112 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



acts of insubordination. Where candor is permitted he is apt to 

 prove himself an exceedingly acute critic of the system which is 

 imposed on him. 



All this, moreover, seems to show that a child objects not only 

 to the particular administration under which he happens to live, 

 but to all law, as implying restraints on free activity. Thus, from 

 the child's point of view, so far as we have yet examined it, pun- 

 ishment as such is a thing which ought not to be. 



So strong and deep-reaching is this antagonism to law and its 

 restraints apt to be that the childish longing to be " big " is, I be- 

 lieve, grounded on the expectation of liberty. To be big means to 

 the child more than anything else to be rid of all this imposition 

 of commands, to be able to do what one likes without interference 

 from others. This longing may grow intense in the breast of a 

 quite small child. " Do you know," asked a little fellow of four 

 years, " what I shall do when I'm a big man ? I'll go to a shop and 

 buy a bun and pick out all the currants." This funny story is 

 characteristic of the movements of young desire. The small 

 prohibition not to pick out the currants is one that may chafe 

 to soreness a child's sensibility. 



SKETCH OF ALEXANDER DALLAS BACHE. 



life which is to be sketched in the following pages con- 

 tributes support to the doctrine that what a man is to be, or, 

 rather, what he is capable of being, is mainly determined by what 

 his parents and ancestors have been. According to the doctrine 

 of heredity, it is not surprising that Bache, descended from illus- 

 trious progenitors on both sides of his family, should himself 

 achieve intellectual eminence. As he received an education that 

 was very appropriate for the work he was to perform, his career 

 does not give any help in answering the question whether heredity 

 is or is not stronger than training. 



His most important work is instructive in another way. It 

 shows how effective efforts for the advancement of knowledge 

 made by the power and resources of a great government can be 

 when the right man is secured to direct them, just as other in- 

 stances have made plain how wasteful and demoralizing such 

 efforts may become when unwisely managed. 



ALEXANDER DALLAS BACHE was born in Philadelphia, July 

 19, 1806. His father, Richard Bache, was a grandson of Benjamin 

 Franklin, being one of the eight children of Richard Bache, Post- 

 master-General from 1776 to 1782, and Franklin's only daughter, 

 Sarah. His mother, Sophia Burret (Dallas), was a daughter of 



