Maria Mitchell: Life, Letters, and Journals. Maria Mitchell

Maria Mitchell and her numerous brothers and sisters were passed in simplicity and with an entire absence of anything exciting or abnormal.

      The education of their children is enjoined upon the parents by the "Discipline," and in those days at least the parents did not give up all the responsibility in that line to the teachers. In Maria Mitchell's childhood the children of a family sat around the table in the evenings and studied their lessons for the next day—the parents or the older children assisting the younger if the lessons were too difficult. The children attended school five days in the week—six hours in the day—and their only vacation was four weeks in the summer, generally in August.

      The idea that children over-studied and injured their health was never promulgated in that family, nor indeed in that community; it seems to be a notion of the present half-century.

      Maria's first teacher was a lady for whom she always felt the warmest affection, and in her diary, written in her later years, occurs this allusion to her:

      "I count in my life, outside of family relatives, three aids given me on my journey; they are prominent to me: the woman who first made the study-book charming; the man who sent me the first hundred dollars I ever saw, to buy books with; and another noble woman, through whose efforts I became the owner of a telescope; and of these, the first was the greatest."

      As a little girl, Maria was not a brilliant scholar; she was shy and slow; but later, under her father's tuition, she developed very rapidly.

      After the close of the war of 1812, when business was resumed and the town restored to its normal prosperity, Mr. Mitchell taught school—at first as master of a public school, and afterwards in a private school of his own. Maria attended both of these schools.

      Mr. Mitchell's pupils speak of him as a most inspiring teacher, and he always spoke of his experiences in that capacity as very happy.

      When her father gave up teaching, Maria was put under the instruction of Mr. Cyrus Peirce, afterwards principal of the first normal school started in the United States.

      Mr. Peirce took a great interest in Maria, especially in developing her taste for mathematical study, for which she early showed a remarkable talent.

      The books which she studied at the age of seventeen, as we know by the date of the notes, were Bridge's "Conic Sections," Hutton's "Mathematics," and Bowditch's "Navigator." At that time Prof. Benjamin Peirce had not published his "Explanations of the Navigator and Almanac," so that Maria was obliged to consult many scientific books and reports before she could herself construct the astronomical tables.

      Mr. Mitchell, on relinquishing school-teaching, was appointed cashier of the Pacific Bank; but although he gave up teaching, he by no means gave up studying his favorite science, astronomy, and Maria was his willing helper at all times.

      Mr. Mitchell from his early youth was an enthusiastic student of astronomy, at a time, too, when very little attention was given to that study in this country. His evenings, when pleasant, were spent in observing the heavens, and to the children, accustomed to seeing such observations going on, the important study in the world seemed to be astronomy. One by one, as they became old enough, they were drafted into the service of counting seconds by the chronometer, during the observations.

      Some of them took an interest in the thing itself, and others considered it rather stupid work, but they all drank in so much of this atmosphere, that if any one had asked a little child in this family, "Who was the greatest man that ever lived?" the answer would have come promptly, "Herschel."

      Maria very early learned the use of the sextant. The chronometers of all the whale ships were brought to Mr. Mitchell, on their return from a voyage, to be "rated," as it was called. For this purpose he used the sextant, and the observations were made in the little back yard of the Vestal-street home.

      There was also a clumsy reflecting telescope made on the Herschelian plan, but of very great simplicity, which was put up on fine nights in the same back yard, when the neighbors used to flock in to look at the moon. Afterwards Mr. Mitchell bought a small Dolland telescope, which thereafter, as long as she lived, his daughter used for "sweeping" purposes.

      After their removal to the bank building there were added to these an "altitude and azimuth circle," loaned to Mr. Mitchell by West Point Academy, and two transit instruments. A little observatory for the use of the first was placed on the roof of the bank building, and two small buildings were erected in the yard for the transits. There was also a much larger and finer telescope loaned by the Coast Survey, for which service Mr. Mitchell made observations.

      At the time when Maria Mitchell showed a decided taste for the study of astronomy there was no school in the world where she could be taught higher mathematics and astronomy. Harvard College, at that time, had no telescope better than the one which her father was using, and no observatory except the little octagonal projection to the old mansion in Cambridge occupied by the late Dr. A.P. Peabody.

      However, every one will admit that no school nor institution is better for a child than the home, with an enthusiastic parent for a teacher.

      At the time of the annular eclipse of the sun in 1831 the totality was central at Nantucket. The window was taken out of the parlor on Vestal street, the telescope, the little Dolland, mounted in front of it, and with Maria by his side counting the seconds the father observed the eclipse. Maria was then twelve years old.

      At sixteen Miss Mitchell left Mr. Peirce's school as a pupil, but was retained as assistant teacher; she soon relinquished that position and opened a private school on Traders' Lane. This school too she gave up for the position of librarian of the Nantucket Atheneum, which office she held for nearly twenty years.

      This library was open only in the afternoon, and on Saturday evening. The visitors were comparatively few in the afternoon, so that Miss Mitchell had ample leisure for study—an opportunity of which she made the most. Her visitors in the afternoon were elderly men of leisure, who enjoyed talking with so bright a girl on their favorite hobbies. When they talked Miss Mitchell closed her book and took up her knitting, for she was never idle. With some of these visitors the friendship was kept up for years.

      It was in this library that she found La Place's "Mécanique Céleste," translated by her father's friend, Dr. Bowditch; she also read the "Theoria Motus," of Gauss, in its original Latin form. In her capacity as librarian Miss Mitchell to a large extent controlled the reading of the young people in the town. Many of them on arriving at mature years have expressed their gratitude for the direction in which their reading was turned by her advice.

      Miss Mitchell always had a special friendship for young girls and boys. Many of these intimacies grew out of the acquaintance made at the library—the young girls made her their confidante and went to her for sympathy and advice. The boys, as they grew up, and went away to sea, perhaps, always remembered her, and made a point, when they returned in their vacations, of coming to tell their experiences to such a sympathetic listener.

      "April 18, 1855. A young sailor boy came to see me to-day. It pleases me to have these lads seek me on their return from their first voyage, and tell me how much they have learned about navigation. They always say, with pride, 'I can take a lunar, Miss Mitchell, and work it up!'

      "This boy I had known only as a boy, but he has suddenly become a man and seems to be full of intelligence. He will go once more as a sailor, he says, and then try for the position of second mate. He looked as if he had been a good boy and would make a good man.

      "He said that he had been ill so much that he had been kept out of temptation; but that the forecastle of a ship was no place for improvement of mind or morals. He said the captain with whom he came home asked him if he knew me, because he had heard of me. I was glad to find that the captain was a man of intelligence and had been kind to the boy."

      Miss Mitchell was an inveterate reader. She devoured books on all subjects. If she saw that boys were eagerly reading a certain book she immediately read it; if it were harmless she encouraged them to read it; if otherwise, she had a convenient way of losing the book. In November, when the trustees made their annual examination, the book appeared upon the shelf,