SAMUEL JAMES MELTZER 



By William H. Howell 



Samuel James Meltzer was born of Jewish parents on March 22, 1851, at Ponewjesh, in 

 Curland, northwestern Russia. His parents were poor but belonged to the intellectual class. 

 His father was a teacher, with an intense devotion to his religious faith. He undertook the 

 early education of his son, but, as might be expected, the training was limited almost entirely to 

 a study of Hebrew theological literature. The boy displayed early an eager desire for learning 

 of all kinds, against his father's wishes and commands, with the result that the two came into 

 conflict, the father attempting to limit his son's interests solely to those studies which would 

 prepare bim for the career of a rabbi, while the boy borrowed books from neighbors and friends 

 which he was compelled to read in secret under the fear of punishment if discovered. There 

 was constant friction between them and frequent occasions for the exercise of rigid discipline. 

 After one severe punishment following upon this kind of disobedience the boy declared his 

 freedom by leaving home and walking many miles to the house of an aunt in a distant village. 

 Owing to the intercessions of his mother, who sympathized warmly with her son's love of learn- 

 ng, he was permitted to remain with his aunt for a while and subsequently was sent to a neigh- 

 boring town where he lived in the temple, was taught by the rabbis, and got his meals from 

 various families in the village. He was a scholar of such ability as to attract the general atten- 

 tion of the community, and it is recorded in the family traditions that at the early age of 16 he 

 had learned all that the rabbis could impart to him. The learned men of the community came 

 to him for help in the interpretation of difficult passages in the Talmud. 



At the age of 20, according to the custom of his people, a marriage was arranged for him 

 with Olga T. Levitt, the daughter of a well-to-do merchant. The bride was only 16 years old. 

 She was his devoted wife until the day of his death, during the periods of storm and stress when 

 he was strugghng hard to get his start in life, and during that longer period when he had attained 

 to eminence and enjoyed the comforts and luxuries of life. After his marriage young Meltzer 

 announced his fixed determination not to enter the ministry, a decision that caused both anger 

 and sorrow to his father. He betook himself to Konigsberg and with the help of his wife's dowry 

 essayed to become a business man. The business that he selected was the manufacture of soaps. 

 But at the same time he seized the opportunity to enroll in the Real Gymnasium. The result 

 was what might have been expected. The work of the gymnasium interested him, he gave more 

 time and thought to his books than he did to his business, and the latter therefore was not a 

 success. At the end of the year he recognized that business was not his calling. His greatest 

 interest at that time and for some years was in philosophy, but he realized that along that path it 

 might be difficult to earn a living for his family, so he decided to begin the study of medicine. 

 His wife and children returned to her father's house, while he proceeded to Berlin and entered 

 the university in the fall of 1876. He was a student of medicine for five years. The tentamen 

 physicum was absolved in the spring of 1879 and the examen rigorosum in June, 1881. They 

 were very lean years for him from a financial point of view. He was in fact desperately poor. 

 He lived with a humble family in an attic room, spending as little as possible of his meager 

 income on food and raiment, and as much as he could spare in payment for his medical courses 

 at the university. 



His love of philosophy was still strong within him, and one of the stories he told of this period 

 was that he surreptitiously attended Professor Steinthal's lectures in this subject, sitting far 

 back in the room for fear that he would be discovered as an interloper and turned out. But on 

 one occasion, during a heated discussion of the meaning of a certain passage in Kant's Critique, 

 his interest got the better of his fears and he suggested that if a certain comma was transposed 

 the meaning would be made clear. This suggestion aroused the interest of the professor. He 

 asked the young man to remain after the lecture, and as a result of the conference that ensued 



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