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Louis Agassiz as a teacher; illustrative
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LOUIS AGASSIZ
LOUIS AGASSIZ AS A TEACHER
ILLUSTRATIVE EXTRACTS ON
HIS METHOD OF INSTRUCTION
WITH AN INTRODUCTORY NOTE
BY
LANE COOPER
PROFESSOR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
IN CORNELL UNIVERSITY
'
THE COMSTOCK PUBLISHING CO.
ITHACA, NEW YORK
1917
PREFACE
F it be asked why a teacher of English
should be moved to issue this book on
Agassiz, my reply might be: ‘Read the
Introductory Note’—for the answer is there.
But doubtless the primary reason is that I have
been taught, and I try to teach others, after a
method in essence identical with that employed
by the great naturalist. And I might go on
to show in some detail that a doctoral investi-
gation in the humanities, when the subject is
well chosen, serves the same purpose in the
education of a student of language and litera-
ture as the independent, intensive study of a
living or a fossil animal, when prescribed by
Agassiz to a beginner in natural science. But
there is no need to elaborate the point. Of
those who are likely to examine the book,
some already know the underlying truth in-
volved, others will grasp it when it is first
presented to them (and for these my slight and
pleasant labors are designed), and the rest will
cv]
PREFACE
find a stumbling-block and foolishness—save
for the entertainment to be had in the reading
of biography.
I have naturally kept in mind the needs of
my own students, past and present, yet I be-
lieve these pages may be useful to students of
natural science as well as to those who concern
themselves with the humanities. We live in
an age of narrow specialization—at all events
in America. - Agassiz was a specialist, but not
a ‘narrow’ one. His example should there-
fore be salutary to those persons, on the one
hand, who think that a man can have general
culture without knowing some one thing from
the bottom up, and, on the other, to those who
immerse themselves and their pupils blindly
in special investigation, without thought of the
prima philosophia that gives life and meaning
to all particular knowledge. There can be no
doubt that science and scholarship in this
country are suffering from a lack of sympathy
and contact between the devotees of the several
branches, and for want of definite efforts to
bridge the gaps between various disciplines
wherever this is possible. It may not often
[ vi J
PREFACE
be possible until men of science generally
again take up the study of Plato and Aristotle,
or at least busy themselves, as did Agassiz,
with some comprehensive modern philosopher
like Schelling. - But it should not be very hard
for those who are engaged in the biological
sciences and those who are given to literary
pursuits to realize that they are alike inter-
ested in the manifestations of one and the same
thing, the principle of life. . In Agassiz himself
the vitality of his studies and the vitality of the
man are easily identified. °
In conclusion I must thank the publishers,
Houghton Mifflin Company, for the use of
selections from the copyright books of Mrs.
Agassiz and Professor Shaler; these and all
other obligations are, I trust, indicated in the
proper places by footnotes. I owe a special
debt of gratitude to Professor Burt G. Wilder
for his interest and help throughout.
Lane Cooper
CorNELL UNIVERSITY,
April 7, 1917.
[ vii J
CONTENTS
PAGE
I. Inrropuctorny Note.............. 1
II. Acassiz at NEUCHATEL........... 6
III. Acassiz at Harvarp............. 10
IV. How Agassiz Taucut Proressor
SHATIERS jnduwe cee barnskGenseenes 14
V. How Agassiz Taucut Proressor
NERBILD ¢ pea cuon Seas Sehr eae 27
VI. How Acassiz Taucut Prorressor
WILDER 2: ciccd esac. dereienasd 31
VII. How Agassiz Taucut Proressor
SCUDDER. wauGovscuas deine: finde 40
VIII. Tat Deata or Acassiz—His Per-
SONALIDY sii GGieeee eee eet 49
IX. Oprrer Dicta spy AGassiz........ 63
X. PassaGEs FoR COMPARISON WITH THE
Mertuop or AGASSIZ............ 69
[ix ]
I
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
EN the question was put to Agassiz,
“What do you regard as your great-
est work?’ he replied: ‘I have taught
men to observe.’ - And in the preamble to his
will he described himself in three words as
“Louis Agassiz, Teacher.’
We have more than one reason to be inter-
ested in the form of instruction employed by
so eminent a scientist as Agassiz. In the first
place, it is much to be desired that those who
concern themselves with pedagogy should give
relatively ‘less heed to the way in which sub-
jects, abstractly considered, ought to be taught,
and should pay more attention than I fear
has been paid to the way in which great and
successful teachers actually have taught their
pupils. - As in other fields of human endeavor,
so in teaching: there is a portion of the art
that cannot be taken over by one person from
another, but there is a portion, and a larger
[1]
COOPER
one than at first sight may appear, that can
be so taken over, and can be almost directly
utilized. Nor is the possible utility of imi-
tation diminished, but rather increased, when
we contemplate the method of a teacher like
Agassiz, whose mental operations had the
simplicity of genius, and in whose habits of
instruction the fundamentals of a right pro-
cedure become very obvious. -
Yet there is a second main reason for our
interest. Within recent years we have wit-
nessed an extraordinary development in certain
studies, which, though superficially different
from those pursued by Agassiz, have an under-
lying bond of unity with them, but which are
generally carried on without reference to
principles governing the investigation of every
organism and all organic life. I have in mind,
particularly, the spread of literary and linguistic
study in America during the last few decades,
and the lack of a common standard of judg-
ment among those who engage in such study.
Most persons do not, in fact, discern the close,
though not obvious, relation between investi-
gation in biology or zoology and the observation
[2]
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
and comparison of those organic forms which
we call forms of literature and works of art.
- Yet the notion that a poem or a speech should
possess the organic structure, as it were, of a
living creature is basic in the thought of the
great literary critics of all time. - So Aristotle,
a zoologist as well as a systematic student of
literature, compares the essential structure of a
tragedy to the form of an animal. - And so
Plato, in the Phaedrus, makes Socrates say:
“At any rate, you will allow that every dis-
course ought to be a living creature, having a
body of its own, and a head and feet; there
should be a middle, beginning, and end, adapted
to one another and to the whole.’ . It would
seem that to Plato an oration represents an
organic idea in the mind of the human creator,
the orator, just as a living animal represents a
constructive idea in the mind of God. Now it
happens that Agassiz, considered in his philosoph-
ical relations, was a Platonist, since he clearly
believed that the forms of nature expressed the
eternal ideas of a divine intelligence.
Accordingly, his method of teaching cannot
fail to be illuminating to the teacher of litera-
[3]
COOPER
ture—or to the teacher of language, either,
since- each language as a whole, and also the
component parts of language, words, for in-
stance, are living and growing forms, and must
be studied as organisms.- We have perhaps
heard too much of ‘laboratory’ methods in
the teaching of English and the like; but none
of us has heard too much about the funda-
mental operations of observation and com-
parison in the study of living forms, or of the
way in which great teachers have developed
the original powers of the student. It is simply
the fact that, reduced to the simplest terms,
there is but a single method of investigating
the objects of natural science and the produc-
tions of human genius. - We study a poem,
the work of man’s art, in the same way that
Agassiz made Shaler study a fish, the work of
God’s art; the object in either case is to dis-
cover the relation between form or structure
and function or essential effect.- It was no
chance utterance of Agassiz when he said that
a year or two of natural history, studied as he
understood it, would give the best kind of
training for any other sort of mental work.
