old crofter and his wife lived there, leading
one of the most frugal existences that I had ever seen anywhere.
They were willing to furnish me with lodging and simple breakfast,
consisting of tea and oatmeal porridge with some bread covered with
a thin layer of American lard. I did not object; I was prepared to
take up low living and high thinking for the love of Michael Faraday.
Communion with Faraday from early morning until four in the afternoon,
and after that any play that came along, with plenty of dancing in the
evening, was a splendid combination. Practically one solid meal a day,
my dinner at the Corrie inn, supplied the fuel for all this activity,
and it did it satisfactorily. How could I complain? The man whose
wonderful scientific discoveries I was absorbing each day started life
as a bookbinder’s apprentice, and the founder of the great Macmillan
publishing-house was born and passed his boyhood days in the humble
cottage where I was lodging. I was sure that in their youth they
never had more than one solid meal a day and they prospered. My rapid
absorption and digestion of the mental food which Faraday offered I
attributed to my avoidance of superfluous physical food, but I must
confess that I was quite hungry when dinner was served at the Corrie
inn, and I enjoyed it immensely.
I never understood the full meaning of low living and high thinking
as well as I did while I was a lodger at the Macmillan homestead.
My thinking machinery, I thought, never worked better, and even my
vision, always very good, seemed to be better than ever before. On
exceptionally clear days I was sure that from the high elevation of the
Macmillan cottage, on the slope of Goat Fell Mountain, I could see the
beautiful Firth of Clyde as far as Greenock and Paisley, and at times
even the gray and gloomy edifices of Glasgow seemed to loom up in the
distance. I bragged about it, but my friends at Corrie met my bragging
by informing me, jokingly, that any Scotchman can see much farther than
that. One of them, a pupil of Sir William Thomson at the University of
Glasgow, met my bragging by the epigrammatic question: “Can you see in
Faraday as far as Maxwell, the Scotchman, saw?” I never bragged again
about my vision while I was in Scotland. I was certain, however, that
from the Macmillan homestead on the slopes of Goat Fell Mountain I
obtained a deeper view into Faraday’s discoveries than I could have
obtained in any other place. I seldom mention the names of Faraday and
Maxwell without recalling to memory the beautiful island of Arran and
the humble Macmillan homestead on Goat Fell Mountain.
VIII
STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN
Every period in the history of mankind had its revelation in science.
Some periods were most fortunate in this respect. The first half of
the nineteenth century saw the great scientific revelation called the
Principle of Conservation of Energy, and considered it its greatest
glory. Our own American philosopher, Benjamin Thompson, of Woburn,
Massachusetts, known in Europe as Count Rumford, was one of several
early prophets in science who foresaw the advent of this great
dynamical doctrine. Its importance to mankind cannot be overestimated.
I am sure that many a scientific man of those days felt grateful to
heaven for the blessing of having lived during the age when that great
revelation was received by mankind. The scientific men of to-day are
grateful for having lived during the second half of the nineteenth
century, when the great electromagnetic theory was revealed to man. Its
importance, likewise, cannot be overestimated. But there is a radical
difference in the historical progress of these two nineteenth-century
revelations in science. The existence of the first was intuitively
foreseen and may be said to have existed in one form or another in
the minds of many scientific men long before it received its final
form of statement. Its formulator, Helmholtz, thought that he was not
announcing anything new, but was only stating his own view of something
that was already well known. After his announcement, in 1847, every
scientific man accepted the revelation as an almost self-evident truth.
The electromagnetic theory of light and of matter had a different
history. It was born as a dim vision in the mind of a single man,
Faraday, and nearly fifty years elapsed before it was formulated by
Maxwell and experimentally demonstrated by Hertz. It was only then that
the world began to understand that a great scientific revelation had
appeared to man. To-day we know that new physical concepts requiring
a new language for their expression had to be created in the minds of
scientific men before the modern electromagnetic doctrine could be
revealed to the world. The first glimpses of that revelation I caught
on the slope of Goat Fell Mountain, and two years later I saw in Berlin
what I believed to be a clear outline of its meaning.
When I look back to those days and consider how few were the physicists
who had caught this meaning even twenty years after it was stated by
Maxwell in 1865, I wonder whether it is possible to-day to convey that
meaning to people who are not trained physicists. I think it is, and I
believe that the attempt should be made, because the electromagnetic
doctrine is to-day recognized to be the very foundation of all our
knowledge of physical phenomena. I also think that one of the best
methods of conveying that meaning is to describe my early attempts
which failed to catch it.
[Illustration: _From a photograph by John Watkins, London_
MICHAEL FARADAY
Reproduced from Volume II of “The Scientific Papers of
James Clerk Maxwell,” edited by W. D. Niven. By
permission of the publishers, The University Press,
Cambridge]
Faraday’s discoveries in the electrical science during the first half
of the nineteenth century attracted worldwide attention and admiration.
I knew that much at Arran, and I also knew of the rapid growth of the
practical applications of his discoveries, to telegraphy, to generation
of electrical power for electrical lighting, electrical traction,
and electrochemical work, and finally to telephonic transmission of
speech. The world understood that all these wonderful things, which
contributed so much to the comforts of mankind, came from those sources
in the realm of abstract science which were opened up by Faraday’s
discoveries. Scientific research began to assume a different aspect
even in the eyes of the captains of industry who in those days showed
lamentable indifference to science which did not promise immediate
tangible returns. The advocates of scientific research, like Tyndall
and his American and British friends, pointed with pride to Faraday’s
work whenever a question arose concerning the practical value of
research in the domain of the so-called abstract physical sciences.
This helped very much to arouse in this country and in Great Britain
a deeper interest in what Andrew White called “strength and hope for
higher endeavor.”
But Tyndall’s and Maxwell’s descriptions of Faraday and of his work
convinced me that Faraday’s exalted position among his contemporaries
like Maxwell, Henry, Tyndall, and Barnard was due not so much to the
immediate practical value of his electrical discoveries, great as
that value certainly was, as it was to the clear vision with which
he searched for and revealed new morsels of the _eternal truth_. It
was clear to me even at that time that inventions are the handwork of
mortal man and that, though at first they appeal to us, as they ought
to, as wonderful creations of human ingenuity, their ultimate fate is
to become more or less commonplace. The telegraph and the telephone,
the dynamo and the motor, the light of the electrical arc and of the
incandescent filament, had lost much of their awe-inspiring character
even at the time when I was a student at Cambridge. Inventions grow old
and are superseded by other inventions, and, being the creation of the
constructive schemes of mortal man, are themselves mortal. But the laws
which the stars and the planets obey and have always obeyed in their
paths through the heavens are unchangeable; they never grow old, and
therefore they are immortal; they are a part of the _eternal truth_.
We do not know of any natural processes by which eternal things have
been evolved. Their existence is the best philosophic proof that back
of all this changeable visible world there is the unchangeable, the
eternal divinity. Archimedes, Galileo, and Newton co-operated in the
discovery of immutable laws, and thereby revealed to mortal man morsels
of the _eternal truth_. Oerstedt, a hundred years ago, discovered a
morsel of the eternal truth when he discovered the magnetic force which
is produced by the motion of electricity. Discoveries of immortal
things and of the immutable laws which direct the mission of their
immortal existence are themselves immortal. Their discoverers are, and
deserve to be, immortal. Tyndall and Maxwell were the first to show me
that Faraday occupied a distinguished place among such immortals as
Archimedes, Galileo, Newton, and Oerstedt.
The closing sentence of Maxwell’s biographical sketch of Faraday, in
vol. VIII of _Nature_, referred to above, reads as follows:
We are probably ignorant even of the name of the science which will
develop out of the materials we are now collecting, when the great
philosopher next after Faraday makes his appearance.
To me these prophetic words indicated that Maxwell had something in
his mind which was not explicitly expressed in Faraday’s discoveries,
but which enabled Maxwell to speak like a prophet. The words of a
prophet are not always easy to understand. I discovered later that,
when the world with the aid of the Hertzian experiments had caught
Maxwell’s meaning, then a new and wonderful epoch in the history of
the physical sciences was inaugurated. Its end is not yet in sight.
This inauguration I witnessed during my student days in Berlin. It is,
I believe, of considerable interest to record here how the scientific
world, as I saw it at that time, appeared to be preparing to receive
the great revelation which was delivered to it on that historic
inauguration day in 1887.
My communion with Faraday on the island of Arran began my own
preparation for this inauguration day by developing gradually in my
mind new physical concepts, which I discovered later to be fundamental
physical concepts in the modern views of physics. Long before I
had finished my reading of Faraday’s “Experimental Researches in
Electricity,” I began to understand why Tyndall, referring to them,
said: “Read them; their story is just as new and as stirring to-day as
it was when these volumes were first printed. They will help you much
to interpret Maxwell.” The same statement is true to-day, and therefore
I proceed now, with much trepidation, to tell a part at least of that
story as briefly as I can, in order to describe, even if it be quite
inadequately, Faraday’s relation to the present great epoch of modern
physics, the epoch of the electromagnetic view not only of _light_ but
also of _matter_.
The gradual development of this view was due to the gradual development
of new physical concepts which were born in Faraday’s mind and existed
there as a poetical vision; but in Maxwell’s mind they appeared as
physical quantities having definite quantitative relations to other
well-known physical quantities, which a physicist can measure in his
laboratory. In every creative physicist there is hidden a metaphysicist
and a poet; but the physicist is less apt to persist in his occasional
errors as metaphysicist and poet, because the creations of his
speculative mind and of his poetical vision can be subjected to crucial
experimental tests.
Faraday’s “Experimental Researches in Electricity,” published in three
thick volumes, looked like very long reading. But my studies at Arran
soon convinced me that no reading is long which continually stirs up
the interest of the eager reader. Faraday was a pioneer in science, and
the descriptions of his explorations read like tales from a new world
of physical phenomena, full of poetical visions which his discoveries
suggested to his imagination. It must be said, however, that in spite
of his wonderful imagination and his free use of it, no investigator
ever succeeded better than Faraday in drawing a sharp line of division
between the new facts and principles which he had discovered and the
visions which his imagination saw in the still unexplored background of
his discoveries. For instance, his discovery that a perfectly definite
and invariable quantity of electricity is, as we express it to-day,
attached to every valency of an atom and molecule, expresses a physical
law which his experiments revealed and which he illuminated with all
the light of his brilliant intellect. But when this new and precious
morsel of the eternal truth had been disclosed by his experiments, then
Faraday the scientist stepped aside, and Faraday the poet disclosed his
visions about the constitution of matter suggested by what I called at
Arran the atomic distribution of electricity in material bodies.
A man who discovers one of the most remarkable facts in modern science,
namely, that in every atom and molecule there are definite and equal
quantities of positive and negative electricity, and that the forces
between these electricities are by far the largest known forces which
keep together the components of chemical structures, cannot, if he has
the imagination of a discoverer, refrain from asking the question:
“What is matter?” The reader of Faraday’s “Experimental Researches in
Electricity” rejoices whenever Faraday, the poet and prophet, asks an
apparently speculative question of this kind, because he knows that he
will be thrilled by the poetical fancy which dictates Faraday’s answer.
Faraday’s new facts and principles revealed by experiment are steeped
in the honey of his fancy; they are rich food made delicious by the
flavor of his poetical imagination, even when that flavor leaves the
ordinary mortal guessing as to its exact meaning.
Two other questions Faraday often approached in these researches; they
may be stated as follows: What is electricity? and, What is magnetism?
He discovered that motion of magnetism produces electrical forces in
a manner similar to that in which, according to Oerstedt’s discovery,
motion of electricity produces magnetic forces. This remarkable
reciprocal relation between electricity and magnetism stirs up the
imagination, and makes it eager to look behind the curtain which
separates the region of the revealed truth from that which is still
unrevealed. It was undoubtedly this eagerness of the explorer which
encouraged Faraday to approach the questions, What is electricity?
and, What is magnetism? Faraday never gave a final answer to these
questions, but his magnificent efforts to find this answer gave birth
to new ideas which are the foundation of our modern electromagnetic
view of physical forces. One of the great pleasures of my life has been
the contemplation of the gradual unfolding of this new view; and if in
the course of this simple narrative I succeed in describing some of its
beauties, I shall consider that this narrative was not written in vain.
Since, as explicitly stated by Faraday, electricity and magnetism are
known by the forces, only, which they exert, it was plain to him,
as his books, “Experimental Researches in Electricity,” testify,
that the first question which must be answered was the question:
How are the forces between electrical charges and between magnetic
charges transmitted through the intervening space--the same way as
gravitational forces, or are they transmitted in a different way? In
his unceasing efforts to answer this question Faraday made a radical
and fundamental departure from the view of the natural philosophers
of his time. He stood alone and devoted a very large part of his
experimental work and of his philosophical thought to the justification
of his position. He stood alone for a very long time, because he was
formulating a radically new physical concept which the world knows
now to be one of the most fundamental concepts of the electromagnetic
science of to-day; and it was difficult for his contemporaries and for
his students of forty years ago, including myself, to understand him.
In an address on Faraday by Helmholtz, which I read during my student
days in Berlin, the following sentence refers to Faraday’s difficulty
just mentioned:
It is generally very difficult to define by a general statement
a new abstraction, so that no misunderstandings of any kind can
arise. The originator of a new concept of that kind finds, as a
rule, that it is much more difficult to find out why other people
do not understand him than it was to discover the new truths.
It was very consoling to me to find out in Berlin from no less an
authority than Helmholtz that I was not the only poor mortal who was
guessing in vain about the exact meaning of Faraday’s visions.
Newton’s law of gravitation enables the astronomers to calculate
accurately from a simple mathematical formula the motion of celestial
bodies, without any assumption concerning the mechanism by which
gravitational force is transmitted from one body to another body at a
distance, say, from the sun to the earth. Newton’s formula says nothing
about the time of transmission. The action can be assumed to be direct
action at a distance and therefore instantaneous. Experience seemed to
indicate that this assumption is correct, because no detectable errors
are committed when one assumes that gravitational force travels with
infinite velocity. Faraday refused to accept this belief in direct
action at a distance for electric and magnetic forces. A few words,
only, will suffice to describe how Faraday attempted to eliminate the
belief in this direct action at a distance for electrical and magnetic
forces. These attempts will always be recorded in history as the first
steps in the development of the modern electromagnetic science.
Faraday, starting from points in the electrical and in the magnetic
charges, drew numerous curves which indicated at every point in space
the direction of the electric or of the magnetic force, and in that
manner the whole space surrounding the charges he divided geometrically
into _tubular filaments which he called the lines of force_. Every one
of these filaments was constructed in accordance with a simple rule, so
that it indicated at every point in space not only the direction but
also the intensity of the force. A specific example, often employed
by me at Arran, will illustrate this. A conducting sphere, say of
copper or brass, is charged with positive or with negative electricity.
When that charge is in equilibrium it is, as was well known, all on
the surface of the sphere and uniformly distributed. Its force of
attraction or repulsion, for electrical charges in the space outside
of the sphere, is obviously along radii drawn from the centre of
the sphere. These radii, drawn in every direction and sufficiently
numerous, envelop little cones the vertices of which are at the centre
of the sphere. Adjust the size of the cones in such a way that the
area of the section of every one of them with the sphere is the same,
and make their total number proportional to the charge on the sphere.
These little cones are then in this particular case the Faraday lines
of force, because their direction gives the direction of the electrical
force, and their number per unit area of the surface of any concentric
sphere is proportional to the electrical force at any point of the
surface of this concentric sphere. According to this picture there
are attached to each little element of the total charge a definite
number of these conical filaments or lines of force, and each element
of the charge on the sphere is nothing more than the terminal of these
filaments. When the charge on the sphere is increased or diminished
the number of these filaments is also increased or diminished
proportionately, and therefore they are more densely or less densely
packed in the space which they occupy.
Should the charge on the sphere be set in motion, then the filaments
or lines of force attached to it would also move. Thus far I followed
Faraday, but went no farther; if I had gone just a little farther
I should have met Maxwell. But, unfortunately for me, this simple
picture which I constructed, in order to aid my understanding of
Faraday’s “Experimental Researches in Electricity” over which I
pondered at Arran, suggested nothing more than a mere geometrical
representation of the electrical force which the charged sphere exerts
at any point in space. It conveyed no additional information which a
simple mathematical formula, well-known at that time, did not convey.
Additional information, however, was added by Faraday’s imagination,
which introduced here what I and many other mortals at that time
considered a strange hypothesis. He described the hypothesis at great
length in his books, and here is a brief statement of it:
Faraday claimed that all electrical and magnetic actions are
transmitted from point to point along his lines of force; and, impelled
by a remarkable intuition, he insisted that his lines of force are not
mere geometrical pictures but that they had a real physical existence,
and that there was something like muscular tension along these lines
of force tending to contract them, and a pressure perpendicular to
them tending to expand them; and that these tensions and pressures
give the same numerical value for the mechanical force between the
charges as that calculated from Coulomb’s law, but with the fundamental
difference, which Faraday pointed out, that his hypothesis demands a
definite finite time for the transmission of electrical and magnetic
forces; whereas according to the hypothesis of direct action at a
distance, which Coulomb’s law neither favors nor opposes, these forces
are transmitted instantaneously. The question of the velocity of
transmission of electrical and of magnetic forces through space became,
therefore, a crucial question in the decision between the old view and
Faraday’s view.
In a letter addressed to Maxwell in 1857, and quoted by Campbell,
Faraday said:
I hope this summer to make some experiments on the time of magnetic
action ... that may help the subject on. The time must probably be
short as the time of light; but the greatness of the result, if
affirmative, makes me not despair. Perhaps I had better have said
nothing about it, for I am often long in realizing my intentions,
and a failing memory is against me.
This letter was written ten years before Faraday’s death, and nothing
was ever reported about the result of the experiment planned by him. We
know, however, that the result which he expected from the experiment
was obtained thirty years later by Hertz, a pupil of Helmholtz.
I imagined at Arran that I could hear Faraday say:
Where the lines of magnetic force are there is magnetism, and where
the lines of electric force are there is electricity.
Faraday’s answer to the questions, “What is electricity?” and, “What
is magnetism?” was, therefore, according to my understanding at
that time, that they were manifestations of force; and where these
manifestations exist there is electricity and there is magnetism, in
the sense that there are pressures and tensions which are the result
of a certain state of the space which may be called the electrical or
the magnetic state. Faraday’s visions, as I found them nearly forty
years ago, disclosed in his “Experimental Researches in Electricity,”
went even so far as to suggest that matter itself consists of centres
of force with lines of force proceeding from these centres in every
direction to infinite distances, and where these lines are there is
the body; in other words, every material body, like every electrical
and every magnetic charge, extends to infinity by means of its lines
of force; and hence all material bodies are in contact, explicitly
denying the existence of ether. No mortal man ever suggested a bolder
conception! And yet to-day we know that a conception regarding the
structure of matter very similar to that first conceived by Faraday is
rapidly gaining universal recognition, not merely as a new metaphysical
speculation but as the logical and inexorable demand of experiment. But
when Faraday told me all these strange things as I listened attentively
on the slope of Goat Fell Mountain at Arran, I could not see anything
in them except geometrical pictures and a lot of what appeared to
me like pure metaphysics in the background of simple geometrical
structures. Although I was sure that Faraday’s metaphysics had some
definite physics back of it, I was unable to disentangle it from the
hypothetical notions which I did not understand clearly. Maxwell, I
thought, must have disentangled that physics, and I often thought of
my Scotch friend at Arran who asked me the question: “Can you see in
Faraday as far as Maxwell, the Scotchman, saw?”
When I came to Berlin my head was full of Faraday’s lines of force
starting at electrical and magnetic charges and winding in all sorts of
shapes through space, like stream lines which start from the sources
of a river and follow it in its flow toward the ocean. The physical
facts and principles which Faraday discovered stood out sharply defined
like the bright stars in the firmament of a clear and quiescent summer
night; but the conception of the new view of attracting and repelling
electric and magnetic forces, which he represented graphically by his
lines of force, endowed with strange physical powers residing in
pressures and tensions, left in my mind impressions which made me feel
that my faith in the new doctrine was not very strong. Faith without
conviction is a house built upon sand. Helmholtz said once:
I know too well how often I sat staring hopelessly at his
descriptions of the lines of force, their number and their tensions.
Little I thought during my journey from Arran to Berlin in October,
1885, that two years later all the nebulous notions in my perplexed
mind would lift like the mist before the early rays of a sunny autumn
morning. I continued my studies of Faraday during my first year in
Berlin, reserving for that purpose the necessary time for extra
reading. What did the physicists of Berlin think, I wondered, of
Faraday’s tubes or lines of force?
I went to Berlin to study experimental physics with Hermann von
Helmholtz, the famous professor of physics at the University of Berlin,
the formulator of the principle of conservation of energy, and the
first interpreter of the meaning of color both in vision and in music
and speech. He was then the director of the Physical Institute of the
university. His title, conferred upon him by the old Emperor, was
Excellenz, and the whole teaching staff of the institute stood in awe
when the name of Excellenz was mentioned. The whole scientific world
of Germany, nay, the whole intellectual world of Germany, stood in
awe when the name of Excellenz von Helmholtz was pronounced. Next to
Bismarck and the old Emperor he was at that time the most illustrious
man in the German Empire.
I had letters of introduction to him from President Barnard of
Columbia College, and also from Professor John Tyndall of the Royal
Institution. Professor Arthur Koenig, the right-hand man of Helmholtz
and the senior instructor in the Physical Institute, took me to the
office of Excellenz von Helmholtz and introduced me as Herr Pupin, a
student from America, and the proposed John Tyndall fellow of physics
of Columbia College. I was awarded the fellowship three months later.
Koenig bowed before his master as if he wished to touch the ground with
his forehead. I bowed American fashion, that is, with a bow of the head
which did not extend below my shoulders, the same kind of bow which was
practised at the University of Cambridge at that time, and I called
it the Anglo-Saxon bow; it was entirely different from Koenig’s bow.
Helmholtz seemed to notice the difference and he smiled a benevolent
smile; the contrast evidently amused him. He had much Anglo-Saxon blood
in his veins; his mother was a lineal descendant of William Penn. It
was understood in Berlin that he was the most “hoffähig” (presentable
at court) scientist in the German Empire.
[Illustration: HERMAN VON HELMHOLTZ
From a painting by L. Knaus]
He received me kindly and showed deep interest in my proposed plan
of study. His appearance was most striking; he was then sixty-four
years of age, but looked older. The deep furrows in his face and the
projecting veins on the sides and across his towering brow gave him the
appearance of a deep introspective thinker, whereas his protruding,
scrutinizing eyes marked him a man anxious to penetrate the secrets
of nature’s hidden mysteries. The size of his head was enormous, and
the muscular neck and huge thorax seemed to form a suitable foundation
for such an intellectual dome. His hands and feet were small and
beautifully shaped, and his mouth gave evidence of a sweet and gentle
disposition. He spoke in the sweetest of accents, and little, but his
questions were direct and to the point. When I told him that I never
had an opportunity to work in a physical laboratory and had paid
exclusive attention to mathematical physics, he smiled and suggested
that I should make up this deficiency as soon as possible. “A few
experiments successfully carried out usually lead to results more
important than all mathematical theories,” he assured me. He then
requested Professor Koenig to map out for me a suitable course in the
laboratory and to look after me. Koenig did it, and I shall always
be grateful to the sadly deformed and extremely kind little man with
bushy red hair and distressingly defective eyesight, which he tried
to correct with the aid of enormous spectacles employing lenses of
extraordinary thickness. Helmholtz was always mellow-hearted to little
Koenig, partly because, I think, Koenig reminded him of his own son
Robert, who was deformed in hand and foot and back, but had the
magnificently shaped head of his distinguished father.
During my first year’s study in Berlin I attended Helmholtz’s lectures
on experimental physics. They were most inspiring, not so much on
account of the many beautiful experiments which were shown, as on
account of the wonderfully suggestive remarks which Helmholtz would
drop every now and then under the inspiration of the moment. Helmholtz
threw the search-light of his giant intellect upon the meaning of
the experiments, and they blazed up like the brilliant colors of a
flower garden when a beam of sunlight breaks through the clouds, and
tears up the dark shadows which cover the landscape on a cloudy summer
day. These lectures were attended not only by students in physics,
mathematics, and chemistry, but also by medical students and army
officers. The official world, and particularly the army and navy, paid
close attention to what Excellenz von Helmholtz had to say; and I had
much reason to believe that they consulted his scientific opinions
at every step. I have often been called upon to correct the opinion
that Helmholtz was a pure scientist par excellence. There is no doubt
that his great work dealt principally with fundamental problems in
scientific theory and in philosophy; but there is also no doubt that,
like many other German scientists, he was much interested in the
application of science to the solution of problems which would advance
the industries of Germany. His earliest career is associated with his
invention of the ophthalmoscope. The optical glass industry of Germany
was being developed by some of his former students, who led the world
in geometrical optics, a part of physics to which Helmholtz devoted
much attention in his younger days.
One day I was on my way to the institute; in front of me walked a tall
German army officer, smoking a big cigar. When we reached the entrance
of the institute the officer stopped and read a sign which said:
“Smoking is strictly forbidden in the institute building.” He threw
his cigar away and walked in. I recognized Crown Prince Frederick in
the officer. Two years later he became Emperor of Germany and ruled
for ninety days. I watched his footsteps and saw that he entered
Helmholtz’s office and stayed there over an hour. He undoubtedly
consulted the great scientist on some scientific problem which was then
interesting the German army and navy.
Helmholtz’s personality was overpowering and seemed to compel one’s
interest in problems in which he was interested, and at that time
his principal interest was outside of the electromagnetic theory.
Nevertheless, I kept up my interest in Faraday, which interest I
brought with me from Arran; but I found no opportunity to ascertain
Helmholtz’s opinion concerning Faraday. Finally the opportunity came
toward the end of my first year at the University of Berlin.
Gustav Robert Kirchhoff, the famous discoverer, formulator, and
interpreter of the science of spectrum analysis, and the founder of
the theory of radiation, was at that time professor of mathematical
physics at the university. He was considered the leading mathematical
physicist of Germany. His contributions to the electrical theory
occupied a very high place. The most important of these was
undoubtedly his theory of transmission of telegraphic signals over
a thin wire conductor stretched on insulated poles, high above the
ground. It was a magnificent mathematical analysis of the problem,
and it showed for the first time that theoretically the velocity of
propagation of these signals along the wire is equal to the velocity
of light. The university catalogue announced that he was to deliver a
course of lectures on theoretical electricity during the first term
of my residence at the university. I attended the course and waited
and waited, but waited in vain to hear Kirchhoff’s interpretation of
Faraday and Maxwell. At the close of the semester the course ended
and the electromagnetic theory of Faraday and Maxwell was referred to
on two pages only, out of two hundred; and the part so honored was
not, even according to my opinion at that time, the essential part
of the theory. In this respect the lectures were disappointing, but
nevertheless I was most amply rewarded for my pains. I never heard
a more elegant mathematical analysis of the old-school electrical
problems than that which Kirchhoff developed before his admiring
classes. That was the last course of lectures which he delivered; he
died in the following year, and was succeeded by Helmholtz as temporary
lecturer on mathematical physics.
Helmholtz was rather reserved and could not easily be approached by
his students, unless they had some physical problem or a question
which was unquestionably worthy of his attention. I made up my mind
to ask him, when suitable opportunity presented itself, why Kirchhoff
in his lectures paid so little attention to Faraday and Maxwell. It
was a very significant sign of those days and I did not understand
its meaning. Professor Koenig threw up his hands in holy horror when
I informed him of my intention, and prophesied that all kinds of dire
consequences would result from my daring proposition; pointing out
that such a question would betray a lack of respect on my part both
for Kirchhoff and for Helmholtz. Koenig himself could not answer my
question except to say that he did not see why the German school of
physics should worry much about the English school, particularly when
there was a radical difference between the two in the realm of the
theory of electromagnetic phenomena. I admitted that if Kirchhoff was
the spokesman of the German school then there was a radical difference,
intimating however, in the mildest possible way that, in my humble
opinion, the difference counted in favor of the English school. I
really did not know enough to express that opinion, but I did it
under provocation. Koenig flushed up and there would have been quite
a lively verbal contest if Helmholtz had not entered my room at that
very moment, like a _deus ex machina_. He was making his customary
round of visits to the rooms of his research students, in order to
find out how their work was moving along. Both Koenig and I looked
somewhat perplexed, betraying the fact that we had been engaged in a
heated argument, and Helmholtz noticed it. We confessed that we had had
a lively discussion; when he learned the subject of our discussion he
smiled and referred us both to an address which he had delivered before
the Chemical Society of London, five years before. It is entitled,
“Recent Developments in Faraday’s Ideas Concerning Electricity.”
The same day saw me with two volumes of Helmholtz’s addresses in my
hands analyzing his Faraday address. I felt as I went on with this
study as if the heavy mist were lifting which had prevented me from
seeing a clear view of Faraday’s and Maxwell’s ideas. Tyndall’s fame
for clearing up obscure points in physical science was deservedly
great, but when I compared Helmholtz’s interpretation of Faraday and
Maxwell with that which Tyndall gave me in his book entitled “Faraday
as Discoverer,” I marvelled at Helmholtz’s superiority. It must also
be remembered that Tyndall was for many years in almost daily contact
with Faraday; and, as I pointed out before, he must also have had close
personal relations with Maxwell during the period of 1860-1865. To me
it seemed a miracle that Helmholtz, a German, saw so much more clearly
what was in the minds of two great English philosophers, although
he never had met them personally, than did another great English
physicist, Tyndall, who knew Faraday and Maxwell personally, and one of
them at least intimately. In the article in _Nature_, to which Tyndall
first referred me and which Maxwell had written, will be found the
following closing paragraph:
Helmholtz is now in Berlin, directing the labors of able men of
science in his splendid laboratory. Let us hope that from his
present position he will again take a comprehensive view of the
waves and ripples of our intellectual progress, and give us from
time to time his idea of the meaning of it all.
Helmholtz’s address on Faraday was one of those comprehensive views
of which Maxwell spoke in 1874. Now what did Helmholtz see in Faraday
and Maxwell which other physicists, like Tyndall, and even so famous a
mathematical physicist as Kirchhoff, failed to see? It was, I thought
after a careful study of Helmholtz’s address, the simplest thing in the
world, particularly for one who, like myself, had been wrestling with
Faraday’s lines of force, and with the hypothetical powers with which
Faraday had endowed them. So simple, indeed, that I venture to describe
it here. But in order to make the description as brief and as simple as
possible I must go back again to the charged spherical conductor which
always rendered good service in those days when I was trying to solve
the riddle of Faraday’s new physical concepts.
By means of an electrical force generated by an electrical machine we
can increase or diminish the charge on the surface of the conducting
sphere. Now, the charge on the sphere increases or diminishes because
the electrical force generated by the machine drives through a suitable
conducting wire additional electrical charge to the sphere, or takes
it away from it. This motion of the electrical charge through the
conducting wire to or from the sphere is the electrical current. Here
comes now the historic question: Does the electrical current stop at
the surface of the charged sphere? The old electrical theories said
“Yes,” but Maxwell, interpreting the ideas of Faraday, said, “No.”
Helmholtz was the first to tell me that clearly and distinctly, and I
understood him.
Since, according to Faraday, each particle of the charge on the sphere
carries attached to it a definite number of filaments or lines of
force, it is obvious that the rate at which the charge on the sphere
increases is, as I described above, the same as the rate at which the
number of these lines of force are crowded into the space surrounding
the sphere. Motion of the charge to the surface of the sphere is
accompanied by a motion of the Faraday lines of force through every
surface which surrounds the charged sphere. Since, according to
Faraday, electricity is everywhere where the lines of force are, it
follows that the motion of the lines through any surface means motion
of electricity (in the sense in which I use this word) through that
surface. Maxwell said, according to my understanding of Helmholtz,
that motion of electricity, as represented by the motion of Faraday’s
lines of force, is an electrical current just as much as the motion of
electrical charges is. Electrical charges are terminals, only, of the
lines of force; and why should the motion of the terminals be endowed
with a power which is denied to the remaining parts of the lines of
force? The principal power is, according to Oerstedt’s discovery, the
generation of magnetism; that is, magnetic lines of force. According
to Maxwell, then, the electrical current (that is, the motion of
electrical charges through conductors) does not stop at the surface
of the conductor, but continues in the non-conducting space beyond
as motion of Faraday’s lines of force, as _motion of electricity_.
The extension of the meaning of the word electrical current, just
described, was, according to Helmholtz, the cardinal difference between
the old electrical theories and the Faraday-Maxwell electromagnetic
theory, and Helmholtz declared in favor of the last. I applauded
Helmholtz and took off my hat to his clear vision of things which other
people, including myself, failed to see. But can any one blame ordinary
mortals, who were always accustomed to look upon the electrical current
as motion of electrical charges in conductors, when they failed to
see that the electrical current can take place even in a vacuum where
there are no electrical charges at all, and therefore no motion of
them? That was the physical concept which found its way so slowly into
minds polarized by preconceived notions even after Helmholtz’s lucid
explanation. This is substantially all there is in the Faraday-Maxwell
electromagnetic theory as I gathered it directly from the Helmholtz
address. But there is another very important element which I ought to
describe here.
A corollary of Maxwell’s extension of the meaning of electrical
current, which Helmholtz did not mention explicitly but which I soon
found in Maxwell, is this: Electrical charges move because a force acts
upon them; similarly the number of Faraday’s lines of force, passing
through any surface in space, increases or diminishes because there
is a force acting upon them. Wherever there is an action there is an
equal and opposite reaction, according to the most fundamental law of
Newton’s dynamics. Hence space, including the vacuum, must react when
Faraday’s lines of force (that is, when the electricity represented by
them) move through it. But if this reaction really exists in space, how
can it be expressed? Faraday and Maxwell devoted much thought and many
experimental investigations in search for a definite answer to this
question, and they found it.
Faraday showed by experiment that if the charged sphere is immersed
in an insulating fluid, say an insulating mineral oil, or in a solid
insulator like rubber, or even if a piece of an insulator is brought
near it, then the reacting force for a given charge on the sphere
is smaller than when the sphere is surrounded by a vacuum; or, in
other words, liquid and solid insulators are more _permeable_ to the
electrical lines of force (that is, to electricity) than a vacuum is.
Therefore, an electrical force which is acting in order to increase
the charge on the sphere and, as a result, increase the number of
lines of force through the surrounding space, will experience the less
reaction the more permeable the surrounding medium is. The reaction
of an insulator against the action of an electrical force appears
therefore as a reaction against the passage of electricity, that is, of
electrical lines of force, through it. That picture of the process has
stayed with me ever since my Berlin days.
The same line of reasoning which I followed above, regarding electrical
lines of force, leads to similar results with regard to the magnetic
lines of force. The reaction of the medium against an increase of the
electrical and of the magnetic lines of force through it was the second
new physical concept introduced into the electrical science by Faraday
and Maxwell.
The Faraday-Maxwell electromagnetic theory extended the well-known
electrical and magnetic actions and reactions from conductors to
non-conductors, including the vacuum. If this theory is correct, then
electromagnetic disturbances will be propagated from their source to
all parts of space, and not along conductors only, by definite waves
travelling at a definite velocity.
