SKETCH OF PROFESSOR S. P. LANGLEY. 401 

 SKETCH OF PROFESSOR S. P. LANGLEY. 



By EDWAKD S. HOLDEN. 



I HAVE been asked to write a sketch of the life of Professor 

 Langley, to accompany his portrait in this number of " The Popu- 

 lar Science Monthly." 



Something of the life of every scholar and of every public man 

 belongs to his audience ; while most of that personality which endears 

 him to his friends is their private possession, not to be set forth, 

 except within narrow limits. 



Professor Langley was born at Roxbury (now Boston), August 

 22, 1834. Like many another Boston boy, he was sent to the Boston 

 Latin School, where Latin and Greek and little else was taught. 



Latin and Greek was reputed to be the sum and end of learning, 

 and Harvard College seemed to show dim perspectives of more Latin 

 and Greek. It was no wonder that young Langley, whose genius lay 

 in quite another direction, should look about him, after his graduation 

 from the school, to see if there were not some practicable way in which 

 he could pursue those mechanical and astronomical studies that already 

 had fascinated him. He had little inclination to enter college, and the 

 openings in astronomy proper were very rare in those years, even 

 rarer than now. Since he was ten years old, he had been reading and 

 studying astronomy, making small telescopes, using these and others, 

 with various success, but always with ardor. The practical question 

 of how to shape his life was one that had to be solved, and a variety 

 of causes led to his determination not to go to college, but to become 

 a civil engineer. Here at least was a profession whose basis was 

 mathematical, and in which mechanical tastes and acquirements would 

 have scope. So the practice of engineering was begun ; special cir- 

 cumstances forced him into architecture, and for some years this was 

 his pursuit. These were dull years, mostly spent in the West, where 

 at that time there were few opportunities to display any real ability in 

 this special calling. 



There is little doubt but that the long and dreary hours spent over 

 the drawing-table were an admirable though tedious preparation for 

 the series of astronomical delineations which have been of so solid a 

 use to science. But, finally, in the lack of real opportunities, archi- 

 tecture ceased to be a profession, and became a business, a means to 

 live simply. 



In 1864 Langley felt the need of some marked change in his life, 

 and he spent the greater part of the years 1864 and 1865 in Europe. 



In 1865 he returned to America, then thirty years old, and found 

 himself entirely free, for the first time in his life, to follow his own 

 inclinations. So, at thirty, instead of twenty, we find him as one of 

 vol. xxvii. 26 



