138 SCIENCE SKETCHES. 



outside of the colleges, or at the best carrying on 

 their investigations in time stolen from the drud- 

 gery of the class-room. One of the greatest of 

 American astronomers was kept for forty years 

 teaching algebra and geometry, with never a stu- 

 dent far enough advanced to realize the real work 

 of his teacher ; and this case was typical of hun- 

 dreds before the university spirit was kindled in 

 American schools. That this spirit was kindled in 

 Harvard forty years ago was due in the greatest 

 measure to Agassiz's influence. It was here that 

 graduate instruction in science in America practi- 

 cally began. In an important sense the Museum 

 of Comparative Zoology was the first American 

 university. 



Notwithstanding the great usefulness of the Mu- 

 seum and the broad influence of its teachers, 

 Agassiz was not fully satisfied. The audience he 

 reached was still too small. Throughout the coun- 

 try the great body of teachers of science went on 

 in the old mechanical way. On these he was able 

 to exert no influence. The boys and girls still 

 kept up the humdrum recitations from worthless 

 text-books. They got their lessons from the book, 

 recited them from memory, and no more came into 

 contact with Nature than they would if no animals 

 or plants or rocks existed on this side of the planet 

 Jupiter. It was to remedy this state of things that 

 Agassiz conceived, in 1872, the idea of a scienti- 

 fic " camp-meeting," where the workers and the 

 teachers might meet together, a summer school 

 of observation, where the teachers should be trained 

 to see Nature for themselves and teach others how 

 to see it. 



