Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 12.djvu/770

750 as that of the human race has spontaneously grown.

"I conceived that a vast amount of knowledge respecting natural phenomena and their interdependence, and even some practical experience of scientific method, could be conveyed, with all the precision of statement which is what distinguishes science from common information; and yet, without overstepping the comprehension of learners who possessed no further share of preliminary educational discipline than that which falls to the lot of the boys and girls who pass through an ordinary primary school. And I thought that, if my plan could be properly carried out, it would not only yield results of value in themselves, but would facilitate the subsequent entrance of the learners into the portals of the special sciences."

Prof. Huxley fulfilled this idea with great approval in his lectures. He began by ideally placing his audience upon London Bridge to observe and consider the river phenomena of the Thames. From this point, step by step, he worked over the field, constantly using illustrations and explaining effects that were familiar to his hearers. In this aspect, therefore, the book has a flavor of locality, but the thoughtful teacher in using it will simply transfer its applications to his own region. The book is beautifully illustrated, and should find its place, if not as a class-book, at least as a book for reading and reference, in every school.

have found this volume very pleasant reading, as it delineates the features of a marked personality, and makes us acquainted with the somewhat peculiar life of a man who was thoroughly appreciated and much beloved by his friends. His printed letters are most readable, and, though not brilliant, they seem to us quite superior in simplicity and clearness of style to his more elaborate published essays; and this too when he is treating of the same subjects. He was born at Northampton, Massachusetts, in 1830, entered Harvard College in 1848, passed the rest of his life at Cambridge, and died suddenly of apoplexy in 1875. He was employed in the office of the Nautical Almanac, took occasional private pupils, taught in Prof. Agassiz's school for young ladies, was an instructor in the college, and one of the university lecturers. His literary work consists of articles contributed to the North American Review and the Nation. The following passages from his biographer's description of his character will give the reader a good idea of some of. its aspects:

"Calm, gentle, unassuming; ready to be pleased; demanding little of his friends; as pure as a woman in thought and speech; fond of children, and unwearied in giving them pleasure; free from passion to a defect; never selfish, though at times, from preoccupation of mind or from lack of imagination, not wholly considerate; deficient in ambition; devoid of jealousy and envy; perfectly honorable and perfectly amiable—these stand out in the memory of his oldest friends, as the last impressions of his character, the same large features, great simplicity and great dignity, which would have struck an observer meeting him for the first time. . ..

"His writings were more like simple transverse sections from a web that was ever unrolling itself from the loom of his busy brain than like pieces woven for the occasion, in which a particular effect was to be produced by proper combination of the material at his command. I fear that my illustration may not seem a very pertinent one; but it presents itself naturally to me as I recall the process of composition of the bulk of his published essays, and many more that never went beyond his friends. He wrote with pencil, usually in a note-book; and, when he was in the mood of composition, wrote pretty steadily all day and far into the night. He was too precise in thought and expression to need to correct much or to revise what he had written: and I can hardly recall an instance of his rewriting, or rather reshaping, an essay, short or long. The starting-point was usually some fruitful reflection that promised to reward development; and from this point he would proceed on what was really a voyage of discovery, though in waters that were in general familiar to him. What he wrote during the day would probably be read to me, or the friend that was nearest, the next day, and talked over in a way. The end often came quite as much because the afflatus had ceased as because a natural conclusion had been reached. What he thus produced were rather studies than finished work. They aided him to make his own thought clear to himself, but were little fitted to impress that thought upon others. Original, solid, suggestive, as they always were, from the very manner of their production they lacked proportion, relief, perspective. It seems a hard thing to say of our Chauncey, the most simple, modest, and unconscious of men, that he never knew how to sink himself in his subject; yet just here, in the lack of instinct to discern how the minds he was addressing would be affected, and in the lack of discipline to accommodate the workings of his own mind to their needs and not unreasonable demands, lies the explanation that an