40 PROCEEDINGS OF THE AMERICAN ACADEMY. 



He received a unanimous vote in one of the largest meetings ever 

 held by the Academy; he faithfully performed all the duties of the 

 office interrupted only by the winter vacations which his illness of 

 1869 made necessary for him. In this place it is a satisfaction to 

 remember that no one of his many and great distinctions gave him a 

 greater pleasure than did this. It was a most unexpected revelation 

 to him of the hold he had upon the respect and good will of his 

 fellows. 



It is not possible to escape from some comparison of the two great 

 men of science who have borne this name, and there can be nothing 

 unbecoming in the attempt to make it. 



The son was the pupil of the father and different as the two men 

 seemed to be, the son was ever conscious of the debt he owed to his 

 father. 



Louis Agassiz came to this country with a great and well deserved 

 reputation fairly earned among the world's great men. 



He did more than anyone to encourage the study of the natural 

 sciences here. Endowed with every social attraction — persuasive, 

 a leader and fond of his leadership, great in acquirement, quick 

 in apprehension, rich in imagination, fertile in illustration, a teacher 

 beyond compare. He found listeners in the market place as well as in 

 the halls of the Colleges and of the Legislatures. He laid in magnifi- 

 cent hope the foundation of an establishment so extensive that he had 

 no just right to expect that either he or his son could see its completion. 



Alexander Agassiz, patient seeker after truth, skilful organizer of 

 scientific methods, unwearied in researches, prudent, self-denying, 

 pursuing his great ends to a successful issue with silent determination, 

 not eloquent and always reluctant to attempt persuasion by spoken 

 words, he leaves behind him, in tlxe opinion of many competent 

 judges, a more permanent and more important mass of completed 

 work in the study of the natural sciences than fell to his father's lot. 

 He, moreover, by his own exertion completed the structure which 

 his father could only have seen in some prophetic vision. 



It is not easy to speak of the personal qualities of Alexander Agassiz. 

 Men expected to find in him the counterpart of his father, and in such 

 intercourse as they may have had with him they met with disappoint- 

 ment. They regarded him as one holding himself somewhat aloof 

 from his fellows, not much interested in their doings and slightly- 

 affected by their misfortunes. This conception of his character 

 showed little acquaintance with the real man; beneath the quiet and 

 reserved, certainly not austere demeanor, there lay a nature quick 



