PREFACE 



find a stumbling-block and foolishness save 

 for the entertainment to be had in the reading 

 of biography. 



I have naturally kept in mind the needs of 

 my own students, past and present, yet I be- 

 lieve these pages may be useful to students of 

 natural science as well as to those who concern 

 themselves with the humanities. We live in 

 an age of narrow specialization at all events 

 in America. Agassiz was a specialist, but not 

 a * narrow' one. His example should there- 

 fore be salutary to those persons, on the one 

 hand, who think that a man can have general 

 culture without knowing some one thing from 

 the bottom up, and, on the other, to those who 

 immerse themselves and their pupils blindly 

 in special investigation, without thought of the 

 prima philosophia that gives life and meaning 

 to all particular knowledge. There can be no 

 doubt that science and scholarship in this 

 country are suffering from a lack of sympathy 

 and contact between the devotees of the several 

 branches, and for want of definite efforts to 

 bridge the gaps between various disciplines 

 wherever this is possible. It may not often 



[vi] 



