68 LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



to demonstrate it. Each session lasts two or 

 three hours, during which the professor in 

 charge retails his merchandise without aid of 

 notes or book. You can imagine how useful 

 this must be in preparing us to speak in public 

 and with coherence ; the experience is the 

 more important, since we all desire nothing so 

 much as sooner or later to become professors 

 in very truth, after having played at professor 

 in the university. 



This brings me naturally to my projects 

 again. Your letter made me feel so keenly 

 the anxiety I had caused you by my passion 

 for travel, that I will not recur to it ; but as 

 my object was to make in that way a name 

 that would win for me a professorship, I ven- 

 ture upon another proposition. If during the 

 course of my studies I succeed in making my- 

 self known by a work of distinction, will you 

 not then consent that I shall study, at least 

 during one year, the natural sciences alone, 

 and then accept a professorship of natural his- 

 tory, with the understanding that in the first 

 place, and in the time agreed upon, I shall 

 take my Doctor's degree ? This is, indeed, 

 essential to my obtaining what I wish, at least 

 in Germany. You will object that, before 

 thinking of anything beyond, I ought first to 



