NOVEMBER 3, 1899.] 
make any attempt of a brief sketch of his 
career almost impossible. * 
The son of a Protestant clergyman, he 
was born in Switzerland, in 1807, and his 
early academic education was obtained in 
Bienne, Lausanne and Zurich, whence he 
passed to the great German universities of 
Heidelberg, Munich and Erlangen. Even 
in those days he was a leader. In Munich 
he was the presiding officer of the Little 
Academy, the members of which have 
since enrolled their names high on the 
tablets of fame. At the age of twenty-one, 
even before the doctor’s degree had been 
conferred upon him, young Agassiz had se- 
cured ‘a place among the best naturalists of 
the day ’+ by his work on the fishes of Brazil- 
Delightful years in Vienna and Paris fol- 
lowed during which his dissipations were 
confined to the pleasures of association 
with the most distinguished men of his 
time, especially in Paris, where Humboldt 
was a conspicuous leader, and became his 
patron. Then, in 1832, he settled in Neu- 
chatel as professor of natural history in 
the small college of that ever-charming 
little city. Students came to him; and 
among his associates of that time were Gu- 
yot and Pourtales, whom even the ocean 
could not separate from him. His ‘ Re- 
cherches sur les Poissons fossiles’ in five 
quarto volumes, and his ‘ Etudes sur les 
Glaciers,’ were given to the world during 
his residence in Neuchatel. The former 
is perhaps his most important contribution 
to natural science, and the latter a pioneer 
work in glacialogy. 
In 1840 an invitation to deliver a course 
of lectures before the Lowell Institute in 
Boston was obtained for him through the 
*See Louis Agassiz. His Life and Correspond- 
ence, edited by Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, with por- 
traits on steel, 2 vols. Boston, 1885. 
ft Biographical Memoirs of the National Academy 
of Sciences, Washington, 1886. Vol. II., p. 49. Louis 
Agassiz, by Arnold Guyot. 
SCIENCE. 
631 
interest of his friend, Sir Charlés Lyell, 
and he agreed with Mr. John A. Lowell to 
give a course of lectures on the ‘ Plan of 
the Creation, especially in the Animal 
Kingdom.’ He arrived in Boston in Octo- 
ber, and in December delivered his first 
lecture. ‘He carried his audience cap- 
tive.** From that time the well-worn 
‘Veni, Vidi, Vici’ tells the story of his 
career in the new world. Enthusiastic 
audiences greeted him in New York, Phila- 
delphia, Charleston, and elsewhere, and, 
yielding to the irresistible opportunities 
offered to him, he severed the ties that 
bound him to the land of his birth and ac- 
cepted the chair of zoology and geology in 
the Lawrence Scientific School. 
Guyot, his friend from boyhood, in speak- 
ing of the immense power he exerted in 
this country in spreading the taste for 
natural science and elevating the standard, 
Says: 
How many leading students of nature are 
found to call themselves his pupils and grate- 
fully acknowledge their great indebtedness to 
his judicious training? How many who now 
occupy scientific chairs in our public institu- 
tions multiply his influence by inculcating his 
methods, thus rendering future success sure.+ 
No better evidence of his success as a 
teacher is needed than that of the mere 
mention of his famous students. In addi- 
tion to his son, Alexander, the names of 
Bickmore, Brooks, Clark, Fewkes, Hartt, 
Hyatt, Lyman, Morse, Niles, Packard, 
Putnam, Scudder, Shaler, Stimpson, Verrill, 
and Wilder, come readily to mind. 
In this connection I want to quote from 
a letter of one of his students{ who wrote 
me concerning his teaching as follows: 
The ideal of a young scientific student,"and 
of every great teacher, is a devotion to scien- 
* Life and Correspondence,’ Vol. II., p. 496. 
+ Memoir by Guyot, p. 71. 
¢{ Dr. J. Walter Fewkes. 
