LOUIS AGASSIZ. ![}'.) 



Agassiz is dead! Well may the flags of his adopted city fall to half- 

 mast I Well may the orator pause in the torrent of his argument and 

 drop a tribute to his memory! Well may the bells of our universities 

 toll at the hour of his funeral, for he was not of one university but of 

 all! Well may tbe academies of science on both continents record his 

 worth in memorial resolutions, for he was of both continents; nay, of 

 the world! In the midst of this wide appreciation of the wonderful 

 labors and discoveries of Agassiz, this universal showering of tributes 

 upon his grave, by the learned, the world-renowned; I tremblingly bring 

 my single leaf to be lost among the pyramids of flowers, of no im- 

 portance to the grateful pile, but of great importance to the promptings, 

 the demands of my own heart. 



Louis John Eudolpli Agassiz was born May 28, 1807, in the parish of 

 Mottier, near Lake l^eufchatel, in Switzerland. 



And Nature, tlie. dear old nurse, took 



The cliild upon her knee, 

 Saying, " Here is a story-book 



Thy Father has written for thee." 

 " Come, wander Avith me," she said, 



" Into regions yet untrod, 

 And read what is still unread 



In the manuscripts of God." 



He was of Huguenot descent, and his ancestors were driven from Frauoe 

 by the revocation of the edict of ISTautes. For six generations his lineal 

 ancestors had been clergymen. His mother was a woman of uncommon 

 intelligence, aj id had special oversight of Ms early education, and just 

 pride in his mature fame; and in after life, Agassiz illustrated the depth of 

 his gratitude and jBlial love by laying aside his studies, from which notti- 

 ing else could call him, to make the voyage to Europe and the journey 

 to Switzerland, that he might once more receive his mother's blessing and 

 give her his own. 



At the age of eleven years young Agassiz was sent to school at Bienne 

 for four years, where he studied the ancient and modern languages, and 

 amused himself by observing the habits of fishes and collecting insects. 

 During his vacations, spent at his father's new home under the shadow 

 of the Jura, by the influences of a young clergyman named Fivaz, he was 

 first inspired with a love of the natural sciences, and he became inter- 

 ested in botany. When fifteen years of age, Louis entered college at 

 Lausanne, where he remained two years, and having determined to 

 study medicine he went to Zurich when he was seventeen years old. 

 where lie remained two years. Wishing to avail himself of the best 

 educators, he went to Heidelberg when nineteen, devoting himself to 

 the study of anatomy and physiology and zoology and botanj^ under 

 such professors as Tiedemanu, Leuckart, and Bischoff. But as the uni- 

 versity at Munich had then been re-organized, with the most eminent 

 scientists on the continent in its faculty, young Agassiz was attracted 



