74 Edzvard Lhmigston Youmans. 



The lectures in Dr. Elliott's office were the begin- 

 ning of a busy career of seventeen years of lecturing, 

 ending in 1868 ; and I believe it is safe to say that few 

 things were done in all those years of more vital and 

 lasting benefit to the American people than this broad- 

 cast sowing of the seeds of scientific thought in the 

 lectures of Edward Youmans. They came just at the 

 time when the world was ripe for the doctrine of evo- 

 lution, when all the wondrous significance of the trend 

 of scientific discovery since Newton's time was begin- 

 ning to burst upon men's minds. The work of Lyell 

 in geology, followed at length in 1859 by the Darwin- 

 ian theory ; the doctrine of the correlation of forces 

 and the consequent unity of nature ; the extension and 

 reformation of chemical theory ; the simultaneous ad- 

 vance made in sociological inquiry, and in the concep- 

 tion of the true aims and proper methods of education 

 — all this made the period a most fruitful one for the 

 peculiar work of such a teacher as Youmans. 



In his early manhood there was in the community 

 a very inadequate appreciation of natural law. An 

 indolent reverence contented itself with a theological 

 cosmogony little modified by the results of observation 

 and experiment. Physical science had been like an 

 archipelago, with each island distinct and separate from 

 its neighbours. Even while he looked they rose, and 

 the retiring waters showed a continent soon to be 

 parcelled out among sturdy bands of explorers. That 

 the wave circling out from the paddle, the musical 

 note pulsating the air, the throb of electricity, the pull 

 of magnetism, the vibrations of heat and light shot 

 forth from fuel, sun, and star, were in all their diver- 

 sity fundamentally one, was a conception to fascinate 

 such a mind as his and give charm to his discourses. 



