24 Edward Livingston Youmans. 



teachers. In after years he used to say that it was 

 Uncle Good who first taught him what his mind was 

 for. 



Through intercourse and training of this sort he 

 learned to doubt, to test the soundness of opinions, to 

 make original inquiries, and to find and follow clews. 

 After the schooldays were over Edward used often to 

 visit this admirable preceptor, and their friendship 

 ripened into warmth. When he gave Edward the 

 range of his little library he freely expressed his own 

 preferences, but drew out those of the lad, and courte- 

 ously suggested that they were probably the lines on 

 which he could read and study with most profit. This 

 deference to even a boy's individuality made a deep 

 impression on Edward's mind ; it confirmed his own 

 high valuation of a quality which he was to express 

 in later years in suggestive words. When Darwin 

 showed that organic evolution proceeds upon the 

 spontaneous variation of individual plants and animals, 

 Youmans declared individuality among men to be in 

 the realm of mind the same precious manifestation, 

 to respect and foster which was to give the race its 

 best opportunity of advancement. 



Would that every community of school-children 

 might find its '' Uncle Good ! " But even the best of 

 teachers can effect but little unless he finds a mind 

 ready of itself to take the initiative. It is doubtful if 

 men of eminent ability are ever made so by schooling. 

 The school offers opportunities, but in such men the 

 tendency to the initiative is so strong that if oppor- 

 tunities are not offered they will somehow contrive to 

 create them. When Edward was about thirteen years 

 old he persuaded his father to buy him a copy of Com- 

 stock's Natural Philosophy, and studied it at home in 