E4]
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
The following passages will illustrate Agassiz’s
ideals and practice in teaching, the emphasis
being laid upon his dealings with special
students. A few biographical details are intro-
duced in order to round out our conception of
the personality of the teacher himself. Toward
the close, certain of his opinions are given in his
own words.
I would call special attention to an extract
from Boeckh’s Encyclopadie, and another from
the Symposium of Plato, on pp. 69-74, and to
the similarity between the method of study
there enjoined upon the student of the humani-
ties, or indeed of all art and nature, and the
method imposed by Agassiz upon the would-be
entomologist who was compelled first of all to
observe a fish. - In reforming the mind it is
well to begin by contemplating some structure
we never have seen before, concerning which we
have no, or the fewest possible, preconceptions. -
[5]
II
AGASSIZ AT NEUCHATEL!
N the autumn of the year 1832] Agassiz as-
| sumed the duties of his professorship at
Neuchatel. His opening lecture, upon
the relations between the different branches of
natural history and the then prevailing tenden-
cies of all the sciences, was given on the 12th
of November... at the Hotel de Ville.
Judged by the impression made, upon the
listeners as recorded at the time, this intro-
ductory discourse must have been characterized
by the same broad spirit of generalization which
marked Agassiz’s later teaching. - Facts in his
hands fell into their orderly relation as parts
of a connected whole, and were never presented
merely as special or isolated phenomena. - From
the beginning his success as an instructor was
undoubted. He had, indeed, now entered upon
the occupation which was to be from youth to
1From E. C. Agassiz, Louis Agassiz, his Life and Corre-
spondence, pp. 206 ff. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company,
1885.
[6]
AGASSIZ AT NEUCHATEL
old age the delight of his life. Teaching was a
passion with him, and his power over his pupils
might be measured by his own enthusiasm.
He was intellectually, as well as socially, a
democrat, in the best sense. He delighted to
scatter broadcast the highest results of thought
and research, and to adapt them even to the
youngest and most uninformed minds. In his
later American travels he would talk of glacial
phenomena to the driver of a country stage-
coach among the mountains, or to some work-
man, splitting rock at the road-side, with as
much earnestness as if he had been discussing
problems with a brother geologist; he would
take the common fisherman into his scientific
confidence, telling him the intimate secrets of
fish-structure or fish-embryology, till the man
in his turn became enthusiastic, and began to
pour out information from the stores of his
own rough and untaught habits of observation.
Agassiz’s general faith in the susceptibility of
the popular intelligence, however untrained, to
the highest truths of nature, was contagious,
and he created or developed that in which he
believed. . . .
[7]
MRS. AGASSIZ
Beside his classes at the gymnasium, Agassiz
collected about him, by invitation, a small
audience of friends and neighbors, to whom he
lectured during the winter on botany, on
zoology, on the philosophy of nature. The
instruction was of the most familiar and in-
formal character, and was continued in later
years for his own children and the children of
his friends. In the latter case the subjects
were chiefly geology and geography in con-
nection with botany, and in favorable weather
the lessons were usually given in the open air.
. . . From some high ground affording a wide
panoramic view Agassiz would explain to them
the formation of lakes, islands, rivers, springs,
water-sheds, hills, and valleys. . .
When it was impossible to give the lessons out
of doors, the children were gathered around a
large table, where each one had before him or
her the specimens of the day, sometimes stones
and fossils, sometimes flowers, fruits, or dried
plants. To each child in succession was ex-
plained separately what had first been told to
all collectively. . . . The children took their
own share in the instruction, and were them-
[8]
AGASSIZ AT NEUCHATEL
selves made to point out and describe that
which had just been explained to them. They
took home their collections, and as a prepara-
tion for the next lesson were often called upon
to classify and describe some unusual specimen
by their own unaided efforts.
em
Til
AGASSIZ AT HARVARD!
N his return to Cambridge at the end of
September [1859], Agassiz found the
Museum building well advanced. It
was completed in the course of the next year,
and the dedication took place on the 13th of
November, 1860. The transfer of the collec-
tions to their new and safe abode was made as
rapidly as possible, and the work of developing
the institution under these more favorable
conditions moved steadily on. The lecture-
rooms were at once opened, not only to students,
but to other persons not connected with the
University. Especially welcome were teachers
of schools, for whom admittance was free. It
was a great pleasure to Agassiz thus to renew
and strengthen his connection with the teachers
of the State, with whom, from the time of his
arrival in this country, he had held most cordial
relations, attending the Teachers’ Institutes,
1From E. C. Agassiz, Louis Agassiz, his Life and Corre-
spondence, pp. 564 ff. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company,
1885.
[10]
AGASSIZ AT HARVARD
visiting the normal schools, and associating
himself actively, as far as he could, with the
interests of public education in Massachusetts.
From this time forward his college lectures were
open to women as well as tomen. He had great
sympathy with the desire of women for larger
and more various fields of study and work,
and a certain number of women have always
been employed as assistants at the Museum.
The story of the next three years was one of
unceasing but seemingly uneventful work. The
daylight hours from nine or ten o’clock in the
morning were spent, with the exception of
the hour devoted to the school, at the Museum,
not only in personal researches and in lecturing,
but in organizing, distributing, and superin-
tending the work of the laboratories, all of
which was directed by him. Passing from
bench to bench, from table to table, with a
suggestion here, a kindly but scrutinizing glance
there, he made his sympathetic presence felt
by the whole establishment. No man ever
exercised a more genial personal influence over
his students and assistants.
His initiatory steps in teaching special
2 [11]
MRS. AGASSIZ
students of natural history were not a little
discouraging. Observation and comparison be-
ing in his opinion the intellectual tools most
indispensable to the naturalist, his first lesson
was one in looking. He gave no assistance;
he simply left his student with the specimen,
telling him to use his eyes diligently, and
report upon what he saw. He returned from
time to time to inquire after the beginner’s
progress, but he never asked him a leading
question, never pointed out a single feature of
the structure, never prompted an inference or a
conclusion. This process lasted sometimes for
days, the professor requiring the pupil not only
to distinguish the various parts of the animal,
but to detect also the relation of these details
to more general typical features. His students
still retain amusing reminiscences of their
despair when thus confronted with their single
specimen; no aid to be had from outside until
they had wrung from it the secret of its struc-
ture. But all of them have recognized the
fact that this one lesson in looking, which forced
them to such careful scrutiny of the object be-
fore them, influenced all their subsequent habits
[12]
AGASSIZ AT HARVARD
of observation, whatever field they might choose
for their special subject of study. . . .
But if Agassiz, in order to develop inde-
pendence and accuracy of observation, threw
his students on their own resources at first,
there was never a more generous teacher in the
end than he. All his intellectual capital was
thrown open to his pupils. His original ma-
terial, his unpublished investigations, his most
precious specimens, his drawings and illustra-
tions were at their command. This liberality
led in itself to a serviceable training, for he
taught them to use with respect the valuable,
often unique, objects entrusted to their care.
