SAMUEL PIERPOx\T LANGLKV. 



23 



tat ion — at home and abroad — seemed butchered to make an Amer- 

 ican hohday. At his years, for he was then nearly seventy, aU this, 

 despite his optimism, deeply affected him. 



And here should be considered for a moment the lack of means to 

 which he referred in one of his statements. It was a lack of means 

 from the source from which he thought he was entitled to obtain 

 them. An absolute lack of means there was not. Private indi- 

 viduals offered him the means to continue his work. Several years 

 before this he had been offered a considerable sun,i for this work if 

 he would but place it upon some commercial basis, and take out pat- 

 ents on such portions of the machinery as were patentable, in order 

 that commercial reward might come to the persons furnishing the 

 money ; but he steadfastly refused either to secure a patent or to 

 accept money from private persons as a matter of business. He de- 

 clared that his work was solely in the interest of the nation, and if 

 the nation was not prepared to support it, he was not willing to pro- 

 ceed with it. 



Xo one can deny that the stand he thus took was honorable to 

 him — as honorable as was the similar stand taken by his great prede- 

 cessor. Doctor Henry, regarding his discoveries -and inventions in 

 electro-magnetism, which, had they been patented, would have 

 brought him wealth. 



Interesting is it that a verdict was rendered upon these later ex- 

 periments by a body of thoughtful and practical students in aero- 

 dynamics, who. after a series of meetings in the city of New York, 

 adopted resolutions expressing their high estimation of Doctor 

 Langley's contributions to the science of aerial locomotion and of 

 his successful efforts in solving some of the most difficult problems 

 involved ; and it is consoling to know that this, the last official paper 

 laid before him. gave him comfort upon his death-bed. We may 

 well rejoice that in his last hours he received this testimony of 

 confidence from a most competent source as to his theoretical suc- 

 cess, and as to possibilities and even probabilities of ultimate prac- 

 tical success. 



It remains now to make brief allusion to some of his personal 

 characteristics — ^to his daily life as the world saw it. 



It cannot be claimed that among the great body of younger men 

 devoted to science he ever aroused any such general affection as they 

 had bestowed upon his immediate predecessor. Respected Langley 

 ^vas— universally and widely ; popular, in the usual sense of the word, 

 he was not. Yet there were not a few among his compeers who not 

 onlv revered, but loved him. As regarded the world at large, even 



