170 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 



It was not unknown in Europe, and Agassiz's employ- 

 ment of it a year or two later at Cambridge gave a vogue 

 to it in America which has been permanent. Like many 

 other admirable things it recommended itself to more 

 than one teacher about the same time. 



Many references to the long tramps with his pupils 

 are found in his Journal. This sort of work not only 

 awakened interest and often enthusiasm among the mem- 

 bers of his class but furnished them with a field of diver- 

 sion and a possibility of study which might, in lives like 

 those of a country clergyman or doctor, in after years 

 afford a welcome variety and relief from the more or 

 less monotonous grind of daily professional work. 



The (to many arid) sessions in the usual modern 

 college laboratory with microscope and scalpel, and with 

 nothing else, if a student has not an overwhelming passion 

 for science, rather deter him from scientific pursuits; are 

 chiefly remembered by the smells and messes of the work- 

 room; and open no such vistas of interest and pleasure 

 to the average man. 



The sudden popularity of so-called "nature study" in 

 the preliminary schools, is a sign of reaction from the 

 "Huxley and Martin" type of instruction which is to 

 be heartily welcomed. 



As might be expected among those who came under 

 Baird's influence, among his students were several who 

 afterward became efficient helpers. The names occur of 

 Moncure D. Conway (class of 1849), author and radical 

 reformer; John A. J.Creswell (1848), afterward Postmaster 

 General; Charles O'Neall, later member of Congress; 

 and C. C. Tiffany, subsequently Archdeacon of New York; 

 John H. Clark, who left before graduation; Caleb Burwell 

 Rowan Kennedy (1849); George R. Bibb (1851); and 



