Lives of the electricians

by William T. Jeans

In 1844 affairs in this country did not look very tempting to him, and he therefore resolved to go to America, whither some relatives had emigrated early in the century. He had actually made preparations for going there before some of his friends succeeded in dissuading him from it. A sudden outburst of activity in railway construction at the same time opened up a brighter prospect at home. After a pause, he says, there came the mad time of the railway mania, when he was able to turn to account the knowledge he had gained upon the Ordnance Survey; in Staffordshire, Cheshire, Lancashire, Durham, and Yorkshire especially, he was in the thick of the fray.

As a workman at that period he has been highly spoken of by his contemporaries. One of them has stated that “Extreme caution and accuracy, together with dauntless perseverance under difficulties, characterised the performance of every piece of work he took in hand. Habitually, indeed, he pushed verification beyond the limits of all ordinary prudence, and, on returning from a hard day’s work, he has been known to retrace his steps for miles in order to assure himself of the security of some ‘bench mark,’ upon whose permanence the accuracy of his levels depended. Previous to one of those unpostponable thirtieths of November, when all railway plans and sections had to be deposited at the Board of Works, a series of levels had to be completed near Keighley in Yorkshire, and Manchester reached before midnight. The weather was stormy beyond description; levelling staves snapped in twain before the violent gusts of wind; and level and leveller were in constant peril of being overturned by the force of the hurricane. Assistants grumbled ‘Impossible,’ and were only shamed into submissive persistence by that stern resolution which, before nightfall, triumphed over all obstacles.”

Of these stirring scenes the Professor has given a graphic account. He says:—“It was a time of terrible toil. The day’s work in the field usually began and ended with the day’s light, while frequently in the office, and more especially as the awful 30th of November—the latest date at which plans and sections of projected lines could be deposited at the Board of Trade—drew near, there was little difference between day and night, every hour of the twenty-four being absorbed in the work of preparation. Strong men were broken down by the strain and labour of that arduous time. Many pushed through, and are still among us in robust vigour; but some collapsed, while others retired with large fortunes, but with intellects so shattered that, instead of taking their places in the front rank of English statesmen, as their abilities entitled them to do, they sought rest for their brains in the quiet lives of country gentlemen. In my own modest sphere I well remember the refreshment I occasionally derived from five minutes’ sleep on a deal table, with Babbage and Callet’s Logarithms under my head for a pillow. On a certain day, under grave penalties, certain levels had to be finished, and this particular day was one of agony to me. The atmosphere seemed filled with mocking demons, laughing at the vanity of my efforts to get the work done. My levelling staves were snapped, and my theodolite was overthrown by the storm. When things are at their worst a kind of anger often takes the place of fear. It was so in the present instance; I pushed doggedly on, and just at nightfall, when barely able to read the figures on my levelling staff, I planted my last ‘benchmark’ on a tombstone in Haworth Churchyard. Close at hand was the vicarage of Mr. Brontë, where the genius was nursed which soon afterwards burst forth and astonished the world. It was a time of mad unrest—of downright money mania. In private residences and public halls, in London reception rooms, in hotels and the stables of hotels, among gipsies and costermongers, nothing was spoken of but the state of the share market, the prospects of projected lines, the good fortune of the ostler or potboy who by a lucky stroke of business had cleared £10,000. High and low, rich and poor, joined in the reckless game. During my professional connection with railways I endured three weeks’ misery. It was not defeated ambition; it was not a rejected suit; it was not the hardship endured in either office or field; but it was the possession of certain shares purchased in one of the lines then afloat. The share list of the day proved the winding-sheet of my peace of mind. I was haunted by the Stock Exchange. I became at last so savage with myself that I went to my brokers and put away, without gain or loss, the shares as an accursed thing.”

When in Halifax in 1845 he attended a lecture which was delivered by Mr. George Dawson, and which appeared to make a lasting impression on his mind. That popular lecturer then defined duty as a debt owed; and with reference to the Chartist doctrine of “levelling” then in vogue, he said: Supposing two men to be equal at night, and that one rises at six while the other sleeps till nine, what becomes of the gospel of levelling then? The Professor regarded these as the words of Nature, and there was, according to his impression, “a kindling vigour in the lecturer’s words that must have strengthened the sense of duty in the minds of those who heard him.”

It was while working in Yorkshire about that time that he first met Mr. T. A. Hirst, then an articled pupil, who became one of his most intimate friends, and who afterwards became Professor of Mathematics in University College, London. At that time, too, Sir John Hawkshaw, who afterwards was Prof. Tyndall’s successor as President of the British Association, was chief engineer on the Manchester and Leeds Railway, and it was in his Manchester office that Tyndall spent the last days of his railway life. A calm followed the storm of competition just described; work became scarce, and the prospects of engineers were once more overcast.

