Interesting Quotes

• "The first American to receive world recognition for a connected series of original experiments in physics was a teacher of mathematics and science to boys of ages 12 to 18". (Note: At the Albany Academy)

  Prof. C. L. Andrews, The Physics Teacher, January 1965

• "Henry was a firm believer in 'learning by doing' long before Dewey's popularization of the term at the beginning of this century."

  Barbara Myers Swartz, The Physics Teacher, September 1978

• "It is precisely among the most celebrated explorers of science in the present century that the most successful and noted teachers have been found."

  Joseph Henry as quoted by Swartz

• "He has not lived in vain, who leaves behind him ... a child better educated morally, intellectually, and physically than himself."

  Joseph Henry as quoted by Swartz

• "Education is a forced condition of the mind or body. As a general rule it is produced by coercion, at the expense of labor on the part of the educator and of toil and effort on the part of the instructed."

  Joseph Henry, Lecture at the American Association for the Advancement of Education

• "As a physical philosopher he has no superior in our country; certainly not among the young men."

  Geologist Benjamen Silliman on Henry's appointment to College of New Jersey (Princeton)

• "Are you aware of the fact that I am not a graduate of any college and that I am principally self-educated?"

  Joseph Henry's modest response

• Henry consulted on the design of magnetic ore separators for the iron mines of the Adirondacks.

  The Adirondack Museum, Blue Mountain Lake

• "All knowledge was practical, how abstruse soever it might to the uninitiated appear, and in good time would always vindicate itself in subserving the practical wants and necessities of mankind."

  From the debate between Henry and Senator Stephen Douglas of Illinois

• "Well, where's your apparatus? Let's see it." then "Under no circumstances should you think of giving up."

  Joseph Henry to Alexander Graham Bell on developing the 'multiple telegraph'

• "For more than thirty years, Henry insisted that basic research was of fundamental importance to American society, rather than a luxury. Perhaps that insistence is Henry's greatest legacy to succeeding generations."

  Marc Rothenberg, Editor, Joseph Henry Papers Project and a speaker at this conference

• "In disposition he was most kind, in manners courteous and agreeable ... He was a favorite with the pupils, always ready and willing to aid them in their studies, winning their esteem and affection."

  Albert Moyer quoting one of Henry's students in his new book "Joseph Henry The Rise of an American Scientist" and a speaker at this conference

... and Notes

• One of Henry's first uses of the telegraph was to send messages from his laboratory at Princeton to his house — sometimes to order lunch.

• The unit of electromagnetic inductance is the "henry", abbreviated "H".

• The Joseph Henry Physics Building was dedicated at SUNY Albany on October 4,1968.

• Asteroids are sometimes named for famous people. Asteroid number 1516, discovered in 1938, is named Asteroid Joseph Henry.

... and a few more quotes and notes!

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Joseph Henry Bicentennial Conference