The Man and His Work. 369 



rigid and stupid manner of teaching, which characterize the 

 ordinary school. In after years Youmans used to say that 

 "Uncle Good" as this admirable pedagogue was called 

 first taiight him what his mind was for. Through inter- 

 course 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. 



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 

 opportunities are not offered they will somehow contrive to 

 create them. When Edward Youmans was about thirteen 

 years old he persuaded his father to buy him a copy of 

 Comstock's Natural Philosophy. This book he studied at 

 home by himself, and repeated many of the experiments 

 with apparatus of his own contriving. When he made a 

 centrifugal water-wheel, and explained to the men and boys 

 of the neighborhood the principle of its revolution in a 

 direction opposite to that of the stream which moved it, we 

 may regard it as his earliest attempt at giving scientific 

 lectures. It was natural that one who had become interested 

 in physics should wish to study chemistry. The teacher 

 (who was not "Uncle Good") had never so much as laid 

 eyes on a text-book of chemistry ; but Edward was not to 

 be daunted by such trifles. A. copy of Comstock's manual 

 was procured, another pupil was found willing to join in 

 the study, and this class of two proceeded to learn what 

 they could from reading the book, while the teacher asked 

 them the printed questions those questions the mere 

 existence of which in text-books is apt to show what a low 

 view publishers take of the average intelligence of teachers ! 

 It was not a very hopeful way of studying such a subject 

 as chemistry ; but doubtless the time was not wasted, and 

 the foundations for a future knowledge of chemistry were 

 laid. The experience of farm-work which accompanied 

 these studies explains the interest which in later years Mr. 

 Youmans felt in agricultural chemistry. He came to 

 realize how crude and primitive are our methods of making 

 the earth yield its produce, and it was his opinion that, 

 when men have once learned how to conduct agriculture 

 upon sound scientific principles, farming will become at 

 once the most wholesome and the most attractive form of 

 human industry. 



