Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 30.djvu/721

Rh the journal had been started "to help on the work of sound public education by supplying instructive articles on the leading subjects of scientific inquiry." It was there shown, further, that the meaning of the term science was widening, that it had come to be regarded as applying to the whole of Nature; "as being, in fact, a method of the mind, a quality or character of knowledge upon all subjects of which we can think or know." This implied a more critical method of inquiry in fields not before so strictly dealt with. Whatever subjects involved accessible and observable phenomena came within its range; it was the common interest of rational beings; and included in the immense extension of its conception all subjects of human interest. There was growing up a valuable literature of popular science in the shape of instructive essays and lectures from men who were authorities upon the subjects which they treated, for the diffusion of which adequate means were not yet provided. The "Monthly" would afford this, and in doing it would appeal not to the illiterate, but to the generally educated classes, and would seek to enable them to carry on the work of self-instruction in science.

To him may be literally applied what he wrote of Agassiz, on the occasion of his death: "He [Agassiz] had great enthusiasm and impulsiveness, and the whole fervor and intensity of his nature was spent in the single-minded pursuit of science. Not content with what he could himself know, and do, and enjoy, he was powerfully impelled to make others the sharers of his knowledge, his activity, and his pleasures. He not only won them to him by his geniality and his cordial and unaffected manners, but he inspired them with his own purposes, and moved them to his own ends." He was not content to be merely a scatterer of his own stores of knowledge; "he had a profound interest in popular education, but the soul of that interest was for improvement in its methods. In the matter of public instruction he was a revolutionist and a propagandist. He warred with current ideas and consecrated practices. He condemned in the most emphatic way the wretched lesson-learning routine that prevails in the schools. He denounced our wordy and bookish education as baseless and unreal, and demanded such a change in our systems of instruction as shall bring the pupils face to face with Nature herself, and call out the mind by direct exercise upon phenomena—the facts, laws, relations, and realities of the world of experience." All this is true of Professor Youmans; but it never entered his mind to assail existing systems till he believed he had something better and more effective to put in their place.

His faith and his heart were in his work, and he executed his self-imposed duties with a vigor, an earnestness, and a thoroughness that are peculiar to those who believe in what they are doing, and whose highest satisfaction is obtained in the consciousness of benefits conferred. Leaving this work—so persistently and so successfully carried on—to other hands, he has left along with it an example of conscientious devotion to principle, of outspoken allegiance to truth, and of unsparing self-sacrifice, that will remain a precious heritage to his friends, and may fitly serve as an inspiration to all who are striving for the general good.

N his article on "Socialism," in the new "Scribner," General Francis A. Walker, of Boston, advances two opinions that seem to us open to the gravest question. In the first place he apparently approves of the exemption of church property from taxation in so far as the practice is grounded on a belief that the interests of public order will