2 SIMON NEWCOMB— CAMPBELL. [MEM0I fvoL. T xvn: 



you were not quite 10 years old * * *. Almost as soon as I was done you said, 'Father, I 

 think you were wrong in one thing.' " 



John Newcomb wrote further to his son, "You were an uncommon child for truth. I 

 never knew you to deviate from it in one instance. * * * You were uncommonly deficient 

 in that sort of courage necessary to perform bodily labor. Until 9 or 10 years of age you made 

 a most pitiful attempt at any sort of bodily or 'handy' work." To understand the local point 

 of view as to manual labor, we should note that the great majority of Newcomb's neighbors 

 were poor. The men and boys worked long hours, tilling the ground, and cutting lumber, 

 wood, and stone for export. The women and girls sheared the sheep, spun the yarn, wove the 

 homespun cloth, and made the clothes. 



The father's letter to the son continues: 



I now often impressed upon you the necessity of bodily labor, that you might attain a strong and healthy physical 

 system, so as to be able to stand long hours of study when you came to manhood, for it was evident to me that you 

 would not labor with the hands for a business. On this account, as much as on account of poverty, I hired you out for 

 a large portion of the three years that we lived in Clements. 



At 15 you studied Euclid and were enraptured with it. It is a little singular that all this time you never showed 

 any self-esteem, or spoke of getting into employment at some future day, among the learned. The pleasure of intel- 

 lectual exercise in demonstrating or analyzing a geometrical problem, or solving an algebraic equation, seemed to be 

 your only object. * * * 



Your almost intuitive knowledge of geography, navigation, and nautical matters in general caused me to think 

 most ardently of writing to the admiral at Halifax to know if he would give you a place among the midshipmen of the 

 Navy; * * *. 



Simon's studies in algebra, in Euclid, and in navigation (from books found in his grand- 

 father's house) were pursued eagerly and without the advice of an instructor. Newcomb says 

 of his studies in geometry : " A new world of thought seemed to be opened. That principles so 

 profound should be reached by methods so simple was astonishing. I was so enraptured that 

 I explained to my brother Thomas, while walking out of doors one day, how the Pythagorean 

 proposition, as it is now called, could be proved from first principles, drawing the necessary 

 diagrams with a pencil on a piece of wood." 



At the age of 16 it was necessary for Simon to think of earning a livelihood and to decide 

 upon a trade or profession. He has written of his problem: "The skill required on a farm was 

 above my reach, where efficiency in driving oxen was one of the most valued of accomplishments. 

 I keenly felt my inability to acquire even respectable mediocrity in this branch of the agricul- 

 tural profession. * * * I had indeed gradually formed, from reading, a vague conception 

 of a different world — a world of light — where dwelt men who wrote books, and people who 

 knew men who wrote books, where lived boys who went to college and devoted themselves to 

 learning, instead of driving oxen. I longed much to get into this world, but no possibility for 

 doing so presented itself. I had no idea that it would be imbued with sympathy for a boy 

 outside of it who wanted to learn." 



Circumstances now led Simon to apprentice himself to a physician of Moncton, New Bruns- 

 wick, who had the reputation of effecting wonderful cures. The contract was to terminate 

 when Simon should reach the age of 21, at which date he was to be a practicing physician. 

 Simon soon found that he was dealing with a dishonest quack who made the apprentice his 

 drudge and gave nothing in recompense. After long consideration, he cut the knot by " running 

 away," on September 13, 1853. Walking more than 50 miles from before daylight till late 

 at night, and more than 30 miles the following day, he arrived in St. John on the evening that 

 the beginning of work on the first railway in New Brunswick was being celebrated. Another 

 week of struggle with the question of a bed by night and a loaf of bread by day brought him 

 across the international boundary line to the village of Calais, in Maine. Here he contracted 

 with the captain of a small sailing vessel for the passage to Salem, 15 miles north of Boston, 

 for all the money Simon had — one or two dollars — and his help on the voyage. The short 

 trip consumed about three weeks. At Salem he was met by his father, who, after the death 

 of Simon's mother at the early age of 37, had sought his fortune in "The States." The father 

 had decided, for some reason, to locate in the eastern part of Maryland; and here, at the begin- 



