PREFACE 
FEW words in regard to the circumstances 
under which this book has been written are 
necessary. In the spring of 1917, the Council of Rad- 
cliffe College appointed Mrs. William G. Farlow, Miss 
Alice M. Longfellow, and Professor William E. By- 
erly a committee, to which Professor Fred N. Robin- - 
son was later added, to arrange for the publication of 
a biography of Mrs. Louis Agassiz, the first President 
of the college, in order that the future students might 
have some knowledge of her character and of what 
Radcliffe owes to her. It was decided that the earlier 
portion of the memoir, treating of Mrs. Agassiz’s 
youth and married life (1822-73), should be written 
by Miss Emma F. Cary, her youngest and only sur- 
viving sister, and the remainder (1873-1907) by my- 
self. 
From the time when the biography was first 
planned, Miss Cary devoted herself to its prepara- 
tion and gave it constant thought. It was to be not 
only the crowning labor of her long life, which al- 
ready numbered eighty-three years, but also a final 
tribute of devotion to a dearly loved sister. Her 
friends earnestly hoped that she might live to see the 
book completed, but she had made only a preliminary 
selection of letters and had written merely a few sec- 
tions of her narrative, when in August, 1918, her, 
work was ended by her death. 
