604 Louis Agassiz, Teacher. — [ June, 
novelty intensified the great, indeed indescribable, charm of the speaker. 
No topic was to me so important as the general problem of animal life, 
and no expositor could compare with Agassiz. As an outlet for my 
enthusiasm each discourse was repeated, to the best of my ability, for the 
benefit of my companion, James Herbert Morse, ’63, on the daily four- 
mile walk between Cambridge and our Brookline home. So sure was 
I that all the statements of Agassiz were correct and all his conclusions 
sound, that any doubts or criticisms upon the part of my acute and un- 
prejudiced friend shocked me as a reprehensible compound of heresy and 
lese-mayjesté. 
The last course that I heard from Agassiz in Cambridge began on Oct. 
23, 1867, and closed on Jan. 11, 1868. It was memorable for him and 
forme. At the outset he announced that some progress had been made 
in the University toward the adoption of an elective system for the stu- 
dents, and that he proposed to apply the principle to his own instruc- 
tion and should devote the entire course of 21 lectures to the Selachians 
(sharks and rays), a group in which he had been deeply interested for 
many years and upon which he was then preparing a volume. This lim- 
itation to a favorite topic inspired him to unusual energy and eloquence. 
My notes are quite full, but I now wish the lectures had been reported 
verbatim. ‘'This course was signalized also by two special innovations, 
viz.: the exhibition of living fish and the free use of museum specimens. 
That, so far as possible, all biologic instruction should be objective was 
with Agassiz an educational dogma, and upon several notable occasions 
its validity had been demonstrated under very unfavorable conditions. 
Yet, during the five years of my attendance upon his lectures, they were 
seldom illustrated otherwise than by his ready and graphic ‘blackboard 
drawings. The simple fact was that the intervals between his lectures 
were so crowded with multifarious, pressing, and never-ending demands 
upon his time and strength that he could seldom determine upon the 
precise subject long enough in advance for him, or any one else, to bring 
together the desirable specimens or even charts. The second lecture of 
the course already mentioned is characterized in my diary as “splendid,” 
and as “for the first time illustrated with many specimens.” At one of 
the later lectures, after speaking about 15 minutes, he invited his hearers 
to examine living salmon embryos under his direction at one table, and 
living shark embryos under mine at another. 
Like those of Wyman, the courses given by Agassiz were Senior elec- 
tives. I never-heard of any examination upon them; nor is it easy to 
imagine Agassiz as preparing a syllabus or formulating or correcting an 
examination-paper. His personality and the invariable attendance of 
teachers and other adults precluded the necessity of disciplinary mea- 
