Inventors -- United States -- Biography; Pupin, Michael, 1858-1935
This stirring up is experienced by many American citizens of foreign
birth whenever they visit their native land. Every one of these
visits speeds up the Americanization process which is going on in
them. I firmly believe that the amalgamation of the foreign-born
would be speeded up wonderfully if we could make it obligatory that
every foreign-born American citizen should revisit his native land at
stated intervals of time. Had I not visited my native land so many
times since my landing at Castle Garden in 1874, the memory of my
early experiences in America, described in the earlier parts of this
narrative, would probably have faded away completely long ago. Had
I not visited Belgrade and Panchevo in 1919 I should not have been
stirred up on the subject of American idealism, and particularly about
the American idealism in science. It was in Belgrade and Panchevo where
the stimulus was applied which revived the memory of my experiences in
Columbia College, in the Universities of Cambridge and Berlin, and in
my professorial work at Columbia University, and made me pass in rapid
review through all my experiences which have a bearing upon American
idealism, and particularly upon the idealism in American science. Ever
since, I have been revolving in my mind many of the things relating
to American science that I might have mentioned at the Belgrade
conference, but did not mention. The painting, “Men of Progress,” which
I first saw at Cooper Union in 1876, came back to my mind. The men
represented in it, like Peter Cooper, McCormick, Goodyear, Morse, and
others, did not represent the idealism in science which the Belgrade
scientist had in mind; they were practical inventors. They were the
scientific idols of the American people, but they were not idealists in
science. The time for idealism in American science had not yet arrived.
The Union Pacific Railroad had not yet been built when that picture was
painted; the Western plains had not yet been compelled to yield their
potential treasures of golden grain; and the vast quantities of coal
and mineral ore were waiting anxiously to be raised to the surface of
the earth to serve in the development of our vast territory between the
Atlantic and the Pacific. He who could aid the people in this gigantic
development became the idol of the people. The names of inventors, like
McCormick, Goodyear, and Morse, were household words with the people of
the United States, just as the names of Edison and of Bell are to-day.
Joseph Henry, the famous scientist, was also in that historic painting,
but he was in the background of it. His expression seemed to indicate
that he did not feel quite at home in a group of men who were practical
inventors. He was a friend of Lincoln, and his idealism in science was
just as exalted as Lincoln’s idealism in political philosophy. But in
those days an idealist in science attracted little attention among
the people of the United States, who were busily engaged in solving
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