Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 51.djvu/854

836 reading public, that the people should be enabled to share the fruits of scholarship.

"I was convinced that no one should attempt to do this sort of work but a man of thorough scientific training. I had done all the work the schools offered. I had been a professor. I had made some original researches. I felt that I had a right to attempt to explain in a popular style the wonders of science. My first book, on the Principal Modern Scientific Discoveries, was a success, and I immediately arranged to continue the work. My colleagues blamed me, and said I was belittling science, but I was convinced the thing ought to be done, and I made up my mind to do it if possible.

"In 1855 I began to write scientific letters for La Presse, which under Emile de Girardin was one of the most important papers of Paris. But I soon found I had too much to do. The university or the popularization must be given up. I chose the latter. There were plenty of men willing to do the exclusive work of the former; there was only myself willing to use my training for the press. And that is how I became a journalist."

He never referred to his early journalistic experience without recalling the brilliant circle which he entered when he became a member of the staff of La Presse. It needed only the suggestion of a name then to get his characterization of many a famous man or woman. He would clasp his hands and lift his eyes. "Ah, those were great days! Victor Hugo was living then, you know. The year I joined the staff of La Presse Théophile Gautier was doing its dramatic work, Lamartine was running his Caesar as a feuilleton, and George Sand the Story of her Life. It was around such a nucleus that the Girardins gathered all that was brilliant in Paris into their hótel in the Champs Elysées."

M. Figuier continued writing popular scientific books after he began journalism. The familiar Année Scientifique, which he conducted till the end of his life, was his first venture. It was followed by the Pictures of Nature, the first of which, The World before the Deluge, has been alluded to. This series incudedincluded [sic] nine volumes, reviewing the meteorology, physics, mechanics, and chemistry of the globe.

One day when we were talking about the books he said: "I had an ambitious idea in beginning that series. I wanted to chase lying out of the schools."

"Lying?"

"Yes, lying. What are mythology and fables but lying?"

"But"

"False, all false."