412 ALEXANDER AGASSIZ 



ished all that I possibly hoped to get through with while 

 on this side. I have seen most of my old friends in Lon- 

 don and dined out galore and lunched and clubbed." 



One morning in London he was pleasantly surprised 

 to hear that he had been elected, by a very handsome 

 majority, one of the eight foreign associates of the 

 French Academy of Sciences. This is generally consid- 

 ered the greatest honor the scientific world has to bestow, 

 an honor also conferred on the elder Agassiz. With one 

 exception it is the only case where father and son have 

 both been foreign associates. 



When, on the death of Bunsen in 1900, there was a 

 vacancy among these foreign associates, Agassiz's name 

 was proposed, but Sir Joseph Hooker was elected, an 

 event of which Agassiz characteristically remarked that 

 Sir Joseph was an older man and a more suitable choice. 

 Again, in 1903, at the death of Virchow, Koch defeated 

 Agassiz by one vote, two of the latter's sponsors being 

 sick. At this election, the Academy appear to have 

 been much influenced by the fact that while Newcomb 

 was the only American Associate, four were Anglo- 

 Saxon, and they did not want another ; rather an amus- 

 ing situation, as Agassiz was born a Prussian. 1 



Among the many honors that he received, his mother- 

 land gave him the order of " Pour le Merite," the high- 

 est mark of recognition she had to bestow on a man of 

 science. The foreign membership of this order, so named 

 by Frederick the Great, is limited on its civil side to 

 thirty men chosen from the world of Science, Literature, 

 and Art. It had, since its foundation, been awarded to 

 but nine Americans, including the elder Agassiz. This 



1 It will be remembered that in 1835 Neuchatel belonged to Prussia. 



