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Louis Agassiz. 



Boston, New Haven, Ithaca, and Oakland, or offered 

 themselves to the service of the State or nation. 

 Teachers in the common schools, especially in New 

 England, learned how to awaken interest in the study 

 of Nature. Congress, in 1862, made a generous 

 provision for scientific schools ; and now, a quarter 

 of a century from the coming of Agassiz, scientific 

 courses run parallel with classical courses in most of 

 the colleges of the country. I am far from attribut- 

 ing all this progress to any individual. It is the 

 movement of science, in a new country, and in the 

 nineteenth century ; but I do not hesitate to say 

 that among all the great and serviceable men who 

 have helped on this spirit of research and of inves- 

 tigation, none is more worthy of grateful homage 

 than Louis Agassiz. Especially was he noteworthy 

 for his opposition to the rote-teaching in scientific 

 text-books ; for his encouragement of local studies — 

 researches about home ; and for his persistent 

 employment and recommendation of the art of 

 drawing as an indispensable aid in scientific research. 



If I may be allowed to make an allusion to my 

 own relations with Professor Agassiz, I will say that 

 the greeting which you gave him, and the greeting 

 which he gave me in the halls of the Academy, 

 fifteen months ago, filled me with assurance and 

 courage. It was not long afterward, before his visit 

 here bore fruits, and the liberality of Edward 

 Tompkins, of Oakland, endowed in the University 

 of California a professorship which is to bear in all 

 time the name of Agassiz. Scarcely two months ago 

 I sat in his study at Cambridge, and answered his 



