The Education of an Astronomical Maverick: T. J. J. See and the University of Missouri

Ashbrook Joseph , “The sage of Mare Island”, Sky and telescope, xxiv (1962), 193 and 202. See also Peterson Charles J. , “A very brief biography and popular account of the unparalleled T. J. J. See”, Griffith observer, liv/7 (July 1900), 2–12. The most recent general discussion of See's career is that of Sheehan William , “The tragic case of T. J. J. See”, Mercury, xxxi/6 (November/December 2002), 34–39. See's own view was presented in Webb William L. , A brief biography and popular account of the unparalleled discoveries of T. J. J. See (Lynn, Mass., 1913).

See Hoyt William G. , Lowell and Mars (Tucson, 1976), 120–4, regarding See's career at the Lowell Observatory.

See's position with the Navy was a lifetime appointment. See Peterson Charles J. , “The United States Navy Corps of Professors of Mathematics”, Griffith observer, liv/2 (February 1990), 2–11.

The Merz & Sohne refractor constructed in Munich in 1848 was described by Merz S. , “Einige Vergesserungen in der parallactischen Aufstellung”, Astronomische Nachrichten, xxx (1850), cols 301–2. See also the pamphlet by the author, The Shelby Refractor (Columbia, Mo., 1989).

According to Updegraff , only the chronograph and a sidereal break-circuit chronometer were of good quality. Although the other instruments were of “inferior quality”, they nevertheless provided a complete set of equipment. See Updegraff M. , “Determinations of the latitude, longitude and height above sea level of the Laws Observatory of the University of the State of Missouri, containing a description of the building and principal instruments”, Transactions of the Academy of Science of St. Louis, vi (1894), 479–517.

See Stephens Frank F. , A history of the University of Missouri (Columbia, Miss., 1962), and Viles Jonas , The University of Missouri: A centennial history 1839–1939 (Columbia, Mo., 1939), for discussions of Laws and his tenure at the University.

Laws's stock market ticker holds patent number 72,742. Josephson Matthew , Edison: A biography (New York, 1959), 73–75, writes that a transmitted signal was sent to the company's three hundred subscribers to operate a dial mechanism to show the current price. Edison Thomas was present on a day in June 1869 when the transmitting device failed and chaos ensued in the company office. Edison described Laws as “the most excited person I have ever seen”. Edison was able to deduce the cause of the instrument's failure and repair it, thus was subsequently employed by Laws to maintain and improve the equipment. According to Baldwin Neil , Edison: Inventing the century (New York, 1995), 88, Edison made the receivers at a cost of $500; Laws sold them for $150,000. Shortly thereafter, Laws chose not to compete with, but to sell out to the monopolistic Western Union. He retired with a fortune.

Viles , op. cit. (ref. 6), 174. A claim for the funds owed to Laws was to have been presented to the State Legislature in 1901, but I cannot locate any evidence for this (the state capitol building burned in 1912 with the destruction of many records). Two decades later, Laws bequeathed this claim to the University of Missouri, but no effort appears to have been made to secure the funds. It is likely that had Laws chosen to wait for approval of funds by the Board of Curators or an appropriation from the State Legislature in 1880, the Merz telescope would never had been acquired by the University. The present University observatory is known as Laws Observatory, though this name has never been legally sanctioned by the Board of Curators.

University of Missouri Grade Reports, University of Missouri Archives.

Ficklin Joseph (1833–87) was primarily a mathematician and author of a number of mathematical textbooks. He taught the astronomy courses at the University.

See T. J. J. , “Report of the determination of the latitude of the Laws Observatory, University of the State of Missouri, Columbia, Mo., made by T. J. J. See, Class, ‘89, by Reamur's Method, June 16–August 14, 1887, resulting in F = 38°56'51.8’”. Typed manuscript in the Laws Observatory Papers 1889–1954, Joint Collection of the University of Missouri, Western Historical Manuscript Collection-Columbia, and the State Historical Society of Missouri Manuscripts.

