CHAPTER III 
CAMBRIDGE — CHARLESTON — THE AGASSIZ 
SCHOOL — EUROPE 
1850-1865 
HE girlhood of Elizabeth Cary as we have followed 
it in the preceding pages differed little from the usual 
existence of a Boston girl of the time, growing up in a large 
circle of relatives linked by intermarriage with other Bos- 
ton families whose names were more or less conspicuous in 
the commercial interests of the place — especially trade 
with East India or China. Into this provincial community 
there flashed a brilliant element in 1846 with the arrival 
of Louis Agassiz, already well known as an able naturalist 
and a gifted professor in the University of Neuchatel. He 
had left his delicate German wife with their two daugh- 
ters at Carlsruhe and his son at school in Neuchatel, and 
had come to America with scientific exploration as his prim- 
ary object, for which he had received a grant of money 
from the King of Prussia. But previous to sailing, in order 
to eke out his slender income, he had arranged under the 
auspices of Mr. John Lowell to deliver a course of lectures 
for the Lowell Institute in Boston. The effect that he pro- 
duced upon his audience, composed of scientific and cul- 
tivated hearers side by side with working-men, is best 
described by Mrs. Agassiz in his biography: 
Never was Agassiz’s power as a teacher, or the charm 
of his personal presence more evident than in his first 
