48 ELIZABETH CARY AGASSIZ 
hour was anticipated as the brightest of the whole 
morning. It soon became a habit with friends and 
neighbors, and especially with the mothers of the 
scholars, to drop in for the lectures, and thus the 
school audience was increased by a small circle of 
older listeners. The corps of teachers was also gradu- 
ally enlarged. The neighborhood of the university was 
a great advantage in this respect, and Agassiz had 
the codperation not only of his brother-in-law, Pro- 
fessor Felton, but of others among his colleagues, 
who took classes in special departments, or gave lec- 
tures in history and literature. 
Tt has seemed worth while to quote the above passage not 
merely because it describes the school to which Mrs. Agassiz 
devoted eight busy years and from which she regarded 
Radcliffe College as an outcome, but especially because 
her effacement of herself in the description is peculiarly 
characteristic. That it is a case of Hamlet with Hamlet 
left out, so far as she is concerned, is apparent from Mrs. 
Curtis’s narrative, which serves as a supplement to the 
above passage: 
Lizzie’s own share, as I remember it, was to hold 
the position of the head of the school with a general 
oversight of the pupils in all the branches. Even with- 
out teaching much care devolved upon her with the 
sense of responsibility in the schoolroom, added to 
the direction of her own household under these novel 
conditions. But all inconveniences were met by her 
with tact and sweet temper, and when at my father’s 
death in 1859, she found that my mother dreaded 