The Laws Astronomical Medal as described in the University Catalog was “offered annually at Commencement to the student who stands highest in Astronomy, and has at the same time attained a high average of general scholarship. An original thesis written on some astronomical subject, and showing capacity for scientific investigation, is required”. In addition, the Minutes of the Board of Curators, Joint Collection, for 2 June 1880, specified a supplementary written thesis “vindicating the motto ‘The Heavens declare the glory of God’”. Both works had to be original, and both in the handwriting of the applicant “shall be preserved in the archives of the observatory and when practicable published for its benefit”. By the time See wrote his thesis, a third part, an historical outline of astronomy, was also required. Before its endowment fund was supposed to have been exhausted, the medal was awarded to only ten students, among them Shapley Harlow (1911) who went on to become a leading figure in American astronomy in the first half of the twentieth century. Neither See's thesis on “The origin of binary stars” nor any other student paper written for the astronomical medal is to be found in the Archives or Joint Collection at the University of Missouri.

Warren Browne Papers, Joint Collection. In notes made 21 June 1947 while visiting and interviewing See at Vallejo , California, Browne Warren recorded that See directly attributed his life work to the influence and teaching of Smith. See's devotion to Smith also is illustrated by an attempt to influence the administration of the University in 1900 in a letter to Curator Walter Williams, 24 September 1900, Board of Curators Papers, Joint Collection. Among other things, See demanded that Smith be recalled to the Chair of Mathematical Physics, be named Dean of the Graduate School, and be given the editorship of a University journal in which the scholastic accomplishments of the faculty could be published. Smith, “a man of wide learning and great sympathy with all legitimate studies”, was considered pre-eminently qualified for these tasks.

Browne Warren , Titan vs. taboo: The life of William Benjamin Smith (Tucson, Arizona, 1961), p. ix.

Keyser C. J. , “William Benjamin Smith”, Scripta mathematica, ii (1934), 305–11, pp. 307–8.

Browne , op. cit. (ref. 14), 49–50.

Browne , op. cit. (ref. 14), 51–52.

Beauchamp James “Champ” Clark (1850–1921) was a member of the state House of Representatives at the time of the investigation of the University of Missouri. He later went to Congress, serving as Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives from 1911 to 1919. He lost the 1912 Democratic Convention presidential nomination to Woodrow Wilson on the 46th ballot.

Browne , op. cit. (ref. 14), 52–54. Smith's participation in the political manoeuvering to oust Laws is likely understated. It is probable that Smith was directly involved in convincing his legislative friend Clark to initiate an investigation whose conclusion was predetermined.

This view is stated explicitly by Webb , op. cit. (ref. 1), 30–31: “the comprehensive study of the classics [is] the best educational basis for a profound knowledge of science.”

Webb , op. cit. (ref. 1), 28.

This included student activity in the Greek letter “secret societies” which were “hotbeds of ninetenths of the devilment concocted in the institution”, according to Godwin W. M. , a school official of County Henry who had visited the Columbia campus, in a letter to Champ Clark dated 1 April 1889. This letter accuses See of heading one such society (there were six societies including Phi Delta Theta of which See was a member; these societies had gone underground when Laws banned them on grounds they disturbed the loyalty of students to the literary societies which he wished to encourage). The “devilment” no doubt included the posting of handbills, so-called “boguses”, which made various accusations against Laws as well as against other members of the University (none of these has been preserved in University records). In a letter of 5 April 1889 from Defoe Luther M. to Clark Champ , however, DeFoe wrote that “See could not have had anything to do with those of late years for he was violently attacked by nearly everyone”. Champ Clark Papers, Joint Collection.

Viles , op. cit. (ref. 6), 196. Defoe Luther M. graduated as Principal of Pedagogy in 1886, staying on to continue his education. He joined the University of Missouri faculty in 1891 as an Assistant Professor of Mathematics, later becoming a Professor of Mechanical Engineering. He remained on the faculty as a highly popular teacher until his death.