Out of the intellectual good-fellowship which
he established and encouraged in the laboratory
grew the warmest relations between his students
and himself. Many of them were deeply at-
tached to him, and he was extremely dependent
upon their sympathy and affection. By some
among them he will never be forgotten. He is
still their teacher and their friend, scarcely
more absent from their work now than when
the glow of his enthusiasm made itself felt in
his personal presence.
[13]
IV
HOW AGASSIZ TAUGHT PROFESSOR
SHALER?
T the time of my secession from the
humanities, Agassiz was in Europe; he
did not return, I think, until the autumn
of 1859. I had, however, picked up several
acquaintances among his pupils, learned what
they were about, and gained some notion of
his methods. After about a month he returned,
and J had my first contact with the man who
was to have the most influence on my life of
any of the teachers to whom I am indebted.
I shall never forget even the lesser incidents
of this meeting, for this great master by his
presence gave an importance to his surround-
ings, so that the room where you met him, and
the furniture, stayed with the memory of him.
- When I first met Louis Agassiz, he was still
in the prime of his admirable manhood; though
1From The Autobiography of Nathaniel Southgate Shaler,
pp. 93-100. Boston, Houghton Mifflin Company, 1907.
[14]
HOW AGASSIZ TAUGHT
he was then fifty-two years old, and had passed
his constructive period, he still had the look
of a young man. His face was the most genial
and engaging that I had ever seen, and his
manner captivated me altogether. But as I
had been among men who had a free swing,
and for a year among people who seemed to
me to be cold and super-rational, hungry as I
doubtless was for human sympathy, Agassiz’s
welcome went to my heart—I was at once his
captive. - It has been my good chance to see
many men of engaging presence and ways,
but I have never known his equal.
As the personal quality of Agassiz was the
greatest of his powers, and as my life was
greatly influenced by my immediate and endur-
ing affection for him, I am tempted to set forth
some incidents which show that my swift
devotion to my new-found master was not due
to the accidents of the situation, or to any
boyish fancy. I will content myself with one
of those stories, which will of itself show how
easily he captivated men, even those of the
ruder sort. Some years after we came together,
when indeed I was formally his assistant,—
[15 ]
PROFESSOR SHALER
I be'ieve it was in 1866,—he became much
interested in the task of comparing the skeletons
of thoroughbred horses with those of common
stock. I had at his request tried, but without
success, to obtain the bones of certain famous
stallions from my acquaintances among the
racing men in Kentucky. Early one morning
there was a fire, supposed to be incendiary, in
the stables in the Beacon Park track, a mile
from the College, in which a number of horses
had been killed, and many badly scorched. I
had just returned from the place, where I had
left a mob of irate owners and jockeys in a
violent state of mind, intent on finding some
one to hang. I had seen the chance of getting
a valuable lot of stallions for the Museum, but
it was evident that the time was most inop-
portune for suggesting such a disposition of
the remains. Had I done so, the results would
have been, to say the least, unpleasant.
As I came away from the profane lot of horse-
men gathered about the ruins of their fortunes
or their hopes, I met Agassiz almost running to
seize the chance of specimens. I told him to
come back with me, that we must wait until
[16 ]
HOW AGASSIZ TAUGHT
the mob had spent its rage; but he kept on.
I told him further that he risked spoiling his
good chance, and finally that he would have
his head punched; but he trotted on. I went
with him, in the hope that I might protect
him from the consequences of his curiosity.
When we reached the spot, there came about a
marvel; in a moment he had all those raging
men at his command. He went at once to
work with the horses which had been hurt,
but were savable. His intense sympathy with
the creatures, his knowledge of the remedies to
be applied, his immediate appropriation of the
whole situation, of which he was at once the
master, made those rude folk at once his
friends. Nobody asked who he was, for the
good reason that he was heart and soul of them.
When the task of helping was done, then
Agassiz skilfully came to the point of his
business—the skeletons—and this so dexter-
ously and sympathetically, that the men were,
it seemed, ready to turn over the living as
well as the dead beasts for his service. I have
seen a lot of human doing, much of it critically
as actor or near observer, but this was in many
[17]
PROFESSOR SHALER
ways the greatest. The supreme art of it was
in the use of a perfectly spontaneous and most
actually sympathetic motive to gain an end.’
With others, this state of mind would lead to
affectation; with him, it in no wise diminished
the quality of the emotion. He could measure
the value of the motive, but do it without
lessening its moral import.
As my account of Agassiz’s quality should
rest upon my experiences with him, I shall
now go on to tell how and to what effect he
trained me. In that day there were no written
examinations on any subjects to which candi-
dates for the Lawrence Scientific School had to
pass. The professors in charge of the several
departments questioned the candidates, and
determined their fitness to pursue the course of
study they desired to undertake. . Few or
none who had any semblance of an education
were denied admission to Agassiz’s laboratory.
At that time, the instructors had, in addition
to their meagre salaries—his was then $2,500
per annum,—the regular fees paid in by the
students under his charge. So I was promptly
assured that I was admitted. - Be it said, how-
[18]
HOW AGASSIZ TAUGHT
ever, that he did give me an effective oral
examination, which, as he told me, was in-
tended to show whether I could expect to go
forward to a degree at the end of four years
of study. On this matter of the degree he was
obdurate, refusing to recommend some who
had been with him for many years, and had.
succeeded in their special work, giving as
reason for his denial that they were ‘too
ignorant.’
The examination Agassiz gave me was
directed first to find that I knew enough Latin
and Greek to make use of those languages;
that I could patter a little of them evidently
pleased him. He didn’t care for those detest-
able rules for scanning. Then came German
and French, which were also approved: I could
read both, and spoke the former fairly well.
He did not probe me in my weakest place,
mathematics, for the good reason that, badly
as I was off in that subject, he was in a worse
plight. Then asking me concerning my read-
ing, he found that I had read the Essay on
Classification, and had noted in it the influence
of Schelling’s views. Most of his questioning
[19]
PROFESSOR SHALER
related to this field, and the more than fair
beginning of our relations then made was due
to the fact that I had some enlargement on that
side. So, too, he was pleased to find that I had
managed a lot of Latin, Greek, and German
poetry, and had been trained with the sword.
He completed this inquiry by requiring that I
bring my foils and masks for a bout. In this
test he did not fare well, for, though not un-
trained, he evidently knew more of the Schlager
than of the rapier. He was heavy-handed, and
lacked finesse. This, with my previous experi-
ence, led me to the conclusion that I had struck
upon a kind of tutor in Cambridge not known
in Kentucky.
While Agassiz questioned me carefully as to
what I had read and what I had seen, he seemed
in this preliminary going over in no wise con-
cerned to find what I knew about fossils, rocks,
animals, and plants; he put aside the offerings
of my scanty lore. This offended me a bit,
as I recall, for the reason that I thought I
knew, and for a self-taught lad really did know,
a good deal about such matters, especially as
to the habits of insects, particularly spiders.
