8 LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



study alternating with an interval for play or 

 rest. Agassiz always retained a pleasant im- 

 pression of the school and its teachers. Mr. 

 Rickly, the director, he regarded with an af- 

 fectionate respect, which ripened into friend- 

 ship in maturer years. 



The vacations were, of course, hailed with 

 delight, and as Motier was but twenty miles 

 distant from Bienne, Agassiz and his younger 

 brother Auguste, who joined him at school a 

 year later, were in the habit of making the 

 journey on foot. The lives of these brothers 

 were so closely interwoven in their youth that 

 for many years the story of one includes the 

 story of the other. They had everything in 

 common, and with their little savings they 

 used to buy books, chosen by Louis, the foun- 

 dation, as it proved, of his future library. 



Long before dawn on the first day of vaca- 

 tion the two bright, active boys would be on 

 their homeward way, as happy as holiday 

 could make them, especially if they were re- 

 turning for the summer harvest or the au- 

 tumn vintage. The latter was then, as now, 

 a season of festivity. In these more modern 

 days something of its primitive picturesque- 

 ness may have been lost ; but when Agassiz 

 was a boy, all the ordinary occupations were 