In these circumstances he accepted, in 1847, an appointment as a teacher in Queenswood College, Hampshire. The well-known Socialist reformer, Robert Owen, and his disciples built that college—a fine edifice occupying a healthy position—and called it Harmony Hall, as it was meant to inaugurate the millennium; the letters “C. of M” (commencement of millennium) being inserted in flint in the brickwork of the house. Around this college were large farms, where lessons were given by Prof. Tyndall to the more advanced students on the subjects which he had mastered in his previous labours. With teaching he combined self-improvement. The chemical laboratory was under the charge of Dr. Frankland, with whom he soon became friendly. In order to spend part of his time in study in the chemical laboratory, Tyndall relinquished part of his salary, and there he laid the foundations of that knowledge of physical science which was destined afterward to be his own passport to fame and to afford delight to many thousands of his fellowmen. He was also very successful as a teacher in Queenswood College. He is said to have exercised a kind of magnetic influence over his students, and such was their faith in him that when any disturbances arose among them he was invariably called upon to settle them, and he did so merely by the power of moral influence and force of character. As to his impressions of life at Queenswood, the Professor says:—

“Schemes like Harmony Hall look admirable upon paper; but, inasmuch as they are formed with reference to an ideal humanity, they go to pieces when brought into collision with the real one. At Queenswood, I learned, by practical experience, that two factors went to the formation of a teacher. In regard to knowledge he must, of course, be master of his work. But knowledge is not all. There might be knowledge without power—the ability to inform without the ability to stimulate. Both go together in the true teacher. A power of character must underlie and enforce the work of the intellect. There were men who could so rouse and energise their pupils—so call forth their strength and the pleasure of its exercise—as to make the hardest work agreeable. Without this power it is questionable whether the teacher could ever really enjoy his vocation—with it, I do not know a higher, nobler, and more blessed calling than that of the man who, scorning the cramming so prevalent in our day, converts the knowledge he imparts into a lever, to lift, exercise, and strengthen the growing minds committed to his care.”

After pursuing their scientific studies together for some time, both Tyndall and Frankland began to think of extending the range of their scientific culture. But that could not then be done in England. In 1845 a man could not easily get first-class instruction in practical chemistry and the other physical sciences that were then making great strides forward. Between 1840 and 1850 Germany assumed the lead in these sciences. In that country science then organised itself on a vast scale, and from that time to this it has been growing there at a most extraordinary rate; indeed, Prof. Huxley declared in 1884 that in the whole history of the world there has never been such a tremendous amount of organised energy bestowed in the development of physical science as in Germany.

“At the time here referred to,” says Professor Tyndall, “I had emerged from some years of hard labour the fortunate possessor of two or three hundred pounds. By selling my services in the dearest market during the railway madness the sum might, without dishonour, have been made a large one; but I respected ties which existed prior to the time when offers became lavish and temptation strong. I did not put my money in a napkin, but cherished the design of spending it in study at a German university. I had heard of German science, while Carlyle’s references to German philosophy and literature caused me to regard them as a kind of revelation from the gods. Accordingly, in the autumn of 1848, Frankland and I started for the land of universities, as Germany is often called. They are sown broadcast over the country, and can justly claim to be the source of an important portion of Germany’s present greatness.

“Our place of study was the town of Marburg, in Hesse-Cassel, and a very picturesque town Marburg is. It clambers pleasantly up the hillsides, and falls as pleasantly towards the Lahn. On a May day, when the orchards are in blossom, and the chestnuts clothed with their heavy foliage, Marburg is truly lovely. It is the same town in which my great namesake, when even poorer than myself, published his translation of the Bible. I lodged in the plainest manner in a street which perhaps bore an appropriate name while I dwelt there. It was called the Ketzerbach—the heretics’ brook—from a little historical rivulet running through it. I wished to keep myself clean and hardy, so I purchased a cask and had it cut in two by a carpenter. That cask, filled with spring-water over night, was placed in my small bedroom, and never during the years that I spent there, in winter or in summer, did the clock of the beautiful Elizabethekirche, which was close at hand, finish striking the hour of six in the morning before I was in my tub. For a good portion of the time I rose an hour and a-half earlier than this, working by lamp-light at the Differential Calculus when the world was slumbering around me. I risked this breach of my pursuits and this expenditure of my time and money, not because I had any definite prospect of material profit in view, but because I thought the cultivation of the intellect important; because, moreover, I loved my work, and entertained a sure and certain hope that armed with knowledge one can successfully fight one’s way through the world. I ought not to omit one additional motive by which I was upheld at the time here referred to—that was the sense of duty. Every young man of high aims must, I think, have a spice of this principle within him. There are sure to be hours in his life when his outlook will be dark, his work difficult, and his intellectual future uncertain. Over such periods, when the stimulus of success is absent, he must be carried by his sense of duty. It may not be so quick an incentive as glory, but it is a nobler one, and gives a tone to character which glory cannot impart. That unflinching devotion to work, without which no real eminence in science is now attainable, implies the writing at certain times of stern resolve upon the student’s character: ‘I work not because I like work, but because I ought to work.’ At Marburg my study was warmed by a large stove. At first I missed the gleam and sparkle from flame and ember, but I soon became accustomed to the obscure heat. At six in the morning a small milch-brod and a cup of tea were taken to me. The dinner hour was one, and for the first year or so I dined at an hotel. In those days living was cheap in Marburg. Dinner consisted of several courses, roast and boiled, and finished up with sweets and dessert. The cost was a pound a month, or about eightpence per dinner. I usually limited myself to one course, using even that in moderation, being convinced that eating too much was quite as sinful, and almost as ruinous, as drinking too much. By attending to such things I was able to work without weariness for sixteen hours a day. My going to Germany had been opposed by some of my friends as quixotic, and my life there might, perhaps, be not unfairly thus described. I did not work for money; I was not even spurred by ‘the last infirmity of noble minds.’ I had been reading Fichte, and Emerson, and Carlyle, and had been infected by the spirit of these great men, the Alpha and Omega of whose teaching was loyalty to duty. Higher knowledge and greater strength were within reach of the man who unflinchingly enacted his best insight.”