LITTLE It was some days before he could get out, and in his JOURNEYS sorry plight, bandaged so his face was scarcely visible, Spencer found him. "Herbert, do you believe in the actuality of matter?" was his first question. Both Tyndall and Huxley made application to the University of Toronto for positions as teachers of science; but Toronto looked askance, as all pioneer people do, at men whose college careers have been mostly confined to giving college absent treatment. Herbert Spencer avowed again and again that Tyndall was the greatest teacher he ever knew or heard of— inspiring the pupil to discover for himself to do-to become, rather than imparting prosy facts of doubtful pith and moment. But Herbert Spencer not being eligible to join a university club himself, was possibly not competent to judge. Anyway, England was not so finical as Canada, and so she gained what Canada lost PN 1872, Tyndall visited the United States, and gave lectures in most of the principal cities, and at all of the great colleges. He was a most fascinating speaker, fluent, direct, easy, and his whole discourse was well seasoned with humor. Whenever he spoke the auditorium was taxed to its utmost, and his reception was very cordial, even in colleges that were considered as exceedingly orthodox. Possibly, some good people who invited him to speak did not know it was loaded: and so his earnest words in praise of Darwin and the doctrine of evolution, occasionally came like unto a rumble of his own artificial thunder. "I speak what I think is truth, but of course, when I express ungracious facts I try to do so in what will be regarded as not a nasty manner,' said Tyndall, thus using that pet English word in a rather pleasing way. In his statement that the prayer of persistent effort is the only prayer that is ever answered, he met with a direct challenge at Oberlin. This gave rise to what, at the time, created quite a dust in the theological road, and evolved, "The Tyndall Prayer Test." Tyndall proposed that one hundred clergymen be delegated to pray for the patients in any certain ward of Bellevue Hospital. If after a year's trial there was a marked decrease in mortality in that ward, as compared with previous records, we might then conclude that prayer was efficacious, otherwise not. One good clergyman in Pittsburg offered to publicly debate "Darwinism" with Tyndall, but beyond a little scattered shrapnel of this sort, the lecture tour was a great success. It netted just thirteen thousand dollars, the whole amount of which Tyndall generously donated as a fund to be used for the advancement of natural science in America. In 1885, this fund had increased to thirty-two thousand dollars, and was divided into three equal parts and presented to Columbia, Harvard and the University of Pennsylvania. The fund was still further increased by others who followed LITTLE LITTLE JOURNEYS Professor Tyndall's example, and Columbia, from her share of the Tyndall fund, I am told, now supports two foreign scholarships for the benefit of students who show a special aptitude in scientific research. Professor James of Harvard once said, "The impetus to popular scientific study caused by Professor Tyndall's lectures in the United States was most helpful and fortunate. Speaking but for myself, I know I am a different man and a better man, for having heard and known John Tyndall." HEN Tyndall died, in 1893, Herbert Spencer wrote this: It never occurred to Tyndall to ask what it was politic to say, but simply to ask what was true. The like has of late years been shown in his utterances concerning political matters-shown, it may be, with too great frankness. This extreme frankness was displayed also in private, and sometimes, perhaps, too much displayed; but every one must have the defects of his qualities. Where absolute sincerity exists, it is certain now and then to cause an expression of a feeling or opinion not adequately restrained. But the contrast in genuineness between him and the average citizen was very conspicuous. In a community of Tyndalls (to make a wild supposition) there would be none of that flabbiness characterizing current thought and actionno throwing overboard of principles elaborated by painful experience in the past, and adoption of a handto-mouth policy unguided by any principle. He was not the kind of a man who would have voted for a bill or a clause which he secretly believed would be in- LITTLE LITTLE But there was a derivative form of this generosity JOURNEYS calling for still greater eulogy. He was not content with expressing appreciation of those whose merits were recognized, but he used energy unsparingly in drawing public attention to those whose merits were unrecognized; and time after time in championing the cause of such, he was regardless of the antagonism he aroused and the evil he brought upon himself. This chivalrous defense of the neglected and ill-used has been, I think by few, if any, so often repeated. I have myself more than once benefited by his determination, quite spontaneously shown, that justice should be done in the apportionment of credit; and I have with admiration watched like actions of his in other cases-cases in which no consideration of nationality or of creed interfered in the least with his insistence on equitable distribution of honors. In this undertaking to fight for those who were unfairly dealt with, he displayed in another direction that very conspicuous trait which, as displayed in his Alpine feats, has made him to many persons chiefly known— I mean courage, passing very often into daring. And here let me, in closing this sketch, indicate certain mischiefs which this trait brought upon him. Courage grows by success. The demonstrated ability to deal with dangers, produces readiness to meet more dangers, and is self-justifying where the muscular power and the nerve habitually prove adequate. But the resulting habit of mind is apt to influence conduct in other spheres, where muscular power and nerve are of no avail-is apt to cause the daring of dangers which are not to be met by strength of limb or by skill. Nature as externally presented by precipice ice-slopes and crevasses may be dared by one adequately endowed; but nature, as internally represented in the form of physical constitution, may not be thus dared |