HUBERT ANSON NEWTON. 269 



In 1855, he was appointed professor of mathematics at the early 

 age of twenty-five. This appointment testifies to the confidence 

 which was felt in his abilities, and is almost the only instance in 

 which the Yale Corporation has conferred the dignity of a full 

 professorship on so young a man. 



This appointment being accompanied with a leave of absence for a 

 year, in order to give him the opportunity to study in Europe, it was 

 but natural that he should be attracted to Paris, where Chasles was 

 expounding at the Sorbonne that modern higher geometry of which 

 he was to so large an extent the creator, and which appeals so 

 strongly to the sense of the beautiful. And it was inevitable that 

 the student should be profoundly impressed by the genius of his 

 teacher and by the fruitfulness and elegance of the methods which he 

 was introducing. The effect of this year's study under the inspiring 

 influence of such a master is seen in several contributions to the 

 Mathematical Monthly during its brief existence in the years 1858-61. 

 One of these was a problem which attracted at once the attention 

 of Cayley, who sent a solution. Another was a discussion of the 

 problem " to draw a circle tangent to three given circles," remarkable 

 for his use of the principle of inversion. A third was a very 

 elaborate memoir on the construction of curves by the straight edge 

 and compasses, and by the straight edge alone. These early essays in 

 geometry show a mind thoroughly imbued with the spirit of modern 

 geometry, skilful in the use of its methods, and eager to extend the 

 bounds of our knowledge. 



Nevertheless, although for many years the higher geometry was 

 with him a favorite subject of instruction for his more advanced 

 students, either his own preferences, or perhaps rather the influence 

 of his environment, was destined to lead him into a very different 

 field of research. In the attention which has been paid to astronomy 

 in this country we may recognize the history of the world repeating 

 itself in a new country in respect to the order of the development of 

 the sciences, or it may be enough to say that the questions which 

 nature forces on us are likely to get more attention in a new country 

 and a bustling age, than those which a reflective mind puts to itself, 

 and that the love of abstract truth which prompts to the construction 

 of a system of doctrine, and the refined taste which is a critic of 

 methods of demonstration, are matters of slow growth. At all events, 

 when Professor Newton was entering upon his professorship, the 

 study of the higher geometry was less consonant with the spirit of 

 the age in this country than the pursuit of astronomical knowledge, 

 and the latter sphere of activity soon engrossed his best efforts. 



Yet it was not in any of the beaten paths of astronomers that 

 Professor Newton was to move. It was rather in the wilds of a 