[20]
HOW AGASSIZ TAUGHT
It seemed hard to be denied the chance to make
my parade; but I afterward saw what this
meant—that he did not intend to let me begin
my tasks by posing as a naturalist. The be-
ginning was indeed quite different, and, as will
be seen, in a manner that quickly evaporated
my conceit. It was made and continued in a
way I will now recount.
. Agassiz’s laboratory was then in a rather
small two-storied building, looking much like a
square dwelling-house, which stood where the
College Gymnasium now stands. . . . Agassiz
had recently moved into it from a shed on the
marsh near Brighton bridge, the original
tenants, the engineers, having come to riches
in the shape of the brick structure now known
as the Lawrence Building. In this primitive
establishment Agassiz’s laboratory, as dis-
tinguished from the storerooms where the col-
lections were crammed, occupied one room
about thirty feet long and fifteen feet wide—
what is now the west room on the lower floor
of the edifice. In this place, already packed,
I had assigned to me a small pine table with a
rusty tin pan uponit....
[21]
PROFESSOR SHALER
When I sat me down before my tin pan,
Agassiz brought me a small fish, placing it
before me with the rather stern requirement
that I should study it, but should on no account
talk to any one concerning it, nor read anything
relating to fishes, until I had his permission
so to do. To my inquiry, ‘What shall I do?’
he said in effect: ‘Find out what you can with-
out damaging the specimen; when I think that
you have done the work I will question you.’
In the course of an hour I thought I had
compassed that fish; it was rather an unsavory
object, giving forth the stench of old alcohol,
then loathsome to me, though in time I came to
like it. Many of the scales were loosened so
that they fell off. It appeared to me to be a
case for a summary report, which I was anxious
to make and get on to the next stage of the
business. But Agassiz, though always within
call, concerned himself no further with me that
day, nor the next, nor for a week. At first,
this neglect was distressing; but I saw that it
was a game, for he was, as I discerned rather
than saw, covertly watching me. So I set
my wits to work upon the thing, and in the
[ 22 ]
HOW AGASSIZ TAUGHT
course of a hundred hours or so thought I had
done much—a hundred times as much as seemed
possible at the start. I got interested in finding
out how the scales went in series, their shape,
the form and placement of the teeth, etc.
Finally, I felt full of the subject, and probably
expressed it in my bearing; as for words about
it then, there were none from my master except
his cheery ‘Good morning.” At length, on
the seventh day, came the question, ‘Well?’
and my disgorge of learning to him as he sat
on the edge of my table puffing his cigar. At
the end of the hour’s telling, he swung off and
away, saying: ‘That is not right.’ Here I
began to think that, after all, perhaps the
rules for scanning Latin verse were not the
worst infliction in the world. Moreover, it was
clear that he was playing a game with me to
find if I were capable of doing hard, continuous
work without the support of a teacher, and
this stimulated me to labor. I went at the
task anew, discarded my first notes, and in
another week of ten hours a day labor I had
results which astonished myself and satisfied
him. Still there was no trace of praise in
[23]
PROFESSOR SHALER
words or manner. He signified that it would
do by placing before me about a half a peck of
bones, telling me to see what I could make of
them, with no further directions to guide me.
I soon found that they were the skeletons of half
a dozen fishes of different species; the jaws told
me so much at a first inspection. The task
evidently was to fit the separate bones together
in their proper order. Two months or more
went to this task with no other help than an
occasional looking over my grouping with the
stereotyped remark: ‘That is not right.’
Finally, the task was done, and I was again
set upon alcoholic specimens—this time a re-
markable lot of specimens representing, per-
haps, twenty species of the side-swimmers or
Pleuronectidae.
I shall never forget the sense of power in
dealing with things which I felt in beginning
the more extended work on a group of animals.
I had learned the art of comparing objects,
which is the basis of the naturalist’s work. At
this stage I was allowed to read, and to discuss
my work with others about me. I did both
eagerly, and acquired a considerable knowledge
[24]
HOW AGASSIZ TAUGHT
of the literature of ichthyology, becoming
especially interested in the system of classi-
fication, then most imperfect. - I tried to follow
Agassiz’s scheme of division into the order of
ctenoids and ganoids, with the result that I
found one of my species of side-swimmers had
cycloid scales on one side and ctenoid on the
other. This not only shocked my sense of the
value of classification in a way that permitted of
no full recovery of my original respect for the
process, but for a time shook my confidence in
my master’s knowledge. At the same time I
had a malicious pleasure in exhibiting my
‘find’ to him, expecting to repay in part the
humiliation which he had evidently tried to
inflict on my conceit. To my question as to
how the nondescript should be classified he.
said: ‘My boy, there are now two of us who
know that.’ °
This incident of the fish made an end of my
novitiate. After that, with a suddenness of
transition which puzzled me, Agassiz became
very communicative; we passed indeed into
the relation of friends of like age and purpose,
and he actually consulted me. as to what I
[25 J
PROFESSOR SHALER
should like to take up as a field of study.
Finding that I wished to devote myself to
geology, he set me to work on the Brachiopoda
as the best group of fossils to serve as data in
determining the Palaeozoic horizons. So far
as his rather limited knowledge of the matter
went, he guided me in the field about Cam-
bridge, in my reading, and to acquaintances
of his who were concerned with earth structures.
I came thus to know Charles T. Jackson,
Jules Marcou, and, later, the brothers Rogers,
Henry and James. At the same time I kept
up the study of zoology, undertaking to make
myself acquainted with living organic forms as
a basis for a knowledge of fossils.
[ 26 ]
V
HOW AGASSIZ TAUGHT PROFESSOR
VERRILL
: [* regard to the methods of instruction of
Agassiz I must say that so far as I saw
and experienced he had no regular or
fixed method, except that his plan was to make
young students depend on natural objects rather
than on statements in books. - To that end he
treated each one of his new students differetttly,
according to the amount of knowledge and
experience that the student had previously
acquired, and often in line with what the
student had done before. Not infrequently
young men came to him who were utterly
destitute of any knowledge or ability to study
natural science, or zoology in particular, but
had an idea that it would be a ‘soft snap,’ as
the boys say. In such cases he often did give
them a lot of mixed stuff to mull over, to see
1From a private letter from Professor Addison Emery
Verrill to Lane Cooper. The extract is printed with the
consent of Professor Verrill.
3 [27]
PROFESSOR VERRILL
what they could do, and also to discourage
those that seemed unfit. Sometimes he was
mistaken, of course, and the student would
persevere and stay on—and sometimes turned
out well later. In fact, his treatment was
highly and essentially individualistic.
In my own case, he questioned me closely as
to what I had previously done and learned.
He found I had made collections of birds,
mammals, plants, etc., and had mounted and
identified them for several years, and in that
way was not a beginner exactly. I remember
that before I had been with him six months
he told me I knew more zoology than most
students did when they graduated. Therefore
my case was not like some others. He had
an idea, of course, that though I had collected
and mounted birds, and knew their names and
habits, I probably knew little about their
anatomy. At any rate the first thing he did
was to give me a badly mutilated old loon, from
old alcohol, telling me to prepare the skeleton.
