Part 37

_Joseph Henry._--Joseph Henry (1797-1878) was one of the most illustrious physicists of his day. Born and educated at Albany, New York, he began (1827) researches which resulted in important discoveries in the field of electro-magnetism, one of which made the telegraph possible. From 1832 till 1846 he was professor of natural philosophy in the College of New Jersey (Princeton), and from 1846 till his death was secretary of the Smithsonian Institution, which he had helped to organise. He published “Contributions to Electricity and Magnetism” (1839) and many papers, especially in the Smithsonian reports. A brilliant and profound investigator, he did signally important service in organising great scientific enterprises. “To Henry,” says Dr. Woodward, “more than to any other man, must be attributed the rise and the growth in America of the present public appreciation of the scientific work carried on by governmental aid.”

_Alexander Dallas Bache._--Alexander Dallas Bache (1806-1867), a great-grandson of Benjamin Franklin, after graduating in 1825 at West Point, at the head of his class, at twenty-two resigned a lieutenant’s commission to become professor of natural philosophy and chemistry at the University of Pennsylvania. Having made a name for his researches on steam, magnetism, etc., he was called in 1843 to be superintendent of the United States Coast Survey, and performed his duties with marked efficiency. Gifted with quick apprehension and broad intelligence, he possessed great powers of leadership. He published nearly two hundred scientific papers, memoirs, and reports. “To him,” declared his eulogist Benjamin Gould, “the scientific progress of the nation was indebted more than to any other man who had trod her soil.”

_Matthew Fontaine Maury._--Matthew F. Maury (1806-1873) is well known to students of meteorological science and also to the educational world. He was a Virginian of Huguenot extraction, who went to sea at nineteen and became not only a good sailor but also an authority on navigation. His “Treatise on Navigation” (1835) was favourably received abroad and was used as a text-book in the United States Navy. As “Harry Bluff” he published in _The Southern Literary Messenger_, about 1840, under the title of “Scraps from the Lucky-Bag,” a series of papers on nautical matters, which brought him fame and resulted in placing him in charge of the Depot of Charts and Instruments at Washington, an office which later became the Naval Observatory and Hydrographical Department. One of his first tasks was to compile some charts of winds and currents. These charts proved immensely valuable by shortening voyages and lowering the expense of commerce. His “Physical Geography of the Sea and its Meteorology” (1855) at once took the highest rank in its field, and the geographical text-books which he wrote in his later years have done great service to education and in a revised form still satisfy the needs of many schools. He was the author also of many pamphlets and official papers.

_Josiah Parsons Cooke._--Josiah Parsons Cooke (1827-1894), a pioneer in chemical education, was born in Boston and graduated at Harvard in 1844. In 1851 he became professor of chemistry and mineralogy at Harvard. He did much to further the study of chemistry in colleges and was one of the first to urge the laboratory method of instruction. He published, among other things, “Chemical Problems and Reactions” (1853), “Religion and Chemistry” (1864), “The New Chemistry” (1871), and “The Credentials of Science the Warrant of Faith” (1888).

_John William Draper._--John W. Draper (1811-1882) is known in the annals of science as a chemist and physiologist; he won eminence also as a historian. Born at St. Helens, near Liverpool, the son of a Wesleyan Methodist minister, he studied chemistry under Turner in London, and coming to America in 1833, graduated in medicine from the University of Pennsylvania in 1836. He now began investigating the chemical action of light, and published in 1844 a “Treatise on the Forces which Produce the Organisation of Plants.” His memoir “On the Production of Light by Heat” (1847), a valuable contribution to the subject of spectrum analysis, appeared thirteen years before Kirchoff’s celebrated memoir, which used to be thought of as marking the beginning of spectrum analysis. He was also the first to succeed (1839) in taking portraits of the human face by photography. In 1839 he became professor of chemistry, and in 1850 of physiology also, in the University of New York. His “Treatise on Human Physiology, Statical and Dynamical” (1856) at once took its place as a standard text-book. He wrote also a “Text-Book on Chemistry” (1846); a “Text-Book on Natural Philosophy” (1847); “History of the Conflict between Religion and Science” (1874), an able and comprehensive treatment of a vast subject; and “Scientific Memoirs” (1878), a collection of papers on radiant energy. Two of his sons, Henry and John Christopher, also became well known physiologists and chemists.

