The Reminiscences of an Astronomer

by Simon Newcomb

The physicians say that quinine tends to cure intermittent fever. If this be the case, then where people use most quinine, they will have least intermittent fever. But the facts are exactly the opposite. Along the borders of the lower Mississippi, where people take most quinine, they suffer most from fever; therefore the effect of quinine is the opposite of that alleged.

I earnestly wished for an opportunity to discuss the matter further with Mr. Hill, but it was never offered.

During the early years of the civil war, when the country was flooded with an irredeemable currency, I was so much disturbed by what seemed to me the unwisdom of our financial policy, that I positively envied the people who thought it all right, and therefore were free from mental perturbation on the subject. I at length felt that I could keep silent no longer, and as the civil war was closing, I devoted much time to writing a little book, "Critical Examination of Our Financial Policy during the Southern Rebellion." I got this published by the Appletons, but had to pay for the production. It never yielded enough to pay the cost of printing, as is very apt to be the case with such a hook when it is on the unpopular side and by an unknown author. It had, however, the pleasant result of bringing me into friendly relations with two of the most eminent financiers of the country, Mr. Hugh McCulloch and Mr. George S. Coe, the latter president of one of the principal banks of New York. The compliments which these men paid to the book were the only compensation I got for the time and money expended upon it.

In 1876 the "North American Review" published a centennial number devoted to articles upon our national progress during the first century of our existence. I contributed the discussion of our work in exact science. Natural science had been cultivated among us with great success, but I was obliged to point out our backward condition in every branch of exact science, which was more marked the more mathematical the character of the scientific work. In pure mathematics we seemed hopelessly behind in the race.

I suppose that every writer who discusses a subject with a view of influencing the thought of the public, must be more or less discouraged by the small amount of attention the best he can say is likely to receive from his fellow-men. No matter what his own opinion of the importance of the matters he discusses, and the results that might grow out of them if men would only give them due attention, they are lost in the cataract of utterances poured forth from the daily, weekly, and monthly press. I was therefore much pleased, soon after the article appeared, to be honored with a visit from President Gilman, who had been impressed with my views, and wished to discuss the practicability of the Johns Hopkins University, which was now being organized, doing something to promote the higher forms of investigation among us.

One of the most remarkable mathematicians of the age, Professor J. J. Sylvester, had recently severed his connection with the Royal Military Academy at Woolich, and it had been decided to invite him to the chair of mathematics at the new university. It was considered desirable to have men of similar world-wide eminence in charge of the other departments in science. But this was found to be impracticable, and the policy adopted was to find young men whose reputation was yet to be made, and who would be the leading men of the future, instead of belonging to the past.

All my experience would lead me to say that the selection of the coming man in science is almost as difficult as the selection of youth who are to become senators of the United States. The success of the university in finding the young men it wanted, has been one of the most remarkable features in the history of the Johns Hopkins University. Of this the lamented Rowland affords the most striking, but by no means the only instance. Few could have anticipated that the modest and scarcely known youth selected for the chair of physics would not only become the leading man of his profession in our country, but one of the chief promoters of scientific research among us. Mathematical study and research of the highest order now commenced, not only at Baltimore, but at Harvard, Columbia, and other centres of learning, until, to-day, we are scarcely behind any nation in our contributions to the subject.

The development of economic study in our country during the last quarter of the last century is hardly less remarkable than that of mathematical science. A great impulse in this direction was given by Professor R. T. Ely, who, when the Johns Hopkins University was organized, became its leading teacher in economics. He had recently come from Germany, where he had imbibed what was supposed to be a new gospel in economics, and he now appeared as the evangelist of what was termed the historical school. My own studies were of course too far removed from this school to be a factor in it. But, so far as I was able, I fought the idea of there being two schools, or of any necessary antagonism between the results of the two methods. It was true that there was a marked difference in form between them. Some men preferred to reach conclusions by careful analysis of human nature and study of the acts to which men were led in seeking to carry out their own ends. This was called the old-school method. Others preferred to study the problem on a large scale, especially as shown in the economic development of the country. But there could be no necessary difference between the conclusions thus reached.

One curious fact, which has always been overlooked in the history of economics in our country, shows how purely partisan was the idea of a separation of the two schools. The fact is that the founder of the historic school among us, the man who first introduced the idea, was not Ely, but David A. Wells. Up to the outbreak of the civil war, Mr. Wells had been a writer on scientific subjects without any special known leaning toward economies; but after it broke out he published a most noteworthy pamphlet, setting forth the resources of our country for carrying on war and paying a debt, in terms so strong as to command more attention than any similar utterance at the time. This led to his appointment as Special Commissioner of Revenue, with the duty of collecting information devising the best methods of raising revenue. His studies in this line were very exhaustive, and were carried on by the methods of the historic school of economics. I was almost annoyed to find that, if any economic question was presented to him, he rushed off to the experience of some particular people or nation—it might be Sweden or Australia—instead of going down to fundamental principles. But I could never get him interested in this kind of analysis.

One of Professor Ely's early movements resulted in the organization of the American Economic Association. His original plan was that this society should have something like a creed to which its members were expected to subscribe. A discussion of the whole subject appeared in the pages of "Science," a number of the leading economists of the country being contributors to it. The outcome of the whole matter has been a triumph for what most men will now consider reason and good sense. The Economic Association was scarcely more than organized when it broke loose from all creeds and admitted into its ranks investigators of the subject belonging to every class. I think the last discussion on the question of two schools occurred at the New York meeting, about 1895, after which the whole matter was dropped and the association worked together as a unit.