516 SAMUEL PIERPONT LANGLEY. 



tion was of the type then prevalent, and nuich of his time Avas devoted 

 to Latin grammar. On the moral side, the two strongest impressions 

 which he recollected of this period were being tanght, a horror of 

 debt and, through it, a sense of dut3% and these two traits were firmly 

 present to the last. 



Yet another fact taken from these very interestingly written pages 

 shoAvs that his father, himself a wholesale merchant in Boston, pos- 

 sessed a telescope with whicli the small boy watched the building of 

 Bunker Hill monument. 



As a child he Avas an omnivorous reader, had a reflective mind, an 

 interest in art and in foreign lands, and a very strong bent toward 

 mathematics, all of Avhich grcAv to importance in later life. Not 

 being sent to college his choice of a profession fell upon civil engi- 

 neering and architecture, which Avere primarily chosen because they 

 Avould afford a liA^elihoocl and at the same time keep him near to 

 seA^eral of the studies that interested him most. 



In 1857 he Avent to the West, and spent the next scA'en years mainly 

 in Chicago and St. Louis, engaged in the practice of his profession 

 and in business, acquiring a mercantile training and skill as a drafts- 

 man Avliich Avere of high importance in his later scientific and adniin- 

 istratiA'e career. 



Li 1864 he definitely abandoned his profession and returned to 

 NeAV England, spending some time Avith his brother, John Williams 

 Langley, in building a telescope, and the brothers afterAvards had a 

 year or more of European travel, Adsiting art galleries and observa- 

 tories, and indeed all scientific institutions. This European journey 

 had another notable influence in familiarizing him Avith the conti- 

 nental languages, especially French, in which he acquired great 

 ]3roficiency. 



LTpon his return to Boston the then director of the Harvard Col- 

 lege obserA^atory, Prof. Joseph Winlock, iuAdted him to become an 

 assistant in that observatory; and so at the age of 30 Avithout any 

 previous preparation, but with an accurately trained eye and hand 

 and experience in observation, both in his native country and in 

 Europe, at that time by no means usual, he Avas enabled to realize 

 the dream of his early life and dcA^ote himself to scientific j^ursuits 

 in that department Avhich had most strongly interested him. 



His work Avith Professor Winlock Avas of brief duration, though 

 CA^en after leaving Cambridge he continued the association with him 

 for some time. The attachment formed then Avas a strong one, and 

 he bore in grateful remembrance the man who had given him his 

 first opportunity to realize his early ambitions. In after years, when 

 he came to Washington, he chose as one of his principal assistants 

 here a son of Joseph Winlock, William Crawford Winlock, also an 

 astronomer and for a number of years the secretary of this society. 



