The New International Encyclopædia/Youmans, Edward Livingston

YOUMANS, yo͞o′manz, Edward Livingston (1821-87). An American scientist, born at Coeymans, N. Y. When only seventeen years old, he was afflicted with a malady of the eyes from which he suffered during the remainder of his life. Despite this handicap, however, he managed to acquire a good education. In 1845 his sister, Eliza Ann Youmans, became his reader and amanuensis, and with her aid he undertook the study of chemistry. In 1851 he prepared a Chemical Chart which won such favor that the next year he published a Class-Book of Chemistry. From that time on he devoted himself with remarkable success to popularizing science. He became a lecturer, founded (1872) and until his death edited the Popular Science Monthly magazine, planned the publication of the “International Scientific Series,” by means of which works by the greatest scientists of all nations were published simultaneously in the principal modern languages, and introduced the works of Herbert Spencer and of other British scientists to American readers. Among his own publications are: Handbook of Household Science (1857); The Correlation and Conservation of Forces (1864); and Culture Demanded by Modern Life (1867).