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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



into the work, were alike unparalleled ; 

 while the course he pursued has turned 

 out as wise for his own fame as it has 

 proved favorable to the interests of 

 advancing knowledge. 



It is well known that Prof. Agassiz 

 was a man of strong personality. He 

 had great enthusiasm and impulsive- 

 ness, and the whole fervor and inten- 

 sity of his nature was spent in the sin- 

 gle-minded pursuit of science. Not 

 content with what he could himself 

 know, and do, and enjoy, he was pow- 

 erfully impelled to make others the 

 sharers of his knowledge, his activity, 

 and his pleasures. He not only won 

 them to him by his geniality, and his 

 cordial and unaffected manners, but he 

 inspired them with his own purposes, 

 and moved them to his own ends. 

 Sympathetic with all who were inter- 

 ested in science, he especially fascinated 

 young men, and the ranks of our nat- 

 uralists are full of those who were re- 

 cruited to the work by his agency, 

 among whom may be mentioned Ver- 

 rill, Stimson, Clark, Hyatt, Putnam, 

 Packard, Scudder, Hartt, Tenney, 

 Morse, Niles, and Bickmore. One of 

 his students writes of him as follows: 



"Agassiz's enthusiasm did not consist 

 merely in scientific investigation and in ear- 

 nest words, but also in earnest deeds in re- 

 lation to others, and especially in relation to 

 young men. Wherever he saw a student 

 who would study Nature, he opened the way 

 for him, took him into his laboratory, spread 

 his treasures before him and directed his 

 studies, and this too without any expectation 

 or thought of a pecuniary reward as a return. 

 Indeed, I do not know of a single student 

 who ever paid him a dollar as tuition for his 

 instruction in natural history studies. Young 

 men came and staid and studied as long as 

 they would, and, as far as tuition was con- 

 cerned, without money and without price. 

 To the present writer he said, twenty years 

 ago : ' "Whenever you get ready to study 

 natural history, come to Cambridge, and 

 remember it will not cost you a cent of 

 money.' " 



But Prof. Agassiz's influence was 

 far from being confined to a small class 



of congenial students ; it was very 

 powerful upon the general public. A 

 republican by nativity, and a republi- 

 can by adoption, he was also a republi- 

 can in sympathy and in principle, by 

 association and habit. Although com- 

 ing to this country as a great man from 

 Europe, he had no factitious dignity to 

 sustain, and no scruples to overcome, 

 in plunging at once into the work of 

 popular teaching. Entering early and 

 fully into the spirit of our institutions, 

 he went among the people at large, 

 gave courses of lectures upon zoology 

 in all the chief towns of the country, 

 and was indefatigable in the diffusion 

 of knowledge, and in awakening a 

 higher appreciation of science among 

 the people. In this he was wise and 

 sagacious to the specific ends he had in 

 view, for he well understood that in 

 this country the prosperity of science 

 is ultimately bound up with its public 

 appreciation. In this field of effort too 

 he was preeminently successful. As 

 Mr. Beecher remarks, in the Christian 

 Union: 



1 ' Agassiz stepped upon the lecture plat- 

 form in Boston, and day after day fascinated 

 a great audience with the fairy tales of sci- 

 ence and the long result of time. That 

 appreciation might have been predicted of 

 Boston culture, perhaps. But when the 

 master took his black-board and "bis prob- 

 lems to the smaller cities, drawing his queer 

 diagrams, and unfolding their vast meaning 

 before lyceum associations, normal schools, 

 colleges, high-schools, those benches, too, 

 were crowded with eager and intelligent 

 listeners. It was Agassiz who made straight 

 the path of Tyndall last winter, created the 

 demand for Huxley's lectures, and made The 

 Populab Science Monthly as much a ne- 

 cessity as Harper or the Atlantic^ It was 

 Agassiz whose large intent laid the corner- 

 stone of our institutes of techology, and 

 scientific schools in colleges." 



But no estimate of Prof. Agassiz's 

 real work among the American people 

 will be just that stops here. True, he 

 gave his best powers to the instruction 

 of teachers, farmers, mechanics, and 

 artisans, but it was not merely as a 