Maxwell’s calculation showed that electromagnetic disturbances
are propagated through insulators in the same manner as light is
propagated, and that, therefore, _light is in all probability an
electromagnetic disturbance_. This is the substance of Maxwell’s
electromagnetic theory of light; it is his answer to the question:
“What is Light?”
That, broadly stated, was the information which Helmholtz first
conveyed to me in terms which I understood clearly; and for this
service I have always been profoundly grateful to him. He showed me
that the Faraday-Maxwell electromagnetic theory was incomparably
simpler than I thought it to be, and also much more beautiful. I do not
believe that in 1881 there was another physicist in continental Europe
who could have given me that information, and perhaps not even in 1886,
when I first read that wonderful address. My friend Niven in Cambridge,
editor of the second edition of Maxwell’s great mathematical treatise,
never volunteered to tell me how Maxwell answered the question: “What
is Light?” Neither did Tyndall. I do not know whether Rayleigh or
Stokes or anybody else in Cambridge when I was there could have done it
as well as Helmholtz did. I shall describe later an historical event
which indicates that they probably could not.
Toward the end of that semester I felt certain that I understood
Helmholtz’s interpretation of Faraday, and of Maxwell’s answer to the
question: “What is Light?” I then managed to have another discussion
with Professor Koenig. He listened most attentively to my description
of the Faraday-Maxwell electromagnetic theory as I had gathered it
from Helmholtz; and it was, as far as I can recall it now, very
similar to the description given above. This was my first lecture at
the University of Berlin, delivered to a very intelligent audience of
one person, dear little Doctor Koenig. It would have been a signal
success if I had not closed it with a tactless remark, to the effect
that Helmholtz, in his Faraday address, rejected every one of the
four German electrical theories, and declared himself in favor of
Faraday and Maxwell. Helmholtz intimated, and unfortunately I did not
hesitate to say so to Doctor Koenig, that physicists of continental
Europe had not accepted the English theory because it was above their
heads. Finally I said that all this explained most satisfactorily why
Kirchhoff paid so little attention to Faraday and Maxwell. Koenig
looked at his watch, and, as if suddenly remembering an important
engagement, he turned on his heels and left without his customary bow
and greeting. His national pride was evidently wounded. I regretted
it deeply. I did my best to make up with him and succeeded finally,
by admitting unreservedly that, after all, the Faraday-Maxwell
electromagnetic theory rested upon several bold assumptions which had
not yet been verified by experiment. The German electrical theories
also rested upon unverified assumptions, but I said nothing about that
for fear of endangering the re-established _entente cordiale_ between
Doctor Koenig and myself.
Excellenz von Helmholtz had left Berlin for his summer vacation; among
my German fellow students at the Physical Institute there was not much
interest in Faraday and Maxwell. I do not know how difficult it is to
conceal a deep secret, because I never had one to conceal; but I do
know how hard it is to keep imprisoned in one’s heart the joy which one
feels when the light of new knowledge rises above one’s mental horizon.
I had planned to visit my mother during that summer; I had not seen
her for nearly two years. Perhaps, I thought, I might find somebody
in my native Banat to whom I could disclose the joy which I received
from the revelation which came to me through Helmholtz. Kos, my teacher
of fifteen years before in Panchevo, was no longer among the living;
in fact, that school was no longer in existence, the Hungarian régime
having replaced it by a Hungarian school. I would have liked nothing
better than to tell him how Maxwell answered the question: “What is
Light?”
* * * * *
In the beginning of August of that summer I was in Idvor again,
carrying with me the two volumes of Helmholtz’s addresses. My mother
received me with a heart which she described as overflowing with
blessings which my visit and the visit of God’s grace upon Idvor
was pouring into it. The golden harvest was all in, and it was the
richest that Idvor had seen for many a year; the grapes in the old
vineyards were beginning to ripen, and the peach-trees among the rows
of vines in the vineyards were heavily loaded with the juicy fruit of
ambrosial flavor; the melons in the endless melon patches looked big
and flourishing, and suggested that at any moment they might burst with
the fulness of their exuberant prosperity. The dark-green corn-fields
seemed to groan under the heavy load of the young ears of corn, and
the pasturelands alongside of the corn-fields were alive with flocks
of sheep, carrying udders which reminded one of the abundance of milk,
cream, and cheese such as Idvor had seldom seen. All these things my
mother pointed out to me, and she assured me that by the grace of
God she was enabled to be a bountiful hostess to me, because she had
everything in great abundance which she knew I always liked. Melons,
cooled at the bottom of a deep well; grapes and peaches picked before
sunrise and covered up with vine-leaves to keep them cool and fresh;
young corn picked late in the afternoon and roasted in the evening in
front of a wood fire; cream from sheep’s milk supplied by the blessed
sheep the day before. All these were sweet and delicious things; but
have you ever tasted them when their sweetness is flavored by the love
of an indulgent mother? If you have not, then you do not know what
sweetness is. I warned my mother that her hospitality might transform
me, as three years before, into a pampered pet who would be too slow
to return to Berlin. Reminding me of the story which she had told me
two years before, describing my climb up the steep and slippery roof
of Bukovala’s mill in search of a star, she said: “You have done much
climbing during the last two years, and I know that in your climbing
you have found several real stars from heaven. One of them is now in
Berlin and no sweets in Idvor will keep you away from it.” She guessed
right, undoubtedly because she observed with what joy I kept up, during
that vacation, my reading of Helmholtz’s addresses.
Many a night during that summer I spent in my mother’s vineyard
sleeping on sheepskins under the open sky and looking at the stars at
which I looked fifteen years before, when I helped the herdsman to
guard the village oxen during the starlit summer nights. I remembered
the puzzles which I tried to solve at that time concerning the nature
of sound and of light, succeeding in the case of sound and failing
in the case of light. I rejoiced at the feeling that I had finally
succeeded in finding from Faraday and Maxwell through Helmholtz that
sound and light resembled each other, one being a vibration of matter,
and the other a vibration of electricity. The fact that I did not
know what electricity is did not disturb me, because I did not know
what matter is. Nobody knows the exact nature of these even to-day,
except, as Faraday suggested, that they are manifestations of force.
David’s nineteenth Psalm, which I recited so often fifteen years before
during my training in herdsmanship, conveyed a different meaning, and
so did Lyermontoff’s line which says that “star speaketh to star.”
They certainly spoke to me during those glorious August nights, when,
covered with sheepskins, I lay in my mother’s vineyard and amid the
deep silence of slumbering earth I listened to their heavenly tales.
The more I listened the more I became reconciled to the idea that
the language of the stars reaches me in the same way that human
language does, when it speeds on over the telephone wire, conveyed by
vibratory electric and magnetic forces; except that in the transmission
of the telephonic message the vibratory forces glide along the
conducting wire, whereas the stars pour out their waves of vibratory
electromagnetic forces in ever-expanding spheres so that they may
carry the heavenly message to every other star and to everything that
lives, and to everything that has a being. I could not help telling my
mother of my new knowledge which persuaded me that light is a vibration
of electricity, very much like the vibration of the melodious string
described in the Serbian figure of speech, familiar to her, which says:
My heart quivers like the melodious string under the guslar’s bow.
She always was the most attentive audience that I ever had, and the
most responsive. Her wonderful memory, even at that time when she
was seventy years of age, assigned to every essential event of her
experience a suitable place, so that it became a vital chord in
the symphony of her life. She never heard anything worth hearing
without responding with one of these harmonious chords, and this was
particularly true when I was speaking to her. On this particular
occasion, referring to my new knowledge which I brought to Idvor from
Berlin, she reminded me of my new knowledge about lightning which I had
acquired from my teacher Kos, in Panchevo, some fifteen years before,
and afterward tried to explain it to my father and his peasant friends,
who accused me of heresy; and she recalled her defense of me. She
suggested, jokingly, that if my father and his old friends had still
been living they would perhaps accuse me again of heresy on account of
some old legends which clashed with my new knowledge; and she assured
me that she would defend me again. “God sends sunlight,” she said,
“to melt the ice and snow of the early spring, and to resurrect from
death everything that lay lifeless in the cold grave of the bosom of
mother earth, chilled by the icy breath of winter. The same sunlight,”
she continued, “awakens the fields, the meadows, and the pasturelands,
and bids them raise the daily bread of man and beast; it also ripens
the honey-hearted fruit in orchards and vineyards. If that is all done
by the same heavenly force which hurls the lightning across the sombre
summer clouds pregnant with showers, and also carries, as you say, the
humble human voice over the wires between distant peoples, then I see
in it a new proof of God’s infinite wisdom which uses one means only
to do great things as well as small. Ko che ko Bog! Who can fathom the
power of God!” I reminded her of her saying which she often addressed
to me when I was a boy and which I quoted before, namely: “Knowledge is
the golden ladder over which we climb to heaven,” and asked her whether
she included in this the knowledge which I was describing to her.
“I include every knowledge,” she said, “which brings me nearer to
God; and this new knowledge certainly does. Just think of it, my son:
God has been sending his messages from star to star and, according
to David, from the stars to man, ever since the creation of Adam,
employing the very same method and means which man, imitating the
divine method, is beginning to use when he employs electricity to
carry his message to a distant friend. Your teachers who gave you that
knowledge are as wise as the prophets and as holy as the holiest saints
in heaven.”
When I told her of Faraday’s vision, that all things extend to and
exist in every spot of the universe at the same time and that,
therefore, all things are in perpetual contact with each other, every
star feeling, so to speak, the heart-beat of every other star and of
every living thing, even of the tiniest little worm in the earth, she
answered:
“Faraday’s science is that part of my religion which is described in
the words addressed to God by King David:
“‘Whither shall I go from thy spirit? Or whither shall I flee from
thy presence?
“‘If I ascend up into heaven, thou art there: if I make my bed in
hell, behold, thou art there.’
God is everywhere, and where he is, there is every part of his
creation.” Her religion taught her how to catch the spirit of science,
and I was always certain that science can teach us how to catch the
spirit of her religion.
IX
END OF STUDIES AT THE UNIVERSITY OF BERLIN
I confess that when I first arrived in Berlin I brought with me old
prejudices, which were annoying, to say the least. The Teutonism in
Prague, when I was a schoolboy there, had made lasting impressions
upon my young mind; they were with me when I landed at Castle Garden.
Early impressions are very persistent and cannot be obliterated by
time alone. Christian’s father, the innkeeper of West Street, and
his friends, the hardy Friesland sailors who taught me how to handle
the paint-brush, drew me closer to the German heart, and I found it
much less grasping than I thought it was. But the Frieslander of
those days had no great love for the Prussian. Bilharz, the idealist
of Cortlandt Street, gave me a more intimate knowledge of the German
temper, and helped much to dispel many of my early prejudices. But
Bilharz displayed decided dislike for the Prussians. The few German
friends whom I had during my “greenhorn” days were southern Germans,
and they did not appear to be very friendly to the idea of a united
Germany under Prussian hegemony. These early experiences encouraged
me in the belief that the Prussians were probably responsible for the
Teutonism which I disliked. This belief was strengthened by Bismarck’s
anti-Russian and anti-Serbian, but strongly pro-Austrian, policy at
the treaty of Berlin in 1878. He protested, I knew, that he would
not sacrifice the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier for all the
Balkans; but I did not believe him. Hence the uncomfortable feeling
of being in an enemy country, when I first came to and settled down in
Berlin.
The Teutonism of Prague, more than anything else, was responsible for
it. Racial antipathy is one of the saddest of psychic derangements;
and, although it is a repulsive product of modern nationalism, the
world does less than nothing to get rid of its insidious poisons.
European civilization is being destroyed by it. I suffered from its
evil effects during the early days of my life in Berlin. Helmholtz,
Koenig, and all the officers in the Physical Institute showed me every
kindness and consideration, and that prevented me from turning around
and speeding back to Cambridge as soon as the first breath of the
atmosphere of Berlin gave me an acute attack of anti-Teutonism. My
German landlady and her friends, as well as the German students I met
in the lecture-rooms, struck no responsive chord in my heart, because
it was out of tune with my surroundings. I remained a stranger in a
cold, strange land. A young Scotch friend of mine, a graduate of the
University of Glasgow, appeared on the scene, some time after I had
become settled in Berlin. He kept his promise, given me at Arran, to
join me in Berlin. He stayed at the university for one semester only
and heard lectures on Roman law. He looked like a northern Apollo: tall
and erect, the pink of youth radiating from his handsome face, and the
locks of purest gold adorning a lofty brow, which made you believe
that you were looking at a young Sir Walter Scott. His deep-blue eyes
knew of no suspicions, and his heart had never been touched by the
poison of racial antipathy. He loved the world and the world loved
him. His knowledge of German was very poor, and yet everybody loved to
talk to him. Even the stern Schutzman (policeman), stirred up to white
heat by too noisy a rendering of American and Scotch college songs in
the slumbering streets of Berlin, was as gentle as a dove when the
blue-eyed young Scot stood in front of him and greeted him with a
honey-hearted smile. My landlady, quite an aged person, as well as her
young boarders, begged me to bring him to dinner as often as possible.
“Yes, do bring him,” said a sarcastic young fräulein; “you look quite
human and almost handsome when he is around.” There was much truth in
what she said; the poison of racial antipathy did not operate in me
when he was present. He made friends on every side among the German
students, and when I saw how he warmed up to them and how they warmed
up to him I began to thaw out myself. Helmholtz and dear little Koenig
were the first persons in Berlin who helped me to forget that Europe
was made up of different races who lived in eternal suspicion of each
other. After that, following the example of my Scotch friend, I began
to rid myself of the poisonous infection which I received from the
Teutonism in Prague; but it was a slow process. Helmholtz’s address on
Faraday was so warm and so generous to Faraday as well as to Maxwell,
and so wonderfully just, that I began to question the justice of my
anti-Teutonic prejudices.
The two volumes of Helmholtz’s addresses and public speeches which I
enjoyed so much during that summer in my mother’s vineyard made me
almost repentant. My mother knew of my anti-Teutonic sentiments and
never approved of them. One day we drove to visit my younger sister,
who lived about fifteen miles from Idvor. On the way we passed through
a large village, Echka, having a mixed population of German, Rumanian,
and Serb peasants. There was a striking contrast in the appearance of
the houses, of the people, and of their methods of moving about in the
pursuit of their daily work. The German peasants were far ahead of the
Rumanians as well as of the Serbs. My mother called my attention to it,
but I made no comment. Presently we passed the stately Roman Catholic
church of the village, which looked like a cathedral. It was built,
I was told, by the German peasants of Echka, and my mother told me
that it was crowded on Sundays and holidays, and that the priest was a
very learned and a very good man. When we passed the Orthodox church,
which was quite small and insignificant-looking, my mother said: “Would
you not feel ashamed if St. Sava came down to earth again and after
seeing that splendid German church looked at this hut which is called
the Orthodox church? But small as it is you will never find it filled
except at some weddings or at memorial services for some departed rich
person, when people expect much feasting.”
Again I made no comment, because I was opposed to “alien intruders”
myself, as some people called the German colonists; and my mother
looked disappointed. Just then we saw two peasant girls carrying
river water in shining copper vessels. These vessels were suspended
at the ends of a long flexible staff which was nicely balanced on the
shoulder of each young carrier, so that one vessel was in front and
one behind her. The first girl was a blonde with slippers on her feet;
a simple dark-blue dress covered her youthful figure and displayed
the successive phases of her rhythmical movement. It was synchronized
with the swinging motion of the bright copper vessels, which moved up
and down like a double pendulum, bending the flexible shaft around
its point of support on the shoulder of the fair carrier. The copper
vessels, although filled to the brim, did not spill a single drop of
water; the perfect adjustment of the swinging motion of the carrier
to that of the swinging shaft produced this admirable result. The
girl, the staff, and the shining vessels stood in a beautiful harmonic
relation to each other. They reminded one of the harmonics in a sweet
musical chord. It was a beautiful sight, and I said so. My mother,
noticing my sudden burst of enthusiasm, sounded a warning. “She is a
German girl,” she said, “and she certainly is lovely. Her heart and
soul are in her job. But if you find one like her in Berlin, remember
your promise; you must marry an American girl if you wish to remain an
American, which I know you do.”
She evidently had become a little alarmed at the thought that her
praises of the Germans might cause my sentiments to swing too far the
other way. The second water-carrier was a barefooted and gaudy-looking
lassie, who stepped along any old way and marked her track with
frequent splashes of water from the copper vessels. “She is a wild
Rumanian,” exclaimed my mother; “she can dance like a Vila, but she
hates her job of carrying water. You will never find one like her in
Berlin. The Germans have no use for people who do not love their daily
duties.” My mother was a great admirer of the thrifty and industrious
German colonists in Banat, whom she always recommended as models to
the peasants of Idvor. When she heard my praises of Helmholtz and my
confession of racial antipathy to the Germans she put up many powerful
arguments which were most convincing. They had a wonderful effect.
When I returned to Berlin from Idvor things looked more inviting, and
my landlady remarked that I looked much more cheerful than I did a year
before, when I arrived from Scotland. In another year, she suggested
jokingly, I might look as cheerful as a real Prussian, particularly
if I should succumb to the charms of a Prussian beauty. Remembering
the promise that I had given to my mother about marrying an American
girl, I said to my landlady: “Never! I have already pledged my word to
one who is nearer to my heart than any Prussian beauty could ever be.”
“Ach, Herr Pupin, you have changed most wonderfully,” exclaimed the
landlady, and then she added in a whisper: “Just think of it! To get a
confession on the first day of your return which I could not get before
in nearly a year! I understand now why you were always so distant to
the young ladies in my pensionat.” But the change of feeling, speeded
up by my mother, and noticed by my landlady, was speeded up almost as
effectively by another Serb.
A Bosnian Serb with the name of Nikola had a fine cigarette shop on
Unter den Linden, the principal avenue of Berlin. It was within a
stone’s throw from the Imperial palace, and the highest aristocracy
of Berlin patronized it. He was a rough diamond, and would stand
no nonsense from any prince or count. If they found fault with his
famous Turkish cigarettes he did not hesitate to tell them to buy
them somewhere else. But he prospered, he said, because these German
aristocrats never resented straight talk from man to man. He laughed at
me, when I mentioned to him my suspicions and antipathies; and begged
me to pass with him, from time to time, an hour or so in his store,
and watch his German customers. I did, and profited much. The Prussian
aristocrats had no racial antipathy against a Serb, if their apparently
genuine affection for Nikola had any meaning. Nikola never left them in
any doubt as to his pride of being a Serb.
Half-way between Nikola’s store and the Imperial palace was an old
chop-house, called Habel, dating from the time of Frederick the Great.
Frederick’s generals always stopped there for a glass of wine, when
they returned from an audience with the king. The custom persisted and
was still in existence when I was a student in Berlin. Nikola often
invited me to early luncheon at this chop-house, and there we saw the
great generals and marshals of the German Empire, sitting around a long
and separate table and taking a glass of wine after returning from the
Imperial palace, from their daily audience with old Emperor William.
It was a wonderful sight; those tall, broad-shouldered, deep-chested,
brainy, and serious-minded Teuton warriors inspired tremendous
respect. Nikola assured me that he knew many of them personally, they
being his customers, and that as human beings they were as gentle
as doves. “Many a time I called them down when they joked about my
cigarettes, and they submitted without a murmur. Do you call that
arrogance?” asked Nikola, throwing out his chest and trying to look as
stern and as imposing as any of the generals present.
Once he took me to an avenue where Moltke used to walk and showed
me the great field-marshal, who was then eighty-six years old, but
still as straight as an arrow. “Did you ever see a more modest and
thoughtful or a more spiritual-looking man anywhere?” asked Nikola,
and I confessed that I had not. “Then stop your talk about Prussian
pride!” exclaimed Nikola. On another occasion we walked to the park and
he showed me Bismarck, riding on horseback, a friend and an adjutant
accompanying him. Nikola saluted him and so did I, and Bismarck saluted
back graciously. “Does he look like a brute, or like a fool who would
try to convert by force all the Slavs into Germans?” asked Nikola,
poking fun at my anti-Teutonic suspicions. “No,” said I, “I do not
think he does; in fact, I think he looks very much like Helmholtz,
except that there is much less spirituality in his face than in that
of the great scientist.” “Helmholtz!” exclaimed Nikola, “even he would
lose his saintly expression, if he had to carry the load of the whole
empire upon his shoulders, the socialists on the top of his load
pushing it one way, and the clericals at the bottom pushing it the
other way.”
Nikola was born in Bosnia when the Turks ruled supreme, and hence he
was not much of a scholar; but he was a careful listener, and always
thought through his own head; his judgment was remarkable, I thought.
He knew who’s who and what’s what in Berlin better than many a foreign
diplomat there. He used to joke about it, saying that his knowledge
was expected of him, because he was the next-door neighbor of the
great Kaiser. The Serbs of Banat did not seriously dislike the German
colonists there, nor did the colonists dislike them, and they delighted
in speaking the Serb language. They called each other “komshiya,”
neighbor. The Serbs, in general, use this word when they refer to a
German in a friendly way. Nikola always referred to the great Kaiser as
his “komshiya”; many of his customers knew that and enjoyed it hugely.
They returned the compliment and often addressed Nikola with the
Serbian word “komshiya.” “Come and see my komshiya,” said he one day
to me, and there I stood for the first time in front of the Imperial
palace and waited for the old emperor to show himself at the window.
He did that almost every day about noontime when the guards marched by
on their daily parade. Presenting arms and looking straight at the old
emperor, they marched by like a single body animated by a single heart
and a single soul, and they spanked the ground with their vigorous
goose-step, the rhythmic strokes of which could be heard quite a
distance away through the ringing cheers of the enthusiastic crowd. “Do
you know what that means?” asked Nikola. I answered “No,” and he said:
“It means that every German looks up to his fatherland for orders,
and the perfect rhythm of that goose-step means that every German
will obey these orders and finish on time any job for the good of the
fatherland that may be assigned to him. It is the symbol of German
unity.” That was Nikola’s unique interpretation; I never heard anybody
else interpret it that way. But Nikola had a lively imagination and he
evidently wished me to get a favorable interpretation of everything the
Germans did.
Between my young Scotch friend, my mother, Nikola, and my professors
in the Physical Institute, I soon forgot the unpleasant memories of
the Teutonism in Prague, and Berlin no longer looked to me like a
Thraenenthal, a valley of tears, as my old friend Bilharz in Cortlandt
Street would have called it. I soon found myself enjoying warm personal
friendships of German fellow students and of the professors, and it was
a very fortunate thing; it was providential. Nothing but the love of
God and the friendship of man can give that spiritual power which one
needs in moments of great sorrow. One day in the beginning of winter,
of that year, a letter arrived from my sister, telling me that my
saintly mother was no longer among the living. I vowed on that day that
her blessed memory should be perpetuated as far as an humble mortal
like myself could do it. Twenty-seven years later the Serbian Academy
of Sciences announced that the income of a foundation in memory of
Olympiada Pupin would be expended annually to assist a goodly number of
poor schoolboys in Old Serbia and Macedonia.
The vanishing of a life which is an essential part of one’s own life
produces a mysterious shift of the direction of one’s mental and
spiritual vision. Instead of searching for light which will illuminate
the meaning of things in the external physical world, as the vision of
young people usually does, it begins to search for light which will
illuminate the meaning of what is going on in the internal world, the
spiritual world of our soul. The question “What is Light?” was no
longer the most important question of my thoughts after my mother’s
death. The question “What is Life?” dominated for a long time my
thoughts and feelings. I became introspective, and, being a somewhat
temperamental person, like most Slavs, I might have lost my way forever
in the labyrinth of all sorts of metaphysical structures of my own
creation. Providence came to my rescue. Two American students with
aspirations in science similar to mine joined the Physical Institute.
One of them, a Harvard graduate, the late Arthur Gordon Webster, was
the very distinguished professor of physics at Clark University; the
other, a Johns Hopkins man, Joseph Sweetman Ames, is now the director
of the physical laboratory at Johns Hopkins and a worthy successor to
the famous Henry Augustus Rowland. Their truly American enthusiasm and
directness prevented me from relapsing into the drowsy indefiniteness,
sometimes called idealism, of a temperamental and sentimental Slav.
They told me many wonderful tales of the higher endeavor in science at
Harvard and at Johns Hopkins. The new Jefferson Physical Laboratory
at Harvard was a wonder, according to Webster; and Ames never grew
weary of extolling the beauties of Rowland’s wonderful researches in
solar spectra, and I never grew weary of listening to them. At times,
however, I wondered why these two men had ever come to Helmholtz when
they were so well off at home. Ames wondered, too, and he returned to
Rowland at the end of the year; but Webster stayed, although in my
presence he never admitted unreservedly that the Physical Institute
in Berlin was very much better than anything they had at Harvard.
Webster’s and Ames’s testimony convinced me that the great movement
in the United States for higher endeavor in science was making rapid
progress; and I longed to finish up my studies in Berlin and return to
the United States. After my mother’s death Europe attracted me much
less.
* * * * *
A new physical science was attracting much attention in Germany at
that time, the science of physical chemistry. Helmholtz was very much
interested in it. I had read his latest papers on the subject and they
reminded me of what I had seen in Maxwell’s book on heat about Willard
Gibbs of Yale. I soon discovered that the alleged German fathers of
the new science were anticipated by Gibbs by at least ten years.
Remembering the charge of De Tocqueville that the American democracy
had never done anything for abstract science, I made a careful note of
my find. It was a clean-cut little discovery, I thought, and Helmholtz
admitted it. He suggested even that I might find material in it for a
research leading to a doctor dissertation. I embraced the suggestion
and started an experimental research, at the same time studying the
theories of Gibbs, Helmholtz, and other authorities, mostly German,
on physical chemistry. The more one penetrates the depths of any
problem the more he yields to the belief that this problem is the
most important problem in the world. This happened to me; and the
Faraday-Maxwell electromagnetic theory was shelved, temporarily, on
account of my interest in physical chemistry, and particularly on
account of the prospect of finding there a doctor dissertation, which I
finally did.
At the end of the first semester and at Webster’s suggestion he and
I, in the spring of 1887, went to Paris for a short visit. We wished
to see what physical science was doing at the Sorbonne and at the
Collège de France, and to compare the academic world of Paris with that
of Berlin. We stayed there three weeks and learned quite a number of
novel and interesting things. The architectural beauties of Paris as
well as its art galleries and museums made a profound impression upon
me. As a record of a magnificent old civilization Paris, I thought,
was incomparably ahead of Berlin. The spirit of Laplace, La Grange,
Fourier, Ampère, Arago, Fresnel, Foucault, and Fizeau was very much
alive in the ancient halls of the Sorbonne and of the Collège de
France. The background of a former glorious period of physical science
in France was much more impressive in Paris than the corresponding
background in Berlin. But for every one of the great savants in
physical and mathematical sciences, who were active in Paris at the
time of my visit, like Poincaré, Hermite, Darboux, Appel, Lippmann,
one could name several in Berlin. And there was nobody in Paris who,
in my opinion, could measure up to Helmholtz, Kirchhoff, and DuBois
Reymond. There was no statesman there of Bismarck’s caliber, and no
general like Moltke. I saw no warriors who looked like the magnificent
fellows whom Nikola first exhibited to me at the long table in Habel’s.
General Boulanger was very much in the limelight. I saw him at a
great official reception, and I should have felt very sorry if the
destiny of France had been intrusted to him. The physical and chemical
laboratories were rather poorly equipped and compared unfavorably
with the corresponding laboratories in Berlin. The draped statues in
the Place de la Concorde, testifying to France’s grief for the loss
of Alsace-Lorraine, completed the picture of Paris in my mind, which
was anything but cheerful. France, I thought, had not yet recovered
completely from her wounds of 1870-1871, and I felt sorry. Two years
earlier I had passed through Paris on my way from Pornic to Idvor and
had carried away a much more cheerful picture. But at that time my
observations, covering barely two days, did not see much; and, besides,
I did not know Berlin at that time and could make no comparisons.
If Paris reflected the spirit of France and Berlin that of Germany,
then France, I thought, was a falcon with broken wings and Germany
was a young eagle that had just discovered the wonderful power of its
pinions. The wonderful intellectual and physical vigor of the new
empire impressed powerfully every foreign student at the University of
Berlin when I was a student there. This gave me much food for thought
and I searched for explanations.
There was one explanation which always appealed to me much on account
of its simplicity. I heard it from a very learned German. This was his
story: The German iron always contained phosphorus, including also the
great deposits of iron which the Germans had found in Alsace-Lorraine.
The only good iron that Germany had prior to 1880 was that in the Iron
Chancellor. Hence, Germany could not build up a steel industry, and
without it no great industrial development is possible in any country.
A miracle happened; a young Englishman, a clerk in a London police
court, made a discovery which was destined to give Germany its great
steel industry. This was Sidney Gilchrist Thomas, who discovered the
so-called “basic Bessemer” process. It made iron containing phosphorus
easily available for the manufacture of iron and steel products. This
started the modern steel industry of Germany in the early eighties.
Many a street in the towns of the German steel districts was named in
honor of Gilchrist Thomas. “This,” said my informant, “is the power
which, as you express it, the young German eagle has discovered in its
pinions.” I suspected that the object of his story might have been to
discourage an opinion on my part that the remarkable vigor of Germany
was derived from the weakness of France. Hence I looked up the data of
his story, but I found them correct. Years ago I told this story to the
late Andrew Carnegie, and he agreed with my German informant. To-day
I am convinced that neither the great works of Krupp, nor the great
German navy, nor many other things which have happened since my Berlin
days, would have been possible without the start which was made with
the aid of Gilchrist Thomas.
Another remarkable assertion from the same informant made a lasting
impression. According to him, united Germany would not have endured
very long, if it had not been for the rapid rise of the German steel
industry and of other German industries which followed in its wake. The
organization of Germany as an economic unit secured the organization of
Germany as a political unit. He summed it up by saying that Bismarck
and Moltke had raised the structure of the German Empire, but that
Gilchrist Thomas had built a steel ring around it which prevented it
from falling to pieces. He added then a corollary to this startling
statement, and I repeat it here in the form of a question. If the
scientific research of a young clerk in a London police court, who
studied chemistry in a London evening school, could do so much for
Germany, how much can one reasonably expect from the great research
laboratories of the German universities and technical schools? This,
according to my informant, had become a national question in Germany.
This information reminded me that the great movement in Great Britain
and in the United States for higher scientific research was also
present in Germany, but in a much more advanced form. My informant
called my attention to Werner von Siemens’s pioneer work in this German
movement.
Ernst Werner von Siemens was at that time, next to Helmholtz, the most
admired scientist in the German Empire. He was the head of a great
electrical plant in the heart of Berlin, and was known everywhere
to possess a splendid combination of talents in abstract science
and engineering. Men of that type were quite rare in those days,
and they are very rare even to-day. I heard a great deal about him
in a course of lectures on electrical engineering which I attended
at the Polytechnic School of Berlin. I saw him several times, when
he called at the Physical Institute on his friend and relative by
marriage, Excellenz von Helmholtz. His remarkable appearance made a
strong impression upon me, and I longed to see his great plant, where
all kinds of electrical things were made, from the finest electrical
precision instruments to the largest types of dynamos and motors, many
of them his own inventions. As a sign of special favor Helmholtz gave
me a note of introduction to his distinguished friend, who received
me graciously and gave me to an official who took me around the great
electrical plant, the first that I had ever seen. The impression which
it made upon my mind was certainly wonderful, but not more wonderful
than the impression which the great personality of Siemens had made
upon me. The more I learned about him the more I became convinced that
no industrial organization ever had a presiding genius of greater
attainments than Siemens. His attitude toward abstract science and its
relation to the industries is best described by mentioning here a fact
which is of great significance in the history of physical science. He
founded in that year, 1887, the great Physical-Technical Institute, and
presented it to the German nation; Helmholtz was its first president.
The modern science of radiation rests upon a foundation first laid by
Kirchhoff and greatly strengthened by additional experimental data
obtained in this institute under the guidance of Helmholtz. Planck, the
successor of Kirchhoff at the University of Berlin, already in office
before I left Berlin, was undoubtedly inspired by these experiments
when he formulated his great law of radiation which forms to-day the
last word in the science of radiation, a great science which justly
bears the mark “made in Germany,” just as the electromagnetic theory
bears the mark “made in England.” The Physical-Technical Institute
will always stand as a memorial to the man who preached in Germany the
doctrine of the closest co-operation between abstract science and the
industries. Germany adopted it first; the United States adopted it many
years later. Helmholtz and Siemens always represented to me the highest
symbol of this co-operation.
Bismarck and Moltke, Helmholtz and Siemens, were the great power which
the young German eagle had discovered in his pinions; and he flew as
he had never flown before, and his flight astonished me when I was
a student in Berlin. He who wants to know the real Germany of the
eighties should study the lives of Bismarck and Moltke, of Helmholtz
and Siemens. They, I firmly believed at that time, were the leaders of
the German constructive thought and action; they were the fathers of
united Germany just as Washington and Hamilton, Franklin and Jefferson,
were the fathers of this country. But would the spiritual influence
of the fathers of united Germany produce a German Lincoln? I knew the
historical background of the Declaration of Independence and also
its historical foreground too well to answer this question in the
affirmative. Extraordinary men can do extraordinary things, but the
course of a nation’s destiny will always be guided not by transient
efforts of one or even of several extraordinary men of a given period,
but by the persistent power of the nation’s traditions.
My visit to Paris was to supply me with more knowledge of the academic
world of France, and also with some fresh food for thought relating
to my problem in physical chemistry, and it did in a measure. But
the current of thought which was started by some of the strongest
mental stimuli which I received in Paris had nothing to do with either
physical chemistry or with academic France; it ran into German channels
which I described above. These were the channels which ran through
the minds of most university men in Germany, and in these channels
every problem in art, science, and literature was viewed at that time
from the standpoint of German economic and political unity. My German
scientific friends, particularly those in eastern Prussia, where I
spent the summer vacation of 1887, would rather discuss those problems
than the problems in physical chemistry or in the electromagnetic
theory. It took me some time after my return from Paris to get back
completely to my research in physical chemistry. But no sooner had
I gone back to it than the irresistible power of the current of big
events, following each other in quick succession, took me away from it
again. I shall describe them in their historical order, but only in so
far as they are related to the main thread of my narrative.
* * * * *
One of the many sources of inspiration at the University of Berlin was
the Physical Society which met once a month at the Physical Institute.
The research students of the institute were admitted to these meetings,
and one can imagine what an inspiration it was to them to see and to
hear the scientists like Kirchhoff, the great mathematical physicist,
DuBois Reymond, the great physiologist, Hoffman, the great chemist, and
Helmholtz, the greatest of them all. I often imagined while attending
these meetings and listening to the learned remarks of these scientific
giants, that I was a lucky mortal who by some strange accident had
found himself suddenly among the great heroes in Walhalla. Helmholtz
usually presided, and his impressive physiognomy suggested a Wotan
presiding at a gathering of the Teuton gods in Walhalla. Whenever I
hear Wagner’s Walhalla motif I am reminded of those memorable scenes in
the Physical Institute in Berlin, the scenes of victory of the immortal
mind of man over mortal matter.
