Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals - Maria Mitchell
"He asked me if Mrs. Somerville was now occupied with pure mathematics.
He said: 'There she is strong. I never saw her but once. She must be
over sixty years old.' In reality she was seventy-seven. He spoke with
admiration of Mrs. Somerville's 'Physical Geography,'--said it was
excellent because so concise. 'A German woman would have used more
words.'
"Humboldt asked me if they could apply photography to the small
stars--to the eighth or ninth magnitude. I had asked the same question
of Professor Bond, of Cambridge, and he had replied, 'Give me $500,000,
and we can do it; but it is very expensive.'
"Humboldt spoke of the fifty-three small planets, and gave his opinion
that they could not be grouped together; that there was no apparent
connection.
"Having lost all his teeth, Humboldt's articulation was indistinct--he
talked very rapidly. His hair was thin and very white, his eyes very
blue, his nose too broad and too flat; yet he was a handsome man. He
wore a white necktie, a black dress-coat, buttoned up, but not so much
so that it hid a figured dark-blue and white waistcoat. He was a little
deaf. He told me that he was eighty-nine years old, and that he and
Bonpland, alone, were living of those who in early life were on
expeditions together; that Bonpland was eighty-five, and much the more
vigorous of the two.
"He said that we had gone backwards, morally, in America since he was
there,--that then there were strong men there: Jefferson, and Hamilton,
and Madison; that the three months he spent in America were spent almost
wholly with Jefferson.
"In the course of conversation he told me that the fifth volume of
'Cosmos' was in preparation. He urged me to go to see Argelander on my
way to London; he followed me out, still urging me to do this, and at
the same time assured me that Kansas would go all right.
"It was singular that Humboldt should advise me to use the sextant; it
was the first instrument that I ever used, and it is a very difficult
one. No young aspirant in science ever left Humboldt's presence
uncheered, and no petty animosities come out in his record. You never
heard of Humboldt's complaining that any one had stolen his thunder,--he
knew that no one could lift his bolts.
"When I came away, he thanked me again for the visit, followed me into
the anteroom, and made a low bow."
In 1855 Mrs. Mitchell was taken suddenly ill, and although partial
recovery followed, her illness lasted for six years, during which time
Maria was her constant nurse. For most of the six years her mother's
condition was such that merely a general care was needed, but it used to
be said that Maria's eyes were always upon her. When the opportunity to
go to Europe came, an older sister came with her family to take Maria's
place in the home; and when Miss Mitchell returned she found her mother
so nearly in the state in which she had left her, that she felt
justified in having taken the journey.
Mrs. Mitchell died in 1861, and a few months after her death Mr.
Mitchell and his daughter removed to Lynn, Mass.--Miss Mitchell having
purchased a small house in that city, in the rear of which she erected
the little observatory brought from Nantucket. She was very much
depressed by her mother's death, and absorbed herself as much as
possible in her observations and in her work for the Nautical Almanac.
Soon after her return from Europe she had been presented with an
equatorial telescope, the gift of American women, through Miss Elizabeth
Peabody. The following letter refers to this instrument:
LETTER FROM ADMIRAL SMYTH.
ST. JOHN'S LODGE, NEAR AYLESBURY, 25-7-'59.
MY DEAR MISS MITCHELL: ... We are much pleased to hear of your
acquisition of an equatorial instrument under a revolving roof,
for it is a true scientific luxury as well as an efficient
implement. The aperture of your object-glass is sufficient for
doing much useful work, but, if I may hazard an opinion to you,
do not attempt too much, for it is quality rather than quantity
which is now desirable. I would therefore leave the
multiplication of objects to the larger order of telescopes, and
to those who are given to sweep and ransack the heavens, of whom
there is a goodly corps. Now, for your purpose, I would
recommend a batch of neat, but not over-close, binary systems,
selected so as to have always one or the other on hand.
I, however, have been bestirring myself to put amateurs upon a
more convenient and, I think, a better mode of examining double
stars than by the wire micrometer, with its faults of
illumination, fiddling, jumps, and dirty lamps. This is by the
beautiful method of rock-crystal prisms, not the Rochon method
of double-image, but by thin wedges cut to given angles. I have
told Mr. Alvan Clark my "experiences." and I hope he will apply
his excellent mind to the scheme. I am insisting upon this point
in some astronomical twaddle which I am now printing, and of
which I shall soon have to request your acceptance of a copy.
