156 LEADING AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



of lectures, and the King of Prussia gave him fifteen thousand 

 francs for investigation, he decided to accept it, and in 1846 he 

 arrived in Boston and began his lectures on the "Plan of Crea- 

 tion." Agassiz was now thirty-nine years of age, in his prime, and 

 he made so strong an impression upon the people of the Republic 

 that they determined to keep him. American ideas appealed to 

 him. He was necessarily a lion and in constant demand, but 

 avoided publicity, declining invitations when he could, giving as a 

 reason that he was in the employ of the King of Prussia. 



Many could not understand him, and a servant said he was a 

 "queer stick" spending his time at the fish markets, and the 

 market men thought he was "daft" as the fishes he preferred were 

 the ones the men generally threw away. The course of lectures at 

 the Lowell Institute was so successful that he began another on 

 Glaciers. The American idea was slowly but firmly taking posses- 

 sion of his heart and mind. He was captured by the hospitality 

 of the Americans. He says in writing to a friend : 



"I am constantly asking myself which is better, our old 

 Europe where the man of exceptional gifts can give himself ab- 

 solutely to study, opening thus a wide horizon for the human 

 mind, while at his side thousands barely vegetate in degradation 

 or at least in destitution; or this new world where the institu- 

 tions tend to keep all on one level as part of the general mass, 

 but a mass, be it said, which has no noxious elements, yes, the 

 mass here is decidedly good. All the world lives well, is decently 

 clad, learns some things, is awake, is interested. 



"Instruction does not, as in some parts of Germany for in- 

 stance, furnish a man with an intellectual book and then deny 

 him the use of it. The strength of America lies in the prodigious 

 number of individuals who think and work at the same time. 



"It is a severe test of pretentious mediocrity, but I fear, it 

 may also efface originality." 



To Milne Edwards he wrote, 



" Naturalist as I am, I cannot but put the people first, the people 

 who opened this part of the American continent to European civ- 

 ilization. What a people! " 



If the American people made an impression on Agassiz he cer- 