At one of those meetings, which took place toward the end of 1887,
many scientific giants of the university were present and Helmholtz
presided. There was an atmosphere of expectancy as if something unusual
was going to happen. Helmholtz rose and looked more solemn than ever,
but I noticed a light of triumph in his eyes; he looked like a Wotan
gazing upon the completed form of heavenly Walhalla, and I felt
intuitively that he was about to disclose an unusual announcement,
and he did. Referring to Doctor Heinrich Hertz, a former pupil of his
and at that time professor of physics at the Technical High School in
Karlsruhe, Helmholtz solemnly announced that he would describe some
remarkable experimental results which Hertz had obtained by means
of very rapid electrical oscillations. He then described in his
inimitable way a preliminary report which Hertz had sent him, pointing
out, in a most lucid manner, the bearing of these experiments upon
the Faraday-Maxwell electromagnetic theory, and affirming that these
experiments furnished a complete experimental verification of that
remarkable theory. Everybody present was thrilled, particularly when
Helmholtz closed with a eulogy of his beloved pupil, Hertz, and with
a congratulation to German science upon the good fortune of adding
another “beautiful leaf to its laurel wreath.” That thrill soon reached
the physicists in every physical laboratory in the world; and for a
number of years after that memorable announcement most investigators
in physics were busy repeating the beautiful Hertzian experiments. The
radio of to-day is an offshoot of those experiments.
This is no place to go into a detailed description of what Hertz
did. The fundamental idea underlying his beautiful research and its
relation to the Faraday-Maxwell far-reaching electromagnetic theory
can be described in very simple terms. The wonderful achievements of
radio broadcasting alone, to say nothing of other much more important
achievements, demand this description. That idea, like the tiny seed
hidden in a beautiful flower, lay hidden in Faraday’s visions and
in Maxwell’s wonderful, but, to most ordinary mortals, enigmatic
interpretation of them. Hertz, guided by his great teacher, Helmholtz,
caught the hidden seed and out of it grew a physical embodiment of
the Faraday-Maxwell theory, represented by ideally simple apparatus,
operating in an ideally simple way. The apparatus and its operation
are now the heart and soul of a new art, the radio art, a beautiful
daughter of the beautiful mother, the Faraday-Maxwell electromagnetic
science. The following description of Hertz’s apparatus and of its
operation was the theme of popular lectures and of many conversations
which I had with my friends who were not physicists by profession. It
represents quite closely the simple picture which I carried away in
my mind from that memorable meeting of the Berlin Physical Society
thirty-six years ago.
[Illustration: THE HERTZIAN OSCILLATOR]
Two equal metal spheres _A_ and _B_, each twelve inches in
diameter, and each carrying copper rods _C_ and _D_, are placed as
indicated in the diagram given here. At _E_ is an opening of about
three-tenths of an inch in length, the so-called _air-gap_. By
means of two wires _e_ and _f_, connected to an electrical machine,
the spheres are charged, one receiving a positive electrical charge
denoted by the (+) sign, and the other a negative one, denoted by
the (-) sign. The air-gap _E_ insulates one sphere from the other,
and its function is to make it possible for the electrical machine
to increase the two charges until a very high electrical tension
is reached. When the electrical tension between the two charges,
acting through the air-gap _E_, is sufficiently high, then the
insulating power of the air-gap is overstrained and suddenly it
breaks down and becomes conductive and permits the two charges to
rush toward each other. The conductivity of the air-gap suspends
the action of the charging machine. A large current passes then
between the two spheres along the rods and through the air-gap
_E_ which is heated by the current to white heat. It becomes then
a very good conductor and permits the charges to pass through it
easily. The collapse of the air-gap is reported by the sharp crack
of the electrical spark which is due to the very sudden heating and
expansion of the air in the air-gap produced by the passage of the
electrical current. It is a miniature lightning. The two charges
reunite, the spheres are discharged, and after that the air-gap _E_
recovers quickly from its breakdown and becomes an insulator again.
The process is then repeated by the action of the machine and a
rapid succession of sparks can be maintained, each one of them
announcing by the crack of the spark the reunion of the charges
that had been pulled apart and forced to the surfaces _A_ and _B_
by the action of the electrical generator.
All this was known long before Hertz. The first experiment of this
kind I saw in Panchevo in my boyhood days, when my Slovenian teacher
Kos explained to me the theory of lightning according to the views of
Benjamin Franklin, a theory which clashed with the St. Elijah legend of
Idvor and nearly proved me guilty of heresy. But there was something in
these electrical discharges that Benjamin Franklin did not know, and
that knowledge was first suggested by another great American scientist,
a scientist even greater than Benjamin Franklin was in his day.
As far back as 1842 our own Joseph Henry performed experiments
similar to those performed by Hertz, and he inferred, prophetically,
that the discharge was oscillatory. Nobody ever suggested this idea
before, but Henry’s experiments permitted such an inference. Its
oscillatory character was then demonstrated mathematically in 1853 by
Professor William Thomson of Glasgow, and his calculation was proved
to be correct by many experimental tests covering a period of over
twenty-five years, and thus the electrical oscillator, similar to the
one employed by Hertz, became a well-known apparatus.
What, then, was the novel element in the Hertzian work? It was,
broadly speaking, his demonstration that the space surrounding
the oscillator (the spheres with their rods) participates in the
electrical oscillations in perfect agreement with the Faraday-Maxwell
theory; a participation which was foreign to all previous electrical
theories. In other words, he detected in the old electrical-oscillation
experiments a new action, never detected nor even dreamed of before. He
discovered the electrical waves in the space outside of the oscillator.
Remembering the impression which Helmholtz’s lecture on Faraday made
upon my mind, I was certain at that time that nobody in Continental
Europe but one of Helmholtz’s pupils like Hertz could have predicted
that there was in these well-known electrical oscillations a new
action, an action demanded by the Faraday-Maxwell theory. A simple
analogy will, I trust, help much to illustrate the new action which
Hertz expected when he started out to search for an experimental test
of the modern electromagnetic theory. No scientific expedition ever
started out in search of scientific treasures and returned with a
richer load.
Here is the analogy:
If by the force of our fingers we deflect the ends of the prongs
of a tuning-fork and then let go, the prongs will return to
their normal position after performing a number of vibrations of
gradually diminishing amplitude. The state of rest is reached when
the energy of bending, produced by the work of our fingers, has
been expended, partly in overcoming the internal friction in the
tuning-fork, partly in overcoming the reactions of the surrounding
medium, the air; this last effect results in sound-waves which are
radiated off into space. The stiffness and the mass of the prongs
of the fork determine the period of vibration, that is, the pitch
of the fork.
I confess that in the course of my life since my Berlin days I
afforded considerable amusement to my friends whenever I tried
to explain to them the Hertzian experiments by appealing to
what I considered a well-known action of the tuning-fork. Some
of them objected on the ground that this action is just as
difficult to understand as the action of the Hertzian oscillator.
I met this objection by describing to them the action of the
reed in Serbian bagpipes which I watched when I was a boy, and
understood sufficiently well to recognize later in the action of
the tuning-fork a performance similar to that of the reed in the
Serbian bagpipes. I understood the tuning-fork because I understood
the reed. An educated American, I claimed, should find no
difficulty in understanding the action of a simple mechanism which
an uneducated Serbian peasant boy understood.
The Hertzian electrical oscillator, described above, acts like the
tuning-fork. The process of pulling apart the two charges, the
positive from the negative, and of forcing them to the surface of
the spheres by the action of the electrical machine, is a parallel
to the process of deflecting by the pressure of our fingers the
prongs of the tuning-fork from their normal position. In one case
the tuning-fork by its elastic stiffness reacts against the bending
of the prongs. In the electrical case the electrical lines of force
in the space surrounding the oscillator react against the action
of the machine which crowds them into this space by stretching and
compressing them. This is the picture of the action of the lines
of force which Faraday gave me on the island of Arran, but I did
not understand it. In the picture the dotted curves are the Faraday
lines of force and the arrow-heads indicate the direction of the
electrical force. The Hertzian oscillator, and what Helmholtz had
told me before, made Faraday’s language and thoughts much more
intelligible. The work done by the machine is all expended upon the
stretching and compressing of the lines of force into the space
outside of the spheres, that is, upon the _electrification of that
space_.
Compare now the motion of the tuning-fork, after the pressure
of the fingers has been removed, to the electrical motion when
the air-gap has broken down and the action of the electrical
generator suspended. The prongs are driven back to their normal
position by the elastic reaction due to the bending; but when
they reach that position they are moving with a certain velocity,
and their momentum carries them beyond that position; they move
on until the energy of the moving mass has been expended in the
work of bending the prongs in the direction opposite to that of
the original bending. The prongs begin then to move back in the
opposite direction, starting the second cycle of motion. The same
line of reasoning will carry us into the third and fourth and
every succeeding cycle of motion. It is obvious that these cycles
will follow each other during equal intervals of time, which gives
a definite pitch to the tuning-fork. A periodic motion of this
type is called an oscillation or vibration; and it is clear that
it is a periodic transformation of the energy of elastic bending
into energy of motion of the mass of the prongs including the
surrounding air, and vice versa. The motion is finally reduced to
rest when the energy of bending, produced at the start by the work
of the fingers, has been used up. The question, what has become of
that energy? is very important in this connection. The answer is:
It is used up partly in overcoming internal friction and _partly
in overcoming the reactions of the surrounding air, which result
in sound-waves_. A sound-wave is a short name describing the
physical fact that in the air here are compressions and dilatations
alternating at periodically recurring intervals. The production
of sound-waves in the air is a proof that the air in the space
surrounding the tuning-fork participates in the motions of the
tuning-fork.
A perfectly analogous experiment was performed by Hertz with his
electrical oscillator, and his principal object was to find whether
the electrical field, that is, the electrified space surrounding
the oscillator, reacted as did the air driven by the vibrating
tuning-fork; if it did it would develop electrical waves. If these
electrical waves actually existed, what did Hertz expect them to
be? In the description of the oscillator and of its action, given
above, two things only were mentioned: the action of the electrical
machine which charges the oscillator and the reaction of the lines
of force against the tensions and pressures which crowd them into
the surrounding space. The electrical waves can, therefore, be
nothing else than periodic variations of the tensions and pressures
in the lines of force, that is to say, periodic variations in
the destiny of the lines of force in the space surrounding the
oscillator. This was what Hertz had found.
The breakdown of the air-gap in the electrical oscillator and the
consequent suspension of the action of the electrical generator is
analogous to the removing of the pressure of the fingers from the
prongs of the tuning-fork. The electrical charges on the spheres
with the lines of force attached to them, strained by tensions and
compressions, are released, and they move toward each other through
the conducting air-gap. Just as the prongs of the tuning-fork,
after the pressure of the fingers has been removed, cannot remain
in the strained position in which they have been bent, so the
electrical lines of force, after the insulating air-gap has broken
down and the action of the machine been suspended, cannot remain
in the position to which they are stretched; they contract, and
hence their positive terminals on one sphere and the negative on
the other move toward each other. The motion of the strained lines
of force with their terminals, the charges on the spheres, has a
momentum. Maxwell was the first to show that the momentum of the
moving electrical lines of force is equal to the number of magnetic
lines of force which, according to Oerstedt’s discovery, are
produced by the motion of the electrical lines of force.
The motion of the electrical lines of force has not only momentum
but also energy. Employing Faraday’s mode of expression we can say
that the electrical energy of the stretched electrical lines of
force is thus transformed into energy of the electrical motions.
This is perfectly analogous to the passage of the elastic energy
of the bent prongs of the tuning-fork into the energy of motion
of the moving mass of these prongs. Again, just as the momentum
of the moving mass of the tuning-fork bends the prongs in the
opposite direction and continues this bending until that motion
has disappeared, so the momentum of the moving electrical lines of
force will stretch again the electrical lines of force and continue
this stretching until the energy of motion has disappeared, when
the two spheres are charged again, but in the direction which is
opposite to that in the beginning. A new cycle of electrical motion
is then started again by the stretched electrical lines of force,
repeating itself in an oscillatory fashion until the original
electrical energy, produced by the charging electrical machine, has
disappeared.
But where has the energy gone? This question is just as important in
this case as it was in the case of the tuning-fork. The old electrical
theories answered this question one way, and Maxwell, inspired by
Faraday, answered it in another. The old theories maintained that
there is no other electrical motion except the motion of the charges
along the conducting surface of the spheres and the rods. They paid
no attention to the motion of the lines of force, because they knew
nothing about them. Their vision did not see the lines themselves
but only their terminals, the charges. Hence, according to the old
theories, all of the energy imparted by the machine is transformed into
heat in the conducting parts of the oscillator.
Hertz was the first to prove that a part of the energy is radiated
off into space, in a similar manner as the energy of a tuning-fork
is radiated off in the form of sound waves. He detected in the space
surrounding the oscillator the presence of electrical waves, that is,
periodically recurring variations of the density of the electrical
lines of force; he measured their length, and, having calculated
the period of his oscillator, he divided the wave-length by the
period and obtained the velocity of propagation. It came out, in his
earliest experiments, roughly equal to the velocity of light, as
the Faraday-Maxwell theory had predicted. The waves were reflected
and refracted by insulators denser than air, and all these and
other effects Hertz demonstrated to follow the laws which hold good
for light, supporting admirably Maxwell’s theory that light is an
electromagnetic disturbance. Even this preliminary report which Hertz
had sent to Helmholtz convinced everybody that the Faraday-Maxwell
electromagnetic theory had triumphed, and that our knowledge of
electromagnetic phenomena had been wonderfully extended. Subsequent
experiments by Hertz and others added more and more laurels to this
first victory.
That meeting of the Physical Society in Berlin was what I always
considered the inauguration day of the electromagnetic theory. Prior
to that day the theory existed in all its beautiful completeness, but
it dwelt on high in the celestial heights of Faraday and Maxwell.
Continental physicists needed the guidance of a Helmholtz to reach
these heights. After that day it came down to earth and lived among
mortal men and became part of their mode of thought. It was a heavenly
gift which Hertz brought down to earth. Everybody was convinced that
the science of light had become a part of the science of electricity.
_This new knowledge was the second great revelation of the nineteenth
century. The wonderful things which followed in its wake, even before
the nineteenth century had closed, testify to the greatness of that
revelation._
I have often asked myself the question, Why did not our Joseph Henry,
who discovered the oscillatory electrical motions and operated with
apparatus similar to that employed by Hertz, pursue his studies
further than he did in 1842? and why did not Maxwell, the formulator
of the modern electromagnetic science, perform those ideally simple
experiments which Hertz performed? The knowledge of the electrical
oscillator was the same in 1865 as in 1887, and Maxwell undoubtedly had
that knowledge. History offers an answer to these questions and this
answer throws a splendid light upon the character of these two great
scientists.
Soon after 1842 Joseph Henry resigned his professorship at Princeton
College, and bade good-by to his laboratory where he had made several
of his splendid discoveries, and where in 1832 he had constructed and
operated the first electromagnetic telegraph, one of the practical
results of his great discoveries. This happened long before Morse had
ever been heard of. Henry’s fame among men of science was very great
and promised to grow even greater if he continued his scientific
researches. He was still in his prime, only a few years over forty.
But a patriotic duty called him to Washington, where the Smithsonian
Institution waited for his skilled hand to organize it and to defend
it against the scheming politician. This duty tore him away from his
beloved laboratory, and he spent the rest of his life, over thirty
years, in Washington as secretary of the Smithsonian Institution,
as originator of most of the national scientific bureaus of which
this country is proud to-day. He was also the first president of
the National Academy of Sciences, chartered by Congress in 1863,
thanks to his efforts. Physical science under his leadership had
rendered valuable service to the country during the Civil War, and
the congressional charter to the National Academy of Sciences was a
graceful recognition of this service. I have already pointed out Joseph
Henry’s splendid efforts for the advancement of scientific research in
this country and shall return to it later. He was a great scientist,
but he was also a great patriot; his country stood first and his own
scientific achievements and fame stood second in his heart. That,
I am sure, was the reason why he did not pursue any further than he
did his researches of electrical oscillations. I will mention here
that one of the most gratifying results of my humble efforts was the
naming of an electrical unit after his name. My colleague, the late
Professor Francis Bacon Crocker of Columbia University, joined me most
enthusiastically in these efforts; and the Electrical Congress in
Chicago in 1893, at which Helmholtz presided, adopted the name Henry as
the unit of electrical inductance; the unit Farad was named in honor
of Faraday. No other electrical units are in more frequent use than
the Farad and the Henry, particularly in the radio art. No other men
contributed to this art as much as Faraday and Henry did.
Maxwell resigned his professorship at King’s College, London, at the
end of 1865, soon after he had communicated to the Royal Society his
great _memoir_ on the electromagnetic theory. The electromagnetic
theory of light which, as I pointed out before, he had called “great
guns” in a letter addressed to a friend, was the climax of it. He
retired to his country place, Glenlair, in Scotland, and for five years
he was free to devote his entire time to study and meditation. That
was the highest joy of his life. But the Duke of Devonshire, a loyal
Cambridge man, had presented the university with a goodly sum of money
for the building and equipment of a physical laboratory. It was to
be named the Cavendish laboratory, after Lord Cavendish, the Duke’s
illustrious ancestor, who had devoted his life to electrical science.
This gift was the Duke’s response to the Cambridge movement in favor
of scientific research. Maxwell was called to Cambridge to become the
director of the new laboratory, and he responded, knowing well that,
from that moment on, most of his time would be devoted to organization
and administration. Duty to his university, and to the cause of
scientific research in Great Britain, stood higher in his heart than
the experimental demonstration of his great theory; that was certainly
one of the reasons why Maxwell did not perform those ideally simple
experiments which Hertz performed. But as director of the Cavendish
laboratory he had trained a number of men, in order to prepare them to
push on the line of advance where he had left it; and one of them, in
particular, was soon to take the leadership in the rapid development of
the Faraday-Maxwell electromagnetic theory.
The examples of Henry and of Maxwell must have been in Andrew White’s
mind when in 1873 he spoke those memorable words which I quoted before
and will quote here again:
I will confine myself to the value, in our political progress, of
the spirit and example of some of the scientific workers of our
day and generation. What is the example which reveals that spirit?
It is an example of _zeal_, ... of _thoroughness_, of _bravery_,
... of _devotion to duty_ without which no scientific work can
be accomplished, ... of _faith_ that truth and goodness are
inseparable.
The Hertzian experiments created quite an upheaval in the research
programme of the Physical Institute; everybody seemed anxious to drop
his particular subject of research and try his hand at the Hertzian
waves. Several candidates for the doctor’s degree yielded, but I
resisted and returned to my problem in physical chemistry, and plodded
along as if nothing had happened. I was very anxious to finish my
research, get my doctor’s degree, and return to the United States.
But I soon found out that there are currents in human life which can
influence the course of life of a young scientist much more powerfully
than even a new and powerful current of thought in physical sciences.
During the first two months of 1888, Nikola, the Bosnian Serb, began to
look worried. He informed me confidentially that he had received bad
news about the health of his great “komshiya,” the aged Kaiser. The
audiences at the palace were separated by longer and longer intervals,
and Habel’s long table began to look deserted; the old generals with
their splendid uniforms were conspicuously absent and the historic
chop-house began to look commonplace. The daily parades of the guards
were finally suspended, and there were no expectant crowds in front of
the Imperial palace. The gay life of Unter den Linden became very much
subdued. Finally the historic event occurred: the great emperor died
on March 9, 1888. Berlin went into mourning and prepared for a funeral
such as Germany had never seen before. “I have secured a balcony for
you and your friends right over my store,” said Nikola; “I want you and
your friends to see the funeral procession as my guests.” His grief
over the death of the old emperor was really pathetic. He wanted me
and my American friends to see the great procession which, according
to his gloomy forebodings, was to mark the first step downward in the
wonderful development of the German Empire. When, consoling him, I
pointed out the well-known virtues of Crown Prince Frederick, he took
hold of his larynx and his gesture indicated that he expected the
death of the Crown Prince from his incurable malady. “What then?” I
asked him. He answered: “Ask your Bismarck and Moltke, Helmholtz and
Siemens; they are your oracles, perhaps they can answer your question;
no ordinary mortal can.”
Nikola had never met my American friends whom he mentioned in his
invitation, but he had heard a great deal about them. My classmate at
Columbia, A. V. Williams Jackson, now the distinguished Orientalist and
professor at Columbia University, was at that time at the University of
Halle, studying with the great Orientalist, Professor Geltner. He had
visited me in Berlin and I returned his visit by spending with him a
week-end at Halle. This was shortly before the great Kaiser’s death.
Jackson’s mother and two sisters were there on a longer visit, and for
two days I felt that I was back in New York again, and I was supremely
happy. On the way back to Berlin I could not dismiss from my mind the
memory of my mother’s words: “You must marry an American girl if you
wish to remain an American, which I know you do.” Ever since my return
from Halle, I could hear these words ringing in my ear no matter where
I was, in my lodgings, in the laboratory, in the lecture-rooms, or even
in Nikola’s store. Nikola had read my thoughts, and when he mentioned
my American friends he meant Jackson and his mother and sisters at
Halle. Well, they came, they saw, and they conquered. One of Jackson’s
sisters went to Italy during that spring and I followed; she returned
to Berlin to join her mother and I followed; she went to the island of
Norderney, in the North Sea, to spend a part of the summer season, and
I followed. The Faraday-Maxwell electromagnetic theory and the Hertzian
experiments, my research in physical chemistry, and the learned essays
of Helmholtz and Willard Gibbs, and of all the other fathers of
physical chemistry, disappeared from my mind as if they had never been
there. The only problem that could find a place there was the question:
Will she accept me? She finally did, and I made a bee-line for New
York, in order to find out how soon I could get a job there.
The Columbia authorities were organizing at that time a new department
in the School of Mines, the Department of Electrical Engineering, and
they were glad to see me and consult me about it. It was to start its
work a year from that time, that is, the end of September, 1889. I
was offered a position in it as “Teacher of Mathematical Physics in
the Department of Electrical Engineering.” A very long title, indeed,
but such it was and an interesting bit of history is attached to it.
I accepted gladly and hurried back to Europe proud as a peacock. My
fiancée and her family met me in London and I was married in the Greek
church, according to the rites of the Orthodox faith, the faith of my
mother and of all my ancestors.
“Marriage gives that fulness to life which nothing else can give,”
said Helmholtz when I saw him again in Berlin and informed him that
I was married and that I had been promised an academic position at
Columbia College. He approved my dropping the experimental research
and substituting in its place a mathematical research in physical
chemistry. This research was finished in the early spring and I sent
it to Helmholtz who was then in Baden-Baden. He telegraphed: “Your
successful effort approved and accepted.” Never before nor since did
I ever receive a telegram which made me more happy. The examinations
gave me no serious trouble, and in the late spring of that year I had
my doctor’s degree and became a citizen in the world of science. The
three theses which, according to old German custom, every candidate
seeking promotion to the dignity of a doctor of philosophy must frame
and defend publicly are given here, in order to show my final mental
attitude which was formulated by my scientific studies in Europe.
I. Instruction in Physics in the preparatory schools should be as much
as possible a practical one.
II. The Thermodynamic methods of Gibbs, von Helmholtz, and Planck form
the most reliable foundation for the study of those physical processes
which we cannot analyze by ordinary dynamics.
III. The Electromagnetic Theory of Light deserves more attention than
it has received so far in university lectures.
Usually these theses, appended to German doctor dissertations, are not
taken very seriously either by the candidate, who is to be promoted, or
by anybody else. But I took my theses very seriously. The first summed
up President Barnard’s doctrine relating to scientific instruction,
which I described before in connection with my description of the
American movement favoring scientific research in American colleges and
universities; the second summed up my admiration for the new science
of physical chemistry first started by our own Josiah Willard Gibbs;
and the third summed up my love for the Faraday-Maxwell electromagnetic
science. On these three questions in physical science I had, I thought,
quite clear and definite ideas; and that gave me much confidence that
I was about to return to the United States sufficiently equipped to
render service in return for some of the many favors which I had
received.
As the ship which carried me back to the United States entered New
York Harbor I saw on my right Castle Garden; it looked the same as it
did fifteen years before, when I first entered on the immigrant ship,
and it reminded me of that earlier day. I said to my bride, who was
standing by my side, that I did not carry much more money into New
York Harbor than I did fifteen years before, when I first looked upon
Castle Garden, and yet I felt as rich as a Crœsus. I felt, I told
her, that I owned the whole of the United States, because I was sure
that the United States owned me; that I had an ideal American bride,
who had assured me that I had lived up to the standards of an ideal
American bridegroom; and that I had a fine position in a great American
institution and strong hopes of filling it to everybody’s satisfaction.
I enumerated all these and other things to my bride and wound up by
saying, jokingly: “I have also some prospects which modesty prevents me
from mentioning,” and then I added: “These are the only worldly goods
with which I thee endow.”
X
THE FIRST PERIOD OF MY ACADEMIC CAREER AT COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY
The new “Department of Electrical Engineering in the School of Mines
of Columbia College” had announced its courses of instruction quite a
number of months before I arrived in New York. The late Francis Bacon
Crocker, at that time the newly appointed instructor in electrical
engineering and my future colleague and life-long friend, had been
consulted with regard to these courses, and he was most liberal to
the theoretical side, which was to be my share of the instruction.
He attached much importance to the fundamental theory, although he
was a practical engineer. The new department was to be independent of
the other scientific departments. We had some difficulty, however, in
maintaining that independence; the older departments of engineering
showed a disposition to claim some right of guardianship over the new
infant department. For instance, many chemists thought that electrical
engineering was largely chemistry on account of the storage batteries,
the galvanic cells, and the electrochemical processes which formed an
important part of the electrical operations in the early history of
applied electricity. Others asserted that, since mechanical engineering
attended to the design and the construction of electromagnetic
generators and to the power plant which furnished the driving power,
electrical engineering was, therefore, largely mechanical engineering.
Crocker and I maintained that there is an electrical science which
is the real soul of electrical engineering, and that every other
abstract science or its application was an incident only in electrical
engineering. We won out in spite of the fact that at other institutions
of higher learning in the United States electrical engineering was
taught in the departments of physics or of mechanical engineering.
But it was not an easy matter in those days to persuade people that
the electrical science with its applications was then, or that it
ever would be, big enough to need a department of its own, like, for
instance, civil engineering.
A small brick shed, a temporary structure, had been built at Columbia
College to accommodate the new department. The students called it the
“cowshed,” and the boy who invented the name did not indulge in any
stretching of his imagination. It certainly looked like a cowshed. The
laboratory equipment consisted of a dynamo, a motor, and an alternator,
with some so-called practical measuring instruments. When I compared
the facilities of the new “Department of Electrical Engineering at
Columbia College” with that of the Polytechnic School in Berlin, I
felt somewhat humbled, but not discouraged. I said to Crocker: “Our
guns are small and few in number; the men behind the guns will have to
expand much beyond their present size if this department is to make any
impression upon the electrical art.” “Pupin,” said Crocker, “you have
no idea how rapidly a young fellow grows when he tries to teach a new
subject to poorly prepared beginners.”
Crocker and I were given to understand that any additional equipment
during the first year would have to be bought from contributions
outside of the university. We raised some money by giving a course of
twelve popular lectures for which we charged ten dollars per person.
Each lecture lasted two hours; we were somewhat dubious about their
quality, and so we provided a generous quantity. We raised in this
manner three hundred dollars and bought additional equipment, but no
two young scientists ever worked harder to earn three hundred dollars.
The experience, however, was worth many times that amount. Our audience
consisted of business men and lawyers, who were either interested in
the electrical industries, or expected to become interested. They had
hardly any previous scientific training. It took much judgment and
skill to talk science to these people without shooting much above their
heads. Every one of them believed that the electrical science was in
its infancy, and that most of its useful applications were obtained
empirically by a rule of thumb. When we told them that the electrical
science was one of the most exact of all physical sciences, some shook
their heads and exhibited considerable scepticism. One of them asked
me: “Doctor, do you know what electricity is?” “No,” said I, and he
added another question: “Then how can you have an exact science of
electricity when you do not even know what electricity is?” To this
I retorted: “Do you know what matter is? Of course you do not, nor
does anybody else know it, and yet who will deny that there are exact
sciences relating to material things? Do you deny that astronomy is an
exact science?” It is a difficult thing to make unscientific people
understand that science studies first and foremost the _activities of
things and not their ultimate nature_.
In that first course of public lectures I found it necessary to devote
much of my exposition to the correction of erroneous notions lodged in
the minds of my audience. When I told that audience that no electrical
generator generates electricity, because electricity was made by God
and, according to Faraday, its quantity in the universe is constant,
and that for every positive charge there is an equal negative one,
most members of my audience were inclined to think that I was talking
metaphysics. “Then what does it generate?” asked one of my hearers.
I answered: “It generates motion of electricity, and by that motion
it furnishes us with means of doing useful work like telegraphy,
telephony, and electrical lighting.” Then I added: “The electrical
science studies the forces which make electricity move against the
reactions of the bodies through which it moves; in the overcoming of
these reactions the moving electricity does useful work.” Illustrations
from dynamics of material bodies did not help very much, because my
audience had hardly any knowledge of even the elements of Newton’s
great work, although Newton considered these elements obvious truths.
All they knew about Newton was that he had “discovered gravitation.”
When I told them that Newton had discovered the law of gravitational
action and not gravitation itself, they thought that I was splitting
hairs. I was never quite sure that those good people had carried away
much knowledge from my lectures, but I was quite sure that they had
left much knowledge with me. In trying to straighten out their notions
I straightened out my own very considerably. Crocker was right when he
said: “You have no idea how rapidly a young fellow grows when he tries
to teach a new subject to poorly prepared beginners.” That was the real
profit from our first course of public lectures.
Every cultured person is expected to have an intelligent view of
literature, of the fine arts, and of the social sciences, which is
as it should be. But who has ever thought of suggesting that culture
demands an intelligent view of the primary concepts in fundamental
sciences? If cultured people had it, there would be no need to renew
periodically the tiresome topic of the alleged clash between science
and religion, and there would be much more straight thinking about
things in general. Every child in the public schools should be made
perfectly familiar with the simple experiments which illustrate the
fundamental elements of Newton’s divine philosophy, as Milton calls
science. Barnard, Joseph Henry, Andrew White, and the other leaders
of scientific thought in the United States, who started the great
movement in favor of higher scientific research and of a better
scientific education, had a difficult up-hill pull, because people in
high places lacked an intelligent view of science. A famous lawyer, a
trustee of a great educational institution, looked surprised when I
told him, over thirty years ago, that one cannot teach science without
laboratories both for the elementary and for the advanced instruction.
He actually believed that graduate schools in science needed only a lot
of blackboards, chalk, and sponges, and a lecturer who could prepare
his lectures by reading books. He believed what he thought would suit
him best, namely, that a university should be built on the top of a
heap of chalk, sponges, and books. These instrumentalities are cheaper
than laboratories, and that appeals to many university trustees. The
teacher who can lecture from books and not from his experience in the
laboratory is also much cheaper. But heaven help the country which
trusts its destiny to cheap men operating with cheap instrumentalities.
I gave that trustee a lecture by reciting the sermon which Tyndall
preached in the “Summary and Conclusions” of his famous lectures of
1872-1873. I was bold enough to deliver several of these lectures to
men in high places. Some liked them and some did not, but they all
agreed that I had my own opinions upon the subject and was not afraid
to express them.
The American Institute of Electrical Engineers had heard of my somewhat
novel opinions regarding the teaching of the electrical science in
its bearing upon electrical engineering, and it invited me to give
an address upon the subject at its annual meeting in Boston, in the
summer of 1890. The address was entitled “Practical Aspects of the
Alternating Current Theory.” It was a eulogy of the electrical
science, and particularly of Faraday, Maxwell, and Joseph Henry on the
purely scientific side, and of the technical men who were developing
the system of electrical power distribution by alternating electrical
forces. I noticed that my audience was divided into two distinct
groups; one group was cordial and appreciative, but the other was
as cold as ice. The famous electrical engineer and inventor, Elihu
Thomson, was in the friendly group, and he looked me up after the
address and congratulated me cordially. That was a great encouragement
and I felt happy. Another man, a well-known physicist and engineer,
also looked me up, and asked me whether I really expected that students
of electrical engineering could ever be trusted to swallow and digest
all the mathematical stuff which I had presented in my address. The
“mathematical stuff” to which he referred was a very elementary
theoretical illustration. I thought of my chums, the tripos youngsters
at Cambridge, and of their wonderful capacity for swallowing and
digesting “mathematical stuff,” but said nothing; the man who was
addressing me was one of those people who had a small opinion of the
capacity and willingness of our American boys to “swallow and digest”
just as much “mathematical stuff” as their English cousins do.
A short time prior to my return to Columbia College, in 1889, a bitter
polemic had been carried on in the New York newspapers concerning the
two methods of electrical power distribution, the _direct_ and the
_alternating_ current method. The New York interests favored the first,
and another group, including the Westinghouse Company, supported the
alternating current method. The opponents of the latter method called
it the “deadly alternating current,” and did their best to discredit
it. They actually succeeded, I was told, in persuading the State
authorities to install an alternating current machine at the Sing Sing
prison, to be used in electrocution. When in my address at Boston I
recited my eulogy of the alternating current system I did not know of
this bitter polemic, but when I heard of it I understood the chilliness
among a part of my audience.
In the following autumn I was made to understand that my address
in Boston had made a bad impression, and that it had offended the
feelings of some _big_ men who were interested in the electrical
industries. I could not help seeing the glaring hint that the new
“Department of Electrical Engineering at Columbia College” was to
suffer from the fact that one of its two instructors was accused of
an unpardonable “electrical heresy.” The great and mighty person who
broached this matter to me suggested that perhaps the easiest way out
of this difficulty was my resignation. “Very well,” said I, “I will
certainly resign if the trustees of Columbia College, who appointed
me, find me guilty of a scientific heresy.” The trustees never heard
of this incident, but my colleague Crocker did, and he said in his
characteristic manner: “There are many persons to-day who would not
hesitate to burn the witch of Salem, but no persons of that kind are on
the board of trustees of Columbia College.” Crocker was a Cape Cod man
and he had a very soft spot for the witch of Salem.
The notion among many captains of industry that the electrical science
was in its infancy, and that it worked by the rule of thumb, made it
possible to launch an opposition of that kind against the introduction
of the alternating current system of electrical distribution of power.
Tesla’s alternating current motor and Bradley’s rotary transformer
for changing alternating currents into direct were available at that
time. The electrical art was ready then to do many of the things which
it is doing to-day so well, if it had not been for the opposition of
people who were afraid that they would have to scrap some of their
direct current apparatus and the plants for manufacturing it, if the
alternating current system received any support. A most un-American
mental attitude! It was clear to every impartial and intelligent expert
that the two systems supplemented each other in a most admirable
manner, and that the advancement of one would also advance the other.
Men like Elihu Thomson and my colleague Crocker knew that, but
ignorance and false notions prevailed in the early nineties, because
the captains of electrical industries paid small attention to highly
trained electrical scientists. That explains why in those days the
barbarous steel cables were still employed to drag cars along Third
Avenue, New York, and why in 1893 I saw the preparatory work on
Columbus Avenue, New York, for installing additional barbarous steel
ropes to drag street-cars. But, fortunately, electrical traction came
to the rescue of Columbus Avenue.
