FIRST WORK UNDER AGASSIZ 99 



over, it was clear that he was playing a game with me to find 

 if I were capable of doing hard, continuous work without the 

 support of a teacher, and this stimulated me to labor. I went 

 at the task anew, discarded my first notes, and in another week 

 of ten hours a day labor I had results which astonished myself 

 and satisfied him/Still there was no trace of praise in words or 

 manner. He signified that it would do by placing before me 

 about a half a peck of bones, telling me to see what I could 

 make of them, with no further directions to guide me. I soon 

 found that they were the skeletons of half a dozen fishes of dif- 

 ferent species ; the jaws told me that much at a first inspection. 

 The task evidently was to fit the separate bones together in their 

 proper order. Two months or more went to this task with no 

 other help than an occasional looking over my grouping with 

 the stereotyped remark: "That is not right.1 Finally, the task 

 was done and I was again set upon alcoholic specimens, this 

 time a remarkable lot of specimens representing, perhaps, 

 twenty species of the side-swimmers or Pleuronectidae. 



I shall never forget the sense of power in dealing with things 

 which I felt in beginning the more extended work on a group 

 of animals. I had learned the art of comparing objects, which 

 is the basis of the naturalist's work. At this stage I was al- 

 lowed to read and to discuss my work with others about me. 

 I did both eagerly, and acquired a considerable knowledge of 

 the literature of ichthyology, becoming especially interested 

 in the system of classification, then most imperfect. I tried to 

 follow Agassiz's scheme of division into the order of ctenoids 

 and ganoids, with the result that I found one of my species 

 of side-swimmers had cycloid scales on one side and ctenoid 

 on the other. This not only shocked my sense of the value of 

 classification in a way that permitted of no full recovery of my 

 original respect for the process, but for a time shook my con- 

 fidence in my master's knowledge. At the same time I had a 

 malicious pleasure in exhibiting my find to him, expecting to 

 repay in part the humiliation which he had evidently tried to 