There is a very important department which calls for a zealous
amateur or two, namely, the colors of double stars, for these
have usually been noted after the eye has been fatigued with
observing in illuminated fields. The volume I hope to
forward--_en hommage_--will contain all the pros and cons of
this branch.
There is, for ultimate utility, nothing like forming a plan and
then steadily following it. Those who profess they will attend
to everything often fall short of the mark. The division of
labor leads to beneficial conclusions as well in astronomy as in
mechanics and arts.
Mrs. Smyth and my daughter unite with me in wishing you all
happiness and success; and believe me
My dear Miss Mitchell,
Yours very faithfully,
W. H. SMYTH.
In regard to the colors of stars, Miss Mitchell had already begun their
study, as these extracts from her diary show:
"Feb. 19, 1853. I am just learning to notice the different colors of the
stars, and already begin to have a new enjoyment. Betelgeuse is
strikingly red, while Rigel is yellow. There is something of the same
pleasure in noticing the hues that there is in looking at a collection
of precious stones, or at a flower-garden in autumn. Blue stars I do not
yet see, and but little lilac except through the telescope.
"Feb. 12, 1855.... I swept around for comets about an hour, and then I
amused myself with noticing the varieties of color. I wonder that I have
so long been insensible to this charm in the skies, the tints of the
different stars are so delicate in their variety. ... What a pity that
some of our manufacturers shouldn't be able to steal the secret of
dyestuffs from the stars, and astonish the feminine taste by new
brilliancy in fashion. [Footnote: See Chapter XI.]
[NANTUCKET], April [1860].
MY DEAR: Your father just gave me a great fright by "tapping at
my window" (I believe Poe's was a door, wasn't it?) and holding
up your note. I was busy examining some star notices just
received from Russia or Germany,--I never knew where Dorpat
is.--and just thinking that my work was as good as theirs. I
always noticed that when school-teachers took a holiday in order
to visit other institutions they came home and quietly said, "No
school is better or as good as mine." And then I read your note,
and perceive your reading is as good as Mrs. Kemble's. Now,
being _modest_, I always felt afraid the reason I thought you
such a good reader was because I didn't know any better, but if
all the world is equally ignorant, it makes it all right....
I've been intensely busy. I have been looking for the little
inferior planet to cross the sun, which it hasn't done, and I
got an article ready for the paper and then hadn't the courage
to publish--not for fear of the readers, but for fear that I
should change my own ideas by the time 'twas in print.
I am hoping, however, to have something by the meeting of the
Scientific Association in August,--some paper,--not to get
reputation for myself,--my reputation is so much beyond me that
as policy I should keep quiet,--but in order that my telescope
may show that it is at work. I am embarrassed by the amount of
work it might do--as you do not know which of Mrs. Browning's
poems to read, there are so many beauties.
The little republic of San Marino presented Miss Mitchell, in 1859, with
a bronze medal of merit, together with the _Ribbon_ and _Letters Patent_
signed by the two captains regent. This medal she prized as highly as
the gold one from Denmark.
"Nantucket, May 12, 18[60].... I send you a notice of an occultation;
the last sentence and the last figures are mine. You and I can never
occult, for have we not always helped one another to shine? Do you have
Worcester's Dictionary? I read it continually. Did you feast on 'The
Marble Faun'? I have a charming letter from Una Hawthorne, herself a
poet by nature, all about 'papa's book.' Ought not Mr. Hawthorne to be
the happiest man alive? He isn't, though! Do save all the anecdotes you
possibly can, piquant or not; starved people are not over-nice.
LYNN, Jan. 5 [1864].
... I very rarely see the B----s; they go to a different church,
and you know with that class of people "not to be with us is to
be against us." Indeed, I know very little of Lynn people. If I
can get at Mr. J., when you come to see me I'll ask him to tea.
He has called several times, but he's in such demand that he
must be engaged some weeks in advance! Would you, if you lived
in Lynn, want to fall into such a mass of idolaters?
