Sarah Bolton - Famous Men of Science

Garfield said, "No page of human history is so instructive and significant as the record of those early influences which develop the character and direct the lives of eminent men."

These sketches show how young men have overcome difficulties, sometimes poverty, sometimes illness; how they have made failures before finding their true vocation. They show the results of energy, perseverance, and untiring devotion; how a cheerful face and a hopeful spirit like Agassiz's, or a gentle and kindly nature like Darwin's, can win its way against opposition.

A sketch of Benjamin Franklin, which otherwise would have a place in this volume, will be found in "Famous American Statesmen"; also one of Michael Faraday, in "Poor Boys Who Became Famous."

"The same memorable day is marked by the setting of one of the most brilliant stars in the firmament of art and the rising of another in the sphere of science, which was to enlighten the world with beams of equal splendor. On the 18th of February, 1564, Michael Angelo Buonarotti closed his eyes at Rome, and Galileo Galilei first saw the light at Pisa."

Thus writes young Karl von Gebler, in the best life of Galileo ever written, his dying contribution to literature. Some other authorities place Galileo's birth on February 15.

He was the oldest in a family of five children born to Vincenzo Galilei, a Florentine noble, and Giulia Ammanati, who also belonged to an ancient family. Vincenzo wrote learnedly about music, and taught his boy to play on the lute and the organ; but he was poor and life was a struggle. However beneficial poverty may be in the development of character, most of us do not crave it for our children, so Vincenzo decided to place his son where he could earn a comfortable support. Music did not bring money. Galileo therefore should become a dealer in cloth; a necessity of life, rather than a luxury.

But the boy soon showed great skill in music, surpassing his father. He excelled in drawing and color, and could have become a noted artist. He loved poetry, and had a decided taste for mechanics, making machines of great ingenuity. It soon became evident that such a lad would not be satisfied to spend his life trading in wool.

He must be educated, but how? The family had moved from Pisa, where there were schools of repute, to Florence. An effort had to be made, by the greatest economy, to prepare Galileo to go back to the Pisan University. He showed great aptitude for Latin and Greek, and at seventeen was ready for Pisa.

For what profession should he study? Not what best suited his tastes, but that in which his father thought he could make money, medicine. Poor Vincenzo! who can blame him that he hated poverty for his brilliant son?

At college, Galileo became an ardent student of philosophy, and because he dared to think for himself, and did not always agree with the teachings of Aristotle, he was called "the wrangler." Until he was twenty he was scarcely acquainted with the rudiments of mathematics, because his father thought this study was a waste of time for a man who was to become a physician. How many parents make the mistake of bending their children to their own plans, instead of ascertaining what a boy or girl can do best in the world, and then fitting him or her for it!

While Galileo was studying medicine in Pisa, boarding with a relative, the court of Tuscany came to the city for a few months. Among the suite was Ostilio Ricci, a distinguished mathematician, and Governor of the Pages of the Grand Ducal Court. He was a friend of the Galilei family, and was pleased to see the bright young son, Galileo. When he taught Euclid, the medical student would stand shyly at the schoolroom door, and listen with intense interest. Soon he began to study mathematics secretly; then begged Ricci to teach him, who gladly consented, till the father forbade it, seeing that Euclid interfered with medicine.

Meantime, the youth of nineteen, kneeling at prayers in the Pisa Cathedral, had dreamily watched a bronze lamp swinging from an arch. The oscillations were at first considerable, but as they grew less and less, Galileo observed that they were all performed in the same time, measuring the time by feeling his pulse. The idea occurred to him that an instrument could be constructed which should mark the rate and variation of the pulse. He began to experiment, and soon invented the pulselogia, which the physicians hailed with great delight. The pendulum was not applied to clocks till a half-century later, but its invention attracted the attention of all scholars.

After four years' residence at Pisa, Vincenzo Galilei appealed to the reigning Grand Duke, Ferdinand de Medici, to grant to his son one of the forty free places founded for poor students, but the request was denied, and Galileo, unable to pay for his doctor's degree, was obliged to leave the university without it. Already he had learned bitter lessons of privation and disappointment, but youth has a brave heart, and looks ever toward the sunlight.

He went back to his home in Florence to study the works of Archimedes, whom he called his "master," to write his first essay on his Hydrostatic Balance, and to earn the reputation of a bold inquirer in geometrical and mechanical speculations. The father had now given up all hope of a fortune coming through medicine! Henceforward, the genius which was to shed lustre on his own name, otherwise buried in obscurity, was to have its own bent, and work out its own destiny.

If we are in earnest, a door opens sooner or later; but our own hands usually open it. At twenty-four a door opened to Galileo. Marquis Guidubaldo, a celebrated mathematician, appreciating what the young scientist had done, began a correspondence with him, and a valuable friendship resulted. The marquis asked him to study the position of the centre of gravity in solid bodies. Galileo applied himself to it, and wrote a valuable essay, which waited fifty years for publication. Perhaps no person can be really great who has not learned patience, and Galileo had many lessons in this virtue before he died.

Through the influence of the marquis, he was brought to the notice of Ferdinand I., reigning Grand Duke, who appointed him to the mathematical professorship at Pisa. This was a great honor for a young man of twenty-six, one who had been too poor to take his degree. The salary was small, less than a hundred dollars a year; but he earned somewhat by the practice of medicine, by lectures on Dante and other literary subjects, and by lessons to private pupils. Of course, he had little or no leisure; but he thus learned one of the most valuable lessons of life, – to treasure time as though it were gold. How glad his father and mother must have been that their wool projects had come to naught!

The professors at Pisa, with a single exception, Jacopo Mazzoni, in the chair of philosophy, were opposed to the new-comer. They were all disciples of Aristotle, and had not Galileo, when a boy among them, dared to oppose the great Grecian? And now, to make matters worse, he had taken some friends to the top of the Leaning Tower, and had put to the test the belief of two thousand years, – that the rate at which a body falls depends upon its weight. When the different weights fell to the pavement at the foot of the Leaning Tower, at the same time, the learned were astonished. If Aristotle could be wrong in one thing, he might in others, and this young man would revolutionize the teaching of the times!

The feeling became so strong against the investigator that after three years at Pisa he resigned. When will the world learn toleration for those whose opinions are different from the popular thought? From Galileo to Darwin we have persecuted the men and women whose views were unlike our own in theology, in science, or in social matters.