ALEXANDER YON HUMBOLDT. 



THE great Agassiz, in his eloquent address, in 

 Boston, on the hunclretli anniversary of the 

 birth of Humboldt, said : " All the fundamental 

 facts of popular education in physical science, be- 

 yond the merest elementary instruction, we owe 

 to him. We are reaping daily in every school 

 throughout the broad land, where education is the 

 heritage of the poorest child, the intellectual har- 

 vest sown by him. 



" There is not a text-book of geography, or a school 

 atlas in the hands of our children to-day, which 

 does not bear, however blurred and defaced, the 

 impress of his great mind. But for him our geog- 

 raphies would be mere enumerations of localities 

 and statistics. He first suggested the graphic 

 methods of representing natural phenomena which 

 are now universally adopted. The first geological 

 sections, the first sections across an entire conti- 

 nent, the first averages of climate illustrated by 

 lines, were his. Every school-boy is familiar with 

 his methods now, but he does not know that Hum- 

 boldt is his teacher. ..." 



Naturally we ask how such a man rose to fame, 

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