_Charles Augustus Young._--Of the more recent astronomers of America, Charles A. Young (1834-1908) was one of the foremost. Born in Hanover, New Hampshire, the son of Professor Ira Young of Dartmouth College, he graduated from Dartmouth in 1853. From 1856 till 1866 he was professor of mathematics, astronomy, and natural philosophy in Western Reserve University. In the latter year he returned to Dartmouth as professor of natural philosophy and astronomy, remaining there till 1877, when he became professor of astronomy at Princeton. He was prominently connected with several important astronomical expeditions and produced some notable inventions, among them an automatic spectroscope which has been widely used by astronomers. He made some significant observations on the sun, including a verification by experiment of Doppler’s principle as applied to light, by which he was able to measure the velocity of the sun’s rotation. He also discovered the thin solar shell of gaseous matter called “the reversing layer.” He wrote “The Sun” in “The International Scientific Series” (1882), “A General Astronomy” (1889), “Elements of Astronomy” (1890), and “A Manual of Astronomy” (1902).

_Robert Henry Thurston._--Distinguished as an educator, an inventor, and a writer on engineering subjects was Robert H. Thurston (1839-1903). He was born in Providence, Rhode Island, and graduated from Brown University in 1859. During the Civil War he served as an engineer in the Federal Navy; in 1865 he was appointed assistant professor of natural and experimental philosophy at the United States Naval Academy. In 1871 he became professor of engineering at the Stevens Institute of Technology, remaining here until 1885, when he was made director of Sibley College in Cornell University. His writings, always clear, exact, and authoritative, have circulated widely among engineers. They include “A History of the Growth of the Steam Engine” (1878, revised in 1901, and translated into French and German), “Materials of Engineering” (three volumes, 1882-1886), “Manual of the Steam Engine” (1890-1891), “Manual of Steam Boilers” (1890), with other valuable works, and about 250 scientific papers. Thurston served on several important government engineering commissions. Of him it has justly been said that “he made engineers better scientists, promoted engineering education, helped to put engineering upon a higher professional plane, and constantly was on the watch to dispel the fogs of prejudice by help of the truths of science.”

_The Youmans Brothers._--The life of Edward Livingston Youmans (1821-1887) was spent chiefly in popularising science. Born in Albany County, New York, he inherited a strong bent toward scientific study. For many years he wrestled with threatening blindness, and was never well. His “Class-Book of Chemistry” (1851) was remarkably successful. “There was,” Mr. Fiske says of it, “a firm grasp of the philosophical principles underlying chemical phenomena, and the meaning and functions of the science were set forth in such a way as to charm the student and make him wish for more.” He spent many years in delivering lyceum lectures, for which he was well fitted. His “Handbook of Household Science” (1857) was a carefully written treatise on the applications of science to the problems of food, light, heat, and sanitation. Its popularity led him to plan a comprehensive “Household Cyclopædia” which he did not live to finish. Besides editing “The Correlation and Conservation of Forces” (1864), a series of expositions by Grove, Helmholtz, Mayer, Faraday, Liebig, and Carpenter, and “The Culture Demanded by Modern Life” (1867), a collection of addresses and arguments in favour of scientific education, Youmans published several addresses and papers, and did much to give the views of Darwin and Spencer a favourable reception in America. He was the originator and general editor of “The International Scientific Series,” of which fifty-seven volumes appeared in his lifetime. It was a difficult but eminently useful task to secure popular scientific books by masters; and the series of seventy-nine volumes has done much for education. Youmans was also the founder of _The Popular Science Monthly_ (begun in 1872) and edited the first twenty-eight volumes.

While it was his main intent [to quote Mr. Fiske again] to give in popular form an account of the progress of the several departments of science, he never lost sight of the aim to show wherein the scientific method was applicable to the larger questions of life--of education, social relations, morals, government, and religion.

William Jay Youmans (1838-1901) first studied chemistry at Columbia and Yale and privately with his brother Edward, then took a medical course at New York University. After practising medicine for some three years, he became connected with _The Popular Science Monthly_, which he edited from 1887 till 1900. He wrote “Pioneers of Science in America” (1895).

