The Agassiz Memorials. 235 



was to scientific researches — to the advancement of 

 learning by investigations of the most profound sort, 

 extending down to the lowest organisms at the 

 bottom of the sea, and back to the remotest aeons 

 of geological history — he was always ready to come 

 before the public and bring the newest and the best 

 of his acquisitions. There are such men as intel- 

 lectual misers, but he was not of that race. There 

 are also those who are deaf and dumb, but he used 

 all his faculties. He did not wait for costly diagrams 

 or extraordinary specimens. A blackboard and a 

 piece of chalk were all the apparatus which he 

 required for a lecture on natural history. At the 

 oldest University in Cambridge, or at the newest 

 in Ithaca, through the Atlantic Monthly or the extra 

 TribunCy in the National Academy, or on Penikese 

 Island, in the State house at Boston, or in Pacific 

 Hall at San Francisco, he was ready to teach all 

 who wished to be taught. The wisest would enjoy 

 the clearness, the liveliness, and the method with 

 which he told his tale ; and the uninformed would 

 think they were growing wise, because they could 

 follow so agreeably and intelligently the utterance 

 of a master. He believed in the Pubhc Schools ; 

 and the newspapers say that one of the last acts of 

 his public life was to give a lecture at a teachers' 

 meeting. 



As a popular teacher, Agassiz was undoubtedly 

 aided by his devout reverence, which saw in Nature 

 something more than a force or law, or rather, which 

 believed all law and force to emanate from a Law- 

 giver and a Ruler. He did not obtrude these 



