138 SCIENCE SKETCHES. - 
outside of the colleges, or at the best carrying on 
their investigations in time stolen from the drud- 
gery of the class-room. One of the greatest of 
American astronomers was kept for forty years 
teaching algebra and geometry, with never a stu- 
dent far enough advanced to realize the real work 
of his teacher; and this case was typical of hun- 
dreds before the university spirit was kindled in 
American schools, ‘That this spirit was kindled in 
Harvard forty years ago was due in the greatest 
measure to Agassiz’s influence. It was here that 
graduate instruction in science in America practi-. 
cally began. In an important sense the Museum 
of Comparative Zodlogy was the first American 
university. 
Notwithstanding the great usefulness of the Mu- 
seum and the broad influence of its teachers, 
Agassiz was not fully satisfied. The audience he 
reached was still too small. Throughout the coun- 
try the great body of teachers of science went on 
in the old mechanical way. On these he was able 
to exert no influence. The boys and girls still 
kept up the humdrum recitations from worthless 
text-books. They got their lessons from the book, 
recited them from memory, and no more came into 
contact with Nature than they would if no animals 
or plants or rocks existed on this side of the planet 
Jupiter. It was to remedy this state of things that 
Agassiz conceived, in 1872, the idea of a scienti- 
fic ““camp-meeting,” where the workers and the 
teachers might meet together, —a summer school 
of observation, where the teachers should be trained 
to see Nature for themselves and teach others how 
to see it. 