During the summer of 1893 I had the good fortune to meet, quite often,
William Barclay Parsons, the distinguished engineer, the future builder
of the first New York subway, and to-day the distinguished chairman
of the Board of Trustees of Columbia University. He passed the summer
vacation at Atlantic Highlands, and I at Monmouth Beach, and we used
the same steamboat in our occasional trips to New York. His head was
full of schemes for the solution of the New York rapid-transit problem,
but I observed that his ideas were not quite clear on the question of
the electrical power transmission to be employed. A very few years
later his ideas had cleared wonderfully. He had visited Budapest in
1894 and had seen there surface cars operated electrically and most
satisfactorily by an underground trolley. It was a most instructive
object-lesson, but how humiliating it was to the engineering pride
of the great United States to consult little Hungary in electrical
engineering! The electrical power transmission system employed to-day
in the New York subways is practically the same which had been
proposed to and accepted by Parsons, the chief engineer, not so many
years after our trips to New York, in 1893; it is the electrical
power transmission consisting of a combination of the alternating and
direct current systems. No fundamentally novel methods were employed
which did not exist at the time when the alternating current machine
was installed at Sing Sing for the purpose of electrocuting people by
the “deadly alternating current.” In less than five years a radical
change in popular notions had taken place about a matter which was well
understood from the very first by men of higher scientific training,
like Stillwell, the chief engineer of the Niagara Power Company, and
Sprague, the well-known pioneer in electrical traction, the inventor of
the multiple unit system, without which our subway would be practicably
impossible.
Four historical events, very important in the annals of the electrical
science in the United States, had happened in rapid succession between
1890 and 1894. The first was the successful electrical transmission of
power between Lauffen and Frankfurt, in Germany, in 1891; it employed
the alternating current system. The second was the decision of the
Niagara Falls Power and Construction Company to employ the alternating
current system for the transmission of its electrical power; Professor
Henry Augustus Rowland, of Johns Hopkins University, as consulting
expert of the company, favored this system; another consulting
scientific expert, the famous Lord Kelvin, favored the direct current
system. The third historical event was the consolidation of the Edison
General Electric Company with the Thomson-Houston Company of Lynn,
Massachusetts. This consolidation meant the end of the opposition to
the alternating current system on the part of people who were most
influential in the electrical industries. No such opposition could
exist in an electrical corporation where Elihu Thomson’s expert
opinion had any weight. The fourth historical event was the Electrical
Congress at the World Exposition in Chicago, in 1893. Helmholtz came
over as an official delegate of the German Empire, and was elected
honorary president of the congress. The subjects discussed at that
congress, and the men who discussed them, showed that the electrical
science was not in its infancy, and that electrical things were not
done by the rule of thumb.
Once I asked Professor Rowland whether anybody had ever suggested to
him resigning from Johns Hopkins University on the ground that in
favoring the alternating current system for the Niagara Falls Power
Transmission plant he had made himself liable to a charge of heresy.
“Heresy?” said he; “I thought that my heresy was worth a big fee, and
when the company attempted to cut it down the courts sustained my
claim.” An interesting bit of history is attached to this. When the
Niagara Power and Construction Company objected to the size of the fee
which Rowland charged for his services as scientific adviser, and asked
for a reduction, the matter was referred to the court. During Rowland’s
cross-examination the defendant’s lawyer, the late Joseph Choate, asked
him the question: “Who, in your opinion, is the greatest physicist in
the United States?” Rowland answered without a moment’s hesitation: “I
am.” The judge smiled, but agreed with the witness, and his agreement
was in harmony with the opinion of all scientific men. Rowland
justified his apparently egotistical answer by the fact that as a
witness on the stand he was under oath to speak the truth; he certainly
spoke the truth when he testified that he was the leading physicist in
the United States.
Rowland’s interest in the electrical science and its technical
applications helped much to dissipate the notion, entertained by
many, that it was empirical and still in its infancy. Bogus inventors
always encouraged this superstition. The attention which Rowland and
his former pupil, the late Doctor Louis Duncan, devoted to electrical
engineering at Johns Hopkins University helped much to raise the
status of electrical engineering. When the new General Electric
Company was organized by the consolidation of the Edison General
Electric Company and the Thomson-Houston Company, Elihu Thomson
became the chief scientific adviser of the new corporation, and its
highest court of appeals in scientific matters. I remember telling my
colleague, Crocker, that if the Thomson-Houston Company had contributed
nothing else than Elihu Thomson to the new corporation it would have
contributed more than enough. Thomson, in my opinion, was the American
Siemens, and Rowland was the American Helmholtz, of the new era in
the history of American industries--the era of close co-operation
between abstract science and engineering. With these two men among the
leaders of the electrical science and the electrical industry in the
United States, the senseless opposition to the alternating current
system of power distribution began to wane. It vanished quickly after
the Electrical Congress of 1893. The first visible result of the
co-operation between abstract science and the technical arts was the
splendid power plant at Niagara Falls, and later the electrical power
distribution system in the New York subways, in which the alternating
and the direct current systems supplemented each other most admirably.
[Illustration: HENRY AUGUSTUS ROWLAND (1848-1901)
First Director of the Physics Laboratory of Johns
Hopkins University]
The scientific spirit of Rowland’s laboratory and lecture-room was
felt everywhere in the electrical industries; it was felt also in our
educational institutions. His and his students’ researches in solar
spectra and in other problems of higher physics made that spirit the
dominating influence among the rising generation of physical science in
America. It was universally acknowledged that Johns Hopkins was a real
university. The intellectual movement in favor of higher scientific
research, first inaugurated by Joseph Henry, President Barnard
of Columbia College, and Doctor John William Draper, in the early
seventies, was marching on steadily under the leadership of Rowland
when I started my academic career at Columbia, thirty-four years ago,
and he led on like a “doughty knight of Troy,” as Maxwell used to call
him. It was the spirit of Johns Hopkins which inspired the generation
of the early nineties in its encouragement of the movement for the
development of the American university. Some enthusiasts at Columbia
College went even so far as to advocate the abolition of the college
curriculum and the substitution of a Columbia University for Columbia
College; I was not among these enthusiasts, because I knew only too
well the historical value of Columbia College and of other American
colleges. What would the University of Cambridge be without its ancient
colleges? College lays the foundation for higher citizenship; the
university lays the foundation for higher learning.
[Illustration: _By courtesy of the Columbia University Library_
JAMES CLERK MAXWELL (1831-1879)
First Director of the Cavendish Laboratory at Cambridge
University]
Speaking for physical sciences I can say that in those days there was
no lack of trained scientists who could easily have extended the work
of the American college, and added to it a field of advanced work
resembling closely the activity of the European universities. Most
of these men had received their higher academic training in European
universities, and quite a number of them came from Johns Hopkins.
But there were two obstacles: first, lack of experimental-research
facilities; second, lack of leisure for scientific research. Rowland
and his followers recognized the existence of these obstacles, and
demanded reform. Most of the energy of the teachers of physical
sciences was consumed in the lecture-room; they were pedagogues,
“pouring information into passive recipients,” as Barnard described it.
My own case was a typical one. How could I do any research as long as
I had at my disposal a dynamo, a motor, an alternator, and a few crude
measuring instruments only, all intended to be used every day for the
instruction of electrical-engineering students? When the professor of
engineering died, in the summer of 1891, a part of his work, theory
of heat and hydraulics, was assigned to me. The professor of dynamics
died a little later, and his work also was transferred to me. I was to
carry the additional load of lecture-room work temporarily, but was
relieved from it, in part only, after several years. As a reward my
title was advanced to adjunct professor, with an advance of salary to
two thousand five hundred dollars per annum. But in return for this
_royal_ salary I had to lecture three to four hours each forenoon,
and help in the electrical laboratory instruction in the afternoons.
While this pedagogic load was on my back scientific research could
not be seriously thought of. My young colleagues in other colleges
were similarly situated. This overloading of young scientists with
pedagogic work threatened to stunt, and often did stunt, their growth
and also the growth of the rising American university. “Let chairs be
founded, sufficiently but not luxuriously endowed, which shall have
original research for their main object and ambition,” was the historic
warning which Tyndall addressed to the American people in 1873, but
in 1893 there was little evidence that it was heeded anywhere outside
of Johns Hopkins University. But there they had Rowland and a number
of other stars of the first magnitude who had succeeded Joseph Henry,
Barnard, and Draper as leaders of the great movement in favor of higher
scientific research. In 1883 Rowland delivered a memorable address as
vice-president of one of the sections of the American Association for
the Advancement of Science. It was entitled, “A Plea for Pure Science,”
and described the spirit not only of Johns Hopkins of those days but
also of all friends of higher learning in science. That spirit was
advocated here by Tyndall in 1872-1873, and under Rowland’s leadership
it was bound to win our battle for higher ideals in science. The
people of the United States owe a great debt of gratitude to Johns
Hopkins for the leadership in that great movement which, as we see
to-day, has produced a most remarkable intellectual advancement in
this country. Nearly thirty years ago I heard Rowland say in a public
address: “They always say in Baltimore that no man in that city should
die without leaving something to Johns Hopkins.” When he said it
he knew that Johns Hopkins was very poor. It is poorer to-day than
ever, and no rich man in the United States should die without leaving
something to Johns Hopkins, the pioneer university of the United States.
Rowland said once that lack of experimental facilities and of time
was not a valid excuse for neglecting entirely scientific research. I
agreed with that opinion; neglect breeds indifference, and indifference
degenerates into atrophy of the spirit of inquiry. The alternating
current machine of the electrical engineering laboratory at Columbia
was free in the evenings, and so was my time; that is, if my wife
should not object, and, being a noble and unselfish woman, she did not
object. With the assistance of several enthusiastic students, among
them Gano Dunn, to-day one of the most distinguished engineers in the
United States, I started investigating the passage of electricity
through various gases at low pressures, and published two papers in
the _American Journal of Science_. I soon discovered that most of my
results had been anticipated by Professor J. J. Thomson, of Cambridge,
who, in all probability, had received his inspiration from the same
source from which I had received mine. He not only had anticipated me
but, moreover, he showed a much better grasp of the subject than I had,
and had much better experimental facilities. I decided to leave the
field to him, and to watch his beautiful work from the outside. It was
a wise decision, because it prepared me to understand the epoch-making
discoveries in this field which were soon to be announced, one in
Germany and one in France. I turned my attention to another field.
I must mention, however, one of the results which Thomson had not
anticipated and which created quite an impression among astronomers. I
noticed a peculiar appearance in the electrical discharge proceeding
from a small metal sphere which was located in the centre of a large
glass sphere containing air at low pressure. The discharges looked very
much like the luminous corona of the sun which astronomers observe
during eclipses, and which was always a mysterious puzzle in solar
physics. Pasting a tin-foil disk on the glass sphere, so as to hide
the metal sphere and see only the discharge proceeding from it, I
photographed the appearance of the discharge and obtained the pictures
given opposite page 294. The resemblance of these photographs to those
of the two types of the solar corona is most striking. This is what I
said about it at that time:
“The bearing which these experimental results may have upon the theory
of the solar corona I prefer to leave to others to decide. That they
may prove a suggestive guide in the study of solar phenomena seems not
unreasonable to expect.”
[Illustration: ELECTRICAL DISCHARGES REPRESENTING TWO TYPES OF
SOLAR CORONÆ]
[Illustration: SOLAR CORONA OF 1922
Photographed by the Lick Observatory Expedition
to Australia]
In a communication read later before the New York Academy of Sciences
I was much bolder, having previously discussed the subject with my
friends at Johns Hopkins and with the late Professor Young, the famous
astronomer at Princeton. I soon found myself advocating strongly the
electromagnetic theory of solar phenomena. A German professor, Ebert by
name, a well-known authority on electrical discharges in gases, took
me very seriously indeed, which was very flattering, but he claimed
priority. I had no difficulty in establishing my priority through the
columns of _Astronomy and Astro-Physics_, one of whose editors was
George Ellery Hale, to-day the distinguished director of Mount Wilson
Observatory. I was indeed fortunate to make his acquaintance during
that period when both he and I were very young men. His influence
prevented me from running wild with my electromagnetic theory of
solar phenomena. Thanks to the splendid astro-physical researches
at the Mount Wilson Observatory in California under Doctor Hale’s
direction, we know to-day that enormous electrical currents circulate
on the surface of the sun, and we know also from other researches that
negative electricity is shot out from all hot bodies, even from those
not nearly as hot as the sun, and that the solar corona is, in all
probability, closely related to this electrical activity on the sun.
After giving up the subject of electrical discharges in gases I
looked around for another problem of research which I could manage
with my meagre laboratory facilities. Rowland had found distortions
in an alternating current when that current was magnetizing iron in
electrical power apparatus. This distortion consisted of the addition
of higher harmonics to the normal harmonic changes in the current.
This reminded me of harmonics in musical instruments and in the human
voice. Helmholtz was the first to analyze the vowels in human speech by
studying the harmonics which they contained. The vowel o, for instance,
sung at a given pitch, contains in addition to its fundamental
pitch--say one hundred vibrations per second--other vibrations the
frequencies of which are integral multiples of one hundred, that is
two, three, four, ... hundred vibrations per second. These higher
vibrations are called harmonics of the fundamental. Helmholtz detected
these harmonics by the employment of acoustical resonators; it was an
epoch-making research. I proceeded to search for a similar procedure
for the analysis of Rowland’s distorted alternating currents, and I
found it. I constructed electrical resonators based upon dynamical
principles similar to those in the acoustical resonators employed by
Helmholtz. These electrical resonators play a most important part in
the radio art of to-day, and a few words regarding their operation
seem desirable. In fact, there is to-day a cry from the Atlantic
to the Pacific on the part of millions of people who wish to know
what they are really doing when they are turning a knob on their
radio-receiving sets in order to find the correct wave length for a
certain broadcasting station. I am responsible for the operation, and I
owe them an explanation of it.
The mass and form of an elastic body, say a tuning-fork, and its
stiffness determine the pitch, the so-called _frequency_ of vibration.
When a periodically varying force, say a wave of sound, acts upon the
tuning-fork, the maximum motion of the prongs will be produced when the
pitch or frequency of the moving force is equal to the frequency of the
tuning-fork. The two are said then to be in resonance, that is, the
motion of the fork resonates to or synchronizes with the action of the
force. Every elastic structure has a frequency of its own. The column
of air in an organ-pipe has a frequency of its own; so has the string
of a piano. One can excite the motion of each by singing a note of the
same frequency; a note of a considerably different frequency excites
practically no motion at all. Acoustical resonance phenomena are too
well known to need here any further comment. There are also electrical
resonance phenomena very similar to those of acoustical resonance. If
you understand one of them there is no difficulty in understanding the
other.
If an electrical conductor, say a copper wire, is coiled up so as
to form a coil of many turns, and its terminals are connected to a
condenser, that is to conducting plates which are separated from
each other by insulating material, then the motion of electricity in
that conducting circuit is subject to the same laws as the motion of
the prongs of a tuning-fork. Every motion, whether of electricity
or of matter, is determined completely by the force which produces
the motion, and by the forces with which the moving object reacts
against the motion. If the law of action of these several forces
is the same in the case of moving matter as in the case of moving
electricity, then their motions also will be the same. The moving
forces are called the _action_ and the opposing forces are called the
_reaction_, and Newton’s third law of motion says: _Action is equal to
the opposing reaction_. I always considered this the most fundamental
law in all physical sciences. It is applicable to all motions no
matter what the thing is which moves, whether ponderable matter or
imponderable electricity. Twenty-six years ago a student of mine,
Albert R. Gallatin, brother of the present park commissioner of New
York, presented a large induction coil to the electrical laboratory
at Columbia College in recognition of my services to him, because,
he said, this formulation of the fundamental law in the electrical
science, which I have just given, made everything very clear to him.
This was most encouraging to a young professor, and it goes without
saying that ever since that time he and I have been warm friends.
He is a banker and I am still a professor, but the interest in the
fundamental principles in physical sciences are a strong bond of union
between us.
The electrical force which moves the electricity in the circuit, just
described, experiences two principal reactions. One reaction is due
to the lines of electrical force which, attached to the electrical
charge on the condenser plates, are crowded into the insulating
space between these plates. This reaction corresponds to the elastic
reaction of the prongs of the tuning-fork, and follows the same law.
In the case of the tuning-fork the _elastic reaction is proportional
to the displacement_ of the prongs from their normal position; in the
electrical case the reacting force is proportional to the electrical
charges which have been pulled apart, the negative from the positive,
and driven to the plates of the condenser. Call this separation
_electrical displacement_, and the law can be given the same form as
above, namely: _The reacting force is proportional to the electrical
displacement_. The greater the distance between the plates, and
the smaller their surface, the greater is the reaction for a given
electrical displacement. By varying these two quantities we can vary
the electrical yielding, the so-called capacity, of the electrical
condenser. This is what you do when you turn the knob and vary the
capacity of the condenser in your receiving set.
The moving prongs have a momentum, and a change in the momentum opposes
a reacting force, the so-called inertia reaction, which is equal to the
rate of this change. This was discovered by Galileo over three hundred
years ago. We experience the operation of this law every time we bump
against a moving object. The Irish sailor who, after describing the
accident which made him fall from the mast, assured his friends that
it was not the fall which hurt him but the sudden stop, appreciated
fully the reacting force due to a rapid change of momentum. Every boy
and girl in the public schools should know Galileo’s fundamental law,
and they would know it if by a few simple experiments it were taught
to them. But how many teachers really teach it? How many of my readers
really know that law? Just think of it, what an impeachment it is of
our modern system of education to have so many intelligent men and
women, boys and girls, ignorant of so fundamental a law as that which
Galileo discovered so long ago!
The moving electricity has a momentum. The magnetic lines of force
produced by this motion are a measure of this momentum. Their change
is opposed by a reacting force equal to the rate of this change. This
was discovered by Faraday nearly a hundred years ago. The larger the
number of turns in the coil of wire the larger will be the momentum for
a given electrical motion, that is, for a given electrical current. But
how can anybody understand very clearly this beautiful law, discovered
by Faraday, who does not understand Galileo’s simpler discovery? The
fact that electricity, just like matter, has inertia, and that both
obey the same law of inertia, is one of the most beautiful discoveries
in science. Whenever I thought that so many intelligent and cultured
people knew nothing about it I rebelled against the educational system
of modern civilization.
The motion of electricity in the conductor described above overcomes
reacting forces which follow the same laws as the motion of the elastic
prongs of the tuning-fork. The motion of one has, therefore, an analogy
in the motion of the other. In an electrical circuit having a coil
and a condenser the moving electricity has a definite inertia and a
definite electrical stiffness; hence it will have a definite pitch
or frequency for its vibratory motion, just like a tuning-fork; it
will act as a resonator. It is obvious, therefore, that an electrical
resonator, the pitch of which can be adjusted by adjusting its coil
or its condenser or both, is a perfect parallel to the acoustical
resonator. By means of an electrical resonator of this kind, having an
adjustable coil and an adjustable condenser, I succeeded in detecting
every one of the harmonics in Rowland’s distorted alternating currents,
in the same manner in which Helmholtz detected the harmonics in the
vowel sounds, but with much greater ease, because the pitch of an
electrical resonator can be very easily and accurately changed by
adjusting its coil and condenser. There are millions of people to-day
who are doing that very thing when they are turning the knobs on
their radio receiving sets, adjusting them to the wave-length of the
transmitting station. The expression, “adjusting them to the pitch
or frequency of the transmitting station,” is much better, because
it reminds the operator of the analogy existing between acoustical
and electrical resonance. The procedure was inaugurated thirty years
ago in the “cowshed” of old Columbia College. I called it “electrical
tuning” and the name has stuck to it down to the present time. The
word “tuning” was suggested by the operation which the Serbian
bagpiper performs when he tunes up his bagpipes, which I watched with
a lively interest in my boyhood days. Those early impressions had made
acoustical and electrical resonance appear to me later as obvious
things.
The results of this research were published in the _American Journal
of Science_ and also in the _Transactions of the American Institute
of Electrical Engineers for 1894_. They, I was told, had never been
anticipated; and they confirmed fully Rowland’s views concerning
the magnetic reaction of iron when subjected to the magnetic action
of an alternating current. When Helmholtz visited this country in
1893, I showed him my electrical resonators and the research which I
was conducting with their assistance. He was quite impressed by the
striking similarity between his acoustical resonance analysis and
my electrical resonance analysis, and urged me to push on the work
and repeat his early experiments in acoustical resonance, because my
electrical method was much more convenient than his acoustical method.
Helmholtz was always interested in the analysis as well as in the
synthesis of vibrations corresponding to articulate speech. The
telephone and the phonograph were two inventions which always enjoyed
his admiring attention. During his visit in America he looked forward
with much pleasure to meeting Graham Bell and Edison. The simplicity of
their inventions astonished him, because one would hardly have expected
that a simple disk could vibrate so as to reproduce faithfully all the
complex vibrations which are necessary for articulation. He spent a
Sunday afternoon as my guest at Monmouth Beach and in the course of
conversation I told him what impression the telephone had made upon me
when I first listened through it. It happened during the period when I
was serving my apprenticeship as greenhorn, and when I was trying hard
to master the articulation of the English language. The telephone plate
repeated perfectly everything spoken at the other end, and I said to
myself: “These Americans are too clever for me; they can make a plain
steel plate articulate much better than I can ever expect to do it
with all my speaking organs. I had better return to Idvor and become
a herdsman again.” Helmholtz laughed heartily and assured me that the
articulating telephone plate had made a similar impression upon him,
although he had spent several years of his life studying the theory of
articulation. “The phonograph disk is just as clever as the telephone
disk,” said Helmholtz, “perhaps even more so, because it has to dig
hard while it is busily talking.”
My scientific friends in New York saw in the construction of my
electrical resonator and in its employment for selective detection
of alternating currents of definite frequency a very suitable means
for practising harmonic telegraphy, first suggested by Graham Bell,
the inventor of the telephone. They finally persuaded me to apply for
a patent and I did so. I often regretted it, because it involved me
in a most expensive and otherwise annoying legal contest. Two other
inventors had applied for a patent on the same invention. One of them
was an American, and the other a French inventor, and each of them was
backed by a powerful industrial corporation. A college professor with
a salary of two thousand five hundred dollars per annum cannot stand a
long legal contest when opposed by two powerful corporations; but it
is a curious psychological fact that when one’s claim to an invention
is disputed he will fight for it just as a tigress would fight for her
cub. The fight lasted nearly eight years and I won it. I was declared
to be the inventor, and the patent was granted to me. But a patent is
a piece of paper worth nothing until somebody needs the invention.
I waited a long time before that somebody came, and when he finally
showed up I had almost forgotten that I had made the invention. In the
meantime I had nothing but a piece of paper for all my pains, which
nearly wrecked me financially.
Just about that time the newspapers reported that a young Italian
student by the name of Marconi, while experimenting with Hertzian
waves, had demonstrated that a Hertzian oscillator will send out
electrical waves which will penetrate much longer distances when one
of its sides is connected to earth. “Of course it will,” said I, “the
grounded oscillator takes the earth into closer partnership.” When as
a herdsman’s assistant on the pasturelands of my native Idvor I stuck
my knife into the ground and struck its wooden handle, I knew perfectly
well that the ground was a part of the vibrating system, and that the
sound-producing stroke was taken up by the ground much better than when
I struck the knife-handle without sticking the knife into the ground.
But I also knew that unless the boy who was listening pressed his ear
against the ground he would not hear very much. It was, therefore,
quite obvious to me that the best detector for a Hertzian oscillator
which is grounded must be another Hertzian oscillator which is also
connected to the ground. Grounding of the sending and of the receiving
Hertzian oscillators was in fact the fundamental claim of the Marconi
invention. Marconi, in my opinion, was unwittingly imitating the young
herdsmen of Idvor when, figuratively speaking, he stuck his electrical
knives into the ground for the purpose of transmitting and receiving
electrical vibrations, but the imitation was a very clever one; very
obvious indeed as soon as it was pointed out, like all clever things.
Every now and then we are told that wireless signals might be sent
some day to the planet Mars. The judgment of a former herdsman of
Idvor considers these suggestions unscientific for the simple reason
that we cannot get a ground on the planet Mars and, therefore, cannot
take it into close partnership with our Hertzian oscillators. Without
that partnership there is no prospect of covering great distances. A
very simple experiment will illustrate this. Scratch the wood of a
pencil and ask your friends who are sitting around a table whether
they hear the scratching. They will say “No.” Put the pencil on the
table and scratch it again; your friends will tell you that they can
hear it faintly. Ask them to press their ears against the table and
they will tell you that the scratching sound is very loud. In the
third case the pencil, the table, and the ears of your friends are all
one closely interconnected vibratory system. Every herdsman of Idvor
would interpret correctly the physical meaning of this experiment. “If
Marconi had waited just a little longer I should have done his trick
myself,” I said jokingly to Crocker, and then I temporarily dismissed
the matter from my mind as if nothing had happened. But I was fairly
confident that my electrical resonators would some day find a useful
application in this new method of signalling, and Crocker was even more
hopeful than I was. I turned my attention to another problem and would
have completed its solution, if my work had not been interrupted by the
announcement of a most remarkable discovery made in Germany, I mean the
discovery of the Roentgen rays.
I cannot describe the effects of this epoch-making discovery without
referring again to great Helmholtz. It was due to his initiative
that Hertz took up the research of electrical oscillations, which
suggested to Marconi their technical application. This started a new
technical art, wireless telegraphy, which developed into the radio
art. Without Helmholtz, not only the experimental verification of the
Faraday-Maxwell electromagnetic theory but also the radio art might
have been delayed quite a long time. I shall point out now that the
great discovery of the Roentgen rays also was due in a great measure to
the initiative of Helmholtz.
While in Berlin I was conducting a research upon vapor pressures of
salt solutions. For this purpose I needed the assistance of a clever
glass-blower. A Herr Mueller was recommended to me by the people of the
Physical Institute. I paid frequent visits to him, not only because I
liked to watch his wonderful skill in glass-blowing, but also because
he knew and entertained me often with the history of a remarkable
physical research which had been carried out by Doctor Goldstein, a
Berlin physicist, under the auspices of the German Academy of Sciences,
Herr Mueller, the glass-blowing artist, assisting.
The motion of electricity through rarefied gases was first extensively
studied in Germany in the fifties and sixties by several investigators.
Hittorf was one of them, and I mention him here for reasons given
later. The English physicists took up the subject a little later,
and among them Crookes did the most distinguished work. His tubes
with a very high vacuum gave brilliant cathode rays, first discovered
by Hittorf, which produced among other things the well-known
phosphorescence in vacuum tubes made of uranium glass. In spite of the
surpassing beauty of the electrical phenomena in vacuum tubes revealed
by Crookes’s experiments, no final and definite conclusions could be
drawn from them toward the end of the seventies. But he was undoubtedly
the first who correctly inferred that the cathode rays were small
electrified particles moving with very high velocity. This inference
proved to be of very great importance. In 1893 Lord Kelvin said: “If
the first step toward understanding the relations between ether and
ponderable matter is to be made, it seems to me that the most hopeful
foundation for it is knowledge derived from experiment on electricity
in high vacuum.” This was the very opinion which Helmholtz had
formulated fifteen years earlier, and he persuaded the German Academy
of Sciences to make a special grant for a thorough experimental review
of the whole field of research relating to electrical motions in high
vacua. Doctor Goldstein was selected to carry out this work. Mueller
was his glass-blower. The most important result of this work was the
discovery of the so-called _Canal Rays_, that is, motion of positive
electricity in the direction opposite to the motion of negative
electricity, the latter being the cause of the _cathode rays_. To get
that result Mueller had to make innumerable vacuum tubes of all sorts
of shapes. He told me that if all these tubes could be resurrected they
would fill the house in which his shop was located. “But the grand
result was worth all the trouble, and I am proud that I did all the
glass-blowing,” said Mueller, with a triumphant light in his eyes,
and his beaming countenance testified that he felt what he said. He
was an artisan who loved his craft; and, judging from his remarkable
knowledge of all the vacuum-tube researches which had been conducted
up to the time of his co-operation with Doctor Goldstein, I inferred
that he was a unique combination of the science and the art involved in
the job which he was doing for Doctor Goldstein. Mueller was the first
to arouse my interest in the results of vacuum-tube researches, and I
always considered him one of my distinguished teachers in Berlin. New
knowledge is not confined to the lecture-rooms of a great university;
it can often be found in most humble shops, treasured by humble people
who are quite unconscious that they are the guardians of a precious
treasure. Mueller was one of these humble guardians.
The importance of Goldstein’s work was due principally to the fact
that it brought into the field three other German physicists of
great acumen. The first one was Hertz. Several years after he had
completed his splendid experimental verification of the Faraday-Maxwell
electromagnetic theory, he showed that the cathode rays penetrated
easily through thin films of metal, like gold and aluminum foil,
although these films were perfectly opaque to ordinary light. It was
a novel and most important contribution to our knowledge of cathode
rays, and would have been followed up by more additional knowledge
if Hertz had not died on January 1, 1894, at the age of thirty-six.
Helmholtz died several months later. Science never suffered a greater
loss in so short an interval of time. Helmholtz met with an accident
on the ship on his return trip from the United States in 1893. He
never completely recovered, although he lectured at the University of
Berlin until a few days before his sudden death in the mid-summer of
1894. Autopsy revealed that one side of his brain was and had been in a
pathological state for a long time, but nobody had ever observed that
his intellectual power had shown any signs of decay. It is a pity that
he did not live another two years; he would have seen what he told me
during his visit here he longed to see, and that is an electrified body
moving at a very high velocity suddenly reversing its motion. That, he
thought, might furnish a direct experimental test of the mobility of
ether. The discovery described below furnished such a body.
Hertz’s work was continued and greatly extended by Professor Lenard
of the University of Kiel. He would have undoubtedly reached the
final goal if Roentgen had not announced, in December, 1895, that he,
experimenting with Lenard vacuum tubes, had discovered the X-rays.
This discovery marked the last step in the survey which Goldstein,
under the initiative of Helmholtz, had undertaken some fifteen years
before Roentgen had entered the field of electrical discharges in
high vacua. It was a great triumph for German science. The science of
electrical discharges in rarefied gases was started in Germany and in
less than forty years it had reached there its highest point. It is a
science which may justly be said to have been “made in Germany,” just
as the science of radiation. It started a new and most remarkable era
in physical sciences by extending the meaning of the Faraday-Maxwell
electromagnetic theory.
[Illustration: SIR J. J. THOMSON (1856----)]
No other discovery within my lifetime had ever aroused the interest
of the world as did the discovery of the X-rays. Every physicist
dropped his own research problems and rushed headlong into the
research of the X-rays. The physicists of the United States had paid
only small attention to vacuum-tube discharges. To the best of my
knowledge and belief I was at that time the only physicist here who
had had any laboratory experience with vacuum-tube research, and I
got it by overtime work in the electrical-engineering laboratory of
Columbia College. I undertook it because my intercourse with Mueller,
the glass-blower of Berlin, directed my attention to this field
of research, and particularly because I did not see that with the
equipment of that laboratory I could do anything else. I decided, as
mentioned above, to leave the field to Professor J. J. Thomson, of
Cambridge, and to watch his work. When, therefore, Roentgen’s discovery
was first announced I was, it seems, better prepared than anybody else
in this country to repeat his experiments and succeeded, therefore,
sooner than anybody else on this side of the Atlantic. I obtained the
first X-ray photograph in America on January 2, 1896, two weeks after
the discovery was announced in Germany.
[Illustration: WILHELM KONRAD RŒNTGEN (1845-1923)]
Many interesting stories have been told about the rush to the West
during the gold-fever period, caused by the discovery of gold in the
far West. The rush into X-ray experimentation was very similar, and
I also caught the fever badly. Newspaper reporters and physicians
heard of it, and I had to lock myself up in my laboratory, which
was in the cellar of President Low’s official residence at Columbia
College, in order to protect myself from continuous interruptions. The
physicians brought all kinds of cripples for the purpose of having
their bones photographed or examined by means of the fluorescent
screen. The famous surgeon, the late Doctor Bull of New York, sent
me a patient with nearly a hundred small shot in his left hand. His
name was Prescott Hall Butler, a well-known lawyer of New York, who
had met with an accident and received in his hand the full charge of
a shotgun. He was in agony; he and I had mutual friends who begged me
to make an X-ray photograph of his hand and thus enable Doctor Bull
to locate the numerous shot and extract them. The first attempts were
unsuccessful, because the patient was too weak and too nervous to stand
a photographic exposure of nearly an hour. My good friend, Thomas
Edison, had sent me several most excellent fluorescent screens, and by
their fluorescence I could see the numerous little shot and so could
my patient. The combination of the screen and the eyes was evidently
much more sensitive than the photographic plate. I decided to try a
combination of Edison’s fluorescent screen and the photographic plate.
The fluorescent screen was placed on the photographic plate and the
patient’s hand was placed upon the screen. The X-rays acted upon the
screen first and the screen by its fluorescent light acted upon the
plate. The combination succeeded, even better than I had expected. A
beautiful photograph was obtained with an exposure of a few seconds.
The photographic plate showed the numerous shot as if they had been
drawn with pen and ink. Doctor Bull operated and extracted every one of
them in the course of a short and easy surgical operation. Prescott
Hall Butler was well again. That was the first X-ray picture obtained
by that process during the first part of February, 1896, and it was
also the first surgical operation performed in America under the
guidance of an X-ray picture. This process of shortening the time of
exposure is now universally used, but nobody gives me any credit for
the discovery, although I described it in the journal _Electricity_, of
February 12, 1896, before anybody else had even thought of it. Prescott
Hall Butler was much more appreciative and he actually proposed, when
other offers to reward me for my efforts were refused, to establish a
fellowship for me at the Century Club, the fellowship to entitle me to
two toddies daily for the rest of my life. This offer also was refused.
On March 2, 1896, the late Professor Arthur Gordon Webster, of Clark
University, Worcester, Massachusetts, addressed a letter to the
_Worcester Gazette_, from which I quote:
Sunday morning I went with Professor Pupin to his laboratory to
try the effect of a fluorescent screen in front of the plate. I
placed my hand under the bulb and in five minutes the current
was stopped.... The result was the best plate that I had yet
seen.... One who has tried the experiments and seen how long it
takes to obtain a good result can judge of an improvement. I think
that Doctor Pupin should enjoy the credit of having actually ...
shortened the time of exposure ten and twenty times.
A description of the improvement, which I published in final form in
_Electricity_, of April 15, 1896, ends with the following sentence:
My only object in working on the improvement of the Roentgen
ray photography was for the purpose of widening its scope of
application to surgical diagnosis. I think that I have succeeded
completely and I wish full credit for the work done.
My friends suggested that I apply for a patent on the procedure and
enforce recognition that way, but I was having one expensive experience
in the patent office with my electrical resonators and did not care to
add another.
The question of reflection and refraction of the X-rays had to
be answered, and several strange claims were brought forward by
investigators. My investigations of this matter, aided by Thomas
Edison’s most efficient fluorescent screen, resulted in a discovery,
which, in a communication to the New York Academy of Sciences,
on April 6, 1896, I summed up as follows: “_Every substance when
subjected to the action of X-rays becomes a radiator of these rays_.”
