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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



EDITOR'S TABLE. 



TEE BANQUET TO EERBERT SPENCER. 



ALTHOUGH the visit of Mr. Spen- 

 cer to this country has been in 

 some respects painfully unsatisfactory, 

 yet in other and the most important 

 respects it has been most gratifying and 

 successful. His state of health was such 

 that he was good for nothing for social 

 purposes. He has been long an invalid, 

 and compelled much to restrict his so- 

 cial life at home. He left England in 

 a bad condition, which was aggravated 

 by his voyage, and then made worse by 

 the exciting experiences of a new coun- 

 try, where he found many things very 

 different from those he had been used 

 to. Social intercourse was so exciting 

 and exhausting that he was compelled 

 to abstain from it, and many of his 

 friends were sadly disappointed that 

 they could not meet, welcome, and 

 converse with him, as is the habit with 

 other eminent strangers. This was a 

 serious drawback upon his visit, equally 

 to himself and to others, and will be a 

 source of lasting regret. 



But now that Mr. Spencer is gone, 

 and has got home safely, everybody is 

 glad he came. They are pleased that 

 he has seen something of the country, 

 if but little, and that he will have more 

 correct and adequate ideas of what is 

 going on here than if he had never 

 come. It will be a fact of no small im- 

 port, perhaps, in his mental history. 

 But the chief significance and the most 

 gratifying feature of his visit will be 

 the way he has been received by the 

 American public. If he has not been 

 seen, he has been heard ; and the wide 

 effect is that he is both better known 

 and more highly regarded by friends 

 and enemies alike. 



It had been determined by those in- 

 terested in Mr. Spencer that some ex- 

 pression of public feeling should be 

 made before he left, but it was long 



uncertain whether the state of his 

 health would allow him to accept it. 

 And, when at length he decided to do 

 so, he at the same time found it neces- 

 sary to shorten the time of his stay. 

 This gave but a very limited opportuni- 

 ty to make the preparations for a ban- 

 quet that should be at all adequate to 

 express the interest of the occasion. 

 Excellent dinners are, of course, very 

 easy things to get up, and there are al- 

 ways plenty of fluent and sparkling 

 speakers to add to them the pleasure 

 of oratory. But there was something 

 of seriousness in this affair that was 

 not to be overlooked. We had with 

 us, perhaps, the most eminent thinker 

 in the wcrld, and one whose name has 

 now become identified with the greatest 

 movement of thought in this age. It 

 was every way desirable, therefore, that 

 the demonstration should be made sin- 

 cerely and even gravely expressive of 

 American appreciation of Mr. Spencer's 

 character, position, and work ; and this 

 was felt to be the more necessary as a 

 bare act of justice, because his quiet 

 and unobtrusive life has called forth no 

 signal opportunities for the declaration 

 of the profound regard entertained for 

 him by many men of the highest intel- 

 ligenca. Representing no party or sect, 

 supported by none of those associations 

 that are so efficacious for the encour- 

 agement of talent, representing rather 

 all that is most objectionable and un- 

 popular in modern opinion, he has been 

 left to the quietude of his solitary stud- 

 ies, and, while stamping himself deeply 

 upon the mind of the period, he has 

 been at the same time regarded as the 

 most impersonal of men. This has un- 

 doubtedly had its advantages, and is 

 not to be complained of. But it was 

 very properly thought that, when he 

 came to this country, where he is ad- 

 mired and venerated by multitudes who 



