Page:Scientific Papers of Josiah Willard Gibbs - Volume 2.djvu/300

284 Professor Newton was a member of the American Metrological Society from the first, and was conspicuously active in the agitation which resulted in the enactment of the law of 1866, legalizing the use of the metric system. He prepared the table of the metric equivalents of the customary units of weights and measures which was incorporated in the act, and by which the relations of the fundamental units were defined. But he did not stop here. Appreciating the weakness of legislative enactment compared with popular sentiment, and feeling that the real battle was to be won in familiarizing the people with the metric system, he took pains to interest the makers of scales and rulers and other devices for measurement in adopting the units and graduations of the metric system, and to have the proper tables introduced into school arithmetics.

He was also an active member of the Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences, serving several years both as secretary and president,—also as member of the council. He was associate editor of the American Journal of Science from 1864, having especial charge of the department of astronomy. His notes on observations of meteors and on the progress of meteoric science, often very brief, sometimes more extended, but always well considered, were especially valuable.

In spite of his studious tastes and love of a quiet life, he did not shirk the duties of citizenship, serving a term as alderman in the city council, being elected, we may observe, in a ward of politics strongly opposed to his own.

Professor Newton married, April 14th, 1859, Anna C., daughter of the Rev. Joseph C. Stiles, D.D., of Georgia, at one time pastor of the Mercer Street Presbyterian Church in New York City, and subsequently of the South Church in New Haven. She survived her husband but three months, leaving two daughters.

In all these relations of life, the subject of this sketch exhibited the same traits of character which are seen in his published papers, the same modesty, the same conscientiousness, the same devotion to high ideals. His life was the quiet life of the scholar, ennobled by the unselfish aims of the Christian gentleman; his memory will be cherished by many friends; and so long as astronomers, while they watch the return of the Leonids marking off the passage of the centuries, shall care to turn the earlier pages of this branch of astronomy, his name will have an honorable place in the history of the science.