_Henry Carrington Bolton._--Henry Carrington Bolton (1843-1903) did much for the bibliography of chemistry; his “Select Bibliography of Chemistry, 1492-1892” (1893-1905) comprises over 12,000 titles in twenty-four languages. He also wrote many papers on the history of chemistry. His “Counting-out Rhymes of Children” (1888) gave him prominence as a folklorist, and he published also some important papers on various other subjects in folklore.

VII. THE PERIODICALS.

=Their Importance.=--No apology need be offered for including in this volume a section on the history of American periodicals. As Professor Smyth has well said, in speaking of the early magazines of Philadelphia, such a division “helps to exhibit the process of American literature as an evolution.” Much of our best literature made its first appearance in periodicals; and the remuneration received by authors from this source has great significance in the economics of literature. Likewise much of our best and most searching criticism, whether reprinted or not, appeared originally in newspapers and magazines, which have thus had a prominent part in the making of American literature. In 1810 there were only about thirty periodicals altogether; in 1900 there were 239 classed as general and literary, some of them having a considerable circulation on the other side of the Atlantic. In the brief space allotted to this section it will be impossible to do more than to mention a few of the most important literary periodicals; the full extent of the journalistic activity of the United States may be inferred from the fact that in 1900 over eight billion copies of periodicals were circulated, having a market value of nearly $225,000,000.

=The Eighteenth Century.=--The eighteenth century will not long detain us. Only ten years after Edward Cave had founded _The Gentleman’s Magazine_ in London (1731), Andrew Bradford and Benjamin Franklin founded in Philadelphia the first monthly magazines in America. Of Bradford’s venture, _The American Magazine_, edited by John Webbe, only three numbers appeared; while Franklin published only six numbers of _The General Magazine_. In the course of the century several others appeared, among them _The American Magazine and Historical Chronicle_ (Boston, 1743-1746); _The Independent Reflector_ (New York, 1752-1753), among whose contributors were Governor William Livingston, John Morin Scott, and Aaron Burr; _The American Magazine_ (Philadelphia, 1757-1758, revived in 1769), which Professor Tyler calls “by far the most admirable example of our literary periodicals in the colonial time,” edited by Rev. William Smith, first provost of the College of Philadelphia; _The New American Magazine_ (Woodbridge, New Jersey, 1758-1760), edited by S. Nevil; _The Royal American Magazine_ (Boston, 1774-1775); _The Pennsylvania Magazine_ (Philadelphia, 1775-1776), edited by Thomas Paine, to which articles were sent by Francis Hopkinson, John Witherspoon, and William Smith; _The Columbian Magazine_ (Philadelphia, 1786-1790), edited at first by Matthew Carey and later by Alexander J. Dallas, and changed in 1790 to _The Universal Asylum_ (1790-1792; to this Benjamin Rush was a faithful contributor); _The American Museum_ (Philadelphia, 1787-1792, 1798), for which Carey abandoned _The Columbian_ and which was “the first really successful literary undertaking of the kind in America”; _The Massachusetts Magazine_ (Boston, 1789-1796); _The New York Magazine_ (1790-1797); _The Farmers’ Museum_ (Walpole, New Hampshire, 1793-1799), of which Joseph Dennie, the editor from 1796 to 1799, boasted that “it is read by more than two thousand individuals, and has its patrons in Europe and on the banks of the Ohio”; and _The Monthly Magazine and American Review_ (New York, 1799-1800), founded by Charles Brockden Brown, and carried on in 1801-1802 as _The American Review and Literary Journal_. But the reading public of those days was small, and other conditions were unfavourable to publishers; in consequence, almost none of these publications lived into the next century.

=The Nineteenth Century.=--Of the literary magazines established before 1850, only one or two have survived. Yet we now begin to see the periodicals exhibiting greater vitality; and gradually they come to deal more and more with native literature and to exhibit a greater self-reliance on the part of American writers. The first half of the century was the period in which the national spirit took deep root and made rapid growth; and this national spirit is fully reflected in the literature of the time.