I was wretchedly busy up to December 31, but have got into quiet
seas again. I have had a great deal of company--not a person
that I did not want to see, but I can't make the days more than
twenty-four hours long, with all my economy of time. This week
Professor Crosby, of Salem, comes up with his graduating class
and his corps of teachers for an evening.
They remained in Lynn until Miss Mitchell was called to Vassar College,
in 1865, as professor of astronomy and director of the observatory.
CHAPTER IX
1865-1885
LIFE AT VASSAR COLLEGE
In her life at Vassar College there was a great deal for Miss Mitchell
to get accustomed to; if her duties had been merely as director of the
observatory, it would have been simply a continuation of her previous
work. But she was expected, of course, to teach astronomy; she was by no
means sure that she could succeed as a teacher, and with this new work
on hand she could not confine herself to original investigation--that
which had been her great aim in life.
But she was so much interested in the movement for the higher education
of women, an interest which deepened as her work went on, that she gave
up, in a great measure, her scientific life, and threw herself heart and
soul into this work.
For some years after she went to Vassar, she still continued the work
for the Nautical Almanac; but after a while she relinquished that, and
confined herself wholly to the work in the college.
"1866. Vassar College brought together a mass of heterogeneous material,
out of which it was expected that a harmonious whole would
evolve--pupils from all parts of the country, of different habits,
different training, different views; teachers, mostly from New England,
differing also; professors, largely from Massachusetts, yet differing
much. And yet, after a year, we can say that there has been no very
noisy jarring of the discordant elements; small jostling has been felt,
but the president has oiled the rough places, and we have slid over
them.
"... Miss ---- is a bigot, but a very sincere one. She is the most
conservative person I ever met. I think her a very good woman, a woman
of great energy.... She is very kind to me, but had we lived in the
colonial days of Massachusetts, and had she been a power, she would have
burned me at the stake for heresy!
"Yesterday the rush began. Miss Lyman [the lady principal] had set the
twenty teachers all around in different places, and I was put into the
parlor to talk to 'anxious mothers.'
"Miss Lyman had a hoarse cold, but she received about two hundred
students, and had all their rooms assigned to them.
"While she had one anxious mamma, I took two or three, and kept them
waiting until she could attend to them. Several teachers were with me. I
made a rush at the visitors as they entered, and sometimes I was asked
if I were lady principal, and sometimes if I were the matron. This
morning Miss Lyman's voice was gone. She must have seen five hundred
people yesterday.
"Among others there was one Miss Mitchell, and, of course, that anxious
mother put that girl under my special care, and she is very bright. Then
there were two who were sent with letters to me, and several others
whose mothers took to me because they were frightened by Miss Lyman's
_style_.
"One lady, who seemed to be a bright woman, got me by the button and
held me a long time--she wanted this, that, and the other impracticable
thing for the girl, and told me how honest her daughter was; then with a
flood of tears she said, 'But she is not a Christian. I know I put her
into good hands when I put her here.' (Then I was strongly tempted to
avow my Unitarianism.) Miss W., who was standing by, said, 'Miss Lyman
will be an excellent spiritual adviser,' and we both looked very
serious; when the mother wiped her weeping eyes and said, 'And, Miss
Mitchell, will you ask Miss Lyman to insist that my daughter shall curl
her hair? She looks very graceful when her hair is curled, and I want it
insisted upon,' I made a note of it with my pencil, and as I happened to
glance at Miss W. the corners of her mouth were twitching, upon which I
broke down and laughed. The mother bore it very good-naturedly, but went
on. She wanted to know who would work some buttonholes in her daughter's
dress that was not quite finished, etc., and it all ended in her
inviting me to make her a visit.
"Oct. 31, 1866. Our faculty meetings always try me in this respect: we
do things that other colleges have done before. We wait and ask for
precedent. If the earth had waited for a precedent, it never would have
turned on its axis!
"Sept. 22, 1868. I have written to-day to give up the Nautical Almanac
work. I do not feel sure that it will be for the best, but I am sure
that I could not hold the almanac and the college, and father is happy
here.
"I tell Miss Lyman that my father is so much pleased with everything
here that I am afraid he will be immersed!" [Footnote: Vassar College,
though professedly unsectarian, was mainly under Baptist control.] Only
those who knew Vassar College in its earlier days can tell of the life
that the father and daughter led there for four years.
