434 LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



AGASSIZ TO MILNE EDWARDS. 



May 31, 1847. 



. . . After six weeks of an illness which 

 has rendered me unfit for serious work I long 

 to be transported into the circle of my Paris 

 friends, to find myself again among the men 

 whose devotion to science gives them a clear 

 understanding of its tendency and influence. 

 Therefore I take my way quite naturally to 

 the Rue Cuvier and mount your stairs, con- 

 fident that there I shall find this chosen so- 

 ciety. Question upon question greets me re- 

 garding this new world, on the shore of which 

 I have but just landed, and yet about which 

 > I have so much to say that I fear to tire my 

 listeners. 



Naturalist as I am, I cannot but put the 

 people first, the people who have opened 

 this part of the American continent to Euro- 

 pean civilization. What a people ! But to 

 understand them you must live among them. 

 Our education, the principles of our society, 

 the motives of our actions, differ so greatly 

 from what I see here, that I should try in vain 

 to give you an idea of this great nation, pass- 

 ing from childhood to maturity with the 

 faults of spoiled children, and yet with the 



