142 LOUIS AGASSIZ 



absolute truth as often as we wander.' 7 

 Once, when he was to give a lecture on 

 articulates, before a school for girls, he 

 arrived with a liberal supply of very 

 active grasshoppers, distributed them 

 one to each listener, and insisted that 

 everything he said should be verified as 

 far as was possible. "Whenever an insect 

 escaped, the lecture was held to await its 

 recapture. This, Agassiz says, seemed 

 to amuse the young ladies 5 but to him it 

 was a question of principle. 



A summer school for teachers was then 

 as great an innovation as a marine 

 laboratory, common though both things 

 are to-day. Agassiz took up the scheme 

 with characteristic ardour. " Means 

 there were none, nor apparatus, nor 

 building, nor even a site for one. There 

 was only the ideal, and to that he 

 brought the undying fervour of his in- 

 tellectual faith. " And again his faith 

 was justified. An impassioned appeal to 

 the legislature of Massachusetts, when 