Mr. Mitchell died in 1869.
[Illustration: THE FATHER AND DAUGHTER]
"Jan. 3, 1868. Meeting Dr. Hill at a private party, I asked him if
Harvard College would admit girls in fifty years. He said one of the
most conservative members of the faculty had said, within sixteen days,
that it would come about in twenty years. I asked him if I could go into
one of Professor Peirce's recitations. He said there was nothing to keep
me out, and that he would let me know when they came.
"At eleven A.M., the next Friday, I stood at Professor Peirce's door. As
the professor came in I went towards him, and asked him if I might
attend his lecture. He said 'Yes.' I said 'Can you not say "I shall be
happy to have you"?' and he said 'I shall be happy to have you,' but he
didn't look happy!
"It was with some little embarrassment that Mrs. K. and I seated
ourselves. Sixteen young men came into the room; after the first glance
at us there was not another look, and the lecture went on. Professor
Peirce had filled the blackboard with formulae, and went on developing
them. He walked backwards and forwards all the time, thinking it out as
he went. The students at first all took notes, but gradually they
dropped off until perhaps only half continued. When he made simple
mistakes they received it in silence; only one, that one his son (a
tutor in college), remarked that he was wrong. The steps of his lesson
were all easy, but of course it was impossible to tell whence he came or
whither he was going....
"The recitation-room was very common-looking--we could not tolerate such
at Vassar. The forms and benches of the recitation-room were better for
taking notes than ours are.
"The professor was polite enough to ask us into the senior class, but I
had an engagement. I asked him if a young lady presented herself at the
door he _could_ keep her out, and he said 'No, and I shouldn't.' I told
him I would send some of my girls.
"Oct. 15, 1868. Resolved, in case of my outliving father and being in
good health, to give my efforts to the intellectual culture of women,
without regard to salary; if possible, connect myself with liberal
Christian institutions, believing, as I do, that happiness and growth in
this life are best promoted by them, and that what is good in this life
is good in any life."
In August, 1869, Miss Mitchell, with several of her Vassar students,
went to Burlington, Ia., to observe the total eclipse of the sun. She
wrote a popular account of her observations, which was printed in "Hours
at Home" for September, 1869. Her records were published in Professor
Coffin's report, as she was a member of his party.
"Sept. 26, 1871. My classes came in to-day for the first time;
twenty-five students--more than ever before; fine, splendid-looking
girls. I felt almost frightened at the responsibility which came into my
hands--of the possible _twist_ which I might give them.
"1871. I never look upon the mass of girls going into our dining-room or
chapel without feeling their nobility, the sovereignty of their pure
spirit."
The following letter from Miss Mitchell, though written at a later date,
gives an idea of the practical observing done by her classes:
MY DEAR MISS ----: I reply to your questions concerning the
observatory which you propose to establish. And, first, let me
congratulate you that you begin _small_. A large telescope is a
great luxury, but it is an enormous expense, and not at all
necessary for teaching.... My beginning class uses only a small
portable equatorial. It stands out-doors from 7 A.M. to 9 P.M.
The girls are encouraged to use it: they are expected to
determine the rotation of the sun on its axis by watching the
spots--the same for the planet Jupiter; they determine the
revolution of Titan by watching its motions, the retrograde and
direct motion of the planets among the stars, the position of
the sun with reference to its setting in winter and summer, the
phases of Venus. All their book learning in astronomy should be
mathematical. The astronomy which is not mathematical is what is
so ludicrously called "Geography of the Heavens"--is not
astronomy at all.
My senior class, generally small, say six, is received as a
class, but in practical astronomy each girl is taught
separately. I believe in _small_ classes. I instruct them
separately, first in the use of the meridian instrument, and
next in that of the equatorial. They obtain the time for the
college by meridian passage of stars; they use the equatorial
just as far as they can do with very insufficient mechanism. We
work wholly on planets, and they are taught to find a planet at
any hour of the day, to make drawings of what they see, and to
determine positions of planets and satellites. With the clock
and chronograph they determine difference of right ascension of
objects by the electric mode of recording. They make, sometimes,
very accurate drawings, and they learn to know the satellites of
Saturn (Titan, Rhea, etc.) by their different physiognomy, as
they would persons. They have sometimes measured diameters.
