CHAPTER FIFTY-NINE 



LOUIS PASTEUR 



I. IT is related that one of the Paris newspapers, Pasteur's 



service to 

 mankind 



many years ago, asked its readers to vote on the ques- semceto 



tion : Who is the greatest living Frenchman ? When 

 the ballots were counted, it was found that the choice 

 had fallen, not on a soldier or politician, but on a plain 

 man of science. It was Louis Pasteur who thus appar- 

 ently held the first place in the hearts of his countrymen 

 - Pasteur, who had killed no one, but had been the 

 means of saving thousands ; who had accumulated no 

 riches, but had enriched whole departments. Probably 

 at no other time, and in no other country, could science 

 have thus been recognized by the people. Neverthe- 

 less, as Pasteur himself would have insisted, she con- 

 stantly deserved such recognition. Pasteur was one of 

 a multitude of investigators, preeminent but not iso- 

 lated. He stood as the purest example of a type which 

 existed in all civilized countries. 



2. Louis Pasteur was born at Dole, France, in 1822. Early life 

 His father was a tanner, a man of quite moderate JJ n e uca " 

 means. As a boy at school, Louis was at first con- 

 sidered rather slow, because he never hastened to con- 

 clusions or affirmed what he did not know. Scientific 

 caution seems to have been part of his nature. He 

 early developed a taste for drawing, and after a time 

 his pastel portraits of local celebrities gained him in the 

 vicinity of his home quite a reputation as an artist. At 

 the age of eighteen he became an assistant master in the 

 college at Besancon, with a very small salary. At the 

 same time he continued his studies, looking forward to 

 the Ecole Normale in Paris, which he entered in 1843. 

 Here he came in contact with eminent scientific men, 

 and soon became absorbed in the study of chemistry. 



479 



