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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



The death of Dr. William Jay Youmans is a personal loss not only to his 

 many friends, but also to the thousands of those who knew him only as editor 

 of this journal. Youmans was born near Saratoga on October 14, 1838, and the 

 boyhood on his father's farm gave him the training which has so often led 

 to the elevation of public and professional life in this country. He was de- 

 scended, as his name witnesses, from the British Yeomanry, and the sterling 

 stock that settled in New England was typified in his person and character. 

 He loved his home in the country, and had purchased a farm nearby, to which 

 it was his intention to retire to pass the years of rest that he had so well 

 earned. After leaving the home farm at the age of seventeen, Youmans studied 

 under his brother, the late Dr. E. L. Youmans, and later at Yale, Columbia and 

 New York Universities, and in London under Huxlej'. He practised medicine 

 for several years in Minnesota, and in 1872 joined his brother in New York 

 to establish the Popular Science Monthly. For twenty-eight years his life 

 was devoted to this journal, first in association with his brother — who was 

 seventeen years the older, and died in 1887 — and afterwards as editor-in-chief. 

 The two brothers not only edited the journal, but as advisers of the house of 

 Appleton, gave them their high standing as publishers of scientific books in 

 the renaissance of science based on the doctrine of evolution. The teachings of 

 Spencer, Darwin and other great leaders were for them a religion to which their 

 lives were consecrated. Their influence through this journal and other publica- 

 tions of the Appletons was great and permanent. Youmans died at Mount 

 Vernon on April 10 from typhoid fever, after a ten days' illness. His life was 

 devoted with rare singleness of purpose to the diffusion of science; it was a 

 privilege to know him; he was gentle, kind and noble. 



