134 SCIENCE REMAKING THE WORLD 



be homesick, even almost disgraceful not to be so on 

 occasion; but succumbing to this worthy emotional 

 illness is not so respectable. 



Louis Pasteur's father was a tanner of hides, as had 

 been his grandfather and great-grandfather. His 

 home was near the malodorous tannery yard, and his 

 childhood home street in Dole before his family moved 

 to Arbois, was known as the "street of the tanners." 

 From his birth in 1822 until he was almost sixteen years 

 of age, his life had been more or less associated with the 

 tannery. And now, as a lonesome boy in a distant 

 school, in a great city one hundred leagues from home, 

 he longed so earnestly "for a whiff of the old tannery" 

 that genuine illness would have been welcome if it 

 could have secured his return to his home. Hours were 

 days to the boy, and he soon decided he could stand it no 

 longer. His work was poor, he was miserable, and so 

 wrote to his father. The father, with much depression, 

 went to Paris and took the boy back to his Arbois home. 



The halo over the home and playground is some- 

 times more easily seen one hundred leagues away than 

 close at hand. It was so with young Pasteur, for the 

 halo evanesced and certain stern realities appeared. 

 He soon announced his readiness to return to Paris, but 

 the wise father replied that the schools of Arbois would 

 suffice for the present. The boy became an outstanding 

 pupil in drawing, so recognized by all. At night he 

 went over all of his day's lessons with his father, not 

 the lessons of the next day, as is so commonly done now- 

 adays to make sure that pupils know their lessons; but 

 the lessons of the preceding morning and afternoon, as 



