190 NATHANIEL SOUTHGATE SHALER 



danger. It was indeed an august bench, for besides Agassiz 

 there were Wyman, Asa Gray, Peirce, Cooke, Levering, and 

 Horsford, as well as the then President of the University, Fel- 

 ton. I was placed in a seat upon the platform, which I had to 

 occupy, when not at the blackboard, for nearly five hours with 

 an intermission for refreshments. The performance was begun 

 by my master, who seemed more deeply interested in it than 

 I felt myself to be, with questions as to my studies. He very 

 dexterously drew out samples of my little learning, and engaged 

 me in disputations which would be likely to make a good im- 

 pression. The dexterity of this performance took away any 

 trace of embarrassment which the situation enforced on me. 

 Then he made me defend my thesis with a pretty severe ques- 

 tioning, which, as I was now wound up, I did in good fashion. 

 He pressed me hard on some rather recondite matters, as, for 

 instance, in the work of Karl Ernst von Baer, Oken, etc., but 

 he probably knew that my reading made it pretty safe to do so. 

 I have never ceased to admire the way in which, while seeming 

 to put me under the harrow, he was really exhibiting my paces. 

 This part of the business kept me active for more than two 

 hours, for the questions came swiftly. 



After Agassiz handed me over to the others, there was ques- 

 tioning by Wyman, also most kindly but rather more searching. 

 Gray too was most fair. Lovering's questions were evidently 

 intended to find whether I knew something in mere outline of 

 other subjects than biology. Cooke took me on a hard road in 

 mineralogy, made the easier by my prompt "don't know," 

 when I was not clear in my mind about the answer. In fact, 

 up to the point I had scored in the game, because I never hesi- 

 tated to confess the full measure of my ignorance. I took pains 

 to have no penumbra between my light and my darkness. At 

 the end of the second sitting came my turn with Benjamin 

 Peirce. To my satisfaction, he shortly turned his questioning 

 to the process of mountain-building. He produced from his 

 pockets the three volumes of De Beaumont's "Systeme des 