The communication was published in several scientific journals, like
_Science_ and _Electricity_, and no statement can claim the discovery
of the now well-known secondary X-ray radiation more clearly than the
one given above. But of this matter I shall speak a little later.
Looking up some data lately I found that I had finished writing out
these communications relating to my X-ray research on April 14, 1896.
I also found a reprint of an address delivered before the New York
Academy of Sciences in April, 1895, and published in _Science_ of
December 28, 1895, at the very time when the X-ray fever broke out.
It was entitled: “Tendencies of Modern Electrical Research.” But the
X-ray fever prevented me from reading it when it was published. I saw
it three months later, but never again since that time, and I had
forgotten that I had ever composed it. I find now that the picture
which I had drawn then of the growth of the electromagnetic theory is
in every detail the same as that which I have given in this narrative.
Both of them are due to the lasting impressions received in Cambridge
and in Berlin. Evidently these impressions are just as strong to-day as
they were twenty-eight years ago, proving that the tablets of memory
have a mysterious process of preserving their records. I remember
that on April 14, 1896, I did not go to the laboratory, but stayed
at home and reflected, and read my address mentioned above. I took
an inventory of what I had done during my six years’ activity at
Columbia and I closed the books satisfied with the results. My wife,
who had helped me, writing out my reports, lectures, and scientific
communications, and who knew and watched every bit of the work which
I was doing, also was satisfied, and congratulated me. My colleague
Crocker, I knew, was satisfied, and so were all my scientific friends,
and that was a source of much satisfaction. But nothing makes one as
happy as his own honest belief that he has done his best.
XI
THE RISE OF IDEALISM IN AMERICAN SCIENCE
I must make a digression now, to arrange suitable contacts between the
preceding parts of my narrative and its concluding chapters. The main
object of my narrative has been to describe the rise of idealism in
American science, and particularly in physical sciences and the related
industries. I witnessed this gradual development; everything I have
written so far is an attempt to qualify as a witness whose testimony
has competence and weight. But there are many other American scientists
whose opinions in this matter have more competence and weight than
my opinion has. Why, then, should a scientist who started his career
as a Serbian immigrant speak of the idealism in American science,
when there are so many native-born American scientists who know more
about this subject than I do? Those who have read my narrative so far
may answer this question. I shall only point out now that there are
certain psychological elements in this question which justify me in the
belief that occasionally an immigrant can see things which escape the
attention of the native. Seeing is believing; let him speak who has the
faith, provided he has a message to deliver.
* * * * *
A foreign-born citizen of the United States has many occasions to
sing praises of the virtues of this country which the native-born
citizen has not. Such occasions arise whenever the foreign-born citizen
revisits his native land and hears opinions about America which are
based upon European prejudice born of ignorance. On these occasions he
can, if the spirit moves him, say many things with much more grace than
a native American could. The spirit will move him if his naturalization
means that he knows America’s traditions and embraces their precepts
with sincere enthusiasm. Statements which, coming from a native
American, might sound as boasts and bragging, may and often do sound
different when they are made by a naturalized American citizen. I have
had quite a number of experiences of this kind; one of them deserves
mention here.
Four years ago, while visiting my native land, I was invited to attend
a festive public meeting in a town not far from my native village. It
was the town of Panchevo, where in my boyhood days I went to school,
and where from my Slovenian teacher, Kos, I had heard for the first
time of Benjamin Franklin and of his kite. The earliest parts of this
narrative show that many memories of my boyhood days had nourished
in my heart an affectionate regard for this historic town. Panchevo
reciprocated, and hence the invitation. There was another reason. In
March of 1919, the chairman of the Yugoslav delegation at the Paris
peace conference invited me to go to Paris, expecting that with my
knowledge of the English language and of the Anglo-Saxon mentality I
could probably assist the delegation in its work. I spent seven weeks
in Paris. The result, I was assured by Premier Pashitch of Serbia,
was very satisfactory; and he invited me to go to Belgrade as guest
of the government, for the purpose of studying the condition of the
war orphans in Serbia. This study resulted in the organization of the
Serbian Child Welfare Association of America, whose splendid work
is known and appreciated in every part of the Serbian nation. When
Panchevo heard that I was in Belgrade it sent me the invitation.
The literary society of Panchevo, called the Academy, had arranged a
gala public session, and the occasion was the “Wilson Day,” which
the town was celebrating. The orator of the day was a young Slovene,
a learned lawyer and man of letters. The subject of his oration was:
“President Wilson and his fourteen points.” He wound up his splendid
eulogy of President Wilson by exclaiming: “_President Wilson is an
oasis of idealism in the endless desert of materialism_.” The image
of my old friend Bilharz, the hermit of Cortlandt Street, suddenly
appeared before me, and his favorite phrase “American materialism” rang
violently in my ears. I was afraid that the United States of America
would be understood to be a part of the endless desert mentioned by the
speaker, and the possibility of such an inference I did not like. A
most enthusiastic and long-continued applause greeted this oratorical
climax, and before the applause was over the chairman, who was the
mayor of the town, approached me and asked whether I should like to
address a few words to the great assembly of the intellectuals of the
town. “I not only like to do it,” said I, “but I insist upon it.” The
chairman looked pleased, because he could not help observing that the
orator’s concluding figure of speech had stirred me up considerably,
and that my response to it might add a few lively notes to the rather
monotonous programme of the Academy session.
I repeat here some of the sentiments which I expressed on that occasion:
President Wilson is an idealist, and his idealism commands my
deepest respect and admiration. I deny, however, that he represents
an “oasis of idealism in an endless desert of materialism,” that
is, if the United States of America are understood to be a part
of this endless desert. I am sure that in this town, liberated
only a few months ago from the Austrian yoke, the expression
“materialism” cannot refer to the United States of America. Two
million American soldiers were fighting on the Western front when,
a few months ago, the armistice was signed; several million more
were waiting in America for their turn to join the ranks of the
allied armies in France. American industries and American savings
made a supreme effort to brace up the allied cause, and the war
was won. Go to Paris now and watch the proceedings at the peace
conference, as I was doing during the last seven weeks, and you
will find that America asks for no territories, for no mandates,
and for no onerous compensations. It is the only great power there
which preaches moderation, and demands unreservedly full justice
for the little nations. Yugoslav Dalmatia, Istria, Goricia, and
Fiume had been, in a period of stress, bartered away by some of our
allies; America is to-day the only fearless champion of your claims
to these Yugoslav lands. American men and women hastened to every
front, and there, amid many perils and discomforts, they nursed the
sick and the wounded. They fed the hungry and clothed the naked and
the destitute. This they did even before America had entered the
world war. Need I remind you that it was an American mission which,
in 1915, saved Serbia from the destructive ravages of typhus,
and that several Americans, victims of these very ravages, are
now buried in Serbia’s soil? To-day you will find Americans even
in the countries of our former enemies, in Germany, Austria, and
Hungary, doing the work of mercy and of charity. The name of Hoover
is just as well known and beloved in Vienna and Budapest as it is
in Belgium. A country of materialism cannot display that spirit
which America has displayed during this war. Let the idealism of
President Wilson remind you of American idealism.
The phrase “American materialism” is an invention of ill-informed
Europe; but the European who has lived in the United States, and
has had the good fortune to catch the spirit of America, revolts
whenever he hears the untutored European mind utter that phrase.
Read the history of the United States from its earliest beginnings,
when the Pilgrim fathers landed at Plymouth Rock, three hundred
years ago, and you will find that idealism runs through it from
beginning to end. The Pilgrim fathers themselves were idealists,
who undertook the perilous voyage “for the glory of God and the
advancement of the Christian faith.”
A hundred and fifty years later the Continental Congress of
the colonies issued, at Philadelphia, the “Declaration of
Colonial Rights,” and this declaration, as well as the documents
accompanying it and addressed to the people of the United Kingdom
and of British America, breathes the spirit of lofty idealism. The
same Congress in 1775 issued another declaration, setting forth
causes which forced the American colonies to take up arms; and in
1776 it issued the Declaration of Independence, which announced
to the world the ideals for the attainment of which the colonists
were ready to sacrifice their lives. No other human documents ever
stated so clearly and so definitely the “divine right of man” as
these documents did. The men who composed these documents were
not ordinary men; they were idealists of the highest type. Read
the lives of Washington, Hamilton, Franklin, Jay, Jefferson, and
of other leaders of the American Revolutionary period, and you
will find what a wonderful power idealism has when the destiny of
a young nation hangs in the balance. But when the struggle was
over, after the victory had been won, the leader of the new nation,
immortal Washington, assumed the supreme executive office of the
land and retired from it after two terms of service with a spirit
of dignity and of humility which has no equal in human history. His
Farewell Address to the American people, advocating the practice of
idealism by the cultivation of religion, morality, patriotism, good
faith, and justice toward all nations, is an echo of the voice of
idealism which was the driving power of the American Revolution.
The idealism of the Revolutionary period was the guiding star
of the American patriots of the stormy period preceding the
Civil War. One of them, Daniel Webster, was a youth of seventeen
when Washington died, and he knew personally some of the great
leaders of the Revolutionary period, like Jefferson and Adams. He
certainly caught by direct contact the idealism of this period.
Read his speeches, as I have read them during my apprenticeship
days in America, and you will understand what I mean by American
idealism, if this war has not shown it to you better than any
words of mine can do it. Webster’s idealism was in the hearts
of men of his generation, who, under the great leadership of
Lincoln, one of the greatest among American idealists, conducted
the Civil War and preserved the American Union. Lincoln’s immortal
words: “With malice toward none, with charity for all,” will
forever remind the world of the idealism which was in the hearts
of the American people who fought for the preservation of the
American Union. President Wilson is one of the best biographers of
George Washington, and he also published a splendid study of the
constitutional government of the United States. No profound student
of these themes can escape becoming an exalted idealist. His
speeches, which during the World War he addressed to the American
people and to the whole world, are sermons on American idealism,
which have guided the people of the United States from the very
beginning of their history; but some of you in Europe never
understood it. The world war has made you eager to listen to every
word which inspires your anxious hearts with new hopes. President
Wilson’s words and his acts at the Paris peace conference inspire
you with these new hopes, and hence this Wilson Day, an honor to
him and a credit to you. In honoring him you are honoring the
idealism of the American people, for which act I am most grateful
to you.
It was here in Panchevo that I first heard of Benjamin Franklin,
nearly fifty years ago; to-day I deliver to you, people of
Panchevo, a greeting from Franklin’s native land and a message that
the cultivation of American idealism is the most powerful arm for
the defense of the destiny of your young nation.
Hamilton Fish Armstrong, our military _attaché_ in Belgrade at that
time, was present at the meeting. He did not understand a word of
my address, because it was delivered in Serbian, but he assured me
that, judging by appearances, it must have been at least as good as
my address in Princeton in the beginning of the World War in 1914;
he was then a senior at Princeton College. The Princeton address was
a eulogy of Serbian idealism, which I had imported into America when
I landed at Castle Garden in 1874; the Panchevo address was a eulogy
of American idealism, which I had brought back to Panchevo forty-five
years later. I must confess, however, that, twenty-five years earlier,
the above address was delivered in substance to Protoyeray Zhivkovich,
the poet-priest of Panchevo, when after graduating at Columbia in 1883
I returned for the first time to my native village. On that occasion
the poet said, and here I quote from an earlier chapter of my narrative:
Tell your mother that I am happy to bear the whole responsibility
for your wandering away to distant America. It is no longer
distant; it is now in my heart; you have brought America to us. It
was a new world in my terrestrial geography; it is now a new world
in my spiritual geography.
I often think of these words now, and I firmly believe that there
are many millions of people in Europe to-day who think that America
is a new world in their spiritual geography. The people in Panchevo,
I am certain, think so. But it needed a world war to eliminate from
their minds the old superstition that this is the land of “American
materialism.” The world pendulum has swung the other way, and I often
wonder whether we can live up to the very high reputation which we
enjoy in the opinion of a large part of the world, which now knows our
virtues but does not know our shortcomings.
A short time after the Panchevo celebration, a number of scientists
of the University of Belgrade, members of the Royal Serbian Academy,
invited me to an informal conference, and asked me to tell them
something about American science and its National Research Council in
Washington. I do not think that on that occasion my discourse on this
most interesting topic impressed my Serbian friends as strongly as my
Panchevo discourse did. For a long time after this conference I thought
of many things that I might have said, but did not say. The more I
thought about it the more I was dissatisfied. I was informed several
months after this conference that one of the Serbian scientists present
remarked to a mutual friend that from my Panchevo address on American
idealism he had been led to believe that at the Belgrade conference
I would say something about idealism in American science. But I said
nothing, and he inferred, therefore, that there could not be much
idealism in American science, a thing which he had always suspected.
Many European scientists suspected that long before he did. That
permissible inference of the Serbian scientist hurt me, and it hurt
the more because I felt that the omission was unpardonable. But the
psychology at the Panchevo celebration was different from that at the
conference in Belgrade. In Panchevo a remark was made from which, I was
afraid, one might have inferred that this is a country of materialism.
Nobody at the Belgrade conference suggested the thought that American
science might, perhaps, have a taint of materialism. But, of course, no
Serbian scientist could have suggested such a thing when the memory of
the service of American science to Serbia during the typhus ravages of
1915 was still fresh in everybody’s mind.
A fireplace fed by slow-burning wood must be stirred up often to
maintain a lively flame. Similarly, the flame of a slow mental
combustion cannot be maintained without occasional stirring. My
mental combustion at the Belgrade conference was certainly slow, and
needed a stirring up, similar to that which it received in Panchevo.
My early studies of American history and American traditions would
have proceeded much more slowly, if it had not been for my old friend
Bilharz, who stirred me up with his prejudices against American
democracy, and with his everlasting complaints against the imaginary
spectre which he called American materialism.
This stirring up is experienced by many American citizens of foreign
birth whenever they visit their native land. Every one of these
visits speeds up the Americanization process which is going on in
them. I firmly believe that the amalgamation of the foreign-born
would be speeded up wonderfully if we could make it obligatory that
every foreign-born American citizen should revisit his native land at
stated intervals of time. Had I not visited my native land so many
times since my landing at Castle Garden in 1874, the memory of my
early experiences in America, described in the earlier parts of this
narrative, would probably have faded away completely long ago. Had
I not visited Belgrade and Panchevo in 1919 I should not have been
stirred up on the subject of American idealism, and particularly about
the American idealism in science. It was in Belgrade and Panchevo where
the stimulus was applied which revived the memory of my experiences in
Columbia College, in the Universities of Cambridge and Berlin, and in
my professorial work at Columbia University, and made me pass in rapid
review through all my experiences which have a bearing upon American
idealism, and particularly upon the idealism in American science. Ever
since, I have been revolving in my mind many of the things relating
to American science that I might have mentioned at the Belgrade
conference, but did not mention. The painting, “Men of Progress,” which
I first saw at Cooper Union in 1876, came back to my mind. The men
represented in it, like Peter Cooper, McCormick, Goodyear, Morse, and
others, did not represent the idealism in science which the Belgrade
scientist had in mind; they were practical inventors. They were the
scientific idols of the American people, but they were not idealists in
science. The time for idealism in American science had not yet arrived.
The Union Pacific Railroad had not yet been built when that picture was
painted; the Western plains had not yet been compelled to yield their
potential treasures of golden grain; and the vast quantities of coal
and mineral ore were waiting anxiously to be raised to the surface of
the earth to serve in the development of our vast territory between the
Atlantic and the Pacific. He who could aid the people in this gigantic
development became the idol of the people. The names of inventors, like
McCormick, Goodyear, and Morse, were household words with the people of
the United States, just as the names of Edison and of Bell are to-day.
Joseph Henry, the famous scientist, was also in that historic painting,
but he was in the background of it. His expression seemed to indicate
that he did not feel quite at home in a group of men who were practical
inventors. He was a friend of Lincoln, and his idealism in science was
just as exalted as Lincoln’s idealism in political philosophy. But in
those days an idealist in science attracted little attention among
the people of the United States, who were busily engaged in solving
their numerous economic problems. Hence Joseph Henry, the idealist in
science, was practically unknown. This was the mental attitude which
Europe called “American materialism” in science. De Tocqueville, the
famous French traveller and keen observer, said this about us in a book
which he published over seventy years ago:
It must be confessed that, among the civilized peoples of our age,
there are few in which the highest sciences have made so little
progress as in the United States.... The future will prove whether
the passion for profound knowledge, so rare and so fruitful,
can be born and developed so readily in democratic societies as
in aristocracies.... The man of the North ... does not care for
science as a pleasure, and only embraces it with avidity when it
leads to useful applications.
To-day this criticism sounds like a national libel, but fifty years
ago it was swallowed like a bitter pill which, in the opinion of many
patriotic thinkers, we needed if we were to be cured of a malady which
threatened to become a national calamity. The greatest leaders of
scientific thought in this country pointed to our educational system,
in order to prove that de Tocqueville was right and that science was
neglected in our schools and colleges. Foremost amongst them were, as
I have already pointed out in this narrative, Joseph Henry, President
Barnard, of Columbia, President White, of Cornell, Draper, Youmans,
and others. They were all idealists in science, and when they invited
Tyndall to this country, fifty years ago, they invited the most
eloquent apostle of scientific idealism. The great movement for higher
scientific research, inaugurated in England by the immortal Maxwell and
his supporters, and in this country by the great Joseph Henry and his
followers, was a movement for idealism in science, or, as Andrew White
called it, “hope for higher endeavor.”
When the European speaks of materialism in American science, he is
resurrecting notions which de Tocqueville had in his mind when he wrote
the lines quoted above. These notions were correct, but wonderful
changes have taken place in this country since de Tocqueville wrote his
book. If he were living now and published another edition of his famous
book, I am sure that he would insert a chapter which would speak of
idealism and not of materialism in American science.
What is the mental attitude which I call “idealism in science”? Before
answering this question it is well to quote here from an earlier part
of my narrative:
The _eternal truth_ was, according to my understanding at that
time, the sacred background of Tyndall’s scientific faith, and
the works of the great scientific discoverers, their lives, and
their methods of inquiry into physical phenomena were the only
sources from which the human mind can draw the light which will
illuminate that sacred background. He nourished that faith with a
religious devotion, and his appeals in the name of that faith were
irresistible. His friends in America and in England, who were glad
to have him as their advocate of the cause of scientific research,
had the same faith that he had, and they nourished it with the
same devotion. I know to-day ... that this faith was kindled and
kept alive ... by the light of the life and of the wonderful
discoveries of Michael Faraday.... He was their contemporary, and
his achievements, like a great search-light, showed them the true
path of scientific progress.
The worship of the eternal truth and the burning desire to seek an
ever-broadening revelation of it constitute the mental attitude which
I call “idealism in science.” Its growth in the British Empire, and
particularly at the University of Cambridge, has been most remarkable
since the great movement started under the leadership of Maxwell
a little over fifty years ago. What progress have we made since
Tyndall’s visit to this country in 1872? If in my narrative I succeed
in answering this question I shall be more than satisfied, and I shall
certainly send a translation of it in part to my scientific friends in
Belgrade. It will tell them what I ought to have told them four years
ago.
* * * * *
I return now to the point in my story where I digressed. The 14th
of April, 1896, is recorded in my calendar as a happy day. The 15th
started with a balmy spring morning full of glorious sunshine. The
suggestion to walk through Central Park to Columbia College to my
morning lecture could not be resisted, and I reached the lecture-room
full of the joy of life which fills the heart of every healthy
youth. My students told me later that the first part of my lecture
that morning displayed that joy. But, near the end of the lecture, I
suddenly collapsed. A sudden chill struck me like a bolt from a clear
sky. Five days later my life hung in the balance; there was a desperate
struggle between a stout heart and the busy poisons of dreaded
pneumonia. The heart won out. But when the crisis had passed, and my
physician thought that I was sufficiently strong to stand the shock of
terrible news, he told me that my wife had died several days before, a
victim of dreaded pneumonia. She had caught the seed of this merciless
disease while nursing me. My weakened heart stood the shock, but every
one of my nerves seemed to snap in two. For the first time in my life
I recognized the full meaning of will-power; I recognized it because
I knew that the spiritual motor, the power of which I had always
felt, was there no longer. For the first time since leaving my native
Idvor, twenty-six years before, I had to be steered and looked after
by others. Life never looked so hopeless as it did during that awful
spring of 1896. But I wanted to live, because I had a little daughter
to bring up. That, in fact, was the only thing that I wanted to live
for; everything else seemed either devoid of interest, or much beyond
my reach. It is an awful thing to lose one’s self-reliance. Aims and
aspirations appeared to me like little toy balloons that children play
with; our nerves, I thought, are the strings which keep them afloat
within the reach of our vision. When these strings snap in two, our
aims and aspirations, like toy balloons, disappear rapidly into thin
air.
My physician recommended that during that summer I should settle down
in Norfolk, Connecticut, to give the bracing climate of this New
England town in the Berkshire hills a chance to rebuild what overwork,
under nervous tension, and pneumonia had undermined and torn down. A
New York physician, who knew me through my X-ray work, offered to rent
me his summer residence, facing Haystack Mountain, the highest peak in
Norfolk, and I accepted it. This mountain is really only a hill, hardly
one thousand feet higher than the road at its foot, but as I sat on
the piazza in front of that little cottage and looked at the so-called
observatory, a square frame structure on the top of this hill, from
which people caught the distant view of the Housatonic valley, I
wondered whether I should ever be strong enough to climb to its top.
I recalled my exploits in Switzerland, thirteen years before, and,
utterly discouraged by the comparison, I accepted with calm resignation
that I had grown old and decrepit in less time than it takes other
people to become middle-aged. Whenever I thought of my past, present,
or future, I always managed to draw some gloomy conclusion of that
kind, and, so far as my cloudy fancy could see, I felt that I had
finished my career in dismal failure. People told me that these were
queer notions due to mental depression, from which I would soon
recover. But, as time went on and there was no relief, I resented it
when people tried to console me with, what I considered, empty promises
of a brighter future. There suddenly appeared an angel who promised
nothing but gave much.
Another New York physician, the well-known Doctor Frederick Shepard
Dennis, also an admirer of my X-ray work, had a summer residence at
Norfolk. He was practically a native of this quaint New England town,
and believed in its great virtues as a resort for convalescents. He
was very anxious that my summer vacation there should put me on my
feet again, but he saw that my introspective life on the lonely piazza
facing Haystack Mountain blocked every road which might lead to my
physical and mental restoration. “Professor,” said he one day to
me, “if you do not stop thinking about yourself you will never get
well.” “But,” said I, “what else is there to think about? I hate to
think about that horrible green phosphorescence of vacuum tubes, about
the X-rays, fluorescent screens, and skeletons of hands and feet and
ribs. Those are the things which haunted incessantly my burning brain
during the pneumonia fever, and I shall never think of them again if
I can help it. I should like to think about some other problems which
are waiting in my laboratory, but what is the use? I have no hope of
living long enough to solve them, or that, if I live, I shall have the
necessary brain energy to work out their solution. Besides, whenever I
begin to think of something pleasant or interesting my heart suddenly
gives a violent thump, and sends a cold shiver through my timid veins.
I must think of myself, because I am always on my guard against
something that might happen at any moment to cut the last thread of
my shaky vitality. It is this everlasting fear that keeps me thinking
about myself.” The good doctor looked thoughtful, but said nothing;
a few days later he drove up in a little yellow runabout, drawn by a
pair of cobs of beautiful dark chestnut color, which were a splendid
product of his stud farm; they shone like old mahogany. “How do you
like them, professor?” asked the doctor, as he scrutinized my admiring
gaze. “They are a thing of beauty and a joy forever,” said I, and I
meant what I said. The next day the cobs, with wagon and harness, were
mine; they were only three years old, and, although broken to harness,
they were quite raw and needed training. I got them after pledging my
word to the doctor that I would train them. My native Banat is like
Kentucky. Everybody raises horses, and everybody knows by intuition how
to handle a horse. I was told by experts that I handled those cobs just
right. While training them I really trained my own nerves. They needed
it more than the cobs did. “Horse sense” has meant to me ever since a
sense which enables man to train a horse, and that means to give up
your whole heart and soul to the horse. The trainer must never think
of himself, but always of his beloved animal. He must be patient and
persistent, kind and affectionate, forgiving mistakes and showing full
appreciation for even the smallest honest effort. Only by the exercise
of these virtues can he succeed in developing in the horse the habit
of being a splendid horse. Doctor Dennis was a great lover of horses,
and he knew all that, and thought, as he told me later, that it was the
best medicine for me.
My cobs acquired the best of habits, and at the end of a year they were
two beautifully balanced animals, carrying their proud heads on high,
and stepping up in perfect unison. They seemed, when in full action, to
be anxious to strike their foreheads with their knees. To sit behind
those animals, and watch their swaggering motion around the horse-show
ring, gave a thrill never to be forgotten. The New York horse-show in
Madison Square Garden, in the autumn of 1897, and the Philadelphia
horse-show at Wissahickon, in the spring of 1898, established the
great reputation of Comet and Princess Rose, the cobs that I had been
training during eighteen months. They won many prizes, but none of
them was as welcome as the prize of my restored health. I got well
without knowing that I was getting well; the only improvement that I
was watching and thinking about was the improvement of my beautiful
cobs, but, nevertheless, my laboratory assistant Cushman noticed in
the early spring of 1897 that I had already begun to speak much more
encouragingly about some of my old laboratory problems; he noticed it,
and he was happy again. The X-ray problems were not among them; I never
recovered from the feeling of horror which the thought of them gave me
during my sickness in April, 1896.
Reginald Rives, one of the social leaders of New York, was the judge at
Wissahickon who awarded the prizes to my cobs. We had been in college
together, but when he saw me at the horse-show he did not recognize me
at first, because, as he informed me later, he did not expect to see
a college professor driving high-steppers at a horse-show. He spoke
very highly of my cobs, which won from a competitor like millionaire
Widener’s stable in Philadelphia.
“Pupin,” exclaimed Rives, “if you can handle your students as well as
you can handle your cobs, you are the greatest professor in America.”
“I could,” said I, “if I had to handle only two students at a time, but
not two hundred.” Rives repeated this remark to his brother, a trustee
of Columbia University, and the trustee saw in it quite a chunk of
educational philosophy. The preceptorial system at Princeton reminds
one of this philosophy. Will the American colleges ever adopt it?
A famous Boston lover of horses, a Mr. Jordan, saw my cobs at the
Wissahickon horse-show and made me a handsome bid for them in cash
besides “throwing in” a very handsome Irish hunter which had won a
prize in the jumping class. The hunter became my saddle-horse, and
served me loyally for fully twelve years. No better saddle-horse ever
cantered over the hillsides of Litchfield County than Clipper, the
Irish hunter, my trusty friend and companion, particularly during my
summer vacations. Thanks to Comet and Princess Rose, and to good old
Clipper, and to the bracing climate of Norfolk hills, the joy of life
returned again.
My first job after landing at Castle Garden was on a farm, and there I
had vowed that as soon as I could afford it I would buy myself a real
American farm. A little over twenty years later, in 1897, I bought a
farm at Norfolk; this blessed spot, where I regained my health and
happiness, became my real American home, and I have never had a desire
to seek a better haven of happiness in any other place, either here or
in Europe.
The native of Norfolk is a typical Connecticut Yankee. Neither the
wealth nor the social position of a new summer visitor can faze him.
His dignity and self-respect forbid him to kowtow to any city swell.
You will get his respectful attention if you deserve it; but you must
earn it by your acts at Norfolk. You cannot command it by the power
of anything you bring with you from the city to your summer vacation.
While you are in Norfolk in summer, you are a summer boarder, an
outsider, with traditions back of you which no native of Norfolk knows
anything about. The force of all this was once so strongly impressed
upon me that I never forgot it.
[Illustration: PUPIN’S RESIDENCE AT NORFOLK, CONN., WITH ADJOINING
FARM BUILDINGS AND THE 500-TON SILO]
Norfolk, like every New England town, has its annual town meetings,
when the accounts of the town for the closing current year are
carefully analyzed, appropriations are made for the coming year, and
the selectmen and other administrative officers are elected. After
I had become a landowner in Norfolk, I attended these town meetings
regularly, and took part in their discussions, and there for the first
time I became acquainted, by personal contact, with the fundamental
elements of Anglo-Saxon civilization. At one of those town meetings
I urged the improvement of the public highways, using the argument
that better roads would attract more summer residents from the great
cities and, I was certain, would advance the prosperity of the town.
My arguments were received with respectful silence, and no sooner had
I finished my speech than a Mr. Nettleton, the oldest voter in the
township, got up and, turning his black goggles toward me, addressed me
somewhat as follows:
“Our roads are just as good as they ever were; our ancestors taught
us how to take care of them, and they are good enough for us. You say
that if we improve them we would get more summer visitors, who, with
their wealth, would increase the prosperity of our town. We don’t care
for that kind of prosperity; it brings vanity and false pride into
our New England homes, which you city people carry around with you.”
Then, pointing his trembling finger at me, the old man exclaimed: “You,
particularly, are guilty of this offense; you were the first who showed
our simple people here how to swagger about this town on a horse with a
rabbit tail.”
He referred to the almost universal custom at that time of docking a
horse’s tail; the tails of my famous cobs as well as of my saddle-horse
Clipper had been docked. After this speech, I suspended my propaganda
for more up-to-date roads. Two years later, another incident occurred
which is worth relating here. Mr. Carter, a Norfolk hunter of much
local fame, had a fine pointer dog. He went to Europe one summer and
left his dog in charge of a friend. But the dog ran away, and chased
through all the woods of Norfolk, looking for his master. One day he
came to my house; he was hungry, thirsty, tired out, and perfectly
unhappy, having failed to find his master. I petted him, gave him fresh
water to drink and some food to eat, and, while he was feasting, spoke
to him and paid him many compliments on account of his affectionate
attachment to his master. After his hearty meal he fell asleep near my
feet on the piazza, and when he woke up he looked at me and seemed to
be a much happier dog. From that moment on he followed me everywhere,
running after my horse when I went out riding. One day I was cantering
slowly along the road passing old Nettleton’s house. I saw the old man
standing near the road, apparently waiting for somebody. When I was
quite near him he beckoned me to stop, which I did, and he addressed me:
“Professor, I was very severe with you two years ago at that town
meeting. But I did not know you; now I do. That dog there would not
stay with anybody in this town, but he stays with you, and he follows
you just as he followed his master. You are good to him, and the dog
knows it. I have great confidence in a dog’s judgment, and I know now
that you are a good man, just as good as any of the folks in this here
New England town.” Then, stretching out his bony hand to me, he said:
“Shake, forgive and forget, and let us be good friends. I shall never
oppose you again at our annual town meetings. What’s good for you is
good enough for me and for our little town.”
No offer of friendship was ever more welcome to me, and there never
was a friendship of which I was more proud. Before many days had
passed, the natives of Norfolk, from the illustrious Eldridge family,
the angels of the town, down to the most humble day-laborer, felt the
same toward me as old Nettleton did; that is, I always thought so, and
I have never had any reason to think otherwise. No resolution moved
by me at the annual town meetings ever failed to pass, but I always
moved slowly, and not until I was quite sure that the motion was in the
right direction. I would sooner have risked losing the good opinion of
the trustees of Columbia University than that of the good people of
Norfolk, my American Idvor. During my summer vacations in Norfolk, I
have always felt just as much at home, and as happy and contented, as I
did in my native Idvor when, during my student days in Europe, I spent
my summer vacations there. Whenever I returned to my laboratory from
my summer vacation in the bracing atmosphere of Norfolk, I have always
felt that no problem there could resist the force of my stored-up
nervous energy. That feeling early encouraged me in the belief that I
had completely recovered from the breakdown of the spring of 1896, and
this belief gave wings to every new effort.
When the news of the discovery of the Roentgen rays reached me in
December of 1895, I was busy with the research of a problem which I
had taken up in 1894, while making a foot tour in Switzerland. This is
the problem which I took up again after the recovery from the breakdown
of 1896. I must confess here that I never returned to X-ray research,
because for a long time after my illness even the sight of an X-ray
tube made me almost hysterical.
During the first half of the summer of 1894, Mrs. Pupin and I were
staying at a little hotel on Lake Wannensee in Switzerland; I was
preparing my lectures on the mathematical theory of sound. Lord
Rayleigh’s treatise called my attention to the classical problem which
ten years before I first saw in La Grange’s famous treatise. I had
bought it second-hand in Paris, and had studied it in my mother’s
garden at Idvor. The problem was a hypothetical one relating to an
imaginary and not to a real physical case. It may be stated as follows:
A string without weight is stretched like a violin string between two
fixed points; at equidistant intervals along this string are attached
equal weights, say bird-shot. The problem is, how will this string,
loaded with weights, vibrate when disturbed by an impulse? La Grange
found a beautiful solution for this historic problem, and the solution
marks the beginning of an epoch in the history of mathematical physics.
This solution enabled him to analyze mathematically the vibrations
of a violin string, one of the famous mathematical problems of the
eighteenth century. I made a bold attempt to find a solution for a more
general and less hypothetical form of this problem. I supposed that the
string itself had weight, and that it, as well as the little weights
attached to it, moved through a viscous medium. I felt intuitively
what the solution should be, and considered it of much scientific
importance. I finally found the most general mathematical solution of
this generalized problem, and the beauty of it was that it could be
stated in a very simple language. I shall state it later. The solution
was exactly what I had expected it to be, and it thrilled me more than
any work that I had ever done. I always believed that my training
in ground-signalling which the herdsman of Idvor had taught me some
twenty years before was responsible for this intuitive guess. Early
impressions, particularly those relating to novel scientific facts, are
very intense.
I was much encouraged by the thought that I was able to add very
substantially to the solution of a historic problem first solved by
famous La Grange. In order to communicate some of my joy to Mrs.
Pupin, I told her that I was ready to give up mathematical reading
for the rest of that summer, and we started on a drive through
Switzerland. That is, she drove, while I walked a good part of the
time, particularly when the carriage was moving along the zigzag roads
going up to a pass, which happens often in Switzerland drives. Making
short cuts, I met her every now and then on the up-grade parts of the
steep and winding roads, and rode with her on the down-grade. During
these walks, being alone, I pondered a great deal about my solution
of the generalized La Grangian problem. One day, while climbing up to
the Furka pass, it occurred to me that since the motion of electricity
through a wire experiences reacting forces similar to those in the
motion of the material elements in a stretched string, my generalized
solution should be applicable to the motion of electricity, and I was
immediately aware that I had made a very important invention. I tried
to convince Mrs. Pupin of it, but she said: “I will believe what you
say and will gladly congratulate you if you will promise that you
will not be absent-minded during the rest of our trip.” I promised,
but it was very difficult to live up to the promise. I never told her
how often I longed to be back in my modest laboratory in the musty
cellar under President Low’s office at Columbia College, and that too
in spite of the heavenly beauty of the views which on my walks met
me on every turn of the winding roads which lead up to the wonderful
passes of Switzerland. I was most anxious to submit my theory to an
experimental test. When our tour in Switzerland was finished I had
every detail of the proposed experimental tests worked out in my head,
and yet my good wife never accused me of being absent-minded. In less
than a year from that time I had finished my first rough test, and was
preparing for a more elaborate investigation when the discovery of the
X-ray was announced, at the very end of 1895, and I, like everybody
else, dropped everything and eagerly sought information about this
wonderful discovery. It was the work I dropped then which I took up
again after my recovery from the breakdown of 1896.
