i6 



acquirements, in geniality of social intercourse, in utter 

 carelessness for material gain and indifference to political 

 preferment, or anything that by any possibility could in- 

 terfere with devotion to science, they were counterparts. 

 Beautiful is the friendship of such men. It was Hum- 

 boldt who proposed to the king of Prussia to give Agassiz 

 the necessary funds for a two year's journey on this con- 

 tinent. It was through Humboldt's influence that the 

 king, as Agassiz said, "granted in-a most generous man- 

 ner a sum sufficient for the journey." In Agassiz's ad- 

 dress at the Humboldt Centennial in Boston, in simple and 

 touching words he again acknowledged his debt of grati- 

 tude to Humboldt. He said " His sympathy for all 

 young students of nature was one of the noblest traits of 

 hia long life. It may truly be said that towards the close 

 of his career, there was hardly one prominent or aspiring 

 scientific man in the world wlio was not under some obli- 

 gations to him. His sympathy touched not only the 

 work of those in whom he was interested, but extended 

 also to their material wants and embarrassments. At 

 this period I was twenty-four, he was sixty-two. I had 

 recently taken my degree of Doctor of Medicine, and was 

 struggling not only for a scientific position but for the 

 means of existence also. I have said that he gave me 

 permission to come as often as I pleased to his room, 

 opening to me freely the inestimable advantages which 

 intercourse with such a man gave to a young investiga- 

 tor like myself. But he did far more than this. Occu- 

 pied and surrounded as he was, he sought me out in my 

 lodgings. It was no doubt apparent to him that I was 

 not familiar with the good things of this world, for short- 

 ly afterward I received an invitation to meet him at one 

 of those restaurants, the tempting windows of which I had 

 occasionally passed by. For three hours, which passed 

 like a dream, I had him all to myself. How he exam- 

 ined me, and how much I learned in that short time! 

 How to work, what to do, and what to avoid: how to 

 live, how to distribute my time, what methods of study 

 to pursue, these were the things of which he talked tome 



