Popular l'.(tucatwn, an<{ Other Matters. 243 



ally, and that the public is quite ripe for it. I had a talk 

 with Mr. Hewitt at the Century the other ni^ht, and 

 glad to find that he had formed a very hi^h opinion of 

 botany in a disciplinary point of view, saying that it 

 probably as good as mathematics. I showed him in what 

 respects it was superior, and when I told him that it 

 the only point in the whole course of education at which 

 aesthetics might be naturally developed, I think he was 

 much struck by the remark. He asked me if I thought it 

 could be systematically included or co-ordinated with the 

 other studies in the School of Design. I said, Undoubtedly. 

 He had looked over the Physiology, and liked it. He was 

 interested in your progress with the Botany when I told 

 him about it. The botanical field, as you mean to take it 

 up, is quite unoccupied; how long it may remain so is un- 

 certain. You ought not to carry the book through alone ; 

 you must have somebody help you do the drudgery of it. 



I have been overhauling the World to find Fiske's arti- 

 cles,* and have been well rewarded. He remembers Spen- 

 cer every time. I send them to you. Preserve them and 

 bring them down when you come. 



In this winter season of 1868 Mr. Youmans made 

 the last of his long lecturing journeys, attended by 

 much weariness and discomfort. In reading the let- 

 ters of this time, that susceptibility to cold which 

 afterward ended his life impresses me as greater 

 than in those days I had fully realized. 



WINONA, January 26, 1868. 



MY DARLING KITTY : I was gladdened by two letters 

 when I arrived here yesterday, while a third has come to- 



* The reference is to various reviews of historical and scientific books, 

 in the course of which the doctrine of evolution was apt to get mentioned, 

 with some of its bearings upon the particular case in hand. 



