Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-12-04
Scientific Discussions
by Garrett P. Serviss

A fourteen-year-old boy OF new
York City. writes me this:
~ am much interested in astron-
omy. To get my friends together
so that l could teach them and they
could ask questions. l have started
| a club which have called the Jun
| ior Astronomy Club. 1t is getting
| along fine. and we meet about three
times a week. ina good place where
We can see the whole sky. teach
them what l have learned, but two
! things don't understand: Cd What
are the rings of Saturn made of?
and CD Is there planet farther
! away than Neptune
l should like to see a hundred
or a thousand such clubs as young
Edward Macaughey's Junior Astron-
omy Club. but since it will probably
be a long time before they come
into eXistence-after mankind has
grown considerably wiser than it is
at present-let me do what L can for
this unique example.
The resolution to met out OF doors,
In a good place TO see the sky. was
an admirable way of beginning. You
must start with the stars, with the
sun and the moon and the meteors.
and a comet whenever one is on
view. The mathematics can wait,
and one can do a great deal in as
tronomy with very little mathe-
matics. The first thing is to lift
both the eyes and the minds of the
observers TO the sky. 1t is amazing
how little attention the vast major
ity of men and women give to the
A.-I -a1A 4 fe-
played for them every clear night.
If they notice the heavenly bodies
at all it is only with regard to their
terrestrial aspects.
What / mean is this: Take Mark
Twain's splendid stories of the ad-
ventures of Tom Sawyer and
"Huckleberry Finn" That fasci-
mating pair are frequently out un-
der the midnight moon, or the
twinkling stars, but they never think
of them except as shedders of more
or less light on the dark and devi-
Gus way of Tom Sawyer's Gang"
Their author made them, in this
respect, as in so many others, alb
solutely true to uninstructed human
nature.
Nobody looks at the moon as in
teresting in itself, but only as a
beautiful. skiey ornament OF the
night. Even the poets go no higher:
The dews of summer night did fall;
The moon. sweet regent of the sky,
Silvered the walls of Cumnor Hall,
And many an oak that grew there
by"
That is very beautiful from an
earthly viewpoint. and il pictures
perfectly the ordinary impression
that the moon with its light makes
on people. II is the complaisant,
sensuous. self-limited satisfaction
and appreciation that cat has when
lying on a Persian rug under n
golden lamp before a comfortable
fire. all these things being as naught
except insofar as they contribute to
her enjoyment.
IF YOU are going to teach astron-
omy you must make your students
comprehend the interest that the
heavenly bodies have in and by
themselves. Explain whatever re-
lations they have with the earth,
Of course. but above all explain
what they themselves are and
make plain the fact that the earth
is but Il small affair in comparison
with the majority of them. The
moon is an attendant of the earth,
though she has had a wonderful
career of her own; the sun is the
master of the earth; the stars are
other suns, many of which are hun
dreds and even thousands of times
mightier than our sun.
7 once knew a man who protest
ed against "this astronomical talk
about the littleness of the earth"
He didn't like it. He said that the
earth. because it is the home of
man. is really the biggest thing in
the universe. That is like the
king of cannibal island, located
in the midst of a vast ocean. sneer-
ing at and. from n safe distance,
boastfully defying the great civil
lied nation. far beyond the horizon,
rumors of whose existence have
come to his ears. This is the CEN
ter of the world says the king of
the little island. for am 1 not
here"
Tt is not a good plan to lead your
learners TO suppose that, there are
beings like US dwelling among the
multitude of the stars. We know
nothing about the inha bitants of
the star depths: and it is not nee
essary TO speculate about them be-
cause the starry systems are so
immeasurably vast and splendid
that in themselves. in their won
derful organization, I'm the varying
colors of their members, in the
evidence which they show of evolu-
tionary development, in the amaZ-
ing grandeur that many of them
have attained, they must make us
trelnblingIy grateful that God has a
thought to spare for so minute a
cosmic speck as the earth!
The rings of Saturn are evidently
composed of vast numbers of small
bodies, something like meteors.
circling in an endless swarm
around the planet.
Tt is not positively known that