2o8 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



appointment of the Windom Committee on Transportation in 1872 

 In New York, Grangers boast of the Hepburn Commission of 1879, 

 and claim to have defeated a railroad man, C. M. Depew, for the 

 Senate in 1881. And doubtless the Interstate Commerce Bill will be 

 hailed as one more achievement. 



Note. — TIio progress and decline of the Granger movement will be considered in a 

 later article. — Ed. 



THE BOYHOOD OF DAEWIN.* 



Bt niMSELF, 



[My father's autobiographical recollections, given in the present 

 chapter, were written for his children — and written without any- 

 thought that they would ever be published. To many this may seem 

 an impossibility ; but those who knew my father will understand how 

 it was not only possible but natural. The autobiography bears the 

 heading, "Recollections of the Development of my Mind and Charac- 

 ter," and ends with the following note : "August 3, 1876. This 

 sketch of my life was begun about May 28th at Hopedene,* and since 

 then I have written for nearly an hour on most afternoons." It will 

 easily be understood that, in a narrative of a personal and intimate 

 kind, written for his wife and children, passages should occur which 

 must here be omitted ; and I have not thought it necessary to indicate 

 where such omissions are made. It has been found necessary to make 

 a few corrections of obvious verbal slips, but the number of such 

 alterations has been kept down to the minimum. — F. D.] 



A GERMAN editor having written to me for an account of the 

 development of my mind and character, with some sketch of 

 my autobiography, I have thought that the attempt would amuse me, 

 and might possibly interest my children or their children. I know 

 that it would have interested me greatly to have read even so short 

 and dull a sketch of the mind of my grandfather, written by himself, 

 and what he thought and did, and how he worked. I have attempted 

 to write the following account of myself as if I were a dead man in 

 another world looking back at my own life. Nor have I found this 

 difficult, for life is nearly over with me. I have taken no pains about 

 my style of writing. 



I was born at Shrewsbury on February 12, 1809, and my earliest 

 recollection goes back only to when I was a few months over four 

 years old, when we went to near Abergele for sea-bathing, and I rec- 

 ollect some events and places there with some little distinctness. 



* From advance sheets of ''Life and Letters of Charles Darwin," by his Son, Francis 

 Darwin. New York : D. Appleton & Co. 



f Mr. llcnsleigh Wedgwood's house in Surrey. 



