Popular Science Monthly/Volume 46/January 1895/Sketch of Denison Olmsted
DENISON OLMSTED.
| SKETCH OF DENISON OLMSTED. |
PROF. OLMSTED, the American Journal of Science said, in its obituary notice of him, "regarded his most appropriate sphere of effort, in the circumstances in which he was placed, not so much to cultivate science as to teach and diffuse it." The circumstances mentioned in this sentence called him to be a teacher, whatever lines of work he may have planned to pursue. Although his mind at different times in his life turned to other occupations and he began to prepare for them, he was as often called back to teaching by agencies outside of himself. He was a successful and superior teacher. But his achievements in independent and original research, for which he seemed to have a natural taste, were not few nor insignificant; and we can not doubt that, if he had been permitted to devote himself to that line, he might have arrived at great distinction in it.
Denison Olmsted was born in East Hartford, Conn., June 18, 1791, and died in New Haven May 13, 1859. His father was descended from James Olmsted, one of the first settlers of the colony of Connecticut, who died about four years after Hartford was founded. His mother was a daughter of Denison Kingsbury, of Andover, Conn., from whom he seems to have received his Christian name. His father was a farmer in moderate circumstances. He died when the son was a year old, and the care of the boy's education devolved upon his mother, who is highly spoken of as having been a lady of native strength of mind, sound judgment, and uncommon piety and benevolence. He was early trained to habits of order, diligence, and perseverance, for which he was distinguished throughout his life.
The neighborhood school was not all that was desired, and Mrs. Olmsted, in order to give her son better facilities for instruction, obtained a place for him, when he was about twelve years old, in the family of Governor Treadwell, as a chore boy, with the understanding that he should attend the district school. He was, according to the Rev. Dr. Porter, of Farmington, Conn., a very lovely, intelligent boy, and soon engaged the affections of the family. Governor Treadwell became interested in him, and took pains to help him along in his studies. Only reading, spelling, and writing were taught in the school. A proposition of Governor Treadwell to teach him arithmetic was readily accepted, and the boy made good progress under this sympathetic attention. Young Olmsted was put into a country store at Farmington, in which Governor Treadwell's son was a partner, and then at Burlington, where he had the same employer. When sixteen years old he became desirous of obtaining a liberal education. He had already acquired a considerable knowledge of English literature, and made creditable progress in the elementary mathematics. With the consent of his guardian and his mother he went to Litchfield South Farms, to attend the school of James Morris. He undertook the care of a public district school for a short time; completed his fitting for college under the Rev. Dr. Noah Porter at Farmington, and entered Yale College in 1809. He took rank at once among the best scholars in his class, being apparently nearly equally proficient in all his studies, excelling also in writing, and cultivating a taste for belles-lettres and poetry. He was graduated with the highest honors in 1813, when he was appointed one of the orators in a class of seventy, of which only ten received that distinction. The subject of his graduation address was The Causes of Intellectual Greatness.
After graduation, Mr. Olmsted obtained a position as a teacher in the "Union School" at New London, Conn., a private institution for boys which had been supported by a few families of the place for several generations. In 1815 he was appointed a tutor in Yale College. Here he joined a small class in theology, instructed by Dr. D wight, with the intention, which he had formed a short time before—having come under strong religious influence—of entering the ministry. Dr. Dwight died within a year, and Mr. Olmsted published a memoir of him in The Portfolio for November, 1817. The theological studies were terminated in 1817 by Mr. Olmsted's appointment to be Professor of Chemistry, Mineralogy, and Geology in the University of North Carolina.
