CHAPTER IX. 



THE YOUNG TEACHER. 



First Lectures to Pupils— Departure for Neuchatel — Success as a 

 Teacher— Field Lectures— Call to Heidelberg— The Chair De- 

 clined — Threatened Blindness — Preparing for it. 



F I were to sum up the 

 greatest attainment of 

 Agassiz, or express his 

 most marked success, in 

 a word, it would be the 

 term teacher. He was 

 the greatest teacher in 

 science in modern times, 

 a genius w^ho opened up 

 a new world in this direc- 

 tion, his appearance in 

 the field being essentially 

 epoch making. 

 We have seen that Agassiz lectured to his com- 

 rades in The Little Academy,'* there obtaining 

 valuable training ; but his first actual labours as an 

 instructor began when he was twenty-five years of age, 

 and consisted of a series of lectures on natural his- 

 tory at the gymnasium at Neuchatel. In this work 



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