The Popular Science Monthly. 3 1 1 



part to the artifice of clear and familiar statement, which 

 will give you access to ordinary minds, is very important. 

 I do not mean for a moment that your writing is obscure, 

 but only that your composition would be improved if you 

 had in your mind's eye a person of common intelligence 

 and quite unacquainted with the subject you are seeking 

 to explain. You would then stop and think by what han- 

 dling or illustration the view so clear to you could be 

 brought into his apprehension. I am speaking from the 

 Popular Science standpoint about a deficiency which marks 

 many of our scientific writers. Generally the deeper and 

 more thorough their science, the poorer is their power of 

 exposition. Excuse me for throwing out these suggestions, 

 but with your unusual ability of statement and command 

 of appropriate language, if you would study the art of 

 getting at the mind of the multitude, as a dramatist has to 

 study it in elaborating his points with reference to their 

 effect upon theatre goers, you could do very important and 

 increasingly needed work in the field of popular and scien- 

 tific education. 



Have you any leisure to write, and do you care to ac- 

 complish anything in that direction ? If yes, and you have 

 the necessary works at hand, I should like you to try to 

 make a thoroughly popular and simplified statement of the 

 doctrine of the " dissipation of energy." I want a report 

 in the Monthly of the state of that question, explaining 

 what it is, what we know, and what we don't know about 

 it. What say you ? Ever and truly yours, 



E. L. YOUMANS. 



He had very often to perform the common edi- 

 torial function of returning unsuitable manuscripts, 

 but always with most kindly consideration. Among 

 authors who are to-day prominent might be named 

 several whose first efforts submitted to Youmans were 



