AGASSIZ AT PENIKESE. 7^7 



"Select such subjects that your pupils can not walk without 

 seeing them. Train your pupils to be observers, and have them 

 provided with the specimens about which you speak. It you can 

 find nothing better, take a house-fly or a cricket, and let each one 

 hold a specimen and examine it as you talk." 



" In 1847 I gave an address at Newton, Mass., before a Teach- 

 ers' Institute conducted by Horace Mann. My subject was grass- 

 hoppers. I passed around a large jar of these insects, and made 

 every teacher take one and hold it while I was speaking. If any 

 one dropped the insect, I stopped till he picked it up. This was 

 at that time a great innovation, and excited much laughter and 

 derision. There can be no true progress in the teaching of natu- 

 ral science until such methods become general." 



"There is no part of the country where in the summer you 

 can not get a sufficient supply of the best specimens. Teach your 

 children to bring them in yourselves. Take your text from the 

 brooks not from the booksellers. It is better to have a few forms 

 well known than to teach a little about many hundred species. 

 Better a dozen specimens thoroughly studied as the result of the 

 first year's work, than to have two thousand dollars' worth ot 

 shells and corals bought^ h^om a curiosity-shop. The dozen ani- 

 mals would be your own." .. ^ . 



"You* will find the same elements of instruction aiJ about you 

 wherever you may be teaching. You can take your classes out 

 and o-ive them the same lessons, and lead them up to the same 

 subjS^ts you are yourselves studying here. And this method of 

 teaching children is so natural, so suggestive, so true. That is the 

 charm of teaching from Nature herself. No one can warp her to 

 suit his own views. She brings us back to absolute truth as often 

 as we wander." 



" The study of Nature is an intercourse with the highest mind. 

 You should never trifle with Nature. At the lowest her works 

 are the works of the highest powers, the highest something in 

 whatever way we may look at it." 



" A laboratory of natural history is a sanctuary where noth- 

 ing profane should be tolerated. I feel less agony at improprie- 

 ties in churches than in a scientific laboratory." 



" In Europe I have been accused of taking my scientific ideas 

 from the Church. In America I have been called a heretic be- 

 cause I will not let my church-going friends pat me on the head." 

 Of all these lectures the most valuable and the most charming 

 were those on the glaciers. In these the master spoke, and every 

 rock on our island was a mute witness to the truth of his words. 



* In this paragraph, quoted by Mrs. Agassiz (Life and Letters of Agassiz, p. Y75), I 

 have adopted the wording as given by her. 



