20 ALEXANDER AGASSIZ 



class, who entered the Civil War a private, and left it a 

 major-general. 



While in college Agassiz lived at home, first on Oxford 

 Street, and later in the house on Quincy Street, opposite 

 the northeast corner of the College Yard. This, with the 

 exception of a few years during his married life, was his 

 home for the rest of his days. 



Thanks to the thoroughness of his European training, 

 he was able to read Latin and Greek better than most 

 of his classmates. Many years after their graduation, 

 Theodore Lyman said of a long-winded Latin oration at 

 some solemn public function, " I '11 bet Alex was the 

 only man who understood it." Agassiz had, however, 

 no natural sympathy for the classics, and the scientific 

 trend given to his early studies had intensified a dislike 

 of the subtle analysis of language and the dryness of 

 grammatical hair-splitting, fatal to a high place in his 

 class. But in the subjects that interested him he was 

 preeminent, studying mathematics under Peirce, and 

 working hard at chemistry under Cooke in the more than 

 modest laboratory in the basement of University Hall. 



Already his well-trained mind was capable of long 

 application, and the hours he usually devoted to work 

 would have crushed the easy-going undergraduate of 

 to-day. Nor was his time entirely given to subjects 

 connected with the curriculum, for a beautiful set of 

 drawings on wood intended for an unpublished textbook 

 of his father's, attests his interest in natural history. 



Even at an age when philosophy usually has such a 

 charm for an active mind, it held no interest for him. 

 Possessing to the fullest extent the dislike of meta- 

 physical speculation so common among men of science, 

 and already, unlike most of them, a man of action, he 



