Heroes of To-Day

by Mary Rosetta Parkman

“But they have wings, my boy, and they know how to fly,” returned Mr. Langley, looking at the lad’s puckered brow with amused indulgence.

“Well, Father,” retorted Sam, flushing under the teasing smiles that were directed at him, “I’m sure it’s not such a joke after all. Why shouldn’t people learn how to make wings and to fly?”

“Come down to earth, Samuel, and don’t get too far from the ground in your wonderings,” advised his father. “There are enough problems on the good old earth to keep you busy. Your idea has not even the merit of being new and original. The myths of Greece tell us that ‘way back in the legendary past people envied the flight of birds. But all those who have tried to do the trick have, like Icarus who went too near the sun with his marvelous wax wings, come back to earth rather too abruptly for comfort.”

As the days went by, Samuel Langley did indeed turn his attention to other questions, but the problem suggested by the bird’s flight was not forgotten. Years afterward when he had become one of the most distinguished scientists of his time he used often to say: “Knowledge begins in wonder. Set a child to wondering and you have put him on the road to understanding.”

He often liked to recall the days of his boyhood when he had first set his feet on the path that led to the great interests which made his life.

“There are two incidents—little chance happenings, you might call them, if you believe in chance—” he said, “which took root and grew with the years. One was my discovery of the fascinations of my father’s telescope. I remember watching the workmen lay the stones of Bunker Hill Monument through that glass. It taught me the joy of bringing far-away things into intimate nearness. I learned that the man who knows how to use the magic glasses of science can say, ‘Far or forgot to me is near!’ ”

The great scientist smiled musingly to himself; he seemed to have slipped away from his friend and the talk of the moment. Was he back in his boyhood when he first looked at the moon’s face through his magic glass, or was he pondering over some new problem concerning sun spots which was puzzling learned astronomers the world over?

“What was the other incident you spoke of, Professor?” reminded his companion timidly, for it was not easy to get Dr. Langley to speak about himself, and the spell of this rare hour might easily be broken.

“What is it?—oh, yes,” he went on, picking up the thread, “the other epoch-making time of my young life was the lazy hour when I lay stretched out in an open field watching the flight of the hawks and gulls circling overhead. I noted that their wings were motionless except when they turned them at a different angle to meet a new current of wind. I began then dimly to suspect that the invisible ocean of the air was an unknown realm of marvelous possibilities. It may be that that idle holiday afternoon had more to do with the serious work of the after years than the plodding hours devoted to Latin grammar.”

Samuel Langley had a mind of the wondering—not the wandering—sort. Everything that he saw set him to questioning, comparing, and reasoning. When he noticed the curious way in which nature has made many creatures so like the place in which they live that they can easily hide from their enemies, he said to himself: “It is strange that the insects which live in trees are green, while those that live on the ground are brown. It must be that the ones who were not so luckily colored were quickly picked off, and that only those that can hide in this clever way are able to hold their own.” When he noticed that brightly colored flowers were not so fragrant as white ones, he said, “The sweet blossoms don’t need gay colors to attract their insect friends.” When he saw early spring vegetables growing in a hotbed, he said: “How does that loose covering keep them warm? There must be something that makes heat under there.” Years later he said, “I believe the questions that I kept putting to myself every time I went by a certain garden not far from our house marked the starting-point of my investigations into the work of the sun’s rays in heating the earth. The day came when the idea flashed upon me that the air surrounding our planet acts just like a hotbed, conserving enough warmth to make possible the conditions of life we require.”