In 1801 Joseph Dennie and John Dickins began to publish, in Philadelphia, _The Port Folio_, which was destined to live for twenty-six years. Among its contributors were John Blair Linn, author of “The Powers of Genius,” “The Death of Washington,” etc.; Robert H. Rose, author of “Sketches in Verse”; John Sanderson, who wrote a book of Parisian sketches entitled “The American in Paris”; Alexander Graydon; Gouverneur Morris; Joseph Hopkinson, author of “Hail, Columbia,” and of articles on Shakespeare; and Alexander Wilson, poet and ornithologist, whose works were edited by Alexander B. Grosart (Paisley, Scotland, 1876).

From 1803 to 1811, the Anthology Club maintained in Boston a sprightly magazine called _The Anthology and Boston Review_. The best minds of Boston contributed to it; among them George Ticknor, William Tudor, Joseph Buckminster, John Quincy Adams, Dr. John Sylvester, Edward Everett, and John Gardiner. The magazine never paid expenses; but the contributors cheerfully paid for their pleasure. The club did much to give Boston its literary prestige, and was the forerunner of the famous Boston Athenæum.

_The Literary Magazine and American Register_ (Philadelphia, 1803-1808) was likewise founded by the novelist Brown, who published therein, among other things, his “Memoirs of Carwin, the Biloquist.”

Washington Irving began his literary career with the publication of _Salmagundi_, which he founded in New York in 1807, in conjunction with his brother William and James Kirke Paulding. The little sheet, in yellow covers, was issued by an eccentric publisher, David Longworth, the front of whose house was entirely hidden by a colossal painting of the crowning of Shakespeare. The magazine was modelled after Addison’s _Spectator_. Paulding was Launcelot Langstaff and Irving was Pindar Cockloft, the poet. “Our intention,” wrote the editors, “is simply to instruct the young, reform the old, correct the town, and castigate the age; this is an arduous task, and therefore we undertake it with confidence.” The work soon became popular throughout the United States for its clever reproductions of society foibles. After twenty numbers, however, it was discontinued, because, as Paulding said, “the publisher, with that liberality so characteristic of these modern Mæcenases, declined to concede to us a share of the profits, which had become considerable.” Twelve years later, Irving being then in Europe, Paulding attempted a second series (Philadelphia, May to August, 1820), which, though inferior to the first series, still contained some interesting pages.

_The Select Reviews and Spirit of the Foreign Magazines_, begun by Samuel Ewing in Philadelphia (1809), later became _The Analectic Magazine_ (1812-1821). In 1813-1814 Irving was its editor and contributed to it some biographies of heroes of the War of 1812 and some of the essays afterwards collected in “The Sketch Book.” Other contributors were Gulian C. Verplanck, James K. Paulding, Alexander Wilson, and William Darlington. _The Analectic_ published in July, 1819, the first lithograph made in America.

_The Portico_ (Baltimore, 1815-1819) numbered among its contributors John Neal, whose lengthy review of Byron appeared as a serial. Neal continued to write for _The Portico_ “until he knocked it on the head, it is thought, by an article on Free Agency.”

_The Idle Man_ (New York, 1821-1822) was edited by Richard H. Dana the elder; in it were printed his novels “Tom Thornton” and “Paul Felton” and some contributions from Bryant and from Washington Allston.

_The New York Mirror_, a weekly, was begun in 1823 by General George P. Morris and Samuel Woodworth, the author of “The Old Oaken Bucket.” Woodworth soon gave way to Theodore S. Fay and he in turn (1831) to Nathaniel P. Willis. Morris and Willis conducted it with great success until 1842. Fay contributed “The Little Genius,” satirical letters on New York society, and “The Minute Book,” letters from Europe. Willis spent some years abroad as foreign correspondent of the paper (1832-1836), his letters being eagerly read and widely copied. Morris and Willis subsequently conducted _The New Mirror_ (New York, 1843-1844), which in October, 1844, became a daily, and _The Home Journal_ (New York, from 1846 on), which as _Town and Country_ still continues.