This I did so well and so quickly that he ex-
pressed regret that he had not given me some
better bird with unbroken bones. He gave me
[ 28 ]
HOW AGASSIZ TAUGHT
next a blue heron, but it being spring, I ‘went
collecting’ in the vicinity, following my usual
inclination, before breakfast and after labora-
tory hours, and brought in a number of incu-
bated birds’-eggs. When Agassiz came into
the laboratory, I was extracting and preserving
the embryos, being interested in embryology.
He at once exclaimed that he was delighted,
and told me to put aside the skeletons and go
right on with collecting and preparing embryo
birds, and making drawings, etc. This I did
all that season, obtaining about 2,000 embryos,
mostly of sea birds, for he sent me to Grand
Manan Island, etc., for that purpose. Before
the end of the first year he gave me entire
charge of the birds and mammals in the Mu-
seum, as well as the coral collection, which was
large even then.
In the case of Hyatt, who went there just
before I did, I think he was kept working over
a lot of mixed fish skeletons, more or less
broken, to ‘see what he could make of them.’
A little later he put Hyatt at work on the
Unionidae, studying the anatomy as well as
the shells. Within two years he put him on
[29]
PROFESSOR VERRILL
the Ammonites, a big collection having been
received from Europe at that time. Hyatt,
however, had never done anything in zoology
or botany before he went to Agassiz. and he
found it hard to get a beginning, and so lost
time. I mention these cases to show how.
different his methods were in different, cases.
[30]
VI
HOW AGASSIZ TAUGHT PROFESSOR
WILDER?
HE phrase adopted as the title of this
article [‘ Louis Agassiz, Teacher’] begins
his simple will. Agassiz was likewise an
investigator, a director of research, and the
founder of a great museum. He really was
four men in one. Without detracting from the
extent and value of the three other elements
of his intense and composite American life—
-from his first course of lectures before the
Lowell Institute in 1846 to the inauguration of
the Anderson Summer School of Natural His-
tory at Penikese Island, July 8, 1873, and his
address before the Massachusetts State Board
of Agriculture, twelve days before his untimely
death on December 14, 1873,—Agassiz was
1From an article by Professor Burt G. Wilder, of Cornell
University, in The Harvard Graduates’ Magazine, June,
1907. The extract is taken from a reprint with slight
changes by the author, and is given with slight omissions
by the present writer.
[31]
PROFESSOR WILDER
pre-eminently a teacher. - He taught his as-
sistants; he taught the teachers in the public
schools; he taught college students; he taught
the public, and the common people heard him
gladly. - His unparalleled achievements as an
instructor are thus chronicled by his wife: -
‘A teacher in the widest sense, he sought and
found his pupils in every class. But in America
for the first time did he come into contact with
the general mass of the people on this common
ground, and it influenced strongly his final
resolve to remain in this country.- Indeed the
secret of his greatest power was to be found in
the sympathetic, human side of his character.
Out of his broad humanity grew the genial
personal influence by which he awakened the
enthusiasm of his audiences for unwonted
themes, inspired his students to disinterested
services like his own, delighted children in the
school-room, and won the cordial interest, as
well as the co-operation in the higher aims of
science, of all classes, whether rich or poor.’ -
As a general statement the foregoing could
not be improved. But the invitation to pre-
pare this article contained a suggestion of par-
[32]
HOW AGASSIZ TAUGHT
ticularity with which it is possible for me to
comply.? The courses given by Agassiz on
zoology and geology were attended by me
during the three years (1859-62) of my pupilage
with Jeffries Wyman, and the two years
(1866-68) in which I was the assistant of Agassiz
himself. Naturally, and also for special reasons,
the deepest impression was made by the first
and the last of these courses. With the former
the charm of novelty intensified the great, in-
deed indescribable, charm of the speaker. No
topic was to me so important as the general
problem of animal life, and no expositor could
compare with Agassiz. As an outlet for my
enthusiasm each discourse was repeated, to
the best of my ability, for the benefit of my
companion, James Herbert Morse, ’63, on the
daily four-mile walk between Cambridge and
our Brookline home. So sure was I that all
the statements of Agassiz were correct and all
his conclusions sound, that any doubts or
2 Not only have I preserved all the letters from Agassiz,
the first dated Sept. 4, 1866, and the last Nov. 25, 1873, but
also my diaries in which are recorded all significant incidents
and conversations from my first introduction in 1856 to the
last interview, Sept. 5, 1873. [Note by Professor Wilder.]
[ 33 ]
PROFESSOR WILDER
criticisms upon the part of my acute and un-
prejudiced friend shocked me as a reprehensible
compound of heresy and lese-majesty.
The last course that I heard from Agassiz in
Cambridge began on October 23, 1867, and
closed on January 11, 1868. It was memorable
for him and for me. At the outset he an-
nounced that some progress had been made in
the University toward the adoption of an
elective system for the students, and that he
proposed to apply the principle to his own
imstruction, and should devote the entire course
of twenty-one lectures to the Selachians (sharks
and rays), a group in which he had been deeply
interested for many years, and upon which he
was then preparing a volume. This limitation
to a favorite topic inspired him to unusual
energy and eloquence. My notes are quite
full, but I now wish the lectures had been re-
ported verbatim. This course was signalized
also by two special innovations, viz.: the ex-
hibition of living fish, and the free use of
museum specimens. That, so far as possible,
all biologic instruction should be objective was
with Agassiz an educational dogma, and upon
[ 34]
HOW AGASSIZ TAUGHT
several notable occasions its validity had been
demonstrated under very unfavorable condi-
tions. Yet, during the five years of my
attendance upon his lectures, they were seldom
illustrated otherwise than by his ready and
graphic blackboard drawings. The simple fact
was that the intervals between his lectures
were so crowded with multifarious, pressing,
and never-ending demands upon his time and
strength that he could seldom determine upon
the precise subject long enough in advance for
him, or any one else, to bring together the de-
sirable specimens or even charts. The second
lecture of the course already mentioned is
characterized in my diary as ‘splendid,’ and
as ‘for the first time illustrated with many
specimens.’ At one of the later lectures, after
speaking about fifteen minutes, he invited his
hearers to examine living salmon embryos
under his direction at one table, and living
shark embryos under mine at another.
. Like those of Wyman, the courses given by
Agassiz were Senior electives. I never heard
of any examination upon them; nor is it easy to
imagine Agassiz as preparing a syllabus, or
[35 ]
PROFESSOR WILDER
formulating or correcting an examination-
paper. His personality and the invariable
attendance of teachers and other adults pre-
cluded the necessity of disciplinary measures. -
But his attitude toward student misconduct
was clearly shown in an incident recorded by
me elsewhere.1 The method pursued by Agas-
siz with his laboratory students has been
described by Scudder.? Although I was to
prepare specimens at his personal expense, a
somewhat similar test was applied. He placed
before me a dozen young ‘acanths’ (dog-fish
sharks), telling me to find out what I could about
them. After three days he gave me other
specimens, saying: ‘When you go back to the
little sharks you will know more about them
than if you kept on with them now’—meaning,
I suppose, that I should then have gained a
better perspective.
