260 Edward Livingston Youmans. 



The paper is having a curious experience. The bare 

 announcement that it would give attention to science and 

 valuable thought raised an almost universal condemnation 

 of it in advance as a certain failure. And although we 

 have had no science in it, and made it as vacant of ideas as 

 possible, it is voted heavy. 



A bolder policy from the start might very likely 

 have proved more successful, and would have saved 

 the enterprise from the danger of falling between two 

 stools. From its editor's point of view Appletons* 

 Journal was neither one thing nor another, and after 

 a somewhat irksome year he resigned his charge. 

 His friend Mr. R. H. Manning, of Brooklyn, then 

 came forward with another editorial scheme. He 

 offered to make a considerable investment for the 

 purpose of founding a daily newspaper which should 

 aid the educational reforms in which Youmans felt so 

 deeply interested. Youmans was to edit and control 

 the paper ; but after due consideration he declined the 

 liberal offer, for he felt that his work could best be 

 done in other fields than those of daily journalism. 



The following glimpse of the winter season of 1870 

 shows a renewed attempt to give lectures and renewed 

 failure from ill health : 



NEW YORK, March 25, 1870. 



MY DEAR SPENCER : Yours of February 3d came punc- 

 tually. It found me in Minnesota in rather a bad way. I 

 went West in early January to give some lectures, and at 

 the fourth broke down from a heavy cold. After threaten- 

 ing me with something serious in the lungs, it seemed to 

 shift to my right foot as a kind of rheumatic inflammation. 

 I fortunately got to my brother's, in Winona, where I was 

 confined, with much pain, for two months. I returned to 

 New York a fortnight ago with considerable difficulty, but 



