This unusual and noteworthy manuscript was written and signed by Arthur Gordon Webster, a noted physicist, around 1922.

In 1922, H.G. Wells composed a list of what he considered to be the six greatest persons in history (Jesus, Buddha, Lincoln, Aristotle, Francis Bacon, and Ashoka). The Worcester Telegram asked Webster, then teaching at Clark University, for his comments on Wells' list. In response, Webster composed an introspective essay taking up 2 1/2 double-spaced pages. He made a few pencil corrections on the manuscript and then mailed it to the Telegram from New York City (the folds from the original mailing are visible on the back of the pages).

Webster's essay reflected on Jesus at length, proposed to add the Apostle Paul to the list, and commented on the rest of Wells' nominees. On the last page, Webster added a critique of a recent speech by then-President Warren Harding to the effect that the great advances in civilization were due to self-interest. "Jesus," Webster wrote, "was the original socialist."

Condition is as shown in photos. The manuscript is signed by Webster and contains his pencil corrections. There is a small stain on the bottom margin of the second and third pages (perhaps coffee?). Fold marks from the original mailing can be seen on the reverse of the pages.

Provenance: Our grandfather graduated from Clark University in 1924. In the early 1920s, he was a cub reporter for the Worcester Telegram. We speculate that our grandfather was asked to contact some locally-known thinkers and ask their views on Wells' selection. He must have retained this letter from Webster, doubtless because Webster's response ranged far beyond the assignment. Our grandfather passed some mementoes of his early journalistic career down to our father. Webster's essay, found among our father's papers, was doubtless one of them.

Arthur Gordon Webster (1863 – 1923) was an American physicist who founded the American Physical Society. Webster graduated from Harvard College in 1885 at the top of his class and stayed for a year as instructor in mathematics and physics. At the end of that year he went to the University of Berlin where he studied for four years with Hermann von Helmholtz, receiving his PhD in 1890. Helmholtz is said to have considered Webster his favorite American student. During this period Webster also studied in Paris and Stockholm. He was unusually proficient in literature and was fluent in Latin, Greek, German, French, and Swedish, with a good knowledge of Italian and Spanish and competency in Russian and Modern Greek.

Clark University president G. Stanley Hall appointed Webster assistant professor and head of the Physical Laboratories in 1892, when physicist Albert A. Michelson left for the newly organized University of Chicago. At that time, only Johns Hopkins University and Clark University had doctoral programs in physics. Webster was promoted to full professor in 1900.

Webster was unusual for his time in that he was both a proficient mathematician as well as a competent experimentalist. Webster's research was in the field of acoustics and mechanics. He is credited with developing an instrument to measure the absolute intensity of sound (the phonometer) and for research on the gyroscope. He also gave graduate lectures in theoretical physics at Clark University, which have been published as three textbooks.

A group of 20 physicists, invited by Webster, founded the American Physical Society at a meeting at Fayerweather Hall in Columbia University on May 20, 1899. In 1903, Webster became president of the American Physical Society and was elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Webster committed suicide in 1923, despondent over what he felt was the failure of his research and rumors that the physics department at Clark would be closed. The reflections in this essay show his thinking about world history and affairs close to the end of his life.

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Our father was a bibliophile who collected rare books, letters, and ephemera for more than 60 years. For now and into the foreseeable future, we will be listing rare paper items from his estate.

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