Agassiz at Penikese. 



and lie Is very comprehensive ; but ho lias no sense 

 of zoological affinity. He sees similarities ami rela- 

 tions but no general resemblances. 



ftl 



An Egg is a cell formed in a cavity which, by its 

 peculiarities, crows larger than an ordinary cell, and 

 has in it the potentialities of lite. 



Dollingerwas really the founder of Embryology, 

 but published little. Von Baer was liis pupil, and 

 all Embryologists have followed 111 liis tracks. D61- 

 linger would work hard, make his discoveries, invite 

 one of his students to walk, tell him all, and then 

 invite him to publish. 1 lived four years under his 

 roof, and my scientific traininggoes back to him and 

 to him alone. J have learned much from others, but 

 from him alone I learned how to work. 



All these unsatisfactory theories are untenable 

 when made to tell what is not in tbem, as when we 

 make the Vegetable tell of the Animal Kingdom, 

 and animals tell of the human soul. 



Dare to be inconsistent. As long as consistency in 

 adherence to a wrong idea is a republican virtue, we 

 are not on the road to progress. 



Prof. Agassiz ever evinced an earnest desire to 

 keep students from wasting their time over worth- 

 less books, and was at a great deal of pains to dis- 

 criminate for us between genuinely good works an'd 

 mere compilations or worthless text-books, and 

 strongly inveighed against the publisher j of trashy 

 scientific books, and the subterfuges and placing 

 of " vile temptation before teachers by offering a 

 percentage," by means of which they got them in- 

 troduced into the schools. 



What we want, said he, in popular education, is 

 the elements of a higher culture. Let it be known 

 that our colleges are not aristocratic institutions, 

 but are available to the poor and lowly. If they are 

 not so now, wo must make them so. Everything we 

 can do in that direction will be a blessing to the 

 country. This is a digression from the business of 

 the day, but I make it purposely that you may un- 

 derstand just how I feel on these subjects. We 

 ought to know each other in all these particulars. 

 There are great business concerns engaged in the 

 manufacture and sale of these worthless books who 

 are our greatest enemies. They are really circulat- 

 ing educational poison, and I beg of you don't shrink 

 from rebuking them at every opportunity. I have 

 aroused very serious opposition to my work by stat- 

 ing these things openly, but I shall continue to do it 

 as long as my strength lasts. 



Prof. Agassiz gave a brief bibliography of each 

 subject as it was presented, and these short book- 



lists are now regarded as among the most valuable 

 of students' memoranda. Often they would be ac- 

 companied by a word of comment, as when he good- 

 humoredly described a book of Do Bbinville's as 

 " critical, satirical, diabolical, and yet immensely 

 comprehensive I" 



Nor did he hesitate (having given a well merited 

 cautionary talk) to put at the students' disposal 

 many books out of his own library. His library is 

 unique in its number of books of foreign authorship 

 not elsewhere to be found in this country, and a 

 large part of them are presentation copies from their 

 distinguished authors. He seemed familiar with the 

 history of Zoology from Aristotle to Huxley, and the 

 different phases which the science has assumed 

 under its controlling influences. He had not only 

 had such an extensive acquaintance with naturalists 

 as to make zoological history for the past half cen- 

 tury a part of his own experience, but had also 

 made a special point of its acquisition, as for their 

 advancement he urged others to do. 



Another thing which adds incomparably to the 

 value of his library is the presence of hundreds of 

 plates of all sorts of little-known animals, in as 

 many varied stages of embryonic development, dif- 

 ferent circumstances and conditions of life, or tran- 

 sient phases of appearance or dress, as the specimens 

 obtainable made possible. These were all drawn 

 and colored under his own eye by accomplished ar- 

 tists ; and their value in the study of zoology only 

 those can fully appreciate who are pursuing the spe- 

 cial studies which they illustrate. 



As he talked of books so he spoke of men. Speak- 

 ing of Strauss Durckhuim. whose whole life was 

 spent in studying and describing the bones and 

 muscles of the domestic cat and the structure of the 

 common European Dorbug (melolantho vulgaris), he 

 described how he had seen him sit " day after day 

 with a cat in his lap feeling of the muscles. He was 

 a thorough Frenchman." 



Liickart, when he proposed the C&tenterata as dis- 

 tinct from echinoderms, did great wrong to Von 

 Bacr, and carried, for the time, science backward. 



Cuvier and Lamarck were the founders of palaeon- 

 tology, and not much has been added since, and 

 Cuvier really made it what it is to-day. The picture 

 has been filled up, but Cuvier for the vertebrates, 

 and Lamarck for the invertebrates, made the science. 



Darwin is one of my best friends, and I honestly 

 like him; I wish all scientists were as friendly as 

 well. 



Leopold von Buch was a man of indomitable en- 

 durance. He explored all Europe on foot for the 

 sake of studying its geology. 1 have known him to 