Now what is the invention which occurred to me first on my walk to the
Furka pass in Switzerland in the summer of 1894? A bit of scientific
history is connected with it, which I shall tell here briefly:
A vibrating motion of electricity at one end of a long wire is
propagated along the wire in much the same way as the vibratory motion
of a rope or string is propagated from one of its terminals to the
other. This propagation of electrical motion from one end of a long
conducting wire to the other was first investigated by Professor
William Thomson, the late Lord Kelvin, of the University of Glasgow,
in 1855, when the first Atlantic cable was projected. He worked out
the problem for electrical signalling over a submarine cable, and
three years later Kirchhoff, who was one of my teachers in Berlin,
worked it out for telegraphic signalling over land-lines stretched over
poles. When telephony was invented in 1876, there was, of course, a
demand for a mathematical theory of telephonic transmission over long
conducting wires. He who understood Thomson’s and Kirchhoff’s work
could experience no serious difficulty in working it out. Vaschy, a
Frenchman, and Heaviside, an Englishman, were the first to work it out;
they did it in the chronological order just indicated, Vaschy leading
Heaviside by about two years. They both observed that just as in cable
and land-line telegraphy so also in telephony the reduction of the
transmitted electrical force was the smaller the larger the so-called
inductance of the transmitting wire. Many people believe that this
observation was an important discovery; I never thought so, because
I believed that Thomson’s and Kirchhoff’s work made that observation
obvious. But, however that may be, the observation was made by Vaschy
two years before it was made by Heaviside, and neither one nor the
other saw in it a special case of a general physical principle, which
the Allies appreciated much during the World War in their struggles
against the submarines. I shall describe it briefly:
Sound is transmitted through water or through a solid much more
efficiently than it is through air. I knew that, when, as herdsman’s
assistant in Idvor, I learned the art of signalling through the ground.
Now why should water or hard and heavy ground transmit sound better
than air does? Idvor’s herdsman did not tell me that, but, having
gained the knowledge of the fact very early, I was prepared to seize
upon the dynamical explanation as soon as I needed it; and I felt the
need of it in Switzerland in the summer of 1894.
Transmission of sound means transmission of vibratory motion from
one element of a substance to the contiguous elements. The element
which transmits its vibratory energy acts and the elements which
receive it react. Each element is capable of exerting three reacting
forces. One is against the change of velocity of its motion, that
is, against change of momentum. This reaction is called the kinetic
reaction, and, as I have pointed out before, it was discovered by
Galileo three hundred years ago. The second reaction is against the
elastic compression of the receiving element. It is called the elastic
reaction, and was discovered by Hook, a contemporary of Newton, two
hundred years ago. The third is a frictional reaction, the knowledge
of which is very old. There are, therefore, three forms of energy
generated in the reacting element of every vibrating body by the work
of the acting element. The first reaction results in energy of motion
of the mass of the reacting element; the second one results in the
energy of its elastic compression; and the third one generates heat.
The first and the second are energies of sound vibration and are
transmitted again to the contiguous elements, but the third is not a
vibratory sound energy and is not transmitted as such; it remains as
heat and represents the reduction of sound energy transmitted from any
one part to the contiguous parts. It is obvious that this reduction
will be, relatively, the smaller the greater the first two reactions
are in comparison with the frictional reaction. Heavy, incompressible
bodies, like water, metals, or hard solid ground, have incomparably
greater kinetic and elastic reactions than air, hence they transmit
sound much better than air does. This physical principle did splendid
service during the World War in submarine and subterranean detection by
sound. The herdsman’s assistants in Idvor, when I was a boy, profited
much from it in their signalling through the ground. I am not aware
that Vaschy and Heaviside had a clear knowledge of it. If I am correct,
then it is quite remarkable that Serb peasants should have been
cognizant of a physical principle which was probably unknown to English
and French savants, like Vaschy and Heaviside.
Passing now by analogy from motion of matter to motion of electricity,
we can, speaking figuratively, state that vibratory motion of
electricity will be transmitted from one end of a conducting wire to
the other the more efficiently the heavier and the less compressible
that electricity is, or, dropping now our figurative mode of speech,
we can say that, other things being equal, the higher the kinetic and
the elastic reaction of the moving electricity the more efficiently
will the energy of its vibratory motion be transmitted over the wire.
But that means that the inductance of the wire should be made as large
and its capacity as small as possible. That much was perfectly obvious
in Thomson’s and Kirchhoff’s work, some twenty years before Vaschy and
Heaviside took up the mathematical theory of telephonic transmission.
These two celebrated mathematicians, however, deserve much credit for
their enthusiastic backing of inductance among the sceptical telephone
engineers, who, at that time, knew little of the mathematical theory
and of the general principle of transmission of vibratory motions.
A coil of wire wound around an iron core is the first picture in our
mind when we hear inductance mentioned. Hence, if inductance increases
the efficiency of transmission in a telephone transmission-line, and
you cannot introduce it into the line in large amounts in any other
way, then one would certainly suggest putting a lot of coils into the
telephone-line and examining the results of this haphazard guess.
Vaschy tried this guess, and failed. The late Mr. Pickernell, chief
engineer of the long-distance department of the American Telephone and
Telegraph Company, also tried it, and he also failed. It was obvious
that, as Heaviside expressed it, experiment gave no encouragement with
regard to inductance introduced in this way. I tried it and found that
experiment offered very much encouragement to inductance introduced
this way; I succeeded, because I did not guess; I was guided by the
mathematical solution of the generalized La Grangian problem. What
does this solution say when applied to electrical motions in a wire?
It says this: Place your inductance coils into your telephone-line at
such distances apart that for all vibratory motions of electricity
which it is desirable to transmit there shall be several coils per
wave-length. In telephonic transmission of speech that means one coil
every four or five miles on overhead wires, and one coil in about every
one to two miles in a telephone cable. For these wave-lengths, the wire
possessing discreet lumps of inductance in the form of inductance-coils
acts like a wire with uniformly distributed inductance. Such a wire
transmits efficiently according to the general physical principle
described above. In order to illustrate this by a mechanical analogy,
we can say that a light silk cord stretched between two fixed points
and carrying at equidistant points heavy bird-shot will act like a
heavy uniform cord for all vibratory motions the wave-length of which
embraces several intervals separating the bird-shot, and will transmit
these motions much more efficiently from one end of the cord to the
other than if the bird-shot were not there. This simple experiment
with bird-shot and a long stretched cord can easily be tried; it is
a very inexpensive experiment and will convince you even if you know
nothing about the mathematical elements of the problem. This is the
simple experiment which I had in my head during my tramping along the
zigzag roads in Switzerland in 1894. A professor of physics, who often
acted as consulting physicist to telephone companies, had such a loaded
cord hung up over his lecture-room table for the purpose of explaining
transmission of wave-motion from one end of the cord to the other, but
he never inferred anything from it regarding loading a telephone-line
with inductance-coils. When I called his attention to it, and joked
about it, he blamed his hard luck, implying, I thought, that solving a
dynamical problem and building upon the foundation of this solution an
electrical invention is a question of luck.
From the simple apparatus, just referred to, to the elaborate
electrical demonstrations which would convince stubborn and
hard-headed telephone engineers, was a very long pull. The most
embarrassing feature in these demonstrations was that I could not
afford large expenditures of money to carry them out on actual
telephone conductors; besides, it would have been unwise to disclose
to interested parties, the owners of long-distance telephone-lines, a
theory for which I had not yet obtained a satisfactory experimental
proof. I had to invent laboratory apparatus equivalent to telephone
lines or cables of great length, which would enable me to do all the
experimenting in my laboratory. That required almost as much thought,
inventive effort, and mathematical achievement as the solution of the
extended La Grangian problem.
The first part of my research I communicated to the American Institute
of Electrical Engineers in March, 1899. It dealt only with the
mathematical theory of my laboratory apparatus. It spoke a great deal
about La Grange, but nothing directly about the invention. In October
of that year, a friend of mine, Doctor Cary T. Hutchinson, told me
that he suspected that an invention was hidden in that communication.
“If you have detected it, others have detected it also, and are by
this time in the Patent Office,” said I. “Are you not there yourself?”
asked Hutchinson, looking somewhat disturbed, and when he heard that I
was not he looked discouraged. When, however, I declared my readiness
to undertake to design for some clients of his a telephone cable to
operate between New York and Boston, guaranteeing to employ a wire not
bigger than in ordinary cables capable of operating satisfactorily
over a distance of only twenty miles, Hutchinson grew quite serious,
and advised me to apply for a patent before doing anything else. I
finally followed his advice, and not any too soon. There were others,
besides Hutchinson, who had recognized that in my communication to
the American Institute of Electrical Engineers there was hidden an
invention for which telephone engineers had been eagerly waiting ever
since the birth of the telephone art. This created an interference in
the Patent Office which annoyed me, but not nearly so much as I had
been annoyed there before. About a year from the date of my application
for patent, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company acquired my
American patent rights, treating me most generously. It gave me what I
asked; my friends thought that I had not asked enough, but to a native
of Idvor a dollar looks much bigger than to a native of New York who
may be a next-door neighbor to some Morgan or Rockefeller. Besides,
the opinion of the highest telephone authority in the world that my
solution of the extended La Grangian problem had a very important
technical value was much more gratifying to me than all the money in
the world.
In Europe, and particularly in England, the invention came as a
surprise; they did not expect an American to make an invention which
required so much mathematical analysis of electrical motions, to which
the American physicist had contributed very little, whereas Vaschy and
Heaviside had written volumes about it. But these writers had paid too
little attention to classical writers like La Grange, Thomson, and
Kirchhoff. The construction of the inductance-coil required almost as
much mathematical analysis as the dynamical theory of the invention,
and the method of testing it also was new to the telephone engineers.
The coil is now known all over the world as the Pupin coil, and many
people think that the coil itself is the invention.
When it became known that I had studied at the Universities of
Cambridge and of Berlin, my English and German friends claimed the
credit of the invention for the scientific training which I had
received at their universities. I think the French had a better
claim, because it was La Grange who helped me more than any other
mathematical reading. As a matter of fact, the engineers of the
American Telephone and Telegraph Company and the herdsmen of Idvor
deserve most of the credit. The first formulated the problem the
solution of which led to the invention, and the second taught me the
art of signalling through the ground which guided me to the physical
principle which underlies the invention.
A vice-president of the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, who
is a very high authority in telephony, informed me recently that one
way to describe, roughly, the value of the invention is as follows:
If during the past twenty-two years his company had been compelled to
extend its network of conductors so as to give, without employing my
invention, the same service which it is giving to-day, it would have
had to spend at least one hundred million dollars more than it has
actually expended. But after quoting him I wish to call attention to
a fact which the public often overlooks. I ask, where are those one
hundred million dollars which the invention has saved? I know that not
even a microscopic part of them is in the pockets of the inventor.
I have figured out also, with the same accuracy with which I once
figured out the invention, that those hundred million dollars are not
in the pockets of the telephone company. They must be, therefore, in
the pockets of the American public. The invention made it possible to
give the telephone service, which is now being given, at a lower rate
than would have been possible if one hundred million dollars more had
been spent. Every good invention benefits the public immeasurably more
than it benefits the inventor or the corporation which exploits the
invention. I certainly consider myself a public benefactor, and the
National Institute of Social Sciences called me so when it gave me a
gold medal almost as big as the full moon. But this gift would have
made me much more happy if the institute had at the same time given
another gold medal to the American Telephone and Telegraph Company.
Some fifteen years ago, when Frederick P. Fish, the famous patent
attorney, was the president of the American Telephone and Telegraph
Company, I asked him in the course of a conversation whether he would
like to sell me back my invention. “Yes,” said he, “but only if you
will buy the whole telephone company with it. Our whole plant has been
adjusted to the invention, and when one goes the other also must go.
The invention has enabled us to detect many defects in our transmission
system, and if it had done nothing else than that it would have
been worth at least ten times what we paid you. It is the greatest
faultfinder that we ever struck, and it is the only form of faultfinder
for which we have any use.” A progressive industrial organization
courts the criticism of an accurate and friendly faultfinder. It
leads to research and development, and that supplies the vital energy
to every industry. Twenty-five years ago the American Telephone and
Telegraph Company had a small laboratory in Boston, where it did all
its scientific research and development. But, presently, faultfinders
like my inventions moved into the peaceful and drowsy precincts of
that tiny laboratory, and stirred up the engineers and the board
of directors. I am very happy whenever I think that, possibly, my
inventions have contributed some to this healthful stirring up. What
was the result? To-day the American Telephone and Telegraph Company and
the affiliated Western Electric Company employ about three thousand
persons at an expenditure of some nine million dollars annually in
their research and development work. The scientific research work at
our universities looks very modest in comparison with operations of
this kind. Young men of the highest academic training and splendid
talents are busy day and night exploring the hidden treasures on the
boundary-lines between the various sciences and the science and art of
telephony, and their discoveries, I am sure, are the best investment
of this great industrial organization. For instance, their development
of the many details in my invention have been wonderful, and give
testimony of the highest kind to the excellence of their scientific
research. It is not so much the occasional inventor who nurses a great
art like telephony and makes it grow beyond all our expectations, as
it is the intelligence of a well-organized and liberally supported
research laboratory. When I think of that I am perfectly convinced that
very few of the great advances in the telephone art would have happened
under government ownership. That explains why telephony is practically
dead in most European countries. What little life it has in Europe is
due to the American research in the above-mentioned laboratories.
The General Electric Company, The Westinghouse Company, the Eastman
Kodak Company, and many other industrial corporations in this country
are supporting similar research and development laboratories, where
scientific men of the highest training are busily exploring what
Helmholtz called the rich territories near the boundary-lines of the
various sciences and of the science forming the foundation of their
respective industries. This reminds me of what I saw on a much smaller
scale in Germany, nearly forty years ago, when I was a student there.
We copied Germany’s good example, but are leading now, and the pace is
so swift that Europeans are dropping behind us very rapidly. The spirit
of scientific research has moved into our universities, and from the
universities it has moved into our industrial organizations. Industrial
research is making bigger and bigger demands upon the universities for
highly trained scientific research men; the demand is larger than the
supply, and because the industries can pay much higher salaries than
the universities can much difficulty has been experienced in inducing
bright and promising young scientists to pursue the academic career of
a teacher. The quality of the scientific teacher in the university is
temporarily deteriorating, that of the industrial research scientist is
steadily rising; on the whole, however, the country is a gainer. The
university man in the industries will transplant there the scientific
idealism of the university. The captains of our leading industries
already admit, as will be pointed out below, that the cultivation of
scientific idealism is the best policy for our American industries.
Listen to the papers which are read by their research men and you will
see that the industries actually practise the new gospel of scientific
idealism which they are preaching.
But I must not depart too far from the main thread of my story. When
it became known that the American Telephone and Telegraph Company had
acquired the rights to my _high inductance wave conductors_, all kinds
of legends were told about the invention and the fabulous price paid
for it. Newspapers love legends, because the public loves them. The
public is a child which loves to listen to fairy-tales. The only good
that this publicity did was to help me sell my inventions relating to
electrical tuning and rectification in wireless telegraphy. These lay
idle for quite a number of years, and waited for further developments
in the wireless art before they could be employed to advantage.
Electrical tuning and electrical rectification are fundamental
operations in the radio art to-day, but the wireless telegraphy of the
early days is a distant and poor relation of our present radio art. The
world had to wait quite some time for new discoveries which gave birth
to the epoch-making inventions of new men, like Lee De Forest and Major
E. H. Armstrong. It had to wait also for the great industrial research
laboratories before electrical tuning and rectification could come
into their own. In the early days of wireless telegraphy I suggested
several novel developments which might give a fair chance to tuning and
rectification, but I attracted scarcely any attention. The legends just
mentioned made people a little more attentive.
One morning a man stepped suddenly into my office at Columbia, and
introduced himself as Mr. Green, organizer and promoter of the Marconi
Company of America. He was full of action and looked like business.
“Are your wireless inventions for sale?” asked Mr. Green, without much
preliminary talk. “They are,” I answered, and I felt that my heart
was quivering on account of the unexpected blow which this laconic
question had given it. “How much?” asked Mr. Green. I gave him the
first figure that came into my head, and he, not a bit daunted, asked
whether I would take one-half in cash and one-half in stock. I asked
him twenty-four hours to decide. “All right,” said he, and promised to
call again the next day at the same hour. I should have been perfectly
satisfied to accept the cash offer and close the deal even without
the stock, but I was afraid that any over-anxiety on my part might
scare him away. The next day he called and the deal was closed, he
making a certain cash payment immediately and I agreeing to furnish
certain documents before the final payment was made. I was fairly well
acquainted with trading transactions in my native land; my father often
took me to market-places where he bought and sold cattle and horses.
I remember well the never-ending bartering which very often ended in
a fizzle. The nearer you get to Constantinople the worse becomes the
custom of this Oriental method of trading. Mr. Green had none of that
Orientalism, and his utter indifference to the figures involved in the
deal astonished me. He also took it for granted that I could and would
perform all the fine things which I promised to perform; that was very
flattering to me, but I was too much of an Oriental to accept, without
some apprehension, his apparently implicit trust in me.
This reminds me of an incident which happened eight years ago. The
Serbian Government cabled me to make a contract for five thousand tons
of lard; I was its only diplomatic and consular representative in
America during the war. I called up the representatives of Swift and
of Armour and told them over the telephone what was wanted, requesting
them to file their bids in forty-eight hours. Two days later I met
them in my office and some Serbian war commissioners happened to be
present. The contract was closed in less than thirty minutes, and when
I told the commissioners that it involved one million dollars they
crossed themselves in utter amazement. In Belgrade, they assured me,
the closing of such a contract would have required at least a month. I
astonished them as much as Mr. Green had astonished me, and the lard
transaction reminded me strongly of my deal with the Marconi Company of
America. Of course, lard handled by Swifts or Armours is a much simpler
proposition than a lot of belated inventions relating to electrical
tuning and electrical rectification for which there was not yet a
crying demand.
A few months after my deal with Green I was in Berlin, by invitation,
for the purpose of negotiating, for my telephone invention, a business
agreement with the famous electrical firm of Siemens and Halske. It
was founded by Werner von Siemens, whom I had met fifteen years before
through the kind introduction of my teacher, Excellenz von Helmholtz.
During the negotiations which lasted one month I met the directors
of this corporation in almost daily conferences, which lasted never
less than an hour and very often several hours. Every detail of my
invention was thoroughly discussed both from the purely scientific
and from the engineering side, in its relation to the earlier
publications which had a bearing upon it, in its legal aspects as
determined by the German patent laws; and finally the financial side
was carefully considered and definitely settled. There was no bartering
of any kind, neither was anything taken for granted. Contrary to our
American custom, the negotiations were directly between the inventor
and the scientific experts. The lawyers had very little to say, and
spoke only when the experts needed and asked for their opinion. When
I recall my negotiations with the American Telephone and Telegraph
Company, I remember nothing but lawyers. The negotiations with Siemens
and Halske recall scientific experts only; the negotiations with the
Marconi Company of America recall only Green. At the close of the
Berlin conferences and negotiations I was perfectly certain that I
had accomplished something; I understood my invention better than I
had ever understood it before, and I was perfectly certain that the
scientists of Siemens and Halske understood it just as well. Their
popular descriptions of it were better than anything I had ever done
myself. They also gave it a new name, and called telephone conductors
employing the invention “_pupinizierte linien_.” The French followed
suit, and called them “_les lignes pupinizé_.” These two new words
coined in my honor will last as long as the invention lasts, and so
far there is no sign that it will be superseded soon by some other
invention. Its simplicity and effectiveness give it much vitality.
After the completion of my negotiations in Berlin, the Siemens and
Halske engineers took me to Vienna for the purpose of introducing
me to the high officers in the Austrian Imperial Cabinet who guided
the destinies of the telephone system of the Austrian Empire. They
were glad, they said, to meet a native of Banat, a former subject of
Austria, who had made so important an invention, and they assured me
that their policy with regard to it would be guided entirely by the
decision of the Berlin experts. Vienna did not seem to have a mind of
its own, and all its thinking apparently was done for it by the experts
in Berlin. I was quite elated by the idea that the Berlin experts who
did the thinking for the Austrian Empire had been most happy to spend a
whole month with me in daily conferences, eager to learn all they could
from me. I could not help exclaiming: “Oh, what a fortunate thing it
was that in my early youth I ran away from this moribund Empire, and
landed in a country of opportunities, where every individual thinks
through his own head and carries his load on his own back.” Germany,
at that time, was so vigorous that she did not hesitate to do all the
thinking and hustling for Austria as well as for Turkey, and did not
realize that she was carrying around two corpses which could not be
revived by even the combined vitality of all the young and vigorous
nations, like the United States of America and United Germany.
Before returning to the United States I visited my sisters in Banat.
One of them was living in Idvor. On a Sunday in August during that
visit I was dining in her garden. There was a high fence around it,
and not far from it the boys and the girls of Idvor were dancing kolo
on the village green and the older people were looking on. Presently
somebody knocked on the garden-gate and my brother-in-law opened it.
There stood a rider, holding with one hand his horse, which was covered
with foam; in the other hand he held a telegram which he had brought
in haste from the telegraph station in another village, about five
miles away from Idvor. My native village had neither a telegraph nor a
telephone line, although I, its son, aspired to connect telephonically
every person in the United States to every other. The telegram in the
rider’s hand was for me, sent by my attorney, telling me that, on the
day before, my final papers had been delivered to the Marconi Company
and that the check for the final payments was in his hands. “Good
news,” I said to myself, and gave the rider a tip of ten florins to
reward him for his haste, evidenced by the white foam on his horse.
The bagpiper and the kolo-dancers stopped when they saw a ten-florin
note in the rider’s hand and heard him brag that he had delivered
to me a telegram from America. The wondering crowd assembled at the
garden-gate, and the older peasants who had gone to school with me in
my boyhood days asked me if the telegram really had come from America.
When I said yes, and that it had been sent on that very morning they
looked at each other and winked, as if signalling to each other to be
on guard lest I fool them with an American yarn. Then the oldest one
among them addressed me as follows: “Did you not tell us that between
here and America there are four empires, each bigger than Austria, and
then the great ocean, which one cannot cross in less than a week even
in the fastest of ships?” “I certainly did say that, and I repeat it
now,” said I. He added: “How can a telegram cross all that distance
in less than a day?” “It could do it in less than a minute if man’s
clumsiness did not delay it. It could travel from here to Vienna in
less than a second,” said I, and carefully watched his expression.
The old man seemed undecided; he did not know whether to take offense
at my attempt to work off a silly yarn on him, or to proceed with his
cross-examination, and finally decided in favor of the latter course.
“Who invented all that?” asked he impatiently. “An American did it,”
said I boastfully. “These Americans must be very clever people,” said
he and waited eagerly for my reply. “Yes, indeed, they are very clever
people,” said I. “Much more clever than anybody in this village?” was
his next question, and when I assured him that the Americans were much
more clever than anybody in Idvor, he fired at me the following shot:
“Then how in the name of St. Michael do you manage to make a living
there?”
This incident in my native Idvor did me a lot of good. The experts
in Berlin and the high officers in Vienna had been most polite and
complimentary, and all their well-meant adulation coming on the top of
the newspaper legends about my inventions might have turned my head and
made me imagine that I was a “wizard.” Many an inventor and scientist
has been ruined by being persuaded that he is a “wizard.” I have always
believed that when a successful inventor is exposed to dangers of that
kind he should, somewhat like that king of antiquity, hire somebody
to whisper as often as possible into his ear: “You are an ordinary
mortal.” Whenever I see now the Elliot Cresson Gold Medal of the
Franklin Institute, the gold medal of the National Institute of Social
Sciences, the Edison Medal of the American Institute of Electrical
Engineers, the Hebert prize of the French Academy, and several other
evidences of recognition in my possession, I always think of that
professor who blamed his hard luck for his failure to infer from the
loaded strings which hung daily over his head what I had inferred from
La Grange’s imaginary string. It was, I know, a lucky day when on the
14th of July, 1884, I found that second-hand bookshop in the Quartier
Latin in Paris and picked up there a copy of La Grange’s treatise.
Without it, I might have remained as ignorant of the remarkable
properties of a loaded string as that professor was. My answer to the
peasant’s question, “How in the name of St. Michael do you manage to
make a living there?” is this: “The humble herdsman of Idvor and the
famous La Grange of Paris told me how to do it.”
XII
THE NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL
The mathematical problems in the theory of electrical transmission, and
the research of the behavior of materials employed in the construction
of inductance-coils kept me busy, and made me forget that I was missing
the splendid opportunities offered by New Physics, which I always
represented symbolically by the picture of a vacuum-tube, because its
origin dates from Roentgen’s discovery. My complete recovery from the
shock of 1896 did not reconcile me to the vacuum-tube, until several
years had wiped out the memory which my mind had associated with it. By
that time I had dropped too far behind the men who were leading in the
procession of the revelations which New Physics had disclosed to man.
No sooner had Perrin, a French physicist, demonstrated that the cathode
rays were negative electricity moving from the negative electrode of
a vacuum-tube to the positive electrode than Professor John Joseph
Thomson, of the University of Cambridge, proved that this negative
electricity is concentrated in small corpuscles, called electrons
to-day, which move with great velocities, and that the ratio of the
electrical charge to the mass of each electron is experimentally
determinable, and is, under ordinary conditions, a definite and
invariable quantity. This learned man, when a youth of only
twenty-five, had predicted in 1881, fourteen years before Roentgen’s
discovery, that the cathode rays were small negatively charged bodies,
moving with great velocities. Assuming them to be spherical, he
calculated, by the Faraday-Maxwell electromagnetic theory, the ratio
of their charge to their mass. He showed theoretically that their mass
consisted of two parts, one of which is the ordinary gravitational or
material mass, and the other a new mass which is proportional to the
electrical energy in the electron, and that this mass also depended
upon the velocity of the motion in a definite way. He devised and
employed an experimental method to determine this ratio. The most
remarkable feature of this interrelation between the electromagnetic
mass and the velocity of motion was the fact that when the velocity
approached the velocity of light the mass approached an infinitely
large value. But no such extremes of velocity of motion of the
electrons in a vacuum-tube were found at that time.
Becquerel, the French physicist, discovered, soon after Roentgen’s
discovery, that certain substances associated with the element uranium
emitted electrons, both negative and positive, without being in a
vacuum-tube and submitted to the action of a great electrical force.
Madame Curie isolated the most active of these substances and called it
_radium_. The action of electron emission discovered by Becquerel was
called radioactivity. Three distinct things, it was found, were emitted
by radium: negative electrons, the so-called beta rays, some of which
were moving with enormous velocities; positive electrons, the so-called
alpha rays, moving with smaller velocities; and, finally, an emission
which had the same physical properties as the X-rays. The beta rays,
some of which move with a velocity nearly equal to the velocity of
light, enabled the physicists to determine experimentally, employing J.
J. Thomson’s method, the relation between the mass of the electron and
its velocity, and lo and behold, it was found that, in all probability,
the negative electron contained no other mass except the mass due
to its electromagnetic energy. In other words, a negative electron
is concentrated electricity and nothing else. Similar experiments
with positive electrons led to similar conclusions. Another most
remarkable result was the revelation of the great difference between
the masses, and, therefore, between the electrical energies residing
in the negative and in the positive electron. The mass of a positive
electron was found to be very nearly equal to the mass of a hydrogen
atom, and the mass of a negative electron was found to be only about
one two-thousandth part of the mass of the positive electron, and this
meant that if the electrons are of spherical shape then the diameter of
the positive electron is only one two-thousandth part of the diameter
of the negative electron, since the energies and therefore the masses
are inversely proportional to the diameters. In other words, there is
in the positive electron a much bigger concentration of electricity
than in the negative and, therefore, much more work was used up to
produce that concentration. Experimental data and calculation gave
for the diameter of a negative electron one ten-thousandth part of
the diameter of the smallest atom, that is, of the hydrogen atom,
and therefore the diameter of the positive electron should be only
one twenty-millionth part of the diameter of a hydrogen atom. A most
bewildering revelation!
The remarkable results of these historic experiments forced, one may
say, upon the physicist the electromagnetic theory of matter, the
theory, namely, that the ultimate components in the structure of
matter are positive and negative electrons. This theory was vaguely
foreshadowed by Faraday in his poetic visions suggested by his
researches on electrolysis. Needless to say, the physicists in the
United States were thrilled by these revelations, and by the new views
disclosed by them, perhaps even more than by the discoveries of the
X-rays and of radioactivity. The first visible effect of this thrill
was the organization in 1899 of the American Physical Society, a
quarter of a century after Tyndall’s visit to this country. Just think
of it, the great United States had no physical society prior to that
time!
It is an interesting fact that two of the most important American
organizations in abstract science were started at Columbia College.
The first was the American Mathematical Society. In 1888, two
young instructors at Columbia College, Fiske and Jacoby, started a
mathematical club. To-day the first is a professor of mathematics, and
the second is a professor of astronomy at Columbia University. I joined
them in 1889, as soon as I had returned to Columbia. We transformed the
mathematical club into the New York Mathematical Society, and elected
for president the famous Columbia don, the late Howard Van Amringe,
for many years senior professor of mathematics at Columbia College.
Doctor Fiske was its secretary; no young and struggling scientific
organization ever had a better secretary. The society prospered, and
in 1894 it was transformed into the American Mathematical Society,
counting among its members most of the distinguished mathematicians
of the land. I am certainly very proud that I am one of its charter
members.
In 1899 several Columbia physicists, including myself, and their
friends from Johns Hopkins, Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Cornell, Clark,
and other places, met at Columbia and organized the American Physical
Society. The late Professor Rowland, of Johns Hopkins, was elected its
president, and one of its most distinguished members was Professor
Ernest Rutherford, of McGill University, Montreal. He is now Sir Ernest
Rutherford, the Cavendish professor of physics at the University of
Cambridge, occupying the professorial chair once occupied by Maxwell,
then by Rayleigh, and then by Thomson, now Sir John Joseph Thomson,
master of Trinity College, Cambridge. Their names I have mentioned
often in the course of this narrative. It was most unfortunate for
the progress of American physics that because of his failing health
Rowland’s wonderful influence in the society was of short duration. He
died in April, 1901, while still a young man. Rutherford’s wonderful
discoveries in radioactivity were reported regularly by himself at
the meetings of the society, and I often thought that these reports
alone, even without the many other good things which came along, amply
justified the existence of the society. When I compare the American
Physical Society of twenty years ago with the American Physical Society
of to-day I can scarcely believe that so much progress has been
possible in so short a time. I recognize, however, that this remarkable
growth is clue not only to the energy of youth of this country but also
to the energy of youth of New Physics, which I call Electron Physics.
In October, 1899, Rowland delivered his presidential address before
the society at whose head he stood. I can see now how happy he looked
on that memorable occasion. Inspired by the latest revelations in
Electron Physics, he prophesied what new revelations the physicists
should expect in the approaching future. After describing physics as
“a science above all sciences, which deals with the foundation of the
universe, with the constitution of matter from which everything in
the universe is made, and with the ether of space by which alone the
various portions of matter forming the universe affect each other ...”
he stated frankly that the physicists of America “form an aristocracy,
not of wealth, not of pedigree, but of intellect and ideals.... Let us
cultivate the idea of the dignity of our pursuit so that this feeling
may sustain us in the midst of a world which gives its highest praise,
not to the investigator in the pure ethereal physics which our society
is formed to cultivate, but to the one who uses it for satisfying the
physical rather than the intellectual needs of mankind.” He then
pleaded that we “recognize the eras when great thoughts have been
introduced into our subject and honor the great men who introduced
them and proved them correct.” Then, enumerating the great problems of
the physical universe, he asked: “What is matter; what is gravitation;
what is ether and radiation; what is electricity and magnetism; how are
these connected together, and what is their relation to heat?” Now,
these are the very questions which Electron Physics has been trying to
answer since that time; and this is the idealism which the American
physicist has had before him ever since the days of Rowland.
Electromagnetic theory of matter was the first answer to Rowland’s
question: What is matter? But how about the answer to his second
question: What is gravitation? If matter contains nothing but
electrons, if they are really the most fundamental building stones
of matter, then electricity as concentrated and stored up in the
electrons can exert in addition to the well-known electrical force also
a gravitational force. A somewhat novel idea, but ... why not, and why
so? Einstein gives the best answer to this.
To Rowland’s question: What is Ether? Electron Physics gave a puzzling
answer, but the puzzle has led us into a side path of surpassing
beauty. Our famous physicists, Michelson and Morley, are a combination
of two names better known in the world of physical science to-day
than Castor and Pollux were known when Zeus, descending from the
heights of Mount Olympus, sought the companionship of mortal men. The
fame of the twins, Michelson and Morley, not, however, of Michelson
alone, rests upon an experimental demonstration, the importance of
which was not until recently fully appreciated, the demonstration,
namely, that there is no ether drift; that is to say, so far as
man can tell, there is no relative motion between the earth moving
through space and the ether which is supposed to fill all interstellar
space. On the other hand, the hypothesis that the ether moves with
the moving earth leads to insurmountable difficulties. This was,
indeed, a most embarrassing situation! Since Michelson originally,
and, later, Michelson and Morley, employed the radiation of light
in their attempts to detect the ether drift, it became necessary to
re-examine the electromagnetic theory of propagation of light for the
case that light, as in the Michelson and Morley experiment, proceeds
from a source which together with the observer is moving through
space. The famous Professor Lorentz, of Leyden, Holland, whom I have
the honor of knowing personally, made the first successful extension
of this theory, and explained satisfactorily Michelson and Morley’s
result. But the extension was obtained by what was acknowledged to be
a clever notion, and not by an unavoidable physical fact. The same
extension of the theory was obtained by Einstein, but it was founded
upon a broad physical principle which Lorentz’s extension lacked.
Lorentz preferred Einstein’s deduction of his extension, called the
Lorentz transformation. The physical principle just referred to is
now popularly known as the Special Relativity Theory, which Einstein
extended later into the General Relativity Theory. Einstein’s theory
explains very simply the Michelson-Morley experiment, but how does it
answer Rowland’s question: What is Ether? Also very simply by saying
that ether is superfluous in our analysis of physical phenomena.
Faraday expressed a similar view nearly eighty years ago. That,
however, which is essential in this narrative in connection with
Einstein’s relativity theory is the great fact that by it a general
demonstration is furnished that all forms of electrical energy are
a mass which has _inertial as well as gravitational_ activity. In
the electromagnetic theory of matter this demonstration plays a most
important part. One of the schemes of this theory is so simple and
so beautiful, and appeals so strongly even to an imagination not
scientifically trained, that I must tell here very briefly some of its
most striking features.
