4 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



When Edward was but six months old, his parents moved to 

 Greenfield, near Saratoga Springs. With a comfortable house 

 and three acres of land, his father kept a wagon-shop and smithy. 

 In those days, while it was hard work to wring a subsistence out 

 of the soil or to prosper upon any of the vocations which rural 

 life permitted, there was doubtless more independence of charac- 

 ter and real shiftiness than in our time, when cities and tariffs 

 have so sapped the strength of the farming country. In the fam- 

 ily of Vincent Youmans, though rigid economy was practiced, 

 books were reckoned to a certain extent among the necessaries of 

 life, and the house was one in which neighbors were fond of gath- 

 ering to discuss questions of politics or theology, social reform or 

 improvements in agriculture. On all such questions Vincent 

 Youmans was apt to have ideas of his own ; he talked with enthu- 

 siasm, and was also ready to listen ; and he evidently supplied an 

 intellectual stimulus to the whole community. For a boy of 

 bright and inquisitive mind listening to such talk is no mean 

 source of education. It often goes much further than the reading 

 of books. From an early age Edward Youmans seems to have 

 appropriated all such means of instruction. He had that insa- 

 tiable thirst for knowledge which is one of God's best gifts to 

 man ; for he who is born with this appetite must needs be griev- 

 ously ill-made in other respects if it does not constrain him to 

 lead a happy and useful life. 



After ten years at Greenfield the family moved to a farm at 

 Milton, some two miles distant. Until his sixteenth year Edward 

 helped his father at farm-work in the summer and attended the 

 district school in winter. It was his good fortune for some time 

 to fall into the hands of a teacher who had a genius for teaching 

 — a man who in those days of rote-learning did not care to have 

 things learned by heart, but sought to stimulate the thinking 

 powers of his pupils, and who in that age of canes and ferules 

 never found it necessary to use such means of discipline, because 

 the fear of displeasing him was of itself all-sufficient. Experience 

 of the methods of such a man was enough to sharpen one's dis- 

 gust for the excessive mechanism, the rigid and stupid manner of 

 teaching, which characterize the ordinary school. In after-years 

 Youmans used to say that " Uncle Good " — as this admirable ped- 

 agogue was called — first taught him what his mind was for. 

 Through intercourse and training of this sort he learned to doubt, 

 to test the soundness of opinions, to make original inquiries, and 

 to find and follow clews. 



But even the best of teachers can effect but little unless he 

 finds a mind ready of itself to take the initiative. It is doubtful 

 if men of eminent ability are ever made so by schooling. The 

 school offers opportunities, but in such men the tendency to the 



