II 



AGASSIZ AT NEUCHATEL 1 



IN the autumn of the year 1832] Agassiz as- 

 sumed the duties of his professorship at 

 Neuchatel. His opening lecture, upon 

 the relations between the different branches of 

 natural history and the then prevailing tenden- 

 cies of all the sciences, was given on the 12th 

 of November ... at the Hotel de Ville. 

 Judged by the impression made upon the 

 listeners as recorded at the time, this intro- 

 ductory discourse must have been characterized 

 by the same broad spirit of generalization which 

 marked Agassiz 's later teaching. Facts in his 

 hands fell into their orderly relation as parts 

 of a connected whole, and were never presented 

 merely as special or isolated phenomena. From 

 the beginning his success as an instructor was 

 undoubted. He had, indeed, now entered upon 

 the occupation which was to be from youth to 



1 From E. C. Agassiz, Louis Agassiz, his Life and Corre- 

 spondence, pp. 206 ff. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 

 1885. 



[6] 



