8 



AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL NOTES. 



further aid. I had my little museum, so dear to me that it had seemed 

 impossible to part with it under any circumstances. In this emergency 

 it occurred to me to offer to sell the collection to Wilbraham Academy, and 

 use the proceeds for my school expenses. To my surprise as well as delight, 

 the offer of sale was accepted, and to this extent my way was clear. 



Special Student under Louis Agassiz (1862-1871). 



On again entering the Academy I found a congenial spirit, whose tastes 

 and aspirations were similar to my own, but under better guidance, as my 

 new friend 1 was a nephew of my loved teacher, Professor Marcy. He was 

 planning to enter the Lawrence Scientific School at Cambridge, to become 

 a pupil of the great Agassiz. Why should not I do the same? The balance 

 still due me for my collection, if paid to me in cash would enable me to 

 establish myself at Cambridge, on our proposed plan of hiring an inex- 

 pensive room and boarding ourselves. The necessary preliminaries having 

 been arranged, we arrived in Cambridge early in February, 1862. I well 

 remember plodding through the knee-deep snow of Divinity Avenue to 

 reach the Agassiz Museum, in exceedingly inclement weather, and our 

 cordial greeting by the great scientist. Plans for laboratory work were at 

 once arranged, and also for attending certain of the courses of lectures at 

 the Lawrence Scientific School that were to form a part of our curriculum. 

 Besides those of Agassiz himself we were to attend the course by Jeffries 

 Wyman on comparative anatomy, a course on physics by Joseph Lovering, 

 a course on chemistry by Josiah P. Cook, and the course on botany by Asa 

 Gray, all eminent specialists of world-wide renown. 



I had naturally chosen as my specialty the study of birds, and was 

 not a little disappointed at having assigned to me the same task as that 

 set for Mr. Niles. We were both given collections of corals of several 

 genera and requested to find out their methods of growth and laws of 

 development. Not a hint was given us as to what details we were to 

 look for, and no books of reference were suggested. The first lesson, we 

 were told, was to learn to observe, to use our eyes. Equipped with hand 

 lenses, we proceeded to our task. After a few hours of application we were 

 asked "Well, what have you seen?" and the same query was daily repeated. 

 We reported what we thought we had discovered, and if we had seen aright 

 we were encouraged with a few words of approval; if we were mistaken 



1 William Harmon Niles, of Worthington, Mass., later for many years professor of Geology and 

 Physical Geography at the Boston Institute of Technology. 



