75< 



THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



ner as that of the human race has spontaneously 

 grown. 



" I conceived that a vast amount of knowl- 

 edge respecting natural phenomena and their 

 interdependence, and even some practical ex- 

 perience of scientific method, could be conveyed, 

 with all the precision of statement which is 

 what distinguishes science from common in- 

 formation ; and yet, without overstepping the 

 comprehension of learners who possessed no 

 further share of preliminary educational disci- 

 pline than that which falls to the lot of the 

 boys and girls who pass through an ordinary 

 primary school. And I thought that, if my plan 

 could be properly carried out, it would not only 

 yield results of value in themselves, but would 

 facilitate the subsequent entrance of the learn- 

 ers into the portals of the special sciences." 



Prof. Huxley fulfilled this idea with great 

 approval in his lectures. He began by 

 ideally placing his audience upon London 

 Bridge to observe and consider the river- 

 phenomena of the Thames. From this point, 

 step by step, he worked over the field, con- 

 stantly using illustrations and explaining 

 effects that were familiar to his hearers. 

 In this aspect, therefore, the book has a 

 flavor of locality, but the thoughtful teacher 

 in using it will simply transfer its applica- 

 tions to his own region. The book is beau- 

 tifully illustrated, and should find its place, 

 if not as a class-book, at least as a book for 

 reading and reference, in every school. 



Letters of Chauncey Wright. With 

 Some Account of his Life. By James 

 Bradley Thayer. Privately printed. 

 Pp. 383. Cambridge : Little, Brown & 

 Co. Price, $2.50. 



We have found this volume very pleas- 

 ant reading, as it delineates the features 

 of a marked persoaality, and makes us 

 acquainted with the somewhat peculiar life 

 of a man who was thoroughly appreciated 

 and much beloved by his friends. His 

 printed letters are most readable, and, 

 though not brilliant, they seem to us quite 

 superior in simplicity and clearness of style 

 to his more elaborate published essays ; 

 and this too when he is treating of the same 

 subjects. He was born at Northampton, 

 Massachusetts, in 1830, entered Harvard 

 College in 1848, passed the rest of his life at 

 Cambridge, and died suddenly of apoplexy 

 in 1875. He was employed in the office of 

 the Nautical Almanac, took occasional pri- 

 vate pupils, taught in Prof. Agassiz's school 

 for young ladies, was an instructor in the 



college, and one of the university lecturers. 

 His literary work consists of articles con- 

 tributed to the North American Review and 

 the Nation. The following passages from 

 his biographer's description of his character 

 will give the reader a good idea of some of. 

 its aspects : 



" Calm, gentle, unassuming ; ready to be 

 pleased ; demanding little of his friends ; as 

 pure as a woman in thought and speech ; fond 

 of children, and unwearied in giving them pleas- 

 ure; free from passion to a defect ; never self- 

 ish, though at times, from preoccupation of 

 mind or from lack of imagination, not wholly 

 considerate ; deficient in ambition ; devoid of 

 jealousy and envy ; perfectlyhonorable and per- 

 fectly amiable these stand out in the memory 

 of his oldest friends, as the last impressions of 

 his character, the same large features, great sim- 

 plicity and great dignity, which would have 

 struck an observer meeting him for the first 

 time. . . . 



" His writings were more like simple trans- 

 verse sections from a web that was ever un- 

 rolling itself from the loom of his busy brain 

 than like pieces woven for the occasion, in 

 which a particular effect was to be produced by 

 proper combination of the material at his com- 

 \ niand. I fear that my illustration may not seem 

 a very pertinent one ; but it presents itself nat- 

 urally to me as I recall the process of compo- 

 sition of the bulk of his published essays, and 

 many more that never went beyond his friends. 

 He wrote with pencil, usually in a note-book ; 

 and, when he was in the mood of composition, 

 wrote pretty steadily all day and far into the 

 night. He was too precise in thought and ex- 

 pression to need to correct much or to revise 

 what he had written : and I can hardly recall an 

 instance of his rewriting, or rather reshaping, 

 an eesay, short or long. The starting-point was 

 usually some fruitful reflection that promised to 

 reward development ; and from this point he 

 would proceed on what was really a voyage of 

 discovery, though in waters that were in gen- 

 eral familiar to him. What he wrote during the 

 day would probably be read to me, or the friend 

 that was nearest, the next day, and talked over 

 in a way. The end often came quite as much 

 because the afflatus had ceased as because a nat- 

 ural conclusion had been reached. What he 

 thus produced were rather studies than finished 

 work. They aided him to make his own thought 

 clear to himself, but were little fitted to impress 

 that thought upon others. Original, solid, sug- 

 gestive, as they always were, from the very man- 

 ner of their production they lacked proportion, 

 relief, perspective. It seems a hard thing to say 

 of our Chauncey, the most simple, modest, and 

 unconscious of men, that he never knew how to 

 sink himself in his subject ; yet just here, in the 

 lack of instinct to discern how the minds he was 

 addressing would be affected, and in the lack of 

 discipline to accommodate the workings of his 

 own mind to their needs and not unreasonable 

 demands, lies the explanation that an intelli- 



