Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/544

526 In conclusion, we claim that the average American college girl, in comparison with her English cousin, expends by her methods of study a maximum of effort with a minimum of result; that, by way of reform, she should limit the hours of daily mental labor, as the workmen's hours of daily manual labor are limited, in order that during some periods of each day she may know perfect relaxation and freedom from pressing duties; that athletic games, instead of being for her a foe to scholarship, as the faculties of men's colleges seem inclined to regard them, may, by the exercise of good judgment in their use, be made an effective agent to build up the physique, and thus to keep the brain in condition for vigorous effort.



HILE the applause and lasting fame which those win who make great scientific discoveries, or embody their observations in monumental books, are worthily bestowed, those also serve mankind and deserve to be well remembered who labor to make knowledge accessible to the whole people, and to lift the average of intelligence by writing books in plain language, by giving instruction, and by investing their teaching with the charms of their personal magnetism and warm eloquence. Of this latter class was a conspicuous example. Few in the United States have labored more earnestly, with stricter singleness of purpose, or more successfully than he to interest the general public and make them acquainted with the latest results of true science,

Mr. Gunning was born in Bloomingburg, Fayette County, Ohio, July 28, 1828, and died in Greeley, Col., March 8, 1888. His family was of Scotch-Irish origin, but his direct ancestry is traced no further back than to Armagh, Ireland, whence his grandfather, William Gunning, emigrated in 1793 to Oswego County, N. Y., his father, Andrew Gunning, being then a child. The family removed to Bloomingburg in 1815. All that is told of the boy's early education is that he was taught at the log schoolhouse of his district by a young woman of the neighborhood. He showed an inquiring disposition and a tendency to bookish ways; and busied himself, it is said, with the stones and shells from the brookside near the house, and would ask to be told stories of them. When about fourteen years old he was apprenticed to Robert McLaughlin, his sister's husband, and was taught a trade. He always had a book on the bench by his side.