Although, as I recall upon several occasions,
Agassiz could express his views delightfully
and impressively to a single auditor, his emi-
1‘ Agassiz at Penikese,’ American Naturalist, March, 1898,
p. 194. [Note by Professor Wilder.]
2 See below, p. 40.
[ 36 J
HOW AGASSIZ TAUGHT
nently social nature and his lifelong habit
rendered it easier for him to address a group of
interested listeners. The following incident
does not seem to have been recorded in my
diary, but it is distinctly remembered. During
the publication of the Journey in Brazil, a
French translation was made by M. Félix
Vogeli. With this the publishers desired to
incorporate a chapter giving the latest views
of Agassiz upon classification and evolution.
In vain was he besought to write it. He hated
writing, and was too busy. At last, in despera-
tion, M. Vogeli came to the Museum with
Mrs. Agassiz, and together they persuaded the
Professor to dictate the required matter in the
form of a lecture. For this, however, an
audience was indispensable. The exigency was
explained to the Museum staff; we assembled in
the lecture-room, and the discourse began.
To the dismay of some of us it proved to be in
French, but we tried to look as if we compre-
hended it all.
. Agassiz handled all specimens with the great-
est care, and naturally had little patience with
clumsiness; the following incident illustrates
[37 ]
PROFESSOR WILDER
both his kindly spirit and his self-restraint.
At one of the lectures he had handed down
for inspection a very rare and costly fossil,
from the coal-measures, I think; including the
matrix, it had about the size and shape of the
palm of the hand. He cautioned us not to
drop it. When it had reached about the middle
of the audience a crash was heard. The precious
thing had been dropped by a new and somewhat
uncouth assistant whom we will call Dr. X.
He hastily gathered up the pieces and rushed
out of the room. For a few seconds Agassiz
stood as if himself petrified; then, without even
an ‘Excuse me,’ he vanished by the same door.
Presently he returned, flushed, gazing ruefully
at the fragments in his hand, covered with
mucilage or liquid glue. After a pause, during
which those who knew him not awaited an
explosive denunciation of gaucherie, Agassiz
said quietly: ‘In Natural History it is not
enough to know how to study specimens; it is
also necessary to know how to handle them’
—and then proceeded with his lecture. -
His helpful attitude toward prospective teach-
ers was exhibited in the following incidents.
[38 J
HOW AGASSIZ TAUGHT
‘After my appointment to Cornell University in
October, 1867, he arranged for me to give a
course of six ‘University Lectures,’ and warned
me to prepare for them carefully, because he
should give me a ‘raking down.’ He attended
them all (at what interruption of his own work
I realize better now), and discussed them and
my methods very frankly with me. Omitting
the commendations, the following comments
may be useful to other professorial tyros:
1. The main question or thesis should be stated
clearly and concisely at the outset, without
compelling the hearer to perform all the mental
operations that have led the speaker to his
own standpoint. 2. In dealing with the history
of a subject, the value of each successive con-
tribution should be estimated in the light of
the knowledge at the period, not of that at the
present time. ©
[39 J
VII
HOW AGASSIZ TAUGHT PROFESSOR
SCUDDER?
T was more than fifteen years ago [from
1874] that I entered the laboratory of
Professor Agassiz, and told him I had
enrolled my name in the Scientific School as a
student of natural history. He asked me a
few questions about my object in coming, my
antecedents generally, the mode in which I
afterwards proposed to use the knowledge I
might acquire, and, finally, whether I wished to
study any special branch. To the latter I
replied that, while I wished to be well grounded
in all departments of zoology, I purposed to
devote myself specially to insects.
‘When do you wish to begin®’ he asked.
‘Now,’ I replied.
This seemed to please him, and with an ener-
getic ‘Very well!’ he reached from a shelf a
huge jar of specimens in yellow alcohol.
1*In the Laboratory with Agassiz,’ by Samuel H. Scudder,
from Every Saturday (April 4, 1874) 16, 369-370.
[ 40 ]
HOW AGASSIZ TAUGHT
‘Take this fish,’ said he, ‘and look at it; we
call it a haemulon; by and by I will ask what
you have seen.’
With that he left me, but in a moment re-
turned with explicit instructions as to the care
of the object entrusted to me.
‘No man is fit to be a naturalist,’ said he,
“who does not know how to take care of speci-
mens.’
I was to keep the fish before me in a tin tray,
and occasionally moisten the surface with alco-
hol from the jar, always taking care to replace
the stopper tightly. Those were not the days
of ground-glass stoppers and elegantly shaped
exhibition jars; all the old students will recall
the huge neckless glass bottles with their
leaky, wax-besmeared corks, half eaten by
insects, and begrimed with cellar dust. Ento-
mology was a cleaner science than ichthyology,
but the example of the Professor, who had
unhesitatingly plunged to the bottom of the
jar to produce the fish, was infectious; and
though this alcohol had ‘a very ancient and
fishlike smell,’ I really dared not show any
aversion within these sacred precincts, and
[41]
PROFESSOR SCUDDER
treated the alcohol as though it were pure
water. Still I was conscious of a passing feel-
ing of disappointment, for gazing at a fish did
not commend itself to an ardent entomologist.
My friends at home, too, were annoyed, when
they discovered that no amount of eau-de-
Cologne would drown the perfume which
haunted me like a shadow.
‘In ten minutes I had seen all that could be
seen in that fish, and started in search of the
Professor—who had, however, left the Museum;
and when I returned, after lingering over some
of the odd animals stored in the upper apart-
ment, my specimen was dry all over. I dashed
the fluid over the fish as if to resuscitate the
beast from a fainting-fit, and looked with anxiety
for a return of the normal sloppy appearance.
This little excitement over, nothing was to be
done but to return to a steadfast gaze at my
mute companion. Half an hour passed—an
hour—another hour; the fish began to look
loathsome. I turned it over and around;
looked it in the face—ghastly; from behind,
beneath, above, sideways, at a three-quarters’
view—just as ghastly. I was in despair; at an
[42]
HOW AGASSIZ TAUGHT
early hour I concluded that lunch was necessary;
so, with infinite relief, the fish was carefully
replaced in the jar, and for an hour I was free.
On my return, I learned that Professor
Agassiz had been at the Museum, but had gone,
and would not return for several hours. My
fellow-students were too busy to be disturbed
by continued conversation. Slowly I drew
forth that hideous fish, and with a feeling of
desperation again looked at it. I might not
use a magnifying-glass; instruments of all
kinds were interdicted. My two hands, my
two eyes, and the fish: it seemed a most limited
field. JI pushed my finger down its throat to
feel how sharp the teeth were. I began to
count the scales in the different rows, until I
was convinced that that was nonsense. « At last
a happy thought struck me—I would draw the
fish; and now with surprise I began to discover
new features in the creature. Just then the
Professor returned.
‘That is right,’ said he;‘a pencil is one of the
best of eyes. - I am glad to notice, too, that you
keep your specimen wet, and your bottle
corked.’
