238 ALEXANDER AGASSIZ 



there about this time : " I am as usual taking time by 

 the forelock, and looking ahead a few hundred years 

 and laying out more work. It will soon pay the Calu- 

 met stockholders to pay me $100,000 a year to stay at 

 home ! ! I am going underground to-day and to-morrow, 

 and on what I see will depend plans for the future." 



During Agassiz's connection with the administration 

 of Harvard his efforts were directed toward moulding 

 it more on the lines of a German university. He was 

 especially interested in attempting to remedy what is 

 still to-day a crying evil in most of our American uni- 

 versities, the lack of their professors of sufficient time 

 for research work. So strongly did he feel in this mat- 

 ter that, under certain conditions, a considerable portion 

 of his estate may eventually revert to the founding of 

 research professorships in connection with the Museum. 

 He also exerted his influence toward abolishing a clas- 

 sical education as the only aud compulsory method of 

 obtaining a degree; but he was one of the first to regret 

 that a liberal curriculum led more and more to the in- 

 troduction of technical instruction in the older univer- 

 sities, a danger which was clearly pointed out to him by 

 Charles Eliot Norton. 



TO C. E. NORTON 



A few days ago I received the rank list of the Fresh- 

 man Class and find it as I expected a fine example of 

 the working of the present rules of the College Faculty. 



B , for example, stands on the rank list in six 



out of nine subjects, and well up in three of them, but he 

 is notified he cannot get his degree if he does not get a 

 certain per cent in Greek. 



If a boy's work is to be judged by percentages, let 



