BOSTON SOCIETY OF NATURAL HISTORY. 221 



I doubt if he woiild have been disturbed though an armed force had cannonaded the build- 

 ing. It was said of Constable the artist, that in the fields he would sit so calmly in his con- 

 templation of the landscape, that the field-mice wotdd creep into his pocket. I think they 

 might have done the same with Professor Wyman, though I would not answer for it that 

 they might not become, under his hand, interesting specimens in Comparative Anatomy. 

 Unassuming in manner, and with a mortal aversion to pretentious conceit, no man valued . 

 true merit more heartily than he did, or was more earnest to assist struggling endeavor. 

 His name is now honored as widely as science is known. 



And here we look upon the face of Agassiz whose benignant smile is to-day, as it ever 

 was, a benediction. How absolutely with him the man of science became the acknowl- 

 edged Instructor. Whether in the halls of legislation or the popular assembly, or before a 

 convention of teachers, or in his own private lecture-room, he was the Educator. He 

 seemed born for this vocation. His gift of speech, his genial spirit, his sympathetic and 

 magnetic power, made all listen with avidity. He knew not only how to gather, but how 

 to impart. Whether he was discoursing upon glaciers or embryology, upon the structure 

 of animal life, coral-reefs, star-fish, or an oyster, he was alike able to arrest and rivet 

 attention, leading the mind from point to point, wondering and delighted, until rising 

 above the individual it grasped the universal, and seeing the hidden law, it recognized 

 through that, the Divine Intelligence. 



With voice, manner, look, he held entranced the hearer, leading ,him onward from 

 stage to stage in the line of progress. In all he did, he was preeminently the teacher 

 of the individual, the community, the nation. " I have been," he said, " a Teacher ever 

 since I was fifteen years of age. I am so now, and I hope I shall continue to be all my 

 life." He did so continue, and so he still is ; through the memory of his life, and through 

 the words he has left us, he is emphatically the Educator ; kindling a desire for knowledge 

 and the love of progress. The increasing interest in the study of natural history, seen 

 everjrwhere, how much he did to awaken ! 



While we look upon that countenance, do we not all recall those words of Longfellow, 

 addressed to Agassiz on his fiftieth birthday, where Nature is represented as speaking : 



" Come wander with me," she said, 

 " Into regions yet untrod ; 

 And read, what is still unread, 

 In the Manuscripts of God ! " 



" So he wandered away and away 



With Nature, the dear old Nurse, 

 Who sang to him night and day 

 The hymns of the Universe ! " 



And even thus, by night and by day, to every true-hearted Naturalist, Nature pours 

 forth her celestial melodies : 



" And whenever the way seems long, 

 And our hearts begin to fail. 

 She will sing a more wonderful song, — 

 Or tell a more marvellous tale ! " 



The members of this Society know full well the deep joy that is awakened through 

 that harmony with Nature which comes from the study of her works. The vast coUec- 



