1 66 LEADING AMERICAN MEN OF SCIENCE 



sky, the master with us all day long, ever ready to speak words of 

 help and encouragement, ever ready to give us from his own stock 

 of learning. The boundless enthusiasm which surrounded him 

 like an atmosphere, and which sometimes gave the appearance of 

 great achievement to the commonest things, was never lacking. 



" Essentially Latin in his nature, he was always picturesque in 

 his words and his work. He delighted in the love and approbation 

 of his students and his friends, and the influence of his personality 

 sometimes gave his opinions weight beyond the value of the inves- 

 tigations on which they were based. With no other investigator 

 have the work and the man been so identified as with Agassiz. No 

 other of the great workers has been equally great as a teacher. 

 His greatest work in science was his influence on other men. 



" In an old note-book of those days " continues Doctor Jordan, 

 " I find fragments of some of his talks to teachers at Penikese. 

 From this note-book I take some paragraphs, just as I find them 

 written there: 



" ' Never try to teach what you do not know yourself and know 

 well. If your school board insist on your teaching anything and 

 everything, decline firmly to do it. It is an imposition alike on 

 pupils and teacher to teach that which he does not know. Those 

 teachers who are strong enough should squarely refuse to do such 

 work. This much needed reform is already beginning in our 

 colleges, and I hope it will continue. It is a relic of mediaeval 

 times, this idea of professing everything. When teachers begin 

 to decline work which they cannot do well, improvements begin to 

 come in. If one will be a successful teacher, he must firmly re- 

 fuse work which he cannot do successfully.' 



" 'It is a false idea to suppose that everybody is competent to 

 learn or to teach everything. Would our great artists have suc- 

 ceeded equally well in Greek or Calculus? A smattering of every- 

 thing is worth little. It is a fallacy to suppose that an encyclopedic 

 knowledge is desirable. The mind is made strong not through 

 much learning, but by the thorough possession of something.' 



" 'Lay aside all conceit. Learn to read the book of nature for 

 yourself. Those who have succeeded best have followed for years 

 some slim thread which has once in a while broadened out and 

 disclosed some treasure worth a life-long search.' 



" 'A man cannot be Professor of Zoology on one day and of 



