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as they are, constitute the least important part of his life work. 

 It is a splendid thing to have the time, the ability, and the means 

 to write and publish an exhaustive monograph upon some impor- 

 tant subject of research. This serves not only as a guide and help 

 to other workers, but is the most enduring and glorious monu- 

 ment to his own fame. But to write a monograph is not the 

 highest achievement of the human intellect, nor the richest fruit 

 of human life. The teacher who educates hundreds and thousands 

 of workers, and stimulates the production of perhaps as many 

 monographs through other hands, does a greater work than the 

 solitary and possibly selfish specialist who spends his time exclu- 

 sively in building his own monument. So, too, the founder of a 

 school, like Aristotle, Cuvier or Agassiz, does a greater work in 

 the promulgation of his system of philosophy and the inspiration 

 of his followers and pupils, than by any individual contribution 

 he may make to literature. However valuable and important we 

 may reckon the writings of Agassiz, all who knew him and his 

 work must concede that the grandest achievements of his life were 

 as a teacher of science, and that his highest claim to our honor 

 and admiration is in the noble institution, the Museum of Com- 

 parative Zoology, which he founded ; in the enthusiasm he excited 

 and the methods of research he inaugurated among the young 

 men who were his pupils, and in the general impetus he gave to 

 scientific studies in America. Only those who know what science 

 was when he came among us, can realize the potency of the influ- 

 ence he exerted. In the earlier years of our national existence 

 our people were naturally occupied in the practical work of found- 

 ing a nation and achieving the material conquest of a continent, 

 and time and taste for abstract thought and scientific investigation 

 only came when the rough work of civilization was accomplished. 

 Only in the last half of the century of our national existence have 

 art, literature and science gained general recognition among us as 

 worthy objects of thought and effort. When Agassiz arrived in 

 this country forty year's ago he found us just aroused to the im- 

 portance of these subjects, and he appeared among us as the 

 apostle of the new gospel of science. He spoke our language 



