Birth and Childhood. 3 



Few things at that time were more generally needed 

 in America than the kind of stimulus that no one can 

 impart but a public teacher enthusiastic and eloquent, 

 broad and tolerant, trained in the methods of modern 

 science, and brimful of its blithe and aggressive but 

 self-restrained and sober spirit. Such teachers are 

 not too common at any time. To produce one re- 

 quires a rare combination of qualities. One may meet 

 with a hundred men learned in science, a thousand 

 men who can skim over its surface in entertaining talk, 

 sooner than one will find this rare combination. In 

 our days it has been realized in no one so completely 

 as in the man to whose memory it is the purpose of 

 this volume to pay a brief word of tribute. It is but 

 a little while since that noble face was here among us, 

 and the tones of that kindly voice were fraught with 

 good cheer for us. No one who knew Edward Liv- 

 ingston Youmans is likely ever to forget him. But 

 for those who knew the man it will not be superfluous 

 to recount the main incidents of his life and work. 

 For those who knew him not it is desirable that the 

 story should be set forth, for the work was like the 

 man, unselfish and unobtrusive, and in the hurry of 

 modern life such work is liable to be lost from sight, 

 so that people profit by it without knowing that it 

 was ever done. So genuinely modest, so destitute of 

 self-regarding impulses was my friend, that I am sure 

 it would be quite like him to chide me for thus setting 

 forth, with what he would deem too much emphasis, 

 his claims to public remembrance. But such mild 

 reproof it is right that we should disregard ; for the 

 memory of a life so beautiful and useful is a precious 

 possession of which mankind ought not to be deprived. 

 We shall see how Edward Youmans, in spite of scanty 



