170 SPENCER FULLERTON BAIRD 
It was not unknown in Europe, and Agassiz’s employ- 
ment of it a year or two later at Cambridge gave a vogue 
to it in America which has been permanent. Like many 
other admirable things it recommended itself to more 
than one teacher about the same time. 
Many references to the long tramps with his pupils 
are found in his Journal. This sort of work not only 
awakened interest and often enthusiasm among the mem- 
bers of his class but furnished them with a field of diver- 
sion and a possibility of study which might, in lives like 
those of a country clergyman or doctor, in after years 
afford a welcome variety and relief from the more or 
less monotonous grind of daily professional work. 
The (to many arid) sessions in the usual modern 
college laboratory with microscope and scalpel, and with 
nothing else, if a student has not an overwhelming passion 
for science, rather deter him from scientific pursuits; are 
chiefly remembered by the smells and messes of the work- 
room; and open no such vistas of interest and pleasure 
to the average man. 
The sudden popularity of so-called “‘nature study” in 
the preliminary schools, is a sign of reaction from the 
“Huxley and Martin” type of instruction which is to 
be heartily welcomed. 
As might be expected among those who came under 
Baird’s influence, among his students were several who 
afterward became efficient helpers. The names occur of 
Moncure D. Conway (class of 1849), author and radical 
reformer; John A. J. Creswell (1848), afterward Postmaster 
General; Charles O’Neall, later member of Congress; 
and C. C. Tiffany, subsequently Archdeacon of New York; 
John H. Clark, who left before graduation; Caleb Burwell 
Rowan Kennerly (1849); George R. Bibb (1851); and 
