LOUIS AGASSIZ 157 



tainly made one upon them. At this time he was a splendid type 

 of manhood of noble presence. Enthusiasm beamed in every 

 glance, he had a benignant air, and was a notable figure, fascinat- 

 ing, magnetic, yet simple with all, a great leader along the paths 

 of his choice. Inducements were held out to Agassiz to remain in 

 America and he soon had many pupils and with his determination 

 to remain began a new epoch in American science. 



In 1848 the King of Prussia gave him an honorable discharge 

 from his services, and Agassiz was offered the chair of the Amos 

 Lawrence Scientific School at Cambridge. So at the age of forty 

 he became a professor at Harvard University and joined the 

 charmed intellectual circle made up of Longfellow, Peirce, Fulton, 

 Asa Gray, Wyman, Channing, Holmes, Emerson, Whittier, 

 Ticknor, Motley, Lowell and other American immortals. 



Agassiz now sent for his family, and soon his home was the 

 center of scientific interest. He impressed American men of science 

 by the thoroughness of his methods, the boldness of his theories, 

 and at once established new methods, new lines of thought and 

 became the greatest science teacher the world has ever seen. His 

 coming was epoch-making not only along the line of original in- 

 vestigation, but for the dissemination of knowledge among the 

 people. He established new methods. He began the Museum of 

 Comparative Zoology at Cambridge, and under his influence, 

 science took on new interests, a fresh impetus along many lines. 

 The Government offered him every facility for original investiga- 

 tion, and through the Coast Survey and other sources he began lines 

 of work which were far reaching, not to say revolutionary. He 

 made science popular in America by his lucid methods and the 

 charm of his engaging personality. New works were continually 

 coming from his hand, as years went on, and his bibliography as 

 published in the writer's Life or in the records of the Government 

 constitutes a monument of enduring fame, a stupendous record of 

 work, which in the main was a labor of love; the disinterested 

 labor of a lifetime devoted to science. Agassiz married a second 

 time in 1850, Elizabeth Graves Gary, a woman of superlative 

 gifts and many graces of character. 