All atoms are built up from a single atom, the atom of hydrogen,
which consists of a positive electron or proton, the nucleus, and a
single negative electron revolving around it like a satellite around
the central planet. A heavier atom, say an atom of oxygen, consists
of sixteen atoms of hydrogen, the positive nuclei of which form the
positive nucleus or central portion of the oxygen atom. Some of the
negative electrons are distributed among the positive electrons of
the central nucleus, serving to cement them together, and the other
negative electrons are revolving like satellites around the central
nucleus. The number of these satellites is the atomic number of
the atom, and it is this number, and not the atomic weight, which
determines the chemical characteristics of the atoms. This is only
a mere glance into the structure of Electron Physics, made here for
the purpose of pointing out some of the never-dreamt-of possibilities
that Electron Physics holds in view. For instance, four atoms of
hydrogen combining into an atom of helium give off a certain amount
of energy. We say the atoms of hydrogen degrade into the heavier atom
of helium and, thereby, a certain amount of energy is liberated. A
helium atom weighs less than four atoms of hydrogen, because of the
diminished energy per atom of hydrogen, the decrement of the weight
being proportional to the decrement of energy. This is demanded by
Einstein’s theory, which is really an extension of the theory first
proposed by Sir John Joseph Thomson, and it is a remarkable fact that
these weight relations satisfy the prophecy of the theory. The amount
of energy obtained by the degradation of the lighter into heavier atoms
is enormous. But we do not know how to produce the process of this
degradation. The question arises: Do not the young stars, the very hot
stars, which always consist of gases of small atomic weight, obtain a
supply of radiant energy from the degradation of atoms of small into
atoms of high atomic weight, and, if this is so, then why shall we
not some day learn this great secret from the stars? The language of
the stars has many deep secrets to tell; it mystifies me just as much
to-day as it did on the pasturelands of my native village fifty years
ago.
Many other most startling contemplations may be connected with the
new views opened up by Electron Physics, all of them illustrating the
beauty, the wealth, and the power of a new science which represents the
marriage of two great sciences, physics and chemistry.
Industrial science is very much impressed by new discoveries
which, as Rowland expressed it, “deal with the foundation of the
universe,” but which in spite of their revolutionary character are
easily understood by the practical man. Electron Physics abounds in
discoveries of that kind, and it seems that they have rushed upon
us like a cloud-burst. Things have been done that formerly seemed
impossible. Take, for an illustration, a thing which is so familiar
to all, the complete transformation of wireless telegraphy into the
new art which is called Radio. A vacuum-tube with a hot filament
fills up with negative electrons, which are thrown off by the hot
filament. The filament may be said to be radioactive. A current can
be established by applying an electromotive force which drives these
negative electrons from the space surrounding the hot filament to
a positive electrode. Here we have a new type of Crookes’s tube,
operated by a small electrical tension, and not by that of a powerful
induction-coil, which is necessary when the negative electrode is cold.
This current is called the thermionic current, and its value can be
varied in any way we please by a second electrical force which acts
through a third electrode, called the grid, placed in the path of
the thermionic current. This is the so-called audion tube, invented
by a Yale graduate, Doctor Lee De Forest. In the hands of the Western
Electric Company and of the General Electric Company, this tube has
transformed the whole radio art by its amplifying power. My old
inventions of electrical tuning and rectification have been raised to
unexpected powers by the action of these tubes, and the inventions of
my former pupil and research associate, Major E. H. Armstrong, and of
others, have given us the broadcasting art, which surpasses the wildest
expectations of even the rosiest of optimists of a few years ago.
Wherever Electron Physics has entered there have sprung up new crops
of the rarest fruit, and it is no wonder that there are to-day so many
workers in the newly discovered fertile fields of the electromagnetic
theory. Attend any meeting of the American Physical Society and you
will be convinced that the research in the university laboratories as
well as in the research laboratories of our industries would satisfy
even the highest expectations of the men who fifty years ago, under the
leadership of Joseph Henry, started the movement in favor of higher
scientific research. The university and the industrial laboratories
are mindful of Rowland’s admonition: “In choosing subjects for our
investigation, let us, if possible, work upon those subjects which
will finally give us advanced knowledge of some great subject.” What
subject can be greater than eternal truth, and that aim, according to
my definition, is idealism in science.
It is very true that our American scientific research activities in
physics and chemistry are so alive to-day because they have been
greatly stimulated by the wonderful advances, through electron physics,
in the electromagnetic theory, and in its very successful applications
to technical and industrial problems. But it is also true that the
scientific research activities in other branches, like biology, which
are not closely connected with the electromagnetic theory and its
applications, have also blossomed up with wonderful rapidity during the
last twenty-five years. It will be conceded, I think, that all these
activities in abstract science are to a very substantial extent due to
the rapid rise of the American university and to its splendid influence
upon the mentality of our industries. But in this democratic country,
covering a vast area, each State has the privilege of regulating in its
own way its own educational programme and policy, and each privately
endowed university can pursue its own ideals in its own way without
worrying very much about any other university. Lack of unity and
uniformity was, therefore, always felt, and there was always a strong
although often an unconscious desire in the hearts of scientific men
to bring about a uniformity in the aims and aspirations of higher
scientific research in our universities. The American Association for
the Advancement of Science made quite a number of efforts in this
direction, but the progress was slow. The great World War forced us to
make another big effort in this direction, and this time the effort
succeeded beyond all expectations. The following story of this big
effort is, I am sure, of national importance, and should be known by
every intelligent person in the United States.
Just as the cultivation of science in the United States was first taken
up in the technical schools, like the School of Mines of Columbia
College, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and many others,
and not in colleges or universities, so the organization of scientific
associations took place first among the engineers, the graduates
of the technical schools. The American Society of Civil Engineers,
the American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, the
American Society of Mechanical Engineers, and the American Institute of
Electrical Engineers, for instance, were organized some time before
most of the present associations in abstract science, that is in
mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology were organized. Even the
youngest among the leading engineering societies, that is, the American
Institute of Electrical Engineers, was organized in the early eighties,
whereas the American Physical Society was organized nearly twenty years
later, in 1899.
The organization of these technical societies did not wait for the
arrival of the American university. But, nevertheless, when the
American university arrived, and with it the research laboratories
in the fundamental sciences, it improved the quality of the American
engineer, and of the American engineering societies, just as it
improved the scientific standards of the American industrial
organizations. The National Academy of Sciences deserves here a special
consideration. It is an association of workers in _abstract science_,
principally, but, contrary to what I have just said, it is, like the
American Philosophical Society, founded by Franklin, older than any
of our national engineering societies. Its early birth was due to the
conditions created by the Civil War. Joseph Henry, I imagine, suggested
to President Lincoln that a mobilization of the scientific resources
of the North would improve greatly its military strength, and thus the
National Academy of Sciences was chartered by Congress during the Civil
War, in 1863, and was approved by President Lincoln. It was a creation
of the Civil War, and is in many respects an institution which forms a
part of the Federal Government. I shall describe now how the National
Academy of Sciences, itself a creation of the Federal Government during
the Civil War, gave birth during the World War to another national
scientific institution which is the climax of the great scientific
movement started fifty years ago. I have watched this movement almost
from its very beginning up to the present time; yes, I have been a part
of it during its most active period, and I believe that I understand
its full meaning.
The four leading engineering societies, mentioned above, were in quite
a flourishing condition at the beginning of this century; flourishing
not only with regard to the number, but also with regard to the
quality of their membership, and their progress was speeding on with
remarkable rapidity. For instance, the papers read before the American
Institute of Electrical Engineers in 1900, and the discussions which
followed them, were immeasurably superior to those read in 1890,
when I first became a member of this Institute, because the quality
of its membership was also immeasurably superior. The great American
industries paid much more respectful attention to these engineering
societies than when I first came to Columbia College in 1889. The
greatest among the American captains of industry of those days, the
late Andrew Carnegie, held them in so high an esteem that he presented
a magnificent gift to them which led to the formation of the United
Engineering Society. This happened in 1904, and marks one of the great
events in the history of American technical science.
It is of considerable historical interest to observe here that
Carnegie’s magnificent gift to these national engineering societies
is closely connected with a very modest move made by the American
Institute of Electrical Engineers, nearly thirty years ago. The late
Doctor Schuyler Skaats Wheeler, at one time president of the American
Institute of Electrical Engineers, had purchased the famous electrical
library of the late Latimer Clark, of London, and had presented it
to the Institute. But the Institute had no building of its own, and,
therefore, no place for housing permanently this unique library.
Several of the members of the Institute, including myself, were looking
around anxiously for some practical scheme which would provide the
Institute with a home of its own, where the Latimer Clark library
could be permanently located. It was obvious that Andrew Carnegie,
who was always interested in libraries, should be selected as our
first point of application. We never had to appeal to anybody else;
Mr. Carnegie was most generous. The engineering societies appealed
to his lively imagination. It was the engineer who assisted him in
the development of the great steel industry, and it was the engineer
upon whom he relied to maintain the American steel industry in the
leading position which it had won, in a great measure, by Carnegie’s
initiative and efforts. He had already paid a splendid tribute to
science for the service it had rendered to him when he created and
richly endowed the Carnegie Institution of Washington, which was to
provide and does provide ample facilities to American genius in its
efforts to solve some of the great problems in science. I mention here
as an illustration the endowment of the Mount Wilson Astrophysical
Observatory at Pasadena, California, an act which has borne magnificent
fruit under Professor George Ellery Hale’s direction. Instead of
giving to the American Institute of Electrical Engineers a building
for a library, Mr. Carnegie presented to the four national engineering
societies a building for their permanent home, with suitable
accommodations for a great library, for administrative offices, for
conference and meeting rooms, for lecture-rooms, and for a great
assembly hall. One of the objects of the United Engineering Society
was, according to its charter, to hold and administer this princely
gift “for the purpose of advancing the engineering arts and sciences
in all their branches and for maintaining a free public engineering
library.” The famous Latimer Clark electrical library is now a part of
this great engineering library. The four national societies represented
by the United Engineering Society have a carefully picked membership
of over fifty thousand, and the magnificence of their home on
Thirty-ninth Street, near Fifth Avenue, New York, is fully justified
by their great prestige. I never look upon this beautiful structure
without being thrilled by the thought that the treasures it contains in
the form of organized scientific achievement and brains are among the
greatest of the many rich assets of this nation.
Sixteen years ago, Mr. Carnegie and myself represented the American
Philosophical Society at the memorial service for the late Lord Kelvin,
the famous scientist. It was held in the great hall of the Engineering
Building. As we sat on the platform, waiting for the commencement of
the ceremony, I scanned the beautiful proportions of the great hall,
and they appeared to me more beautiful than ever. “You must feel
very happy when you look at this splendid gift which you made to the
Engineering Society,” said I to Mr. Carnegie, who sat on my right. “I
do, yes indeed I do, and I hope that some day you may experience the
same feeling of happiness which comes from giving,” responded the great
ironmaster. “Perhaps I will,” said I, “but remember that I am a Serb,
and not a Scot: it takes a Scot to understand and to practise the art
of giving.” “But it also takes a Scot to understand and to practise the
art of taking,” said Mr. Carnegie, and his vigorous eyes sparkled with
the light of good-natured humor.
Another event occurred in the history of the four founder societies
which will always mark the beginning of a new epoch in American
science. Another captain of American industry extended a generous hand
to the United Engineering Society, offering to aid it in its work of
“advancing the engineering arts and sciences in all their branches.”
It is very significant that this second generous captain of industry
was in many respects a striking contrast to the first, the late Andrew
Carnegie. I am speaking now of Ambrose Swasey of Cleveland, Ohio. He,
like Carnegie, started his industrial career with very small training
in technical sciences. What he knew about engineering and manufacturing
he had obtained by practical experience. Ambrose Swasey is a splendid
illustration of a disciplined intellect trained by the training of his
hand. I have always believed that the most striking difference between
the American and the European is due to the fact that the American
in his early youth receives a much better manual training than the
European does, and that this accounts for the American directness
of thought, judgment, and action. I never saw a better illustration
of this theory than Mr. Ambrose Swasey. He began his career as a
machinist, and when a little over thirty years of age he and a friend
of his, Mr. Warner, another young machinist, started a manufacturing
plant of their own, making fine machine-tools and astronomical
instruments of precision. The shops of Warner and Swasey became famous
all over the world for their wonderful workmanship.
The American manufacturer has achieved great things in mass production.
This was Mr. Carnegie’s strong point; but Mr. Swasey did not belong to
that type of American manufacturer. His aim was few products but each
one of them as perfect as careful manipulation, personal attention
guided by superior intelligence, and inventive ingenuity, could
make it. Most of the telescope mountings of the great astronomical
observatories in this country were made in Mr. Swasey’s Cleveland
shops. His shop experience made him an engineer of a very high order,
so high indeed, that the American Society of Mechanical Engineers
elected him president, and, later, honorary member. The charter of the
United Engineering Society speaks of “advancing the engineering arts
and sciences in all their branches,” but there was no other visible
instrumentality for doing that work than the free engineering library.
Ambrose Swasey proposed to correct this deficiency when, in 1914,
he offered to the United Engineering Society a gift of two hundred
thousand dollars as a nucleus for an endowment the income of which was
to be used for “the furtherance of research in science and engineering,
or for the advancement in any other manner of the profession of
engineering and the good of mankind.” These words, dictated by an
American captain of industry, bear witness to the fact that there is
much idealism in American industry. The United Engineering Society
accepted Mr. Swasey’s gift, and established the Engineering Foundation,
which was managed by its own board, the Foundation Board, nominated
by the four founder societies. Its members acted as trustees of
Mr. Swasey’s gift and of any other gift that might be given to the
Engineering Foundation to serve a purpose similar to that of Mr.
Swasey’s gift. This Foundation became an instrumentality of the United
Engineering Society for the stimulation, direction, and support of
scientific research. It became, furthermore, the liaison agency between
the engineers on the one hand and the technologists and scientists on
the other hand, in activities concerned with research in all branches
of mathematical, physical, and biological sciences. In other words,
one of the great captains of American industry, Andrew Carnegie, was
instrumental in bringing the great national engineering societies
together into the United Engineering Society, and another great captain
of American industry, Ambrose Swasey, invented and by his generosity
constructed an instrumentality, the Engineering Foundation, which he
put into the hands of the United Engineering Society for the purpose
of enabling it to do the work which its charter demands, “advancing
the engineering arts and sciences in all their branches.” I never
think of these two generous acts on the part of Mr. Carnegie and of
Mr. Swasey, without being reminded that these two great organizers of
American industry were guided by the same motives of idealism which had
guided the great men of the revolutionary times when they organized
the United States. Read the charters of the Carnegie Institution, of
the Engineering Society, and of the Engineering Foundation, and you
will find that no trace of materialism can be found in the proposed
scientific activities of these institutions founded by two men who made
material things but never lost touch with the spiritual world which
gave direction and discipline to all their acts.
The Engineering Foundation became an operating instrumentality in
April, 1915, and in a year from that time it was called upon to engage
in a scientific enterprise which, in my opinion, has proved to be of
the very greatest national importance. In April, 1916, it appeared that
we were to become involved in the World War on account of the sinking
of the _Sussex_ by German submarines. The charter of the National
Academy of Sciences, passed by Congress and approved by President
Lincoln in 1863, provides that “the Academy shall, whenever called upon
by any department of the Government, investigate, examine, experiment,
and report upon any subject of science and art.” The early records
indicate that during its very earliest days the National Academy of
Sciences, under the leadership of Joseph Henry, and while the Civil War
was still going on, dealt actively with scientific research relating to
military and naval problems. It was, therefore, perfectly natural that,
in view of the threatening crisis, the National Academy of Sciences
should, in April, 1916, offer its services to the President of the
United States, who accepted them and requested the Academy to organize
the scientific and technical resources of the country in the broadest
and most effective manner. This is how the _National Research Council_
was born. It is the offspring of the National Academy of Sciences.
The mother was born during the Civil War, and the offspring was born
during the World War. Blessed be the country which even in times of war
creates institutions the highest aim of which is to cultivate the arts
of peace!
The members of the National Academy of Sciences are elected on account
of distinguished services to science, and not on account of their
cleverness as administrators or organizers. The National Research
Council was to be organized for the purpose of “stimulating research
in mathematical, physical, and biological sciences, and in the
application of these sciences to engineering, agriculture, medicine,
and other useful arts, with the object of increasing knowledge, of
strengthening the national defense, and of contributing in other ways
to the public welfare.” The words just quoted are taken from President
Wilson’s executive order, and describe a splendid conception. But from
conception to reduction to practice is a long pull, requiring efforts
along most practical lines of endeavor in which scientific men as a
rule do not excel. But it was very fortunate for the National Academy
of Sciences and for the people of the United States that among the
scientists of the Academy there was one man who had always displayed
just as remarkable a genius for organization as he had for original
scientific research; I mean Professor George Ellery Hale, director of
the Mount Wilson Observatory. Several other members of the Academy,
including myself, did our best to aid him in the task of reducing to
practice many of his ideas relating to the National Research Council.
There was, fortunately, one thing which greatly assisted our earliest
and most difficult efforts in behalf of this national movement; it was
the existence of the Engineering Foundation.
My former pupil, Gano Dunn, was in 1916 the chairman of the Engineering
Foundation, and I was one of the two vice-chairmen. It did not cost
me much effort to persuade Dunn that one of the biggest tasks which
the Engineering Foundation could take up was to grubstake the
National Research Council during its formative period. The Board of
the Foundation accepted enthusiastically this suggestion, recommended
by Mr. Dunn and myself, and from September 1916 to September 1917
the administrative organization as well as the total income of the
Foundation was devoted to the organizing work of the National Research
Council. I am very proud that during a part of that period I was the
chairman of the Engineering Foundation, succeeding Mr. Dunn, and had
splendid opportunities to aid Professor Hale and his committees in
the historic work of organizing the National Research Council. Mr.
Swasey was very happy in this national work of the Foundation, and he
added to its income for that year a sum of five thousand dollars as
additional aid for its great undertaking. At the expiration of that
year, the National Research Council did not need any further financial
assistance from the Engineering Foundation, but the co-operation
started in 1916 between the two national bodies continued and produced
splendid results; so much so that in 1918, during my term of office
as chairman of the Foundation, Mr. Swasey added one hundred thousand
dollars to his original gift, and in 1920 two hundred thousand dollars
more, and the Engineering Foundation became the guiding and controlling
factor in the activities of the engineering division of the National
Research Council. Mr. Swasey always hoped that others would follow
his example and by their generous contribution increase the income of
the Engineering Foundation to what it should be. This institution, as
the directing instrument of the engineering division of the National
Research Council, could, with an adequate annual income, say one
hundred thousand dollars or more, do a world of good in the research
of our great national engineering problems. I trust that Mr. Swasey’s
hopes will not meet with disappointment, because his hopes are based
upon his accurate estimate of what the engineering profession needs.
An estimate supported by the judgment and vision of a Swasey, and by
his generous financial efforts, should receive the most respectful
attention and warmest sympathy of our public-spirited men.
It goes without saying that during the World War the National Research
Council was organized mainly with a view to aiding the government in
the pursuit of the war, and for that purpose it was closely associated
with the government’s scientific bureaus, and with the technical
department of the Army and Navy. This arrangement is referred to, and
receives the highest official sanction, in the executive order issued
by President Wilson, which I quote now in full:
EXECUTIVE ORDER ISSUED BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES
The National Research Council was organized in 1916 at the request
of the President by the National Academy of Sciences, under its
Congressional charter, as a measure of national preparedness. The
work accomplished by the Council in organizing research and in
securing co-operation of military and civilian agencies in the
solution of military problems demonstrates its capacity for larger
service. The National Academy of Sciences is therefore requested to
perpetuate the National Research Council, the duties of which shall
be as follows:
1. In general, to stimulate research in the mathematical, physical,
and biological sciences, and in the application of these sciences
to engineering, agriculture, medicine, and other useful arts, with
the object of increasing knowledge, of strengthening the national
defense, and of contributing in other ways to the public welfare.
2. To survey the larger possibilities of science, to formulate
comprehensive projects of research, and to develop effective means
of utilizing the scientific and technical resources of the country
for dealing with these projects.
3. To promote co-operation in research, at home and abroad, in
order to secure concentration of effort, minimize duplication, and
stimulate progress; but in all co-operative undertakings to give
encouragement to individual initiative, as fundamentally important
to the advancement of science.
4. To serve as a means of bringing American and foreign
investigators into active co-operation with the scientific and
technical services of the War and Navy Departments and with those
of the civil branches of the Government.
5. To direct the attention of scientific and technical
investigators to the present importance of military and industrial
problems in connection with the war, and to aid in the solution of
these problems by organizing specific researches.
6. To gather and collate scientific and technical information
at home and abroad, in co-operation with governmental and other
agencies and to render such information available to duly
accredited persons.
Effective prosecution of the Council’s work requires the cordial
collaboration of the scientific and technical branches of the
Government, both military and civil. To this end representatives
of the Government, upon the nomination of the National Academy
of Sciences, will be designated by the President as members of
the Council, as heretofore, and the heads of the departments
immediately concerned will continue to co-operate in every way that
may be required.
(Signed) WOODROW WILSON.
The White House, May 11, 1918.
During the World War the National Research Council was only partly
supported by the government, although it did exclusively government
work. After the war, however, the activities of the National Research
Council were reorganized without departing from the spirit of the
President’s executive order, and its support was derived from private
sources only. Its organization can be described broadly as follows:
It consists of two groups of divisions; one group comprises seven
divisions of science and technology, representing, respectively,
physics, mathematics, and astronomy; chemistry and chemical technology;
biology and agriculture; the medical sciences; psychology and
anthropology; geology and geography; and, finally, one of the largest
and most important of its divisions, the division of engineering. The
other group comprises six divisions of general relations, representing
foreign relations, government relations, state relations, educational
relations, research extension, and research information. In this
scheme of organization the National Research Council enjoys the active
co-operation of about seventy-five major scientific and technical
societies of the country. It is, therefore, national in its character.
It promises to become one of the most precious assets of this nation,
and the nation should know much more about it than it does.
The splendid work done by the Council even during the first two years
of its history attracted much attention from the best men in the
country, with the result that the trustees of the Carnegie Corporation
of New York made a gift of five million dollars to the Council.
A part of this, a little over one-quarter, was to be spent on an
administrative building, the future home of the Academy and of its
offspring, the National Research Council. The remainder was to be a
permanent foundation from the income of which the administrative work
of the Council was to be and is now being supported.
The Rockefeller Foundation and the Rockefeller General Education Board
gave the Council one million dollars for the maintenance, during
five years, of research fellowships in physics and chemistry, and in
medicine. Other gifts came from philanthropic organizations, individual
concerns, and individuals, for the support of special scientific
projects, and more than a score of individuals interested in the
promotion of science contributed two hundred thousand dollars for the
purchase of land in Washington on which the administration building of
the Academy and Council has been under construction during the last two
years.
[Illustration: DR. GEORGE ELLERY HALE
Honorary Chairman of the National Research Council]
Facing the Mall near the Lincoln memorial in Washington stands to-day,
nearly completed, the administrative palace of the National Academy
of Sciences and of its offspring, the National Research Council. The
classical simplicity of its design and its snowy marble make it
appear at a distance like a Grecian temple. It will always invite the
visitor to the nation’s capital to its peaceful precincts, whence
one can get the impressive view of the beautiful monument to great
Lincoln and of the Arlington heights on the distant bank of the Potomac
River. When Lincoln and those buried on these sacred heights died, the
National Academy of Sciences was born. The lives of these dead heroes
of sixty years ago, as well as the life of the institution born then
and living to-day, will always remind us that national defense is a
stern reality and the most sacred of our patriotic duties. National
defense is and always should be the uppermost idea in the history of
the National Research Council, but national defense in its broadest
sense, that is, defense by powder and sword and scientific invention
when a brutal enemy attacks us, and by the stored-up accomplishments of
scientifically trained intellects and disciplined spirits whenever this
nation engages in peaceful competitions with other nations.
[Illustration: THE NATIONAL RESEARCH COUNCIL BUILDING,
WASHINGTON, D. C.
From a preliminary sketch by the architect,
Bertram G. Goodhue]
The rapid rise of the Council into public favor is due principally to
its wise programme and to the standing of the men and of the scientific
organizations engaged in the carrying out of that programme, the
fundamental feature of which is “to promote scientific research and the
application and dissemination of scientific knowledge for the benefit
of our national strength and well-being.” This expression, often heard
within the ranks of the National Research Council, always reminds me of
the following words in Washington’s Farewell Address:
Promote, then, as an object of primary importance, institutions for
the general diffusion of knowledge. In proportion as the structure
of a government gives force to public opinion, it is essential that
public opinion should be enlightened.
In no branch of human activity does public opinion need enlightenment
so much as it does in the fundamentals of science, and in their
relation to technical arts. One weak point in every democracy,
particularly when poorly understood and practised, is the belief among
those who control political patronage that any man can do any job as
well as any other man. The scientific man believes that a man must be
trained for the job; hence his profound respect for the expert. Nothing
in his opinion will advance our national strength and well-being so
much as the ability of enlightened public opinion to differentiate
between the expert and the clumsy product of political patronage. A
motto of the Allies in the World War was: make the world safe for
democracy. But those who are to-day associated in the National Research
Council believe that it is even more important to “make democracy safe
for the world” by the dissemination of scientific knowledge for the
benefit of national strength and well-being. Many of us believe that
this is the most important part of the national defense, to which the
Council will always be pledged.
The National Research Council is not an organization which operates
scientific laboratories; it confines its attention to the stimulation
of co-operation between scientific workers, where such co-operation
is necessary. This is not the place to discuss in detail all the
aims and aspirations of the National Research Council and of the
instrumentalities which it has created in order to reach these aims.
A survey, even a brief one, of the work of the divisions belonging
to the two groups of the National Research Council will give some
idea of these aims. There are, however, two great aims which should
be mentioned here, which have been well expressed by Doctor Vernon
Kellogg, Permanent Secretary of the Council and chairman of its
division on Educational Relations. He describes one of them as follows:
“It [the National Research Council] will try constantly to encourage
the interest of universities and colleges in research and in the
training of research workers, so that the inspiration and fitting of
American youth for scientific work may never fall so low as to threaten
to interrupt the constantly needed output of well-trained and devoted
scientific talent in the land.” The other principal aim he describes in
the following significant words: “Still another [assistance to science]
is the stimulation of larger industrial organizations, which may be
in the situation to maintain their own independent laboratories, to
see the advantage of contributing to the support of pure science in
the universities and research institutes, for the sake of increasing
the scientific knowledge and scientific personnel upon which future
progress in applied science absolutely depends.”
The appeal of the National Research Council to the American
universities and colleges in behalf of scientific research will not
be like a voice in the wilderness. There never was so much enthusiasm
for scientific research in the American colleges and universities as
there is to-day. This enthusiasm will continually increase as time
goes on, because many of the scientific workers in these institutions
are gradually catching that enthusiasm during their term of office as
members of the divisions of the National Research Council. Before very
long most of these workers will have served as such members, because
the election to membership is for a short term only, so that every
scientist in the land who wishes to serve will get a chance to serve,
and in this manner will become familiar with the aims and aspirations
of the National Research Council. This rotational term of membership
in the divisions of the Council is a splendid method of carrying on
the educational propaganda, particularly among the younger scientists
of the United States. Before very long the scientists associated by
service in the Council will be like the soldiers of a great army of
volunteers, each one of them believing in and ready to struggle for
the same ideals, and all of them controlled by the same _esprit de
corps_, which the world will soon recognize as the _esprit de corps_ of
American science.
With regard to the Council’s second principal aim, described so
well by Doctor Kellogg, I am happy to make the following comment: A
distinguished lawyer, chairman of the board of directors of a large
industrial corporation, which maintains a splendid industrial research
laboratory, said in my presence recently that he thought every
successful and prosperous industrial organization should set aside a
goodly portion of its profits from new developments, made possible by
scientific research, and turn it over to the universities, to enable
them to pay better salaries to their professors and instructors in
science and to increase their research facilities. He confessed frankly
that the training in scientific research in the universities is the
fountainhead from which success is derived in industrial research
and development, and that without industrial research American
industries will not gain and hold the leading position in the world
to which they may rightfully aspire. What a splendid thing it is to
hear a lawyer express an opinion which is in perfect harmony with the
opinion of every scientific man in the United States! It has been
this mental attitude on the part of the American philanthropists and
public-spirited captains of industry like Carnegie, Rockefeller,
Swasey, Eastman, and others which has helped us to accomplish wonders
in scientific advancement during the last twenty-five years. It has
been men of this type who have built research laboratories in the
American universities and endowed them generously.
Of the many physical laboratories which have arisen in American
universities through private munificence since the time when, fifty
years ago, Joseph Henry, Barnard, Draper, Andrew White, and other
American scientists started the great movement for higher research
in science, there may be mentioned, as an illustration, the Johns
Hopkins physical laboratory, the Jefferson laboratory at Harvard, the
Sloan laboratory at Yale, the Fayerweather laboratory at Columbia, or
the Ryerson laboratory at the University of Chicago. Similar research
facilities in other departments of physical science have been presented
to American universities by the public-spirited men of the United
States. But nothing has illustrated so well the possibilities of
intelligent public interest in and generosity to science as the rapid
rise of organized American science in the last twenty-five years,
culminating in the organization of the National Research Council.
To an untrained eye, necessarily looking at scientific things from a
superficial view-point, the National Research Council will appear as a
splendid institution organized as our third arm of national defense,
an indispensable supplement to the Army and Navy. This conception
is perfectly natural, because the time and the conditions which
called the Council into existence during the World War were such as
to demand immediate scientific efforts for national defense. Other
somewhat similar organized efforts were made at that time, but those
organizations disappeared into thin air as soon as the armistice of
1918 was signed. The National Research Council did not disappear; it
is stronger to-day than ever before, because, although designed to be
an effective weapon in times of war, it is fundamentally an instrument
of peace. Another superficial view will reveal the National Research
Council as a splendid organization for the cultivation of an intimate
relationship between abstract science and the industries. This also is
as it should be; national defense in its broadest sense demands such
co-operation. But both these aspects of the Council, prominent aspects
to the superficial observer, reveal only the purely material gains
to accrue to this country from the Council’s activities. The anxious
question will therefore be: What contributions will this organized
scientific activity make to the spiritual welfare of the country?
There are people who think that science with all its splendid
achievements is nevertheless materialistic, and that it cannot by
itself, no matter how well organized, advance the spiritual welfare of
a nation. Some even go so far as to maintain that national endeavors in
the direction of very extensive scientific research and very elaborate
scientific training are apt to interfere seriously with the spiritual
development of our national life. This is particularly true of people
who are stirred up, from time to time, by imaginary conflicts between
science and religion. I may be permitted here to state briefly how
science, as I see it cultivated by the men who are associated in the
National Research Council, will contribute to the spiritual welfare of
our nation by describing briefly some of its ideals.
Fifty years ago Tyndall, as I have already mentioned, came to America
and helped to start the great scientific movement which has culminated
in the organization of the National Research Council. At that time
Andrew White, the famous president of Cornell, spoke the following
historic words in behalf of this historic movement, which I have been
watching since its very beginning, and actively aiding whenever an
opportunity presented itself:
Now, sir, I maintain that the true spirit of the scientific
research, embracing as it does zeal in search for truth, devotion
to duty, which such a search imposes, faith in good, as the normal
and necessary result of such a search ... that such a spirit is,
at this moment, one of the most needed elements in the political
progress of our country.
What I maintain, then, is, that this zeal for truth as truth, this
faith in the good forever allied to the truth, this devotion to
duty, as the result of such faith and zeal, constitute probably the
most needed element at this moment in the political regeneration of
this country, and that, therefore, the example of our little army
of true devotees of science has an exceeding preciousness.
Their zeal, their devotion, their faith, furnish one of those very
protests which are most needed against that low tone of political
ideas which in its lower strata is political corruption. Their life
gives that very example of a high spirit, aim, and work, which the
time so greatly needs.
The aims and aspirations and the life of American scientists have not
changed since Andrew White spoke these memorable words fifty years ago.
A life guided by aims and aspirations such as he describes is a life
of saints and not of ordinary materialistic clay. Such a life cannot
be attained without unceasing nursing of the spirit and unrelenting
suppression of the flesh. Men of Andrew White’s clearness of vision
will certainly tell you not only that the disciplined army of American
scientists mobilized under the flag of the National Research Council
will not interfere with the spiritual development of our national life,
but that, on the contrary, nothing else will advance that spiritual
development so rapidly and so irresistibly. The intellectual and
spiritual discipline which, according to White, our nation needs, is
certainly one of the ideals of these men of science.
I shall mention now two other ideals. Just watch on some summer morning
how the early rays of the sun arouse the slumbering rose from its
blissful dreams, and remember that the rose responds because its body
and soul are tuned to the melodies which the glorious sunlight is
pouring into its enchanted ear. Remember also that what I have just
described is not merely a flowery figure of speech, but that it is a
concise description of a beautiful physical relationship, which science
has discovered in the life of the rose. I proceed a step further,
and ask: Have you ever feasted your joyful eye upon the beauties of
the landscape when on a golden May day you behold the blossoming
fruit-trees cover as far as your vision can reach the velvety green
turf of the numerous orchards of some blessed countryside? What does
each of these fruit-trees with its countless blossoms suggest to your
imagination? “The honey-hearted fruit of the mellow summer season,”
many of you will say. Yes, the blossom and the fruit are so far as the
untutored mind can see the beginning and the end of the short chain
of apparently commonplace events which make up the annually returning
life activity of the humble fruit-tree. Who cares what happens between
so beautiful a beginning and so satisfactory an end? The scientist
cares; his trained eye detects here an enchanting tale. Every one of
those fruit-trees on the golden May day appears to him like a bride
arrayed in the gayest of wedding raiment, waiting for the approaching
bridegroom. Its countless blossoms invite with longing lips the
life-giving kiss of the heavenly groom, the glorious sun. The balmy
breath of this golden bridegroom fills the air, kissing the lips of
every flower in the gay and festive orchards, and in the juicy pastures
and meadows. A heavenly thrill fills the hearts of these enamoured
blossoms, when, with sighs of delicious perfume, they, like blushing
brides, respond to the tender caresses of the heavenly bridegroom! Yes,
there will be honey-hearted fruit in the mellow summer season; the busy
bee knows it when it sucks its honey from the joyful bosoms of the
blessed brides; it knows that this honey is the first message to you
that the marriage between the heavenly bridegroom, the golden sun, and
the terrestrial brides, the countless blossoms, will be blessed with
many a heavenly offspring, the honey-hearted fruit of the mellow summer
season.
This is, I admit, somewhat unusual language for a scientist to use. It
is, according to the opinion of many, unsuited to the description of
what people call the cold facts of science. They call them so, but is
their language justified? The physical facts of science are not cold,
unless your soul and your heart are cold. There is white heat somewhere
in every physical fact when we decipher correctly the message which
it conveys to us. A physical fact denotes activity, otherwise it could
not penetrate the depths of our consciousness. Activity is life, in
the broadest sense of this word. Death is cold, but life is hot, and
it is gross abuse of language to speak of cold facts of science. It is
such language that creates prejudice against science, representing its
methods as well as its results as devoid of everything which fires the
emotional side of man. Every physical fact has two terminals; one is in
our consciousness, and the other is in some star which is rejoicing in
the blazing vigor of its youth. Just as the life activity of the early
blossoms, and of the honey-hearted fruit of the mellow summer season,
has its origin in the life-giving breath of the heavenly bridegroom,
the glorious sun, so every terrestrial activity, every physical fact,
with one of its terminals anchored in our consciousness, can trace its
origin to the life-giving breath of some heavenly bridegroom, some
burning star. Just explore the path which leads from one of these
terminals to the other, and you will discover on each side of that path
those beauties which continually thrill the heart of a scientific man.
