Edward Livingston Youmans 71 



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. Un 

 til 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 at that 

 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 displeas 

 ing him was of itself all-sufficient. Experience of 

 the methods of such a man was enough to sharpen 

 one s disgust for the excessive mechanism, the rigid 

 and stupid manner of teaching, which characterize 

 the ordinary school. In after years Youmans 

 used to say that &quot; Uncle Good &quot; as this admi 

 rable pedagogue was called first taught him what 

 his mind was for. Through intercourse and train 

 ing of this sort he learned to doubt, to test the 

 soundness of opinions, to make original inquiries, 

 and to find and follow clues. 



But even the best of teachers can effect but 

 little unless he finds a mind ready of itself to take 



