io6 Edward Livingston Youmans. 



cans to become interested in Spencer. The very next 

 day Youmans wrote the following letter to Spencer, 

 offering his aid in procuring American subscriptions, 

 and otherwise : 



NEW YORK, February 23, 1860. 



DEAR SIR : My friend, Samuel Johnson, Unitarian cler- 

 gyman, of Salem, Mass., yesterday called my attention to a 

 letter and circular from yourself, proposing a reissue of 

 your writings. I was not only greatly pleased with the 

 idea, but the circumstance was especially fortunate for me, 

 as it gave me a clue to your whereabouts, which I had for 

 some time sought. I was on the point of writing to Dr. 

 Chapman* for your address. My purpose was this: I 

 meditate the compilation of a volume designed to present 

 the increasing claims of science upon teachers and the 

 directors of education, to contain the addresses of Faraday, 

 Whewell, Tyndall, Paget, and Daubeny before the Royal 

 Institution, on the popular claims of their respective 

 branches of science, together with the address of Agassiz 

 on kindred points, and your own article in the North 

 British (I think), which was omitted from the edition of 

 your essays. There is still another article, the opening 

 one in the Westminster for last July What Knowledge is 

 of most Worth which I wish also to include, and my so- 

 licitation was to find its authorship. I concluded before I 

 read a page of it that you wrote it ; the full perusal 

 strengthened my conviction ; yet, of course, as I may be 

 mistaken, I wish to find out about it. I might have 

 applied to the editor of the Westminster, but Scott, the 

 republisher, tells me the conductors are often shy and 

 delicate about giving this kind of information. I should 

 therefore be glad of an assurance from yourself ; and if I 



* John Chapman, M. D., at that time editor of the Westminster 

 Review. 