During his tutorship at Yale in 1816, Mr. Olmsted delivered the Master's Oration on the occasion of taking his second degree, taking as his subject The State of Education in Connecticut. In this oration he brought out his plan for a normal school, which, so far as appears, was then a complete novelty, and was wholly original with him. He pointed to "the ignorance and incompetency of schoolmasters" as the primary cause of the low condition of public schools, and appealed to public and private liberality to establish and support institutions of a higher grade, where a better class of teachers might be trained for the lower schools. He has himself, in one of his letters, given an account of the origin of his conception of this scheme of "a school for schoolmasters." It was while engaged in the Union School at New London, where he had pupils of various ages pursuing a great variety of studies; so that, while the number of pupils was small, the classes were many. He discovered, he related, a marked difference in intelligence and capacity between those who were studying the languages and mathematics, preparatory to entering college, and who devoted only a small part of the day to the common rudimentary branches, such as English grammar, geography. reading, writing, and spelling, and those who spent all their time in these elementary studies. "I was surprised to find that the former excelled the latter even in a knowledge of those very studies; they read better, spelt better, wrote better, and were better versed in grammar and geography. One inference I drew from the observation was that an extended course of studies, proceeding far beyond the simple rudiments of an English education, is not inconsistent with acquiring a good knowledge of the rudiments, but is highly favorable to it, since, on account of the superior capacity developed by the higher branches of study, the rudiments may be better learned in less time; and a second inference was that nothing was wanted in order to raise all our common schools to a far higher level, so as to embrace the elements of English literature, of the natural sciences, and of the mathematics, but competent teachers and the necessary books. I was hence led to the idea of a seminary for schoolmasters." His plan was outlined in accordance with this thought. Another encouraging feature in his scheme, as it appeared to him, was that "no sooner would the superior order of schoolmasters commence their labors, than the schools themselves would begin to furnish teachers of a higher order. The schoolmasters previously employed were for the most part such as had received all their education at the common schools, and could only perpetuate the meager system of beggarly elements which they had learned; but it was obvious that schools trained in a more extended course of studies would produce teachers of a corresponding character—that is, if we could once start the machine, it would go on by its own momentum." He was contemplating a series of newspaper articles in advocacy of his plan, and communications concerning it with eminent men interested in education, when he was called to another enterprise. The idea of normal schools was afterward taken up by other men and brought by them before the public under much more favorable circumstances than he could have commanded had he remained in Connecticut and continued his advocacy at that time.
At a later time, as a member of the Board of Commissioners of Common Schools for Connecticut, in 1840, in drafting the annual report, he observed that "wherever normal schools have been established and are adequately sustained, the experiment has uniformly resulted in supplying teachers of a superior order. As in every other art whose principles are reduced to rule and matured into a system, the learner is not limited to the slow and scanty results of his single unaided experience, but is at once invested with the accumulated treasures of all who have labored in the same before him."
Preparatory to going to the professorship of Chemistry in the University of North Carolina, and after resigning his tutorship at New Haven, Mr. Olmsted engaged in private studies in geology with Prof. Silliman. He found at his new post two of his old friends, Yale men like himself, occupying professorial chairs: Elisha Mitchell, his former classmate, that of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy, and Ethan A. Andrews that of Languages, and here he spent seven happy years.
In 1821 he laid before the Board of Internal Improvements of North Carolina a proposition to undertake a geological survey of the State, offering to perform the entire work himself gratuitously, but suggesting an appropriation of one hundred dollars to defray his necessary expenses in traveling, to be afterward renewed or not at the pleasure of the board. The proposition was declined by the Board of Internal Improvements, but the survey was afterward made under the direction of the State Board of Agriculture. To this board Prof. Olmsted addressed his report, which was published in two parts, in. 1824 and 1825, and filled in all about one hundred and forty octavo pages. The American Journal of Science observes of this survey that, regarded especially as the gratuitous vacation work of a single individual, and in view of the state of geological science in this country at the time, it "must certainly be looked upon as creditable in the highest degree both to the enterprise and to the scientific ability of its projector; and it has undoubtedly been of great benefit, not only to the State which authorized it, but to the country and to science generally, by the stimulus which it afforded to similar enterprises in other States." It was the first instance of one of the United States instituting a geological survey.
In the course of his work Prof. Olmsted gave the first geological description of the Deep River coal beds and of the new red sandstone accompanying, and referred the strata correctly to the same age with that of the Richmond coal beds and the Connecticut River sandstones.
Prof. Olmsted began researches to determine the practicability of obtaining illuminating gas from cotton seed, but removed to the North before he had secured definite results.
