22 Boston Society of Natural History 



is now completed. I consider it as faithful a likeness, in every re- 

 spect, as the original. 



Very respectfully, your obedient servant, 



M. Wight 



Boston, Sept. 8, 1869 



In his famous oration at the Humboldt centennial celebration 

 Louis Agassiz made this eloquent plea for Higher Education: 



" We have all a great task to perform. It should be our effort, 

 as far as it lies in our power, to raise the standard of culture of our 

 people as Humboldt has elevated that of the world. May the com- 

 munity at large feel with equal keenness the importance of each 

 step now taken for the expansion in every direction of all the means 

 of the highest culture. The physical suffering of humanity, the wants 

 of the poor, the craving of the hungry and naked, appeal to the sym- 

 pathy of everyone who has a human heart. But there are necessities 

 which only the destitute student knows ; there is a hunger and thirst 

 which only the highest charity can understand and relieve, and on 

 this solemn occasion let me say that every dollar given for Higher 

 Education, in -whatever special department of knowledge, is likely 

 to have a greater influence upon the future character of our nation 

 than even the thousands and hundreds of thousands and millions 

 which have already been spent and we are daily spending to raise 

 the many to national ease and comfort.'' 



Agassiz spoke as one who had himself undergone "the necessi- 

 ties which only the destitute student knows, the hunger and thirst 

 which only the highest charity can understand and relieve" for as 

 a young man of twenty-four years of age in Paris he had come to the 

 end of his resources and was faced with the abandonment of the Sci- 

 ence which he loved so well. Humboldt happened to hear of the 

 plight which meant such poignant grief to Agassiz, and with charac- 