Do that and you will never again speak of the cold facts of science.
Let me for illustration pursue one of these paths for a little
distance. Fifty years ago, when as a member of a herdsman’s squad of
boys I watched the stars on the black background of a summer midnight
sky, I felt that their fight was a language proclaiming the glory of
God.
Has science changed that vision of the early childhood days? What does
that light convey to my mind to-day? The answer to this question was
born during my lifetime, and the gradual unfolding of its profound
meaning gave me the sweetest thrills of my life. Faraday and Maxwell
told me that light is a manifestation of the activity of electrical
force. The discovery of the Roentgen rays and of radioactivity taught
me that the primordial sources of electrical force are the positive and
the negative electrons, the electrons and the protons, the building
stones of matter, and that light is radiation, that is, propagation
into space of the electrical energy from the atomic structures in
which the electrons with their motions determine the character of the
structure and its energy content. Then came Thomson, the same Thomson
who scared me away from Cambridge, because I thought that he was too
young to be my teacher of physics, and he suggested that the electrons
possess an inertial mass on account of the electrical energy which
is stored up in them. This suggestion led to the generalization that
all electrical energy has mass possessing not only inertia but also
gravitational action. Who does not know to-day of this generalization,
and who has not heard of Einstein and of his verified prophecy that a
beam of light will be deflected by gravitational force? A beam of light
represents electrical energy and electrical energy is gravitationally
active just like any other mass considered by Newton. A star radiating
light radiates electrical energy, and, therefore, it throws out to us
a part of its own mass. When this radiation reaches us we can say,
therefore, without indulging in figures of speech that the star is
visiting us. I am not indulging in a flowery figure of speech when I
call solar radiation the balmy breath of the heavenly bridegroom, the
glorious sun.
Fifty years ago, instructed by David’s psalms, I found in the light of
the stars a heavenly language which proclaims the glory of God, but I
did not know how that language reached me, and I hoped that some day
I might find out. That hope was in my soul when I landed at Castle
Garden. To-day science tells me that the stars themselves bring it to
me. Each burning star is a focus of energy, of life-giving activity,
which it pours out lavishly into every direction of the energy-hungry
space; it pours out the life of its own heart, in order to beget new
life. Oh, what a beautiful vista that opens to our imagination, and
what new beauties are disclosed by science in the meaning of the words
in Genesis: “He breathed into his nostrils the breath of life, and
man became a living soul.” The light of the stars is a part of the
life-giving breath of God. I never look now upon the starlit vault
of the heaven without feeling this divine breath and its quickening
action upon my soul. But here I must stop. I feel the heavy hand of the
fundamentalist pulling me down, and the icy chill of his disapproving
voice reminds me that his theology will not permit an interpretation
of the words of Genesis which cannot be understood by people whose
knowledge of science is about the same as that of the Assyrians and
Chaldeans of several thousand years ago.
I have taken some pains here to point to some beauties in one
particular department of physical science. Such beauties abound in
every other department of science, and they are in no respect inferior
to those which form the subject of the fine arts, like music, painting,
sculpture, and poetry. To cultivate the beautiful in science, is,
according to my view, the second ideal of the many loyal workers
associated in the National Research Council. Will that kind of science
interfere with the spiritual development of our national life?
The third ideal may be described as follows: All changeable things
are subject to the play of evolution, and are mortal, from the tiny
flower in the field to the awe-inspiring cloud figure in the heavens
which is called the nebula of Orion. But the laws which the stars and
the planets obey in their paths through the heavens never change nor
grow old; they are immutable, they are immortal. The elements of the
microcosm, the electrons in the atom, are as far as we know immutable
and immortal, because man knows no natural process by which the
electrons and the laws which they obey can ever be changed. They are
not the product of any natural process of evolution known to man. To
discover the immutable laws which this substantia, this immutable
foundation of the universe, obeys is the highest aim of scientific
research. The existence of these eternally unchangeable things
brings us face to face with a power which is the eternally immovable
background of all physical phenomena. We feel intuitively that science
will never penetrate the mysteries beyond it, but our faith encourages
us in the belief that there behind the impenetrable veil of this
eternal background is the throne of a divine power, the soul of the
physical world, the activity of which we contemplate in our research of
physical phenomena. I am sure that many loyal members of the National
Research Council believe that scientific research will bring us closer
to this divinity than any theology invented by man ever did. The
cultivation of this belief is certainly one of the ideals of American
science, represented by the men who are associated in the National
Research Council. In the face of this ideal, there certainly cannot be
any conflict between science and religion.
I firmly believe that in the National Research Council we have an
organization which represents the mobilized scientific intellect of
the United States, which in the pursuit of its lofty ideals will some
day succeed in creating in our democracy a profound respect for the
services of the highly trained intellect. A democracy which believes
that its destiny should be intrusted to the leadership of men of
training, discipline, and lofty aspirations and knows how to secure
the services of such men is a democracy which is safe for the world.
Such a democracy, I believe, was the vision of the scientific men
who, fifty years ago, started the great movement for higher endeavor.
Such a democracy will lead some day to what I call ideal democracy,
that is, a state organism in which each human unit contributes its
definite share to the physical and mental activity of the organism. The
relation of the individual to the social body in an ideal democracy,
as I conceive it, will be very similar to the relation of our cells
to our body. Activities of individuals will be coordinated, just as
the activities of our cells are, so that one composite mind will guide
the resultant activities of the whole social body. This is the mind
which my friend, General J. J. Carty, the distinguished engineer and
philosopher, calls the “supermind.” A well selected name, because it
suggests the name “superman” for ideal democracy, and thus attaches to
this somewhat vague concept of recent years a definite meaning. The
general is a strong believer in the theory that by evolutionary steps
we are gradually approaching the state of ideal democracy. He has lived
some forty years in the most perfect industrial organization of the
world, the American Telephone and Telegraph Company, and, naturally, he
cannot help being an ardent follower and enthusiastic advocate of the
belief in the advent of ideal democracy. But is there anything in the
history of the evolutionary progress of the world which justifies this
comforting belief? I think there is.
The Greeks of old believed that the world started with chaos, and
that out of the chaos came the cosmos. They were optimists, because
in their theory coordination, order, and beauty were evolved out of
hideous disorder. There are many pessimists to-day who prophesy the
opposite course of development of this, in their opinion, most wicked
world. Modern science confirms the ancient belief of the Greeks in a
remarkable manner. Nothing else so resembles that chaotic start of the
world which the ancients conceived as does the activity of a young
star, because nothing more completely illustrates lack of order and
coordination. Each one of its pulsating atoms is indifferent to the
white-heat activity of the myriads of neighboring atoms, and each one
of them pours out its energy in an unconcerned and most prodigal manner
into the energy-hungry space. Consider our sun, as an illustration.
Tiny energy units are projected from myriads and myriads of its atomic
guns in haphazard fashion, apparently without any definite aim. These
energy units are propagated through space in a perfectly chaotic
fashion, without a definite object in view so far as science can tell.
But their fate and destiny are fixed and determined as soon as they
arrive on mother earth and are caught by the leaves, the blossoms, and
the ripening fruit of the fields, meadows, and orchards, and by the
endless nets of the all embracing oceans. The chaotic, non-coordinated
energy-swarms are thus imprisoned and made to work together with a
definite aim and for a definite purpose. The joys and beauties of our
annual seasons will tell you the story of this wonderful transformation
of primordial energy from the chaos of the young stars, white hot
with joy of life, to the cosmos of the old, cold, and moribund earth.
The principal lesson of this story is the great physical fact that
terrestrial organisms have instrumentalities with which they coordinate
the non-coordinated, thus bringing the order of old age out of the
disorder of youth, final cosmos out of primordial chaos. Is not the
existence of these instrumentalities the fundamental guiding principle
in the development of terrestrial life? Does not all our experience
teach us that progress means more complete coordination of all natural
activities, the activities of the atoms in the burning stars as well as
of the cells in our terrestrial bodies? Call this progress evolution,
or anything else you please, it certainly is there, and it leads to
a more beautiful and a more perfect order of things. The most nearly
perfect product of these coordinating instrumentalities is man--after
man, what? Yes, a superman; but what will that superman be? The present
man, with his physical and mental faculties more highly developed?--or
the superman as represented by what I call ideal democracy? Carty,
guided by his life experience and by the opinion of some biologists
and philosophers, favors the latter view. There certainly is something
in the evolutionary progress of the world which favors the view that
the coordinating instrumentalities which guide the activities of every
organism, and which are very powerful in man, may enable us some day to
find a way of coordinating the non-coordinated activities of the many
millions of individuals of a great community like these United States,
and thus of creating an ideal democracy. I see in the organization of
the National Research Council the first step in that direction.
[Illustration: Facsimile of Letter from President Harding]
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
October 14, 1922.
My dear Doctor Pupin:
I accept with regret your resignation as a member of the National
Advisory Committee for Aeronautics. In doing so I want to express
to you the thanks of the Government and people of the United States
of your services as a member of the National Advisory Committee for
Aeronautics since its organization in 1915.
I take this occasion to record recognition and appreciation
of the fact that, as Chairman of the Subcommittee on Aircraft
Communications, during the World War you undertook to develop a
reliable means of communication between aircraft in flight, and
that, by virtue of experiments conducted and directed in your own
laboratory, you were successful in contributing in an important
respect to the development of one of the great marvels of our age,
the radio telephone.
I regret that you cannot continue to devote your talents to the
scientific study of the problems of flight as a member of the
National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics.
Most sincerely yours,
_Warren G. Harding_
Dr. Michael I. Pupin,
Columbia University,
New York City.
Ideal democracy, if attainable at all, will certainly be attainable in
our country, whose traditions are gradually eliminating racial hatreds
and suspicions and making them unknown human passions on this blessed
continent. If I have ever contributed anything substantial to the
progress of this splendid movement, whether as an immigrant or as an
inventor, it has been most amply rewarded by the generous spirit of the
letter on the opposite page, written by a man whom I had the honor of
knowing personally and who to me always represented the ideal type of a
genuine American.
* * * * *
These few concluding lines I wrote on the day when this good American
breathed his last. His memory will always encourage us in the belief
that our blessed country is destined to become the first ideal
democracy of the world.
INDEX
Action and reaction in electricity, 296-299
Adams, John Crouch, 181
Adams, President, 315
Adelphi Academy, Brooklyn, 108-110, 120
Alexander the Liberator, Czar, 8, 9
Alhazan, 204
Alps, travels in, 146-150, 208
Alternating-current theory, 283-289, 294
American Association for the Advancement of Science, 291, 359
American Institute of Electrical Engineers, 283, 337, 348, 359-362
American Institute of Mining and Metallurgical Engineers, 359
_American Journal of Science_, 299
American Mathematical Society, 352
American Philosophical Society, 363
American Physical Society, 351-353, 358, 360
American scientific progress, 279-384 _et passim_
American Society of Civil Engineers, 359
American Society of Mechanical Engineers, 359, 364
American Telephone and Telegraph Company, 335, 338-340, 342, 345, 384
Americanization, 318 _et passim_
Ames, Joseph Sweetman, 256
Ampère, 187, 257
Appel, 257
Arago, 257
Archimedes, 193, 194, 221
Aristides, 92
Aristotle, 20
Armour & Co., 344
Armstrong, Major E. H., 19, 342, 358
Armstrong, Hamilton Fish, 316
Arran (island), 212-217
Aspern (battle), 6
_Astronomy and Astrophysics_, 293
Atomic structure, 356, 357, 384-386. _See also_ Matter, nature of,
_and_ Electrons
Bacon, Roger, 204
Bagpiper, Serbian, 19 _et passim_
Baker’s wagon, painting of, 62, 63
Banat, life and experiences in, 2-22, 95, 96, 152, 157-166, 324, 346
Barnard, President, of Columbia University, 104, 128, 135, 183, 185,
197, 199-202, 205, 220, 230, 278, 290, 291, 320, 375
Barrett, Lawrence, 89
Batikin, Baba, 6-8, 12, 29, 46, 112, 131
Becquerel, 350
Beecher, Doctor Henry Ward, 105-108, 124, 129, 136, 156, 163
Belgrade, experiences in, 153, 162
Belgrade University, 317
Bell, Alexander Graham, 299, 300, 319
Berlin, experiences and study in, 229-278, 309, 318, 338
Berlin, studies at University of, 229-278, 318, 338
Bessemer process, 259
_Bible, The_, 10, 18, 20, 21, 67, 243, 245, 246, 381, 382
Bilharz, 85-95, 100-104, 106, 108, 112, 113, 130, 131, 140, 247, 318
Biscuit factory experiences, 72-76, 78-95
Bismarck, 247, 253, 261, 275
Booth, Edwin, 89, 129
Bowery Mission, 66, 67, 84
Bradley, 285
Brown (New Jersey farmer), 66-68
Browning, Oscar, 143, 171-173
Bryant, William Cullen, 89, 93, 102
Budapest experiences, 25, 30, 150-152, 155, 162
Bukovala’s mill, 168, 169, 243
Bull, Doctor, 307
Burgess, Professor, 128, 135
Butler, Prescott Hall, 307, 308
Butler, President Nicholas Murray, 60
Cambridge University, 143-146, 156, 164, 169-187, 190-211, 309, 318,
321, 338, 349, 381
Campbell, 187, 211, 213, 228
Canal rays, 304
Cane rush, Columbia, 114, 117, 118
Carnegie, Andrew, 259, 360-365, 375
Carnegie Corporation of New York, 371
Carnegie Institution of Washington, 362, 366
Carnot, Sadi, 186, 193
Carter, Mr. (of Norfolk), 328
Carty, General J. J., 384, 387
Castle Garden, 1, 2, 39-41, 43, 45, 98, 99, 104, 105, 142, 148,
278 _et passim_
Cathode rays, 304, 305 _et passim_
Cavendish, Lord, 273
Cavendish Physics Laboratory, 183, 198, 199, 273
Cayley, 192
Centennial Exposition, Philadelphia, 78
Century Club, 308
Chanler, John Armstrong, 135
Charnoyevich, Patriarch, 3, 4
Chicago University, 376
Choate, Joseph, 288
Christian of West Street, 60-64, 72, 73, 80, 92, 104, 247
Christopher (kindling-wood peddler), 111, 117
Chuchuk Stana, 54, 55
Church in Delaware City, 52;
in Brooklyn, 105-107
Cicero, 112
Civil War, United States, 315, 360, 366
Clark, Latimer, 361, 362
Columbia College and University, 98-110, 112-123, 125-130, 132-137,
145, 160, 161, 197-199, 201, 202, 218, 276-310, 320-322, 326, 331,
352, 359, 361, 376 _et passim_
Cooper, Peter, 77, 319
Cooper Union, 64-66, 73, 75-80, 95, 98, 130, 132, 319
Copernicus, 195
Cornell University, 377
Corrie, summer at, 212-217
Cortlandt Street cracker factory, 72-76, 78-95
Coulomb’s law, 227, 228
Cracker-factory experiences, 72-76, 78-95
Crawford, F. Marion, 125, 143
Crocker, Professor Francis Bacon, 273, 279-282, 285, 286, 302, 310
Crookes, William, 303
Curie, Madame, 350
Custozza (battle), 7, 9
Danube, journey on, 23-25
Darboux, 257
Darwin, 91, 195
Davy, 202
Dayton, New Jersey, farm experiences, 66-68
Declaration of Independence, 56, 75, 76, 78, 79, 98, 103, 153, 163
De Forest, Lee, 342, 358
Delaware farm experiences, 45-56
Democracy, 383-387
De Morgan, Professor, 176
Dennis, Doctor Frederick Shepard, 323-324
Dernburg, 69
de Tocqueville, 203, 204, 256, 319, 320
Devonshire, Duke of, 273
DeWitt, 121
Dindorf (philologist), 131
Direct current theory, 283-289
Discharge of electricity in corona form, 293
Distortions in alternating current, 294
Draper, Doctor John William, 122, 202, 290, 291, 320, 375
Duncan, Doctor Louis, 289
Dunn, Gano, 292, 367, 368
Eastman, George, 375
Eastman Kodak Company, 341
Ebert, 293
Edison, Thomas, 135, 299, 307, 309, 319
Edison General Electric Company, 287, 289
Eilers (of cracker factory), 72
Einstein, 354-356
Electrical Congress, Chicago, 287, 289
Electrical Engineering Department, Columbia, 276-310
_Electrical Researches_ (Faraday), 211, 213, 222-229
Electricity, _passim_
_Electricity_, 308, 309
Electromagnetic Induction, 133, 134
Electromagnetic theory of light and matter, 211, 218-229, 236-241,
264-271, 278, 293-295, 303-306, 349-351, 354-358
Electron Physics, 353-358
Electrons, 349-352, 356, 357, 381
Emmet, Devereux, 119
Engineering Foundation, 365-368
English, study of, 50, 55, 88
Ericsson, 78
Ether, 354, 355
Eugene of Savoy, Prince, 5
Evarts, William, 93
_Evening Post_, New York, 93
Evolution, 384-387
Ewing, General Thomas, 102
_Experimental Researches in Electricity_ (Faraday), 211, 213, 222-229
Farad (electrical unit), 273
Faraday, Michael, 133-135, 193, 195, 199, 202, 205, 210-213, 215,
219-230, 233-241, 243, 245, 246, 249, 264, 267, 268, 270-274, 278,
281, 284, 303, 305, 306, 349, 351, 380
_Faraday as Discoverer_ (Tyndall), 235
Fayerweather Laboratory, 376
Fehispan, governor of Torontal, 161-164
Fish, Frederick P., 340
Fiske, 352
Fizeau, 257
Fluorescent screens, 307, 309
Foucault, 257
Fourier, 257
France, summer in, 187-189;
visit to, 257, 258, 262
Francis, Emperor, 5
Francis Joseph, Emperor, 9, 22
Franklin, Benjamin, 12, 13, 19, 29, 39, 45, 57, 74, 105, 124, 193,
202, 266, 312, 315, 360
Franklin Institute, 348
Fred (friend of Jim the engineer), 83
Frederick, Crown Prince, 233, 275
Frederick the Great, 5-7
French scientific progress, 257, 262
Fresnel, 204, 257
Frushka Gora (mountain), 24
Gabriel, son of Milutin, 165-169
Gaenserndorf, 25, 26, 28
Galileo, 193-195, 221, 297, 333
Gallatin, Albert R., 296
Garibaldi, 8, 9
Geltner, Professor, 275
General Electric Company, 289, 341, 358
General Relativity Theory, 355
Generators, electrical, 281, 282
Germans, 30, 31, 35;
social democracy, 89;
scientific progress, 208, 256-264 _et passim_
Germany, studies in, 229-278, 318, 338
Gessler, 147
Ghiga (peasant), 161
Gibbons, Cardinal, 59, 60
Gibbs, Professor Josiah Willard, 184, 186, 207, 256, 257, 277, 278
Godfather of author, 160
Goethe, 86
Goldstein, Doctor, 303-305
Goodyear, 319
Graduation from Columbia, 136, 137
Grant, 79
Gravitation, nature of, 354
Green, Mr. (of Marconi Co.), 343-345
Grounding, importance of electrical, 301, 302
Hale, Doctor George Ellery, 294, 362, 367, 368
Hamilton, Alexander, 100, 101, 103, 107, 118, 121, 128, 193, 315
Hamilton, Duke of, 212
Hamilton Hall, Columbia University, 100, 101
Harding, President Warren G., 386, 387
Harvard University, 256, 376
Hayduk Velyko, 6, 54, 55
Hayes, 91, 93
Heat, nature of, 76, 185, 186
_Heat as a Mode of Motion_ (Tyndall), 102
Heaviside, 333-335
Hebert Prize of French Academy, 348
Helmholtz, Hermann von, 193, 195, 200, 208, 210, 218, 225, 230-243,
248, 249, 251, 256-258, 260-264, 271, 275, 277, 287, 289, 294, 295,
298, 299, 303-305, 341, 344
Henry (electrical unit), 273
Henry, Frank, 114, 115
Henry, Joseph, 77, 183, 201, 202, 205, 220, 266, 271-274, 284, 290,
291, 319, 320, 358, 366, 375
Henry, Patrick, 88
Herdsman, experiences in Idvor as, 14-21, 301, 302, 333, 334
Hermite, 257
Herschel, William, 202
Hertz, Doctor Heinrich, 219, 221, 228, 263-272, 301, 305
Hertzian oscillator, 265-270
Hilendar (monastery), 70
Hittorf, 303
Hoffman, 263
Hohenzollern, William, 112
Homer, 86, 112, 130, 131
Hook, 334
Hoover, Herbert, 314
Horace, 87
Horse training in Norfolk, 324-326
Howe, 77
Hunt, Robert, 102, 130
Huss, Yan, 33
Hutchinson, Doctor Cary T., 337
Huxley, 91
Idealism in American science, 311-384
Idvor, life and experiences in, 2-22, 34, 36, 138-143, 156-169,
189-191, 215, 242-248, 301, 302, 346
Inductance coils, 335-342, 345
Induction, Electromagnetic, 133, 134
Jackson, A. V. Williams, 275, 276
Jacoby, 352
Jay, John, 100, 101, 103, 107, 121, 143, 315
Jefferson, Thomas, 74, 315
Jefferson physical laboratory, Harvard, 256, 376
Jim (boiler-room engineer), 74-76, 78-85, 92, 95, 104, 106, 108,
130, 193
Johns Hopkins University, 59, 60, 183, 184, 198, 199, 288-292, 376
Karageorge, 6-9
Karlovci, 23, 24, 26, 30, 57, 68, 77, 97, 153-155, 162
Kellogg, Doctor Vernon, 373, 375
Kelvin, Lord (Sir William Thomson), 182, 183, 266, 287, 304, 332, 333,
335, 338, 363
Kepler, 204
Kessedjia, Moussa, 115
Kirchhoff, Gustav Robert, 204, 233, 258, 261, 263, 332, 333, 335, 338
Koenig, Professor Arthur, 230-232, 234, 235, 240, 241, 248, 249
Kos (Slovenian teacher), 19-21, 32, 76, 95, 241, 244, 266, 312
Kossovo (battle), 7, 54
Kossuth, 163
Krupp, 259
Labor Bureau, Castle Garden, 40, 41
La Grange, 187, 189, 190, 193, 194, 204, 206, 207, 210, 213, 257, 330,
331, 335, 338, 339, 348
Lansing, Robert, 2
Laplace, 187, 257
Lectures given for laboratory equipment, 280, 281
Lenard, Professor, 305
Leopold I, Emperor, 3, 4
_Life of Maxwell_ (Campbell), 187
Light, nature of, 19-21, 133, 144, 166, 171, 201, 202, 211, 218-221,
240, 244, 271
Lincoln, Abraham, 8, 9, 29, 39, 55,
74, 79, 92, 105, 107, 193, 315, 319, 360, 366, 372
Lines of force, 226-230, 236-240, 265-271
Ling (of King’s College choir), 172
Lippmann, 257
Livingston, Chancellor, 100, 101, 103, 107, 121, 137
Longfellow, Henry W., 87, 102, 149
Lorentz, Professor, 355
Low, President, 307, 331
Lucerne experiences, 146-150
Lukanitch family, 95-99, 105, 106, 116, 136
Lyermontoff (poet), 18
Lyubomir, 168
Macmillan homestead, Corrie, 216, 217
Macnamara, Jane, 82, 86
Madge of Corrie, 213, 214, 216
Magnetism, 218-229
Marconi, 301, 302
Marconi Company of America, 343-345, 347
Maria Theresa, Empress, 5
Marko, Prince, 8, 9, 29, 46, 54, 55, 115, 195
Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 359
Matter, nature of, 218-221, 354. _See also_ Electrons, Atomic
structure, etc.
_Matter and Motion_ (Maxwell), 179, 185, 193
Maxwell, James Clerk, 133-135, 144, 145, 153, 166, 171, 174-176,
179-181, 183-187, 190, 193-195, 197, 198, 200, 201, 204, 206, 208,
210-214, 217-222, 229, 234-243, 249, 256, 264, 267, 270-274, 278,
284, 303, 305, 306, 320, 321, 350, 352, 380
Mayo-Smith, Professor Richmond, 128
McCormick, 77, 319
McCullough, John, 89
_Méchanique Analytique_ (La Grange), 189, 193
“Men of Progress” (painting), 77, 78, 130, 319
Merriam, Professor, 128, 131, 134, 135, 143
Michael (college janitor), 114
Michelson, 354, 355
Miletich, Svetozar, 21, 22
Milton, 102
Moltke, 253, 261, 262, 275
Momentum in electricity, 297, 298
Morley, 354, 355
Morse, 77, 319
Motion, electric (in rarefied gases), 303-306
Moula Pasha, 6
Mount Wilson Astronomical Observatory, 294, 362, 367
Mueller (glass-blower), 303, 304
Napoleon, 5-7
Nassau Hall, Princeton, 69, 72, 84, 87, 88, 99, 101, 103
National Academy of Sciences, 205, 272, 360, 366, 367, 369
National Institute of Social Sciences, 339, 348
National Research Council, 317, 366-383, 387
Naturalization, 136, 137
_Nature_, 192, 200, 201, 205, 206, 208, 221, 236
Nemanya, Zhupan, 10
“Neptune, Father,” 139-142
Nettleton, Mr. (of Norfolk), 327-329
New England Cracker Factory, 72-76, 78-95
New Physics, 349, 353-358
New York, landing in, 37-42
New York Academy of Sciences, 309
New York Mathematical Society, 352
New York Rapid Transit Commission, 289
Newton, 174, 177, 179, 180, 186, 193-196, 204, 210, 211, 221, 225,
282, 283, 296, 334, 381
Niagara Falls Power and Construction Company, 287, 288
Nikola (Serbian cigarette seller), 252-254, 258, 274-276
Niven, W. D., 143-146, 156, 171, 174-176, 178, 180, 181, 186, 197, 240
Norfolk, Conn., life at, 322-329
Nyegosh, Bishop (poet), 20, 68, 112
Octagon class, 119, 121
Oerstedt, 221, 224
Osborn, Henry Fairfield, 71
Oscillator, Hertzian, 265-270, 301, 302
Oxen herding in Idvor, 14-21, 301, 302, 333, 334
Palacky, 31-33
Panchevo, experiences in, 12, 20-24, 29, 31, 35, 154-156, 163, 312-318
Paris peace conference, 2, 312, 314, 315
Parkinson, Stephen, 182, 183
Parsons, William Barclay, 286
Pashitch, Premier, 312
Paul (of the cracker factory), 79, 80
Penn, William, 45, 57
Perrin, 349
Philadelphia, early experiences in, 56, 57
Phonograph, 299, 300
Physical Society, Berlin, 263-271
Physics, New and Electron, 349, 353-358
Pickernell, Mr., 335
Planck, 261, 277
_Plea for Pure Science, A_ (Rowland), 291
Plymouth Church, Brooklyn, 105-108, 129
_Poetry of Science, The_ (Hunt), 102
Poincaré, 257
Pornic, vacation in, 187-189
Power distribution, electrical, 289
_Practical Aspects of the Alternating Current Theory_ (Pupin),
lecture, 283, 284
Prague, experiences in, 21-35, 163, 164, 248
Preceptorial system in college, 326
Princeton University, 69-72, 84, 87, 101, 143, 272, 316, 326
Privilegia (document), 4, 5, 9
Problems of physical universe, 354
Prussians, 247-255. _See also_ Germans
Pupin coil, 335-342, 345
Pupin, Constantine (father of author), 2, 21-23, 34, 158
Pupin, Mrs. Michael, 276-278, 292, 310, 322, 330-332
Pupin, Olympiada (mother of author), 2, 10-12, 22, 23, 34, 157-160,
168, 169, 190, 191, 215, 242-246, 249-251, 255
Pyne, Moses Taylor, 69
Radichevich, Branko, 154
Radio, 295-299, 303, 342, 343, 357, 358
Radioactivity, 350, 351, 381
Radium, 350
Rayleigh, Lord, 144, 175, 176, 181, 184, 197, 213, 240, 330, 352
Regnault, 182
Relativity theories, 355
Research, progress of America in, 279-384
Resonance, 295-299
Resonators, electrical, 295-301
Reymond, DuBois, 258, 263
Rieger, 31-33
Rittenhouse, 202
Rives, George, 143
Rives, Reginald, 326
Rockefeller, John D., 375
Rockefeller Foundation, 371
Rockefeller General Education Board, 371
Roentgen, 305, 306, 349, 350
Roentgen rays, 302, 303, 305, 329, 349, 380. _See also_ X-rays
Rood, Professor, 133, 134, 199
Routh, Doctor John Edward, 174-180, 182, 185-187, 189, 197, 213
Rowland, Henry Augustus, 183, 184, 256, 287-292, 295, 298, 299,
352-354, 357, 358
Royal Serbian Academy, 317
Rumford, Count (Benjamin Thompson), 202, 218
Rutherford, Sir Ernest, 352, 353
Rutherford Park, N. J., summer at, 111-113
Rutherfurd, Lewis, 122
Rutherfurd, Lewis Morris, 122-129, 133-135, 144
Rutherfurd, Winthrop, 122-126, 144
Ryerson Laboratory, 376
St. Sava, 10-12, 33, 35, 68, 70, 77, 141, 158, 250
School life in Idvor, 10-12;
in Panchevo, 12
_Science_, 309
_Scientific American_, 74
Scientific progress and research, 202-206, 218-230, 256-264, 279-310,
311-384 _et passim_
Scientific research, American progress in, 279-310
Scientific research and the universities, 341-343, 358-360, 375, 376
Scotland, summer in, 212-217
Serbian Child Welfare Association of America, 312
Serbs, 1-28, 151-168 _et passim_
Shakespeare, 86, 89, 129
Shepard, Doctor Charles, 108-111, 136
Siemens, Ernst Werner von, 260, 275, 289, 344
Siemens and Halske, 344, 345
Signalling by herdsmen of Idvor, 15-21, 301, 302, 333, 334
Sing Sing prison, 284, 287
Singers, Serbian, 155
Sloan Laboratory, 376
Smith, Professor Monroe, 128
Smithsonian Institution, 272
Snellius, 204
Sobiesky, King, 3
Solar corona, 293
Solar phenomena, electromagnetic theory of, 293, 294
Sorbonne, the, 257
Sound, early herdsman’s experiments, 15-21, 301, 302;
transmission, 333
South St. Mary, Md., 58
Special Relativity Theory, 355
Sprague, Frank J., 287
Steel industry, German, 259
Stillwell, Lewis B., 287
Stokes, Sir George Gabriel, 175, 181, 192, 197, 204, 213, 240
Stowe, Harriet Beecher, 39, 105
Strazhilovo, Will, 162
Subways, 289
_Summary and Conclusions_ (Tyndall), 204-208
_Sun_, New York, 74, 93, 94
Swasey, Ambrose, 363-365, 368, 369, 375
Swift Company, 344
Switzerland, experiences in, 146-150, 208, 330, 331
Telegraphy, 234, 300, 347, 348
Telephony, 299, 300, 331-342, 345-348
Tell, William, 147
_Tendencies of Modern Electrical Research_ (Pupin), 309
Tesla, 285
_Theory of Heat_ (Maxwell), 185, 193
Theses for doctor’s degree, 277
Thomas, Sidney Gilchrist, 259, 260
Thompson, Benjamin (Count Rumford), 202, 218
Thomson, Elihu, 284, 286, 287, 289
Thomson-Houston Company, 287, 289
Thomson, Sir John Joseph, 198, 292, 293, 306, 349, 350, 352, 356, 381
Thomson, Sir William (Lord Kelvin), 182, 183, 266, 287, 304, 332, 333,
335, 338, 363
Tilden, 91
Tilton, 105
Tolstoy, 152
Traction, electrical, 286, 287
Traditions, 104, 105, 120, 121
_Transactions of the American Institute of Electrical Engineers_, 299
Transmission and motion of electricity, 287, 303-306
_Tribune_, New York, 91
Tuning, electrical, 19, 295-299. _See also_ Radio
Tyndall, John, 102, 130, 132, 186, 199-213, 220-222, 230, 235, 236,
240, 283, 291, 321, 351, 377
Tyndall Fellowship, 199, 209
_Uncle Tom’s Cabin_ (Stowe), 29, 39, 105, 156
United Engineering Society, 361-365
Vacuum tubes, 303-306, 349, 357, 358
Van Amringe, Professor Howard, 128, 352
_Van Nostrand Magazine_, 179
Vaschy, 333-335
Velocity, electrical, 234
Vibratory motion, transmission of, 330-338
Vienna experiences, 97, 150-152, 154, 155
“Vila” of Delaware farm, 47-58, 80, 88
Vila Raviyoyla, 195
Vitellio, 204
Vreeland, Mr. (inventor of oscillator), 19
War, World, 312, 315, 316, 333, 334, 344, 359, 360, 366, 369-371, 376
Warner, Mr., 364
Warner and Swasey shops, 364
Washington, George, 54, 55, 100, 137, 193, 315, 372
Washington, Martha, 54
Watt, James, 75
Webster, Arthur Gordon, 255-257, 308
Webster, Daniel, 88, 315
Webster, Professor at Adelphi Academy, 108, 109
Welch, Professor William, 184
Western Electric Company, 340, 358
Westinghouse Company, 284, 341
_Westphalia_ (ship), 35-39, 138
Wheeler, Doctor Schuyler Skaats, 361
White, Andrew D., 203, 220, 274, 320, 375, 377, 378
Widener, Mr., 326
William I, Emperor, 252, 275
Wilson, President Woodrow, 2, 71, 313-315, 367, 369, 370
“Wilson Day” in Panchevo, 312-318
Wireless, 295-299, 303, 342, 343, 357, 358
_Worcester Gazette_, 308
World War, 312, 315, 316, 333, 334, 344, 359, 360, 366, 369-371, 376
X-rays, 305-310, 330, 332, 350, 351. _See also_ Roentgen rays
Yale University, 184, 185, 376
Yevrosima (mother of Prince Marko), 54, 195
Youmans, 320
Young, Professor Charles A., 293
Young, Thomas, 204
Zhivkovich, Protoyeray, 20, 22, 31, 32, 156, 316
Zhizhka (general), 33
Transcriber’s Note:
Punctuation has been standardised. Spelling and variations in
hyphenation have been retained as they appeared in the original
publication except as follows:
Page 22
Zivkovich came to my defense _changed to_
Zhivkovich came to my defense
Page 96
and a a big tear threatened _changed to_
and a big tear threatened
Page 257
Hermite, Darboux, Appell, Lippmann, _changed to_
Hermite, Darboux, Appel, Lippmann,
Page 308
adressed a letter to the _changed to_
addressed a letter to the
Page 337
communication to the Amercian Institute _changed to_
communication to the American Institute
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