In 1825 Prof. Olmsted was appointed Professor of Mathematics and Natural Philosophy in Yale College. In 1836 this chair was divided at his request, and the professorship of Mathematics was assigned to A. D. H. Stanley. As a professor in Yale he performed an unbroken service of thirty-four years, till it was interrupted by his illness. His labors as a teacher during the last twenty years of his life consisted, as described by Dr. Woolsey in The New-Englander, "in teaching astronomy by a text-book, and in three courses of lectures—experimental ones on natural philosophy and optics, historical ones on the progress of astronomical discovery. and theoretical ones on meteorology. His colleagues and friends have regarded him as a born teacher, as possessing a most happy union of several powers—the capacity to convey instruction with clearness and evidence, the capacity to impress the pupil with the importance of the branches taught, the disposition to shrink from no labor necessary in preparing himself for teaching, and to require of the student that he master and reproduce the lessons conveyed to him. While many lecturers prepare their lectures once for all, and then cease to improve them, he was constantly revising, elaborating, and almost constructing anew the courses on astronomy and meteorology which he delivered annually to the three upper classes." These lectures were spoken of by Dr. Barnard, in his Journal of Education, as having been characterized "by fullness, clearness of method, and sometimes by eloquence. The course on meteorology was, perhaps, on the whole, the most attractive and useful."
Prof. Olmsted soon became sensible of the deficiency of the textbooks on which he had to rely in his department. Enfield's Philosophy was inaccurate and behind the state of science; and the work of Prof. Farrar, of Cambridge, was too extensive and too difficult. He undertook to prepare new books suitable for his classes. His Natural Philosophy appeared in 1831, and his School Philosophy in 1833. His Astronomy, first published in 1839, went through forty or fifty editions. An edition of it was printed in raised letters for the blind, it having been selected by Dr. Howe, according to Dr. Barnard, "for its clear, accurate, comprehensive presentation of the science of which it treats." The Rudiments of Natural Philosophy and Astronomy followed, in 18-42. The Letters on Astronomy was a work in more familiar style, cast in the form of letters to a lady, and prepared as a reading book for the school libraries established by the Massachusetts Board of Education.
The great meteoric shower of November, 1833, which was observed over a large part of the American continent and on the ocean, directed Prof. Olmsted's mind to a new and original field of investigation; and several papers upon it were published by him and Prof. A. C Twining, of West Point, in the American Journal of Science during 1834. The collation of the collected observations brought out the fact that the apparent point of radiation of the meteors was identical with that toward which the earth was tending in space—which indicated a cosmical origin. It was further found that several showers had been observed before within forty years, on the same day of November. In explanation of the phenomenon. Prof. Olmsted supposed, in an article published in the American Journal of Science, that the meteors "consisted of portions of the extreme parts of a nebulous body, which revolves around the sun in an orbit inferior to that of the earth; but little inclined to the plane of the ecliptic; having its aphelion near to the earth's path; and having a periodic time of one hundred and eighty-two days, nearly," Two of the principal features of this theory those of the cosmical origin of the meteors and their periodicity—are still maintained; but instead of one periodical shower, astronomers now count several; and instead of a single infraterrestrial nebulous body, they connect the several showers each with a particular comet. Priority in putting forth these conceptions was disputed by Chladni, whose claims, however, do not seem to have been so definitely established as those of Prof. Olmsted. Of course, the suggestion of the cosmical origin of meteors, as a suggestion, was never wholly new, for it had been made in general terms by other philosophers, from Anaxagoras down; but the credit is claimed for Prof. Olmsted of having first embodied it in a definite, coherent theory, accompanied with valid evidence; whether or how far Chladni may have anticipated him, his conclusions, as Prof. Silliman well says, were undoubtedly original with himself, and entirely independent of any results of preceding investigations. His work was, furthermore, spoken of in the most complimentary terms by the most distinguished foreign students in those lines of the day. Humboldt referred, in the first volume of his Cosmos, to the excellent description which Prof. Olmsted had given of the shower in November, 1833, and to his brilliant confirmation of Chladni's view that the phenomenon was of cosmical origin. Olbers praised him for his circumstantial description and collection of particulars of the shower, and agreed with him in the conclusion that it came from abroad. Biot, in a communication to the French Academy in 1836, spoke of his "very comprehensive and highly interesting work" in collecting and making known "all the circumstances of position, direction, and periodicity peculiar to the meteors of the 13th of November."
