ORGANIZATION OF THE MUSEUM. 565 



for whom admittance was free. It was a 

 great pleasure to Agassiz thus to renew and 

 strengthen his connection with the teachers of 

 the State, with whom, from the time of his ar- 

 rival in this country, he had held most cordial 

 relations, attending the Teachers' Institutes, 

 visiting the normal schools, and associating 

 himself actively, as far as he could, with the 

 interests of public education in Massachusetts. 

 From this time forward his college lectures 

 were open to women as well as to men. He 

 had great sympathy with the desire of women 

 for larger and more various fields of study 

 and work, and a certain number of women 

 have always been employed as assistants at 

 the Museum. 



The story of the next three years was one 

 of unceasing but seemingly uneventful work. 

 The daylight hours from nine or ten o'clock 

 in the morning were spent, with the exception 

 of the hour devoted to the school, at the Mu- 

 seum, not only in personal researches and in 

 lecturing, but in organizing, distributing, and 

 superintending the work of the laboratories, 

 all of which was directed by him. Passing 

 from bench to bench, from table to table, with 

 a suggestion here, a kindly but scrutinizing 

 glance there, he made his sympathetic pres- 



