312 A Century of Science 



three terms entitled a student to receive the bache- 

 lor's degree. The library at Gore Hall had less 

 than one fifth of its present volumes, with no cata- 

 logue accessible to the public, while one small table 

 accommodated all the readers. For laboratory 

 work the facilities were meagre, and very little 

 was done. We all studied a book of chemistry ; 

 how many of us ever really looked at such things 

 as manganese or antimony ? For the student of 

 biology the provision was better, for the Botanic 

 Garden was very helpful, and in the autumn of 

 1860 was opened the first section of our glorious 

 Museum of Comparative Zoology. 



Here one is naturally led to the reflection that 

 in that day of small things, as some might call it, 

 there were spiritual influences operative at Harvard 

 which more than made up for shortcomings in 

 material equipment. There is a kind of human 

 presence, all too rare in this world, which is in 

 itself a stimulus and an education worth more than 

 all the scholastic artifices that the wit of man has 

 devised ; for in the mere contact with it one's mind 

 is trained and widened as if by enchantment. Such 

 a human presence in Cambridge was Louis Agassiz. 

 Can one ever forget that beaming face as he used 

 to come strolling across the yard, with lighted 

 cigar, in serene obliviousness of the University stat- 



