AGASSIZ AT PENIKESE. 135 



this he said : " I told the publishers that I was not 

 the man to do that sort of thing, and I told them, 

 too, that the less of that sort of thing which is 

 done the better. It is not school-books we want, 

 it is students. The book of Nature is always open, 

 and all that I can do or say shall be to lead young 

 people to study that book, and not to pin their 

 faith to any other." 



He taught natural history in Harvard College as 

 no other man had taught in America before. He 

 was the best beloved of teachers, because he was 

 the most genial and kindly. Cambridge people 

 used to say that one had " less need of an over- 

 coat in passing Agassiz's house " than any other in 

 that city. In the interest of popular education as 

 well as of scientific research, Agassiz laid the foun- 

 dation of the Museum of Comparative Zoology. 

 Here, in the face of all sorts of discouragements, 

 he worked with a wonderful zeal, a zeal which 

 showed its results in the prosperity of everything 

 with which he had to do. Less energetic pro- 

 fessors complained that Agassiz's department re- 

 ceived too much attention. Even Emerson ven- 

 tured to suggest, in one of his lectures in 1864, 

 that Harvard University was in danger of a one- 

 sided growth. To this criticism of Emerson Agassiz 

 responded in a most characteristic personal letter. 

 This letter gives the key-note of the modern idea 

 of university development. 



From this letter I quote a few paragraphs : 

 " You say," says Agassiz, " that Natural History 

 is getting too great an ascendency among us, that 

 it is out of proportion to other departments, and 



