The Class- nook of Chemistry. 69 



author's brave and patient toil was at length to be re- 

 warded. The book had an immediate and signal suc- 

 cess ; and to this day, having been twice rewritten in 

 conformity to the advancement of the science, it re- 

 mains one of our best text-books of chemistry. The 

 sale has reached one hundred and fifty thousand 

 copies. In every State of the Union teachers and 

 pupils welcomed the book. The subject was pre- 

 sented with beautiful clearness, in a most attractive 

 style. There was a firm grasp of the philosophical 

 principles underlying chemical phenomena, and the 

 meaning and functions of the science were set forth in 

 such a way as to charm the student and make him 

 wish for more. At that time a spark of enthusiasm 

 was no more expected in a text-book of chemistry 

 than in a treatise on contingent remainders. But in 

 Youmans's pages the chemical elements were alive. 

 To him oxygen was not merely an element of certain 

 specified weight and affinities ; it was alternately the 

 sustainer and destroyer of life, the master builder of 

 organic form and the chief agent of its decay, the 

 purifier of air and sea. 



The Class-book of Chemistry was Youmans's ger- 

 minal book; all his subsequent work was foreshad- 

 owed in it his Correlation, Household Science, Cul- 

 ture, and his articles innumerable. Its reception 

 showed him his strength and his true field. Thence- 

 forth his career was that of breaking the bread of sci- 

 ence to the multitude. 



The present chapter and its predecessor have their 

 lesson, full of consolation and encouragement as of 

 pathos. When the Chemistry was finished, in the 

 autumn of 1851, its author had been for eleven years 

 under the care of an oculist. Under such circum- 



