10 PENIKESE. 



"Mr. John Anderson, of New York, has presented to a 

 body of Trustees, the island called Penikese, in Buzzard's 

 Bay, for the site for a Summer School of Natural History, to 

 be in the charge of Professor Louis Agassiz, whose purpose 

 is to give free instruction, to teachers of the sciences, in cor- 

 rect methods of study in this most important branch of edu- 

 cation." 



The subject was one of peculiar interest to me, 

 and, as I read, visions of what a grand opportunity 

 would thus be afforded to study Nature so filled my 

 mind, that they took complete possession of my 

 senses. 



Natural History was always and is now for that 

 matter, my favorite study; one might almost say I 

 had been born and bred a Naturalist. From my 

 earliest recollection I was often made supremely 

 happy by the present of a robin's or a sparrow's egg, 

 or some other similarly common natural object, from 

 the bounteous collection of a friend. To me, if was 

 untold gold. If an egg, I would hold the delicate 

 shell in my fingers, slowly and carefully turn it from 

 side to side, examine its glossy surface and perfect 

 proportions, look at the holes in its extremities to see 

 how thick the shell itself might be, and often though 

 I hardly dare to tell it for fear of being laughed at 

 wonder how much wind had been required to expel 

 its contents. From my first egg I soon reached my 

 hundredth and more. Then I formed the plan of 

 making a general collection in all of the different 

 branches of Natural History which, carried into ef- 

 fect, was successful beyond my most sanguine ex- 

 pectation. Thus, at an early period of my life, in 

 the full glow of scientific ardor, a short and almost 

 insignificant newspaper paragraph insignificant, per- 

 haps, to all save a few appeared at once to open to 

 me a possible path to scientific fame and attainment 

 that, in my youthful ambition, seemed limitless. The 

 opportunity and the Master, the best that the coun- 

 try, nay the world, then afforded! I immediately ap- 

 plied for admission, and received, by return of mail, 

 an answer from Professor Agassiz himself in 



