Edward Livingston Youmans 69 



enchanting grace and vivacity of manner, in Ed- 

 ward Youmans, this strain of Irish blood may 

 have been to some extent accountable. Both father 

 and mother belonged to the old Puritan stock of 

 New England, and the father's ancestry was doubt- 

 less purely English. Nothing could be more hon- 

 ourably or characteristically English than the name. 

 In the old feudal society, the yeoman, like the 

 franklin, was the small freeholder, owning a mod- 

 est estate, yet holding it by no servile tenure ; a 

 man of the common people, yet no churl ; a mem- 

 ber of the state who " knew his rights, and know- 

 ing dared maintain." Few indeed were the nooks 

 and corners outside of merry England where such 

 men flourished as the yeomen and franklins who 

 founded democratic New England. It has often 

 been remarked how the most illustrious of Frank- 

 lins exemplified the typical virtues of his class. 

 There was much that was similar in the tempera- 

 ment and disposition of Edward Youmans, the 

 sagacity and penetration, the broad common sense, 

 the earnest purpose veiled but not hidden by the 

 blithe humour, the devotion to ends of wide prac- 

 tical value, the habit of making in the best sense 

 the most out of life. 



When Edward was but six months old, his par- 

 ents moved to Greenfield, near Saratoga Springs. 



