Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 50.djvu/272

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258
POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.

him which, tend to weaken his self-reliance, his honesty, and his self-respect, and bring him to the level of the common tramp. If he is given an opportunity of earning his living as a man and is treated like a man, chances are in his favor, but if he is forced to accept charity like a tramp he is very likely to become a tramp. I believe the establishment of municipal wood yards, run on the plan of those now found in many cities, to be the proper solution of the tramp problem. In these a meal or a night's lodging is given in payment for two or three hours' wood cutting. Then the co-operation of the citizens must be enlisted. They must cease entirely all private charity of this sort and send tramps to the wood yard. In this manner tramp life will lose the attraction of an easy, worthless existence. The wood yard will become abhorrent to the genuine tramp, but will be welcomed by those who are really forced on to the road by lack of work. The tramp who finds himself in this manner paying his way will in some measure regain his self-respect and will stand a better chance of being reclaimed.

SKETCH OF HENRY DARWIN ROGERS.

THE family of which the "Rogers brothers" were conspicuous members furnishes a striking instance of the concurrence of consanguinity and affinity of genius and mental tendencies, and its history affords a marked confirmation of the doctrine of hereditary genius. Instances of sons inheriting the mental qualities and capabilities from their fathers, and of brothers achieving distinction in allied or different lines of effort, are common enough and may be cited by the dozen, but very few can be found where so many members of the family became eminent at the same time and in fields so close to one another. In this family we have the father and four sons, all able teachers, and all becoming distinguished as geologists or chemists, and all—the brothers at least—gaining their fame on so nearly the same fields that they were able to co-operate with one another in experiments and in the preparation of papers. Doubtless the occupation of their father, which made him the academic as well as the parental teacher of the elder brothers, had much to do with shaping their tastes and giving direction to their studies, while the youngest, we learn, was taught under their direction. The relations of this quintet and of their work are admirably set forth in the late Dr. Ruschenberger's memorial sketch, which is our chief source of information concerning all of them.

Sketches have already been given of Prof. William B. Rogers, the second of the four brothers, in the ninth volume of the Popu-