xxxiv Trans. Acad. Sci. of St. Louis. 



than his work, inspiring the beginner in nature-study through 

 his revelation of himself, stimulating and encouraging him by 

 the example of his own generous and contagious enthusiasm. 



In his courses of lectures, whether to senior undergraduates 

 or in the Lawrence Scientific School, Agassiz displayed extraor- 

 dinary power of lucid and forceful exposition; his wealth of 

 knowledge seemed inexhaustible, his power of generalization 

 all-embracing. He dwelt insistently on the broad facts of 

 adaptation of living forms to their surroundings, of their distri- 

 bution in definite geographical groups, of their orderly 

 sequence in geological time, of the consecutive phases of their 

 embryonic and post-natal development, and, especially, of their 

 intimate structural relations within the type to which each be- 

 longs. Unity of plan, discernible through infinite diversity of 

 form, was cited as proof of a supreme intelligence operating in 

 accordance with a pre-existent creative thought which it was 

 the high prerogative of the naturalist to unfold. 



Endowed with the keenest perception and sustained by a 

 physique of exceptional vigor and endurance, Agassiz achieved 

 extraordinary results as an observer. Indefatigable in minutest 

 research, yet regarding facts as barren until they have been 

 correlated with other facts, he had little sympathy with natural- 

 ists who, however prolific in their way, rest content with describ- 

 ing and naming species. ''It is descriptive and not compara- 

 tive,'' was his passing comment on a new book, conceived in a 

 spirit so different from his own. He was also righteously in- 

 tolerant of assertion not based on proof deducible from facts. 

 With him, observation and comparison went hand in hand. He 

 did more, perhaps, than all his contemporaries in collecting and 

 coordinating the material which biologists now discuss in terms 

 of evolution. 



It has been said often of Agassiz that he was a born teacher. 

 He delighted in giving freely of his stores to any receptive listener, 

 as well to the humblest seeker after knowledge as to the ripe 

 scholar, to the fisherman who brought in the strange specimens 

 taken in his nets as to a colleague trained in scientific research. 

 The unfolding minds of young children attracted him strongly; 

 he loved to guide them in observing natural objects and thinking 

 about them — teaching them to see things with their own eyes, 

 and encouraging them to exercise their own reasoning powers in 

 discovering the natural relations of the things they saw. In his 

 earlier official teaching at Neuchatel, he lectured to the older 



