PASTEUR: A STUDY IN GREATNESS 7 



"We are but stage-coaches in which all of our ancestors ride." By- 

 listening attentively we can hear at any time " ancestral voices prophe- 

 sying war." This is why the heroic, in act or representation, moves us 

 so profoundly. And this is my explanation of our racial ideal of 

 greatness. 



The man whose life sketch I now lay before you differed apparently 

 from the traditional hero as widely as the dove from the eagle. He was 

 no sower of dragon's teeth. Instead of sending sword and fire on every 

 side, life, health and prosperity attended his career as the beneficent 

 effects of light accompany the sun. And yet the recital of his bloodless 

 wars and peaceful victories touches the same chords and thrills us with 

 the same emotions as do the exploits of an Alexander. 



Louis Pasteur was born at the village of Arbois, near Dole, in the 

 province of Jura, France, on the twenty-seventh day of December, 1822. 

 He died at St. Cloud, near Paris, on the twenty-eighth of Septem- 

 ber, 1895. 



Like Napoleon, Pasteur was the first ancestor of his stock. His 

 grandfather was a serf who purchased his own freedom. His father was 

 a tanner who rose to no higher rank than sergeant in the service of the 

 first consul. But he was a man of ability and fine instincts. Believing 

 in the capability of his child to achieve something in the world, he 

 studied diligently in order to assist the lad with his primary studies, 

 and conducted his household with an economy that touched closely upon 

 sacrifice that thereby a collegiate education might be made available for 

 his son. 



At fourteen, Pasteur was sent to College of Besancpn. He re- 

 mained there but a half year. Translated suddenly to a wholly strange 

 environment, the shy country boy suffered so much from homesickness 

 that he made little progress in his studies; and his health became so 

 affected that his life was actually endangered. His father was com- 

 pelled to bring him home. And now for the first time the self denial 

 which had been practised on his account became apparent to the youth. 

 Pilled with an agony of shame that he should have so illy requited the 

 love of his family, he resolved that he would spare no resource of his 

 being in an endeavor to retrieve the consequences of his childish folly. 

 The next year he requested his father to enter him at the home college 

 of Arbois, a rural lycee little better than a grammar school. 



Here he studied diligently, but received no instruction in the sub- 

 jects which appealed to his nature. The old master assigned to teach 

 the sciences frankly acknowledged that he knew nothing about them. 

 But he allowed the young student access to the limited equipment; and 

 young Pasteur spent much time in laboriously teaching himself some of 

 the elementary principles of physics and chemistry. His teachers con- 

 sidered him slow. Drawing was the only subject in which he attained 

 " honorable mention." 



