1868-70.] CORM-'.l.L UNIVERSITY. 169 



teristic speeches, entering most heartily into the new 

 enterprise, pledging it his support, and giving most 

 valuable hints as to the proper lines of development. 

 With his optimistic tendency, Agassiz took a great 

 fancy to the idea of a university combining the artisan 

 with the student, manual labour with scientific work. 

 He came back from Ithaca, the seat of the Cornell 

 University, with the most exaggerated views in regard 

 to the future of the new institution, speaking of the 

 backwardness of Harvard, and prophesying that Cornell 

 would soon leave Harvard far behind. In his enthusi- 

 asm for a new plan, Agassiz was apt to go too far. He 

 seemed to forget entirely that an old university like 

 Harvard must always possess an amount and kind of 

 interest which a new university cannot have. A uni- 

 versity is the work of time ; and money and new plans 

 cannot take the place of the long series of accessions, 

 material as well as intellectual, which has enriched 

 Cambridge during more than two centuries. 



A letter to Agassiz from the poet Longfellow, then 

 travelling with his family in Europe, gives me an 

 opportunity to recall several facts, all to the honour of 

 Agassiz, as contributions, coming either from scientific 

 adversaries like Darwin and Huxley or from admirers 

 like Tyndall. On meeting Longfellow at the Isle of 

 Wight, Darwin said to him, " What a set of men you 

 have in Cambridge ! Both our universities [meaning 

 Cambridge and Oxford] put together cannot furnish 

 the like. Why, there is Agassiz he counts for three." 

 Coming from Darwin, the compliment is no small one, 

 for Agassiz had opposed his " Origin of Species " in 



