LOUIS AGASSIZ. 319 



return, the dean said to me, ' The faculty have been 

 very much ' (emphasized) ' pleased with your an- 

 swers ; they congratulate themselves on being able 

 to give the diploma to a young man who has 

 already acquired so honorable a reputation/ .*. . 

 The rector then added that he should look upon it 

 as the brightest moment of his rectorship when he 

 conferred upon me the title I had so well merited." 



And the glad mother writes back : " I cannot 

 thank you enough, my dear Louis, for the happi- 

 ness you have given me in completing your medi- 

 cal examinations, and thus securing to yourself a 

 career as safe as it is honorable. . . . You have 

 for my sake gone through a long and arduous task ; 

 were it in my power I would gladly reward you, 

 but I cannot even say that I love you the more for 

 it, because that is impossible. My anxious solici- 

 tude for your future is a proof of my ardent affec- 

 tion for you ; only one thing was wanting to make 

 me the happiest of mothers, and this, my Louis, 

 you have just given me." 



Agassiz had taken the degree of Doctor of 

 Philosophy, a year earlier. " The time had come," 

 said he, years afterward, "when even the small 

 allowance I received from borrowed capital must 

 cease. I was now twenty-four years of age. 

 I was Doctor of Philosophy and Medicine, and 

 author of a quarto volume on the fishes of Brazil. I 

 had travelled on foot all over Southern Germany, 

 visited Vienna, and explored extensive tracts of the 

 Alps. I knew every animal, living and fossil, in the 