If you add to your observatory a meridian instrument, I should
advise a small one. _Size_ is not so important as people
generally suppose. Nicety and accuracy are what is needed in all
scientific work; startling effects by large telescopes and high
powers are too suggestive of sensational advertisement.
The relation between herself and her pupils was quite remarkable--it was
very cordial and intimate; she spoke of them always as her "girls," but
at the same time she required their very best work, and was intolerant
of shirking, or of an ambition to do what nature never intended the girl
in question to do.
One of her pupils writes thus: "If it were only possible to tell you of
what Professor Mitchell did for one of her girls! 'Her girls!' It meant
so much to come into daily contact with such a woman! There is no need
of speaking of her ability; the world knows what that was. But as her
class-room was unique, having something of home in its belongings, so
its atmosphere differed from that of all others. Anxiety and nervous
strain were left outside of the door. Perhaps one clue to her influence
may be found in her remark to the senior class in astronomy when '76
entered upon its last year: 'We are women studying together.'
"Occasionally it happened that work requiring two hours or more to
prepare called for little time in the class. Then would come one of
those treats which she bestowed so freely upon her girls, and which
seemed to put them in touch with the great outside world. Letters from
astronomers in Europe or America, or from members of their families,
giving delightful glimpses of home life; stories of her travels and of
visits to famous people; accounts of scientific conventions and of large
gatherings of women,--not so common then as now,--gave her listeners a
wider outlook and new interests.
"Professor Mitchell was chairman of a standing committee of the American
Association for the Advancement of Women,--that on women's work in
science,--and some of her students did their first work for women's
organizations in gathering statistics and filling out blanks which she
distributed among them.
"The benefits derived from my college course were manifold, but time and
money would have been well spent had there been no return but that of
two years' intercourse with Maria Mitchell."
Another pupil, and later her successor at Vassar College, Miss Mary W.
Whitney, has said of her method of teaching: "As a teacher, Miss
Mitchell's gift was that of stimulus, not that of drill. She could not
drill; she would not drive. But no honest student could escape the
pressure of her strong will and earnest intent. The marking system she
held in contempt, and wished to have nothing to do with it. 'You cannot
mark a human mind,' she said, 'because there is no intellectual unit;'
and upon taking up her duties as professor she stipulated that she
should not be held responsible for a strict application of the system."
"July, 1887. My students used to say that my way of teaching was like
that of the man who said to his son, 'There are the letters of the
English alphabet--go into that corner and learn them.'
"It is not exactly my way, but I do think, as a general rule, that
teachers talk too much! A book is a very good institution! To read a
book, to think it over, and to write out notes is a useful exercise; a
book which will not repay some hard thought is not worth publishing. The
fashion of lecturing is becoming a rage; the teacher shows herself off,
and she does not try enough to develop her pupils.
"The greatest object in educating is to give a right habit of study....
* * * * *
"... Not too much mechanical apparatus--let the imagination have some
play; a cube may be shown by a model, but let the drawing upon the
blackboard represent the cube; and if possible let Nature be the
blackboard; spread your triangles upon land and sky.
"One of my pupils always threw her triangles on the celestial vault
above her head....
"A small apparatus well used will do wonders. A celebrated chemist
ordered his servant to bring in the laboratory--on a tray! Newton rolled
up the cover of a book; he put a small glass at one end, and a large
brain at the other--it was enough.
* * * * *
"When a student asks me, 'What specialty shall I follow?' I answer,
'Adopt some one, if none draws you, and wait.' I am confident that she
will find the specialty engrossing.
"Feb. 10, 1887. When I came to Vassar, I regretted that Mr. Vassar did
not give full scholarships. By degrees, I learned to think his plan of
giving half scholarships better; and to-day I am ready to say, 'Give no
scholarships at all.'
"I find a helping-hand lifts the girl as crutches do; she learns to like
the help which is not self-help.
"If a girl has the public school, and wants enough to learn, she will
learn. It is hard, but she was born to hardness--she cannot dodge it.
Labor is her inheritance.