4 [ 43 ]
PROFESSOR SCUDDER
With these encouraging words, he added:
‘Well, what is it liked’
He listened attentively to my brief rehearsal
of the structure of parts whose names were
still unknown to me: the fringed gill-arches
and movable operculum; the pores of the head,
fleshy lips and lidless eyes; the lateral line, the
spinous fins and forked tail; the compressed
and arched body. When I had finished, he
waited as if expecting more, and then, with an
air of disappointment:
‘You have not looked very carefully; why,’
he continued more earnestly,“ you haven't
even seen one of the most conspicuous features
of the animal, which is as plainly before your
eyes as the fish itself; look again, look again!’
and he left me to my misery.
I was piqued; I was mortified. Still more of
that wretched fish! But now I set myself to
my task with a will, and discovered one new
thing after another, until I saw how just the
Professor’s criticism had been. The afternoon
passed quickly; and when, toward its close,
the Professor inquired:
‘Do you see it yet?’
[44]
HOW AGASSIZ TAUGHT
‘No,’ I replied, ‘I am certain I do not, but
I see how little I saw before.’
‘That is next best,’ said he, earnestly, ‘but
I won’t hear you now; put away your fish and
go home; perhaps you will be ready with a
better answer in the morning. I will examine
you before you look at the fish.’
This was disconcerting. Not only must I
think of my fish all night, studying, without
the object before me, what this unknown but
most visible feature might be; but also, without
reviewing my new discoveries, | must give an
exact account of them the next day. I hada
bad memory; so I walked home by Charles
River in a distracted state, with my two
perplexities.
The cordial greeting from the Professor the
next morning was reassuring; here was a man
who seemed to be quite as anxious as I that I
should see for myself what he saw.
‘Do you perhaps mean,’ I asked, ‘that the
fish has symmetrical sides with paired organs?’
His thoroughly pleased ‘Of course! of course!’
repaid the wakeful hours of the previous night.
After he had discoursed most happily and en-
[ 45 ]
PROFESSOR SCUDDER
thusiastically—as he always did—upon the
importance of this point, I ventured to ask
what I should do next.
‘Oh, look at your fish!’ he said, and left me
again to my own devices. In a little more than
an hour he returned, and heard my new cat-
alogue.
‘That is good, that is good!’ he repeated;
‘but that is not all; go on;’ and so for three
long days he placed that fish before my eyes,
forbidding me to look at anything else, or to
use any artificial aid. . ‘Look, look, look,’ was
his repeated injunction.
This was the best entomological lesson I
ever had—a lesson whose influence has ex-
tended to the details of every subsequent
study; a legacy the Professor has left to me,
as he has left it to many others, of inestimable
value, which we could not buy, with which we
cannot part. -
A year afterward, some of us were amusing
ourselves with chalking outlandish beasts on
the Museum blackboard. We drew prancing
starfishes; frogs in mortal combat; hydra-
headed worms; stately crawfishes, standing on
[ 46 ]
HOW AGASSIZ TAUGHT
their tails, bearing aloft umbrellas; and gro-
tesque fishes with gaping mouths and staring
eyes. The Professor came in shortly after, and
was as amused as any at our experiments. He
looked at the fishes.
‘“Haemulons, every one of them,’ he said;
‘Mr. —— drew them.’
True; and to this day, if I attempt a fish,
I can draw nothing but haemulons.
The fourth day, a second fish of the same
group was placed beside the first, and I was
bidden to point out the resemblances and
differences between the two; another and
another followed, until the entire family lay
before me, and a whole legion of jars covered
the table and surrounding shelves; the odor
had become a pleasant perfume; and even now,
the sight of an old, six-inch, worm-eaten cork
brings fragrant memories.
The whole group of haemulons was thus
brought in review; and, whether engaged upon
the dissection of the internal organs, the
preparation and examination of the bony frame-
work, or the description of the various parts,
Agassiz’s training in the method of observing
[47 J
PROFESSOR SCUDDER
facts and their orderly arrangement was ever
accompanied by the urgent exhortation not to
be content with them.
- ‘Facts are stupid things,’ he would say,
‘until brought into connection with some gen-
eral law.’ -
At the end of eight months, it was almost
with reluctance that I left these friends and
turned to insects; but what I had gained by
this outside experience has been of greater
value than years of later investigation in my
favorite groups.!
1 Professor Edward S. Morse writes: ‘As I remember
Mr. Scudder’s article, . . . he has stated clearly the method
of Agassiz’s teaching—simply to let the student study inti-
mately one object at a time. Day after day he would come
to your table and ask you what you had learned, and thus
keep you at it for a week. My first object put before me
was a common clam, Mya arenaria.’
[ 48 ]
VII
THE DEATH OF AGASSIZ—HIS
PERSONALITY!
N later years the robust constitution and
herculean frame of Agassiz showed the
effects of his extraordinary and multi-
farious labors, for it must be confessed that he
was not careful of his bodily welfare. In the
year 1869 he suffered a temporary break-
down of a very threatening sort, and for months
was in seclusion, forbidden by his medical
advisers even to think. His own wise efforts,
and a quiet spring passed in the village of
Deerfield, Connecticut, brought about his re-
covery, so that three years of activity were
1The materials for this sketch are drawn from several
sources—chiefly the Life by Marcou (which I have used
with some caution) and the Life by Mrs. Agassiz. I had
wished to preserve the words of Marcou throughout (with
judicious omissions), but this wish was defeated by certain
persons who, for reasons unknown to me, have the power to
prevent the use of adequate quotations from him. I have
followed him where I had no other guide, and no ground for
suspecting him of bias. The composition, and to some
extent the interpretation of the facts, are my own.
[49 ]
COOPER
yet to be vouchsafed him. But the strain of
his lectures, of his correspondence, of his
labors at and for the Museum, was perilous.
- On the second of December, 1873, he gave a
lecture, his last, on ‘The Structural Growth of
Domestic Animals,’ before the Massachusetts
Board of Agriculture at Fitchburg. On the
third he dined with friends; on the fifth he was
present at a family gathering—and smoked
cigars, defying the orders of his physician.
But the end was not far off. He spoke of a
dimness of sight; he complained of feeling
‘strangely asleep.’ On the morning of the
sixth he went as usual to the Museum, but with
a sense of great weariness he shortly returned
to his room, where he lay down, never to
depart from it alive. The disease was a
paralysis of the organs of respiration, beginning
with the larynx. - He had every care from his
friends Dr. Brown-Séquard, who immediately
came from New York, and Dr. Morrill Wyman;
and the last few days of his life were passed,
not in great suffering, with his loving family
around him. Nothing, however, could arrest
the progress of the malady.
[50]
PERSONALITY OF AGASSIZ
Agassiz, it is said, had been afraid of soften-
ing of the brain, and of a long and painful
illness like that which preceded the death of
his friend Professor Bache; it had been his
hope that he might rather go quickly. - Yet it
was not easy for him to think of dying, when
his imagination teemed with projects, and
when the two main visions of his life were on
the point of being fully accomplished, in the
great Museum and the Anderson School of
Natural History on the island of Penikese.
