618 LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



frequent interchange of opinion between the 

 different heads of departments, and, when in 

 Cambridge, he was never absent from the 

 meetings. He urged, also, the introduction 

 of university lectures, to the establishment of 

 which he largely contributed, and which he 

 would fain have opened to all the students. 

 He advocated the extension of the elective 

 system, believing that while it might perhaps 

 give a pretext for easy evasion of duty to the 

 more inefficient and lazy students, it gave 

 larger opportunities to the better class, and 

 that the University should adapt itself to the 

 latter rather than the former. " The bright 

 students," he writes to a friend, " are now de- 

 prived of the best advantages to be had here, 

 because the dull or the indifferent must still 

 be treated as children." 



The two following letters, from their bear- 

 ing on general university questions, are not 

 out of place here. Though occasioned by a 

 slight misconception, they are so characteris- 

 tic of the writers, and of their relation to 

 each other, that it would be a pity to omit 

 them. 



