science 



18733 The Anderson School at Penikese 



School of Science, During the previous winter he The firs, 

 had cast about for some means of coming in contact summer 

 with American teachers of Zoology, and so exerting ^f°'^^ 

 an influence toward better methods; for in those 

 days science teaching in the secondary schools, even 

 in the colleges, was of a very inferior order, without 

 laboratories and for the most part lacking contact 

 with nature itself. The scheme he evolved was a 

 pioneer movement in education. Up to that time, 

 it will be remembered, nothing of the sort had any- 

 where existed. But he conceived the idea of meeting 

 teachers at the seaside, away from all other influ- 

 ences, believing that he could thus make clear to 

 us the necessity of going directly to nature, the 

 fountain head — thus teaching us to recognize the 

 truth as truth, to know that there are facts in the 

 universe which, as Huxley says, are "fundamentally 

 beyond denial, and to which the tradition of a 

 thousand years is no more than the hearsay of 

 yesterday." 



The first plan, as suggested by Professor Nathaniel 

 Southgate Shaler, Agassiz's Harvard colleague, was 

 to call a group together for a "scientific camp meet- 

 ing" on the island of Nantucket. Before a site was 

 chosen, however, Mr. John Anderson, a wealthy 

 tobacco merchant of New York City, olTered the use 

 of Penikese supplemented by an endowment of 

 $50,000 in money for the permanent location of 

 the school there; and Mr. C. W. Galloupe of Boston 

 promised to lend his large yacht, the Sprite, for 

 dredging purposes. Agasslz, I may add, seldom 

 found difliculty in raising money, his personal enthu- 

 siasm being compelling. To this fact a member of 

 the Massachusetts legislature once bore testimony: 



I 107 1 