Laws's philosophy in making new appointments was that all the leading Protestant churches had to be represented on the faculty, thus keeping the University both Christian, but non-sectarian (see Viles , op. cit. (ref. 6), 197). This attitude seems to have been accepted by the faculty and the Board of Curators, but it meant that in some cases church membership was the overriding factor in the appointment of new faculty members. In the case that affected the student See, it was Professor of Physics Thomas Benjamin F. who had submitted his letter of resignation to the Board of Curators in 1885 giving as reason inadequate equipment and “causes over which you have no control”. The Board responded by writing him a letter of appreciation for his excellent work for the previous five years (he had introduced to the University new ideas concerning laboratory physics), but Laws engaged in a “vindictive dispute” with Thomas over what appears to have been a triviality concerning a tuning fork that Thomas had taken with him.

Viles , op. cit. (ref. 6), 196–7. Among the radical ideas held by See and his close associates were that (a) students should have the right to operate, independently, their own student newspaper (President Laws had been instrumental a few years earlier in suppression of the student Missourian when it criticized his administration; The University Argus in which See participated was founded in 1887 to give the students a means of expressing their views); (b) students should have the right of petition of grievances to the Board of Curators (this right was specifically prohibited to the students); (c) students should be able to evaluate professors (repeated faculty testimony in the hearings conducted by the investigative committee of the state legislature shows agreement with the idea that the student body taken as a whole was a good judge of the competency of the teaching and intellectual ability of professors); (d) the powers of the University President should be limited; (e) individual professors should have freedom of action; (f) the Preparatory School should be eliminated; and (g) specialized majors should exist, rather than only a general college education leading to a degree in the arts, letters, or science. It is interesting to note that many of See's “radical” views have since come into existence (as, for example, the concept of specialized majors and the elimination of the Preparatory School which was accomplished in 1895), but in the late 1880s (and even years later) See was considered an extremist on campus. It should be noted, however, that See was the author (The University Argus, iv (1888), 94) of a resolution against students creating disorder, “that whilst we deny the right of the faculty to dictate what attitude students shall assume during [religious] services, as attendance is compulsory, that it is the right and duty of the faculty to preserve order”.

The seriousness of the student position may be indicated by the fact that in Viles's Jonas 1939 centennial history of the University, the only student activities mentioned are those that occurred during the Laws administration. See and Defoe are also the only students mentioned by name in this volume.

Webb , op. cit. (ref. 1), 38. This biographical statement, however, contrasts with Defoe's aforementioned letter of 5 April 1899 to Clark Champ . Defoe stated: “I have opposed Dr. Laws during the last two years. Last year Mr. See and I did not agree on that question and it was not until this year that he (See) made any pronounced opposition to the Dr.” Whatever See's role in the student opposition, Defoe states that See “was violently attacked by nearly everyone”. Webb himself elsewhere notes in his book (p. 275) that See was “sometimes misunderstood among his associates” though this is attributed to the actions of “envious individuals of inferior genius”.

Purinton George D. to Harper William R. , 8 September 1892, Archives of the University of Chicago Library.

Lankford John , “The anatomy of a deviant scientific career: Thomas Jefferson Jackson See (1866–1962)”, presentation at the 4S Meeting (1980), Toronto, Ontario. An analysis of the thesis shows it is primarily a discussion of the work of Darwin George Sir , with no extension of the discussion beyond what Darwin had already done. The printed version of the thesis contains the following footnote on page 14: “These Theorems are original with the writer; after he had discovered and proved them by analysis, as above, he received, just from the press, the XXIII volume of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, in which a proposition of like import to Theorem I is stated by Prof. Darwin, as well as several other points which had occurred to the writer independently. He had previously met only notices of Prof. Darwin's work. The writer then, however, made a review of Prof. Darwin's masterly article, and the same is hereby acknowledged.”

Smith William B. to Harper William R. , 24 March 1892, Archives of the University of Chicago. Smith wrote that See “broached the idea of applying Darwin's theory of tidal evolution of the Lunar-Terrestrial System to the Binary Stars in explanation of the high eccentricities of their orbits. I recognized instantly the importance of the suggestion …”.

Lankford , op. cit. (ref. 29).