LOUIS AGASSIZ. 237 



stood. The course of the Academy of Lausanne afterward turned his 

 attention toward classical studies. 



When he arrived at the age to choose a profession his parents desired 

 to procure for him a commercial apprenticeship, but he obtained instead 

 permission from them to pursue the study of medicine, which could give 

 him both the means of providing for his support and the opportunity of 

 continuing the study of natural history, for which he felt a decided voca- 

 tion. He passed two years at Zurich, then a winter at Heidelberg, 

 where Bischofi", Leuckardt, and Tiedemann were i)rofessors. While at 

 this university fishes were still one of his favorite studies. He abeady 

 began to classify them and to make drawings of them, and thus accumu- 

 lated material which later was of great service to him. 



In the autumn of 182G he went to Munich, where the chairs of natural 

 history were occupied by men of the first rank. Oken Martins received 

 him with kindness ; Doellinger, the illustrious professor of embryology, 

 took him under his protection, made him a member of his household, 

 and developed in him a taste for this science, to which Agassiz always 

 attached great imiiortance. At this time the young student had already 

 excited great anticipations for his future ; soon his masters and comrades, 

 among whom we find the botanists Schimper, and Braun, and Burck- 

 hardt, his draftsman, were his friends, and he became the center of an 

 eager group of scientists. "When we assembled," he wrote, "for con- 

 versation, or to give each other lectures, as was frequently our custom, 

 our i)rofessors were often among our auditors, and encouraged us in our 

 efibrts for individual research. ]My room was the place of meeting — 

 bedroom, work-room, museum, library, lecture-room, and fencing school, 

 all in one. Students and professors called it the Little Academy." 



The four years he passed thus at Munich in the study of medicine, of 

 the natural sciences, and even of i^hilosophy, with all the hope, the en- 

 thusiasm of youth, were among the happiest of his life, and he always 

 cherished a pleasant recollection of them ; moreover, it was during this 

 period that his future career was definitely decided. Martins and Spix 

 had only a short time before returned from an expedition to the river 

 Amazon, and Spix had since died, having only commenced the descrip- 

 tion of the fishes collected. Martins requested Agassiz, somewhat pre- 

 pared for the subject hj his own studies, to take charge of the work. 

 The young student acquitted himself of his difficult task \\dth honor, 

 and this was the commencement of his reputation. The work appeared 

 in 1829.* The same year Agassiz received the doctorate of philosophy. 

 The following year he was admitted to practice as doctor of medicine, 

 and went to Vienna in order to study, in the collections of that city, the 

 fishes of the Danube. 



He was recalled to Switzerland by his father, who demanded that he 

 should return there and practice medicine ; but he succeeded in obtain- 



*Selecta genera et species piscium quos collegit et piugenclos curavit, Dr. I.-B.de 

 Spix ; digessit, descripsit et observationibus illustravit, Dr. L. Agassiz. 