_The Atlantic Magazine_ (New York, 1824-1825), edited by Robert C. Sands, was continued till 1826 as _The New York Review and Athenæum Magazine_. In its later form it was edited by Henry J. Anderson and William Cullen Bryant. In it appeared many of Bryant’s poems and some of his prose, as well as contributions by Longfellow, Dana, Willis, Bancroft, and Caleb Cushing. In March, 1826, the _Review_ was merged with _The New York Literary Gazette_. In July this was in turn combined with _The United States Literary Gazette_, which had been founded in Boston in 1825 and edited by Theophilus Parsons, the new title being _The United States Review and Literary Gazette_. James G. Carter, and later Charles Folsom, were the Boston editors, and Bryant was the New York editor. The periodical did not long survive.

_The American Monthly Magazine_ (New York, 1829-1831) was established and edited by Nathaniel P. Willis, who enlisted a number of younger writers, such as Richard Hildreth, Park Benjamin, Isaac McLellan, Albert Pike (“Hymns to the Gods”), Rufus Dawes, and Mrs. Sigourney. In 1831 the _Magazine_ was absorbed by _The New York Mirror_, of which Willis now became an associate editor.

_The Illinois Monthly Magazine_ (Vandalia, Illinois, 1830-1832), edited and mainly written by James Hall, was the earliest literary publication in the West; it was superseded by _The Western Monthly Magazine_ (Cincinnati, 1833-1836), edited by Timothy Flint.

One of the most popular of the Philadelphia magazines was _Godey’s Lady’s Book_ (1830-1877), which as early as 1859 circulated 98,500 copies, and which published compositions by Paulding, Park Benjamin, Holmes, Irving, Poe, Bayard Taylor, Longfellow, Harriet Beecher Stowe, Simms, Willis, Buchanan Read, Thomas Dunn English, and Lydia H. Sigourney. Poe’s contribution on “The Literati of New York,” published in its columns in 1846, created a great sensation at the time. For more than thirty years _Godey’s_ was edited by Mrs. Sarah J. Hale, who is also famous as the author of “Mary had a little lamb,” and through whose exertions our national Thanksgiving Day was secured.

_The New England Magazine_, established in Boston in 1831 by Joseph T. and Edwin Buckingham, published contributions from Hildreth, Park Benjamin, Whittier, Holmes (who published here the first two papers, never by authority reprinted, of his “Autocrat” series), Longfellow, William and Andrew Peabody, George S. Hillard (“Literary Portraits” and “Selections from the Papers of an Idler”), and other eminent writers. In 1835 Park Benjamin took it to New York and continued it till 1838 as _The American Monthly Magazine_.

_The North American Quarterly Magazine_ (Philadelphia, 1833-1838) was conducted by Sumner Lincoln Fairfield, author of “The Cities of the Plain,” and of an unpublished poem, “The Last Night of Pompeii” (finished in 1830), from which he alleged that Bulwer, to whom he sent the manuscript, stole the plot of his “Last Days of Pompeii.”

Much more successful was _The Knickerbacker or New-York Monthly Magazine_, founded in the same year and quietly changed with the seventh number to _The Knickerbocker_. The founder was Charles Fenno Hoffman, who edited three numbers. Some contributors were Harry Franco, Bryant, Irving (“Crayon Papers”), Longfellow, Lewis Gaylord Clark (for a time the editor), William L. Stone, the brothers Duyckinck, Frederick S. Cozzens, Simms, Park Benjamin, John L. Stephens (letters from Egypt), and Parkman (“The Oregon Trail”). With some exceptions it must be said that the contents of _The Knickerbocker_ were not of very great merit; and in its later years there were too many stories on the order of “Carl Almendinger’s Office, or, The Mysteries of Chicago,” which ran as a serial in 1862. In 1864 the title was _The American Monthly Knickerbocker_, and from July till October, 1865, when publication was suspended, the title was _The Fœderal American_.

_The Southern Literary Messenger_, published monthly at Richmond, Virginia, between 1834 and 1864, exerted a marked influence upon the literary taste of the whole South. In it were first published many of Poe’s stories and criticisms, and he was the editor of the second volume. Other contributors were Paulding, Park Benjamin, John W. Draper, Willis, Henry C. Lea, R. H. Stoddard, Simms, John B. Dabney, Matthew F. Maury, Philip Pendleton, and John Esten Cooke, Henry Timrod, Paul H. Hayne, Aldrich, Moncure D. Conway, Thomas Dunn English, John P. Kennedy, James Barron Hope (“Henry Ellen”), and W. Gordon McCabe.