I 96 THE AMERICAN NATURALIST. 
tener to the instruction of his associates. In the laboratory 
or in the field encouragement and inspiration emanated from 
him. In our minds he appeared encompassed by a halo of 
self-sacrifice that would have been only larger and more radiant 
could we have foreseen the impending result of his labors. 
The situation has been feelingly described by one who could 
most keenly appreciate it: 
It was to me supremely touching to see the great naturalist at 
Penikese a few months before his death devoting his last strength 
to a crowd of eager learners, directing them to the exclusive study 
of the book of nature, and showing them, by word and deed, how to 
observe it and how to be taught by these living realities.’ 
Even had the future been revealed to Agassiz, it may well be 
doubted whether his efforts would have relaxed. A surprising 
benefaction had enabled him to materialize a long-cherished 
educational ideal, and he might have chosen deliberately to 
consecrate thereto the last summer of his life. In establishing, 
within three months, upon an uninhabited island not readily 
accessible, an institution where teachers— men and women 
alike— were led from the consultation of books to the per- 
sonal interrogation of Nature, Agassiz not merely overcame 
the inertia of matter and the apparent limitations of time and 
space; like another Swiss, upon a different field, he gathered 
to his devoted breast the spears of ignorance and indifference, 
of covert ridicule and open opposition, and made way for the 
advance of knowledge along paths till then unbroken. ‘ Peace 
hath her victories no less than War.” 
Yet had there been no such material outcome as the many 
summer schools since established, all connected with the Ander- 
son School in 1873 will regard those weeks as an epoch in 
their lives; to their pupils and to their pupils’ pupils forever 
will be transmitted the story of what was said and done, seen 
and heard while they had the honor and the happiness of bang 
with Agassiz at Penikese. 
; 1 Guyot, Memoir of Louis Agassiz, p. 46. 
