482 ZOOLOGY 



daughter of the rector of the academy. In a formal 

 letter to M. Laurent, he outlines his prospects, and an- 

 nounces that unless his tastes should completely change, 

 he will give himself up entirely to chemical research. 

 Fortune he has none ; what should come to him from 

 the family estate he gives to his sisters. His father will 

 come to Strasburg to make the formal proposal of mar- 

 riage. At the same time, Pasteur ventures to send a 

 more intimate note to the girl's mother. "I am afraid 

 that Mile. Marie may be influenced by early impres- 

 sions, unfavorable to me. There is nothing in me to 

 attract a young girl's fancy. But my recollections tell 

 me that those who have known me very well have loved 

 me very much." In due course of time they were 

 married, and we are told that Mme. Pasteur was from 

 the first willing to spell science with a capital S. 

 Deanat 6. In 1854 Pasteur became dean of the new faculty of 



sciences at Lille. He entered upon his new work with 

 great enthusiasm, developing the then novel plan of 

 laboratory instruction. He made an opening address 

 to the parents and students, in which he exclaimed : 

 "Where will you find a young man whose curiosity and 

 interest will not immediately be awakened when you 

 put into his hands a potato, when with that potato he 

 may produce sugar, with that sugar alcohol, with that 

 alcohol ether and vinegar ? Where is he that will not 

 be happy to tell his family in the evening that he has 

 just been working out an electric telegraph ? . . . 

 Your sons will not forget what the air we breathe con- 

 tains when they have once analyzed it, when in their 

 hands and under their eyes the admirable properties of 

 its elements have been resolved !" 



.spontaneous J. With all this zeal for teaching, Pasteur did not 

 generation ne gi ect m ' s own researches. He presently attacked 



