Various Affairs. 323 



second in importance to agriculture, he paid frequent 



visits to the South Kensington School of Cookery, 



and here Miss Youmans entered as pupil to gather for 



him such knowledge as practical training might afford 



in furtherance of his scheme. 



Among the many literary projects which Youmans 



organized for himself or for others to execute I find 

 one which for some reason or other was not carried 

 out. It is mentioned in a letter to his brother, Mr. 

 Earle Youmans, of Winona, Minn., who, in com- 

 pany with a younger brother, Mr. Addison Youmans, 

 has for years carried on a very large business in 

 lumber, and is, I should judge, eminently qualified to 

 deal successfully with the interesting and important 

 subject mentioned. 



New York, Decembet /j, 1874. 

 Dear Brother Earle : I think you should not give 

 up the lectures. The failure of an audience in Winona 

 amounts to nothing. The subject is the next great thing 

 any way, and has got to be considered by this people. I 

 believe political economy, so called, is to take a new shape 

 in the near future and become a branch of scientific sociol- 

 ogy. Hitherto it has been treated too much in its abstrac- 

 tions, and its great laws and results when so stated are too 

 complex to be grasped by the mob. A lecture on the evo- 

 lution of business, that should treat the subject historically 

 and begin with the crudest exchange of the lowest races 

 and trace it through to its largest unfoldings, would make 

 it more concrete and link it on to the diversified workings 

 of human nature in such a way that it could be understood 

 by everybody and could be made attractive as well as in- 

 structive. Spencer's Descriptive Sociologies are an unex- 

 plored mine of this kind. If you will get up some lectures 

 and work at them regularly, and not be in a hurry about it, 

 you can have the Cooper Institute to deliver them in and 



