164 Edward Livingston Youmans. 



read, for Dr. Walker (formerly president of the college) had 

 borrowed them. He was, however, much interested in the 

 Biology; thought it promised to be more taking than its 

 predecessors, and might be made popular. 



Dr. Thomas Hill, present president of the college, told 

 me that he was not a subscriber to the serial and had not 

 read First Principles ; but he had prepared a sermon directed 

 against its doctrines (no names being mentioned), which he 

 considered but a reproduction of the French atheism of the 

 last century. 



There is a literary club in Cambridge, embracing the 

 president and some of the professors, at the monthly meet- 

 ings of w^hich an essay from one of the members is read 

 and discussed. I gathered from various remarks that the 

 philosophy of Herbert Spencer was brought up at the last 

 meeting by an essay of Dr. Walker, the borrower of Gray's 

 numbers. The college is in the midst of a ferocious fight 

 between the scientists and the classicists, the latter having 

 become alarmed at the inroads of the former. The new 

 president is regarded as a triumph of science, and I suspect 

 that his newly prepared sermon may be intended to con- 

 ciliate the adverse party. 



I tracked out the author of the article on the Evolution 

 of Language, in the last North American, who proved to be 

 a very able young fellow, only twenty-one, named Fiske — a 

 resident graduate of Cambridge and a student of the law 

 school. You may remember I mentioned to you an article 

 in the National Quarterly on Buckle, which had a refer- 

 ence to you. That article was also by Fiske.* He has an 

 intimate companion named Roberts, and they have read, 

 pondered, and discussed together every line of yours they 

 could obtain, in volume or review. First Principles they 

 have read through twice together, and they have not only 



* Mr. Buckle's Fallacies, National Quarterly Review, December, 1861 ; 

 republished in my Darwinism, and Other Essays. 



