no THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



lectured on phrenology, education, physiology, the laws of health, and 

 the sources of the well-being of nations. He was a leader in the strug- 

 gle for what he called secular education that is, a training in such 

 knowledge as applies to the duties of life he advocated prison reform, 

 and in 1857, the year before his death, he published a work " On Re- 

 ligion and Science," the product of much anxious labor and the " out- 

 come of his life's thought." 



Dr. Andrew Combe, brother of George Combe, and nine years his 

 junior, was also a man of remarkable ability and force of character, and 

 both the brothers had feeble constitutions, suffering all their lives from 

 ill health. They agreed in the belief that their infirmities were brought 

 upon them by the circumstances of their childhood. Andrew died in 

 1847, and his " Life " was written by his brother George, who made a 

 point of exposing the unhealthful conditions to which his brother had 

 been subjected in early life. But some of the relatives were unwilling 

 that these family details should be published to the world, and so they 

 were omitted from the biography. But, when George Combe after- 

 ward wrote a full account of the first sixteen years of his own life, the 

 suppressed portion of his brother's biography was embodied in it, and 

 this is the autobiography with which we are now concerned. It was 

 natural, perhaps, that relatives should object to its publication ; but 

 certainly in no other part of the work before us are Combe's tender- 

 ness, sense of justice, and ability, better shown than here ; for, while 

 he tells everything frankly, he all the while impresses the reader with 

 the upright, affectionate, and intelligent character of his parents. 



We condense from Combe's account the following significant details : 

 At the time of his birth his father was forty-two and his mother 

 thirty years old. She was short, well-formed, quiet, energetic, decided, 

 and sensible. She was accomplished in every practical art of house- 

 keeping. She could milk, churn, make butter, wash, cook, spin, shape 

 and sew clothes for both sexes ; was active and methodic, and generally 

 had her work done before dinner, and was ready to pay and receive 

 social visits. She could read and could write her name, which was a fair 

 literary education in those times. The father was six feet two inches 

 in height, strong in trunk and limbs, with a large head, and perfect 

 health. He wrote exellent sense and good composition, but was imper- 

 fect in grammar and spelling. He was painfully aware of these defects, 

 and used to say he would rather hold the plow for a day than write a 

 letter of a page in length. His over-consciousness in this matter "led 

 him to educate his sons to the best of his ability and his lights." They 

 had seventeen children. George was a well-formed, healthy child, and 

 so far as character depends upon inheritance he had nothing to com- 

 plain of. 



The house where they lived stood close under the southwest bank 

 and rock of the Castle of Edinburgh. The locality was low, and, while 

 the windows looked upon gardens and corn-fields, the ground behind 



