334 LOUIS AGASSIZ. 



crisis. . . . Beyond that all must go again to science, 

 there lies my true mission." 



He passed his fortieth birthday, May 28, 1847, 

 with Dr. B. E. Cotting, curator of the Lowell Insti- 

 tute, at whose home he had stayed through some 

 weeks of illness. His host, seeing him standing 

 thoughtfully at the window, said, " Why so sad ? " 



" That I am so old and have done so little," was 

 the reply. 



In the summer of 1847, Agassiz rented a small 

 house in East Boston, sufficiently near to the ocean 

 to study marine animals. He also gave lectures in 

 New York, Philadelphia, Albany, and other eastern 

 cities. 



The next spring, the Lawrence Scientific School 

 was organized at Cambridge, in connection with 

 Harvard University, and Agassiz was offered the 

 chair of Natural History (zoology and geology), 

 with a salary of fifteen hundred dollars. The 

 school owed its existence to Abbott Lawrence, 

 formerly our minister to England. 



Agassiz accepted the position, and opened his 

 first course in April, 1848. Here he found conge- 

 nial friends, Longfellow, Lowell, Prescott, Motley, 

 Gray, Holmes, and others.>>JVl. Christinot, who had 

 so generously helped to send him to Paris years be- 

 fore, came to the Cambridge home and was put in 

 charge of it. " If your old friend," he said, " can 

 live with his son Louis, it will be the height of his 

 happiness." 



The small plot of ground about the house became 