In his first memoir on the shooting stars. Prof. Olmsted suggested that the explanation of the cause of the meteors of November 13th might include that of the zodiacal light. He further published a well-matured thory of the nebulous body represented by the zodiacal light. Biot agreed with him in this view, and recognized his priority in the conception. Astronomy has not yet satisfied itself concerning the nature of this phenomenon. He also studied the aurora borealis, concerning which he contributed articles to the American Journal of Science in 1835 and 1837, and gave at length a theory of cosmical origin and secular period in the eighth volume of the Smithsonian Contributions to Knowledge.
He thus ascribed shooting stars, auroras, and the zodiacal light to substantially the same origin. These views, however, as Prof. Silliman observes, were mostly thrown out only as conjectures, and not as formal theories to be held and defended.
Previous to this. Prof. Olmsted had interested himself in meteorological studies. In 1830 he published in the American Journal of Science a new theory of hailstones, in which he ascribed the origin of those formations to the sudden mingling of large bodies of hot and humid air with air extremely cold, by which the vapor of the former would be rapidly condensed and congealed into hail. These effects, he assumed, would be produced whenever, by means of opposing winds, whirlwinds, or other atmospheric disturbances, hot air should be brought above the line of congelation or cold air brought below it.
He agreed with Redfield in supposing that ocean gales are progressive whirlwinds; and he believed that he had established their laws or modes of action on an impregnable basis. This view of storms as progressive whirlwinds still holds good as a generalization; but his further ascription of the ultimate causes of atmospheric disturbances to the diurnal and orbital motions of the earth has not found an accepted place in science. Prof. Olmsted had a close friendship and a warm sympathy with Mr. Redfield, with whose views respecting the rotatory motions of storms he agreed; and he read an affectionate memorial of him before the American Association, at Montreal, in 1857.
Prof. Olmsted and Prof. Loomis, who was then a tutor in the college, were the first persons of all observers to find Halley's comet on its return in 1835. One of the results of this observation was the awakening of an interest in procuring larger and improved telescopes. It did not bring immediate fruit, it is true. The project already conceived for the establishment of a permanent observatory at Cambridge, to which it gave a new impulse, was not yet to be made real. There were other circumstances, however, than want of interest in astronomy that kept such liberal schemes from being carried out—the country and the universities had not grown up to them, and the needed abundance of money had not yet come—but this was one of the incidents that kept the movement vital and sped it on. Prof. Olmsted also conceived a plan for the establishment of an observatory at Yale College, which should have two departments: one to aid in the instruction of students and the other for the use of scientific observers; but the time had not yet come for this. As another incident of his astronomical work. President Woolsey relates that "for a number of years, until his health forbade it and his eyesight began to fail, he was accustomed to gather his class around him on a bright autumn evening and introduce them to the heavenly bodies. In this way he endeavored to train up a corps of practical observers, whose labors, when they should be scattered abroad in this vast country, should not be lost to science."
In purely practical lines of enterprise he invented an excellent stove which bore his name, and the patent for which brought him considerable profit; and he devised a preparation of lead and rosin for lubricating machinery.
Of his qualities as a teacher Prof. Silliman mentions especially his uniform kindness and courtesy of demeanor and patience in imparting instruction; the excellent moral influence he always exerted, his consistent Christian example, his personal counsels, the genuine friendliness of his disposition, and the unaffected interest he always manifested in the welfare of his pupils. He was ever ready to encourage and assist any who exhibited special fondness for the studies of his department, and it always gave him pleasure when students passed beyond the bounds of ordinary attainment.
He labored to make knowledge more accessible to the people, and science comprehensible and interesting to them. Dr. Barnard, who describes him from the point of view of a teacher, says that he "availed himself at all times of the lyceum and the popular lecture, as well as of the daily press, to apply the principles of science to the explanation of extraordinary phenomena of meteorology and astronomy, as well as to the advancement of domestic comfort and popular improvement generally. In an essay read before the American Association for the Advancement of Education, at New York, in 1835, he showed, in a felicitous manner, that the whole tendency and drift of science, its inventions and institutions, is democratic,"
Besides the works already mentioned. Prof. Olmsted published many articles of a scientific or literary character in the leading periodicals of the day—contributing thus to the American Journal of Science, The Transactions of the American Association, The Smithsonian Contributions, The Christian Spectator, and The New-Englander. He was especially fond of biographical composition, and his memoirs of Dr. Dwight, Sir Humphry Davy, Governor Treadwell, Eli Whitney, and William C. Redfield are mentioned by Prof. Silliman as favorable examples.