EDWARD LIVINGSTON YOUMANS. 3 



cidents of his life and work. It is desirable that the story 

 should be set forth concisely, so as to be remembered ; for the 

 work was like the man, unselfish and unobtrusive, and in the 

 hurry and complication of modern life such work is liable to be 

 lost from sight, so that people profit by it without knowing that 

 such work was ever done. So genuinely modest, so utterly desti- 

 tute of self -regarding impulses was our friend, that I believe it 

 would be quite like him to chide us for thus drawing public at- 

 tention to him, as he would think, with too much emphasis. But 

 such mild reproof it is right that we should disregard ; for the 

 memory of a life so beautiful and useful is a precious possession 

 of which mankind ought not to be deprived. 



Edward Livingston Youmans was born in the town of 

 Coeymans, Albany County, N. Y., on the 3d of June, 1821. From 

 his father and mother, both of whom survived him, he inherited 

 strong traits of character as well as an immense fund of vital 

 energy, such that the failure of health a few years ago seemed (to 

 me, at least) surprising. His father, Vincent Youmans, was a 

 man of independent character, strong convictions, and perfect 

 moral courage, with a quick and ready tongue, in the use of which 

 earnestness and frankness perhaps sometimes prevailed over pru- 

 dence. The mother, Catherine Scofield, was notable for balance 

 of judgment, prudence, and tact. The mother's grandfather was 

 Irish ; and, while I very much doubt the soundness of the gener- 

 alizations we are so prone to make about race characteristics, I 

 can not but feel that for the impulsive — one had almost said ex- 

 plosive — warmth of sympathy, the enchanting grace and vivacity 

 of manner, in Edward Youmans, this strain of Irish blood may 

 have been to some extent accountable. Both father and mother 

 belonged to the old Puritan stock of New England, and the fa- 

 ther's ancestry was doubtless purely English. Nothing could be 

 more honorably or characteristically English than the name. In 

 the old feudal society the yeoman, like the franklin, was the small 

 freeholder, owning a modest estate yet holding it by no servile 

 tenure, a man of the common people yet no churl, a member of 

 the state who "knew his rights and knowing dared maintain." 

 Few indeed were the nooks and corners outside of merry England 

 where such men flourished as the yeomen and franklins who 

 founded democratic New England. It has often been remarked 

 how the most illustrious of Franklins exemplified the typical 

 virtues of his class. There was much that was similar in the tem- 

 perament and disposition of Edward Youmans — the sagacity and 

 penetration, the broad common sense, the earnest purpose veiled 

 but not hidden by the blithe humor, the devotion to ends of wide 

 practical value, the habit of making in the best sense the most out 

 of life. 



