84 LOUrS AGASSIZ. [CHAP. xvu. 



Boston left a bequest of fifty thousand dollars for the 

 purpose of establishing and maintaining a museum of 

 comparative zoology. State aid was necessary ; but the 

 question was how to get it in a commonwealth celebrated 

 for its careful management of public money. The ma- 

 jority of the members of the Massachusetts Legislature 

 are farmers, very difficult to interest in anything not 

 directly profitable ; and how to persuade them to lend 

 the pecuniary help of the state to a purely scientific 

 establishment, to the exclusion of similar institutions for 

 educational purposes scattered through the state, was a 

 problem not easy to solve ; and now, more than at any 

 other period of his eventful life, Agassiz showed of what 

 solid metal he was made. 



He first enrolled the governor of Massachusetts under 

 his banner ; then the State Committee on Education 

 was carefully approached on general principles of pub- 

 lic instruction, and the advantages to be derived by the 

 farmers from a knowledge of everything relating to pests 

 of all sorts, the best breeds of domestic animals, and kin- 

 dred matters, and Agassiz obtained, by skilful manoeu- 

 vring, an invitation to address the Committee on the 

 subject. His success was now assured. What he wanted 

 was to be brought before the Legislature ; for, after pri- 

 vately interesting the governor and the lieutenant-gov- 

 ernor, and the Committee on Education, he attacked the 

 President of the Senate, the Speaker of the House of 

 Representatives, the Secretary of the Board of Educa- 

 tion, and the Chief Justice of the Supreme Judicial 

 Court. In fact, the Legislature was captured, and 

 voted that aid should be granted to the extent of 



