i7 



in that delightful evening. It was not enough for him to 

 cheer and stimulate the student. He cared also to give a 

 rare indulgence to a young man who could allow himself 

 few luxuries." Hammerton has well said " The Hum- 

 boldts never are too rich : they possess their gold and are 

 not possessed by it." 



Agassiz's words, recalled now, shed lustre on the mem- 

 ory of two of nature's noblemen. He continued to pay 

 his debt of gratitude in benefactions to struggling students 

 down to the day of his death. In a lecture delivered by 

 Prof. Wilder of Cornell University before the American 

 Institute on " Brain and Mind," he went somewhat aside 

 to speak thus of Agassiz : "His head is large, and his 

 brain may be as big as Cuvier's — (long may we wait in 

 ignorance as to that) ; but whether it is or not, shall we 

 credit a mass of nervous matter with the influence this 

 whole nation has felt from his enthusiasm and devotion to 

 science ? What is it that has made him perform an 

 amount of intellectual labor that would kill two ordinary 

 men, and has, in fact, nearly killed him; which has then 

 led him to forego the increase of his own fame at a most 

 critical period in scientific progress, and give his energies 

 to establish a museum whose magnificent collections are 

 free to any young naturalist who proves his power to use 

 them for the advancement of science ; which has 

 made him, year after year, a beggar for means to carry 

 on this museum and pay the workers therein, yet receive 

 not a dollar for his own services ; which has caused him, 

 though poor himself, never to accept a single cent for tui- 

 tion from the scores of young naturalists who owe their 

 training to him ; and which, if I may add my personal 

 testimony to the general stock, has actuated him in previ- 

 ous years for the investigation of a group of animals which 

 had an especial interest for him, to appropriate that which 

 he had received for public lectures, and then to lead me 

 into paths promising far more benefit to me than to his 

 own work ; and now to set apart a liberal sum from the 

 museum funds to bring together a collection, the scientifi- 

 ic results of which are to belong to me and to me alone ; 



