The morning call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1878-1895, 1894-04-22
EDWARD LIVINGSTON YoUMANs.

There died a few years ago at New
York man whose services to the cause of
human knowledge can hardly be over
estimated and yet whose name has been
unknown to the mass OF the reading COM
munity until at this late period John
Fiske wrote his life. This was Edward
Livingston Youmaus, the editor of the
Popular Science Monthly. BE was re-
marka bic example of difficulties overcome
honest duty faithfully performed, truth
manfully adhered to in the teeth of
ignorance and prejudice.
He came of good American stock, an
ancestor having fought in the Revolution
airy War. His father was farmer, poor but
honest, as the story-books say. He was Is
years old and an Unsuitable reader when
he was attacked with ophthalmia, and after
long suffering became totally blind. For
several years he was unable to see the
sunlight, but he continued mis- studies
through the kindness of friends who read
to him. At last. when he was nearly 80,
the skill of an oculist restored his sight so
that he could read type if it were placed
close to his eye. Thus, re-equipped for
work, he plunged into science with the
ardOr of one whose appetite for learning
had never been appeased. He made him.
self master of the sciences which have
been born or developed during the
present half century, especially those
which bear on evolution, and he ac-
quired nc knowledge which he did
not eagerly aspire to impart to others.
For nearly twenty years be spent his
summers in adding to his store of infor-
nation the discoveries of investigators in
all parts of the world, and his winters in
diffusing that information in the shape of
lectures. With the money thus acquired
be founded just twenty-five years ago the
Popular Science Monthly. a periodical
which has done more for the cause of
scientific truth than perhaps all other
periodicals published in this country CON-
bined.
Mr.. YoumanS was its editor to his death.
He possessed the rare gift of knowing how
to clothe scientific facts in. popular lam
guage. He knew just what the public
could digest. and what was too abstruse
for their consumption. He published
papers on chemistry, astronomy. geology,
botany, biology, archaeology, social science.
which any person of ordinary education
can understand, and yet which contain the
last word in the respective sciences. He
outdid Frank Buckland and eaualed John
Tyndall on their own ground. a careful
reader of the Popular Science Monthly
could feel sure that he was posted on the
progress of science in all its branches.
The periodical did not teach him how to
calculate eclipses, but it made him ac-
cd ifh oil . In LODI hi on ha
required unless be proposed to become
specialist It is not too much to say that
Edward YOumans made himself the father
of popular science in this country.
On one point he was fanatical. His ad-
miration for Herbert Spencer and his doc
trines amounted to worship. The love
and devotion which Asa Gray bestowed
on Darwin Youmans gave to Spencer.
He idoliZed the great PHILOSOPHER, and the
feeling was reciprocated. Nor was You
mans affection purely esthetic. When
Spencer was arrested in the publication of
his great work by want of funds it was
YoumaDs who went around with his hat
in his hand and raised in this country
sufficient sum of money to enable him TO
continue the en- terpTise.
His ardor for work only ceased with his
life. aud. as be grew older. the difficulties
under which it was Prosecuted increased.
He became nearly blind again; be could
not read for himself; new books had to be
read to him by faithful friends. But his
reasoning faculties acquired fresh strength
as his perceDtive faculties diminished in
acuteness; when he had to be led to the
lyceum desk. he was still. as John Fske
says, "a public teacher. enthusiastic and
eloquent, broad and tolerant, trained in
the methods of modern science, and brim-
full of its blithe and aggressive but self
restrained and sober spirit" AS worker
he was interchangeable. he was never unem-
ployed. Spencer said that to him work
was what alcohol is to the drunkard. He
never allowed himself repose. And so he
wore himself out before he reached the
normal term of his usefulness.