LOUIS AGASSIZ. 323 



One might well despair of the world if a person 

 like your son, with information so substantial and 

 manners so sweet and prepossessing, should fail to 

 make his way." 



This money made it possible for Agassiz to work 

 m Paris, until a professorship of Natural History 

 was created for him at Neuchatel, through the in- 

 fluence of Humboldt and others. Humboldt wrote : 

 " Agassiz is distinguished by his talents, by the 

 variety and substantial character of his attainments, 

 and by that which has a special value in these 

 troubled times, his natural sweetness of dispo- 

 sition." 



This " sweetness of disposition " was worth more 

 to Agassiz, all through life, than a fortune. It 

 drew everybody to him. It opened the pockets of 

 the wealthy to carry forward his great projects. It 

 won the hearts of his pupils on two hemispheres. 

 It made his home a delight, and his presence a con- 

 stant blessing. 



He assumed the duties of his professorship at 

 Neuchatel in the autumn of 1832, giving his first 

 lecture, '' Upon the Relations between the different 

 branches of Natural History and the then prevail- 

 ing tendencies of all the Sciences," November 

 12, at the Hotel de Ville. A society for the study 

 of the natural sciences was soon formed, and 

 Agassiz became its secretary. So natural, so enthu- 

 siastic, so full of his subject, was he, that every- 

 body became interested. To little companies of 

 his friends and neighbors he lectured on botany, 



