386 Edward Liviiifjston Youmans: 



enjoy pulpit sermons. Anything making for practical value was 

 precious in his eyes; the useless he endeavored to eliminate. 

 I'rof. Youmans was too much of an enthusiast to become a 

 very systematic worker. He was irregular in his labors, working 

 all night if need be, not thinking of economy of resources. 

 He was not careful to take sufficient exercise, being rather 

 indolent as regards ])hysical exertion. Yet he sometimes chopped 

 wood, like Mr. Gladstone; but if anybody had asked him to 

 saw it I think he would have .said, '"Go to!" He liked good 

 living, but was not a drinking-man, save that he was very 

 intemperate with ice-water. He commended himself to his 

 wife when he married her, at his age of forty, by the fact that he 

 never used tobacco; but he fell from this grace afterward, and 

 became a smoker; I suppose at first only when away from her, 

 because in his absence from her society lie felt the evil which he 

 had not known before, and endeavored to soothe his mind as best 

 he could. 



Not to weary you further, if I were to characterize Prof. You- 

 mans' work it would be to emphasize his service as an educator. 

 This was the purpose of his lecturing, his works, his establish- 

 ment of The Popular Science Monthhj. He wanted first to know 

 the truth, and then, he believed, if the truth could only be applied 

 it would make men free. So he sought to popularize knowledge 

 and make it assimilable to men's minds. In this I think he 

 achieved a very marked success, and made a very decided impres- 

 sion upon American intellectual life. His own books had this 

 effect, and the establishment and continuance of The Popular 

 Science Monthly have contributed powerfully to the same result. 

 The work of him who seizes upon, utilizes, adapts and extends 

 the discovery is scarcely, if at all, less important than that of the 

 original discoverer. If it be an object to give a force and efficiency 

 to truth that shall insure its permanent hold upon the human 

 mind, then honor is due to him who makes it forceful. However 

 far scientific pi-ogress has gone in America, to wliatever extent 

 empirical ignorance has been superseded, in whatever degree 

 superstitions have lost their force the life-labors of Prof. You- 

 mans must be counted as a potent factor in the change. He saw 

 his mission and he fulfilled it well. He never despised art, but he 

 l)elieved in science as of first importance, and whether science 

 or art be considered, he insisted on its practical interests. He 

 believed that 



Not to know at large of things remote 



From us, obscure and subtle, but to know 



That which before us lies in daily life, 



Is the i)rinie wisdom; wliat is more is fume, 



An I'inptiiiess or loud impertinence, 



And renders us in tilings that most concern 



Uni)ractised, unprepared and still to seek. 



PliOFESSOll FitANKI.IX AV. lIooi'Ki:: 



I rise to acknowledge the debt of gratitude which I pej'sonally 

 owe to the late Prof. Youmans. More tliaii twenty years ago, 

 wlieii occupying tlie position of janitor in a Wes^eiii College a 

 l)osition wliich gave me access to tlie College Library 1 came 

 across a book tlie reading of whicli marked an era in my life. The 

 title of the book was. "Tlie Culture Demanded by Modern Life," 



