52 Edward Livingston Youmans. 



problems abstruse in themselves or unfamiliar to his 

 h*earers. Naturally great, this power of exposition 

 was developed until it came to be marvelous. His 

 deprivation of sight contributed to this. When sitting 

 silent and alone in his room for hours together, his 

 mind was always busy ; its activity was spurred by his 

 necessities and definitely directed by such opportuni- 

 ties of work as came to him. When he had heard a 

 scientific article or a chapter in a scientific book read, 

 whether he intended to use it or not, he would go 

 over the entire statement or train of reasoning, search- 

 ing out defects and fallacies, pushing the arguments 

 to new conclusions. Such links as he laboriously 

 thought out between the familiar and the unfamiliar 

 he would repeat in talking over his favourite themes 

 to his friends, and Mr. Ketcham was a great help to 

 him in this respect. He was intelligent, interested in 

 everything, and fond of argument. He had no greater 

 pleasure than in talking over with Edward whatever 

 subject was uppermost at the time. This laborious mas- 

 tery of what he learned gave Youmans the key to mas- 

 terly exposition when that became his task. Blindness 

 and solitude had some compensations, though sadly in- 

 adequate. With his impulsive and somewhat impetu- 

 ous temperament they enforced a depth and steadiness 

 of reflection he might not otherwise have known, al- 

 though at the expense of pain unspeakably bitter. 



In the winter of 1844 there was some excitement 

 in New York, in educational circles, over the system 

 of artificial memory brought out in a course of lec- 

 tures by a Frenchman, one F. F. Goureaud. For a 

 time this system of phreno-mnemotechny, as it was 

 called, was very popular, and its author reaped large 

 pecuniary rewards. Youmans incidentally made Gou- 