Stricken though he was, he clung to life, nor
did he give up all hope of recovery until the
last day. Still there was a change of demeanor,
for the aims of his career as a scientist were now
less obtrusive in his mind than thoughts of his
family. And with the arrival of Dr. Brown-
Séquard he resumed the language of his youth,
so that his last words were uttered in French.
In the closing hours, when at length all hope
was abandoned, he was more than once heard
to say: ‘Tout est fini.’ On the eighth day,
when death itself was approaching, his family
and friends—among these, Pourtalés—withdrew
to an adjoining room, keeping watch over the
[51]
COOPER
patient through the open door. While Pour-
talés was standing there in his turn, not long
after ten o'clock at night, Agassiz lifted him-
self up in bed, and said with emphasis: ‘Le jeu
est fini.” Then, sinking back, he passed away.
‘The play is done. Plaudite.’. For Agassiz
life was a game, full of motion, crowded with
incident. He could not understand the com-
plaint of those who found time hanging heavily
upon their hands, and who sought ways of
killing it. He, who had ‘no time for making
money,’ would gladly have borrowed an extra
life or two for study and teaching. From the
outset he had unwavering confidence in him-
self. He would be ‘the first naturalist of his
time, a good citizen, a good son, beloved of
those who knew him.’ He was not to follow
others; he would lead in his own path, which
should be the right path, and others should
follow him. -
Agassiz was somewhat above the average in
height. His body was well formed, his shoul-
ders broad and square, his figure powerful,
firmly set upon rather small feet that served
him well in walking and climbing. With a
[52 ]
PERSONALITY OF AGASSIZ
quick, elastic step, he was an excellent pedes-
trian, and quite at home in the mountains.
As a boy he became proficient in swimming and
in the management of boats. To bodily fear
he was a stranger. His hands were large and
shapely, and very skilful. Never a finished
draughtsman, he was none the less expert in
representing, with swift, sure strokes, the es-
sential structure of the object he wished to recall
or explain. He was deft, too, with the dissect-
ing-knife and the microscope, and with the
geologist’s hammer. His neck (the weak part,
as his fatal illness showed) was rather short;
his head was fine and large. In later years his
hair, of a chestnut color, deserted his brow,
but he wore it full at the sides and back, and
this, with the side-whiskers of the day, tended
to conceal his ears. The head itself was ad-
mirable, the forehead high and broad, the
chin shapely, the countenance frank and open.
The mouth was wide, the lips full and smiling,
the expression as a whole altogether amiable
and intelligent. His aquiline nose, with well-
developed nostrils, sharply set off by the
oblique lines on either side, helped to give him
[53 ]
COOPER
anairofsagacity. Butitwas themagnificent, fas-
cinating eyes, young, kindly, and searching, that
above all gave life to that animated countenance.
To those eyes nothing was commonplace.!
-Agassiz spoke French with a slight drawl
characteristic of the section of Switzerland in
which he was born. When he came to America
in 1846, he rapidly acquired a command of
English, and he eventually wrote and spoke
the language with great facility, though his
speech never ceased to betray his foreign origin.”
1 Compare Clara Conant Gilson, ‘Agassiz at Cambridge,’
in Frank Leslie’s Popular Monthly, December, 1891: “He was
a man of fine figure and striking appearance, not too much
of the embonpoint, not too tall, but just tall enough to consti-
tute a finely developed physique. His head was grand, -of
perfect intellectual shape, and commanded your admiration
as you gazed. He was but slightly bald, his hair was of a
beautiful brown, soft and fine, and fell lovingly over the
collar of his coat. His face was of well-rounded contour,
with a large, expressive mouth, and features indicative of
great character and decision. His eyes were the feature of
his face, par excellence. They were of a beautiful bright
brown, full of tenderness, of meaning and earnestness—a
liquid brown eye, that would moisten with tears of emotion
as thoughts of his Creator came rushing to mind, while he
traced His footsteps in the sciences he studied. His eyes
mirrored his soul. I think there was never but one pair of
eyes such as Professor Louis Agassiz’s.’
2 See Clara Conant Gilson, in the articlejust cited: Hehad
[ 54 ]
PERSONALITY OF AGASSIZ
With his superabundant physical, mental, and
emotional energy, he was a natural orator;
he was fond of an audience, and gratified by
applause. No one ever possessed a greater
talent for making natural science popular;
even when his discourse became highly tech-
nical, his auditors hung upon his words.
His method of exposition was very clear and
simple. He studiously avoided the error of
dragging the listener through all the processes
by which the speaker has arrived at a particular
truth, and quickly came to the point. In
lecturing, his personal magnetism counted for
much; he readily communicated his enthusiasm
to others.
He was easily moved to tears or to laughter. -
In his earlier life he was seldom angry, or
seldom showed it, but otherwise made no
attempt to hide his feelings, being a perfect
a few striking peculiarities of pronunciation, one or two
of which cling to me with great pertinacity even now.
One, in particular, is fresh in my memory. For example,
the words respiratory and perspiratory he would accent on
the third syllable—rat; and, bless me, if to this day I don’t
have to think twice before J am sure which is right! This
shows what indelible impressions his words left upon his
pupils.
[55 ]
COOPER
child of nature. Later he became less demon-
strative, save when he was angry. In the last
twenty years of his life he not infrequently
lost his temper, though he would not utterly
forget what he was saying; and, however heated
the discussion might become, he never ceased
to be a gentleman. Neither indecency nor
aught approaching thereto ever issued from
his lips. As a youth in Switzerland, during
his life as a student, and even when he was a
teacher at Neuchatel, he was fond of singing,
and he liked to yodel after the fashion of the
Swiss and Tyrolese mountaineers, but he gave
this up when he came to America.
- Here his recreations were mostly social.
He was the friend of Longfellow, Lowell, and
Whittier; he was the friend of laborers and
fishermen. In society he liked to encounter
men of wealth and influence, for he had by
nature, and also learned from Alexander von
Humboldt, some of the arts of the courtier.
‘It would be difficult,’ says Dr. Charles D.
Walcott,' ‘to measure his influence in the way
of causing men of political and commercial
1 Smithsonian Miscellaneous Collections 50. 217 (1908).
[56 J
PERSONALITY OF AGASSIZ
power to realize that the support of scientific
research, and the diffusion of knowledge thereby
gained, depend largely on them.’ In other
natural scientists he was prone to discover too
much self-satisfaction, and too much personal
curiosity, against which he hardly knew how
to protect himself. But with the group of
younger scientists he himself developed, though
now and then one or another grew mutinous,
he was, during most of the time, on the best of
terms. His own early schooling in the classics
gave him a relish for scholars, and he was
pleased with the company of historians and
lawyers. For military men he did not care, but
he liked naval officers and sea-captains. He
paid little attention to matters of dress, certainly
asregards his own person. He was gratified by
the marks of distinction conferred upon him at
home and abroad, but took little subsequent
thought of the ribbons, badges, and diplomas,
keeping them, but not very carefully, and never
making a parade of them. -
Eloquent as a lecturer, he was also brilliant
and persuasive in conversation, being, in
appearance at least, quite unreserved, and open
[57 ]
COOPER
in his attempt to capture the good will of his
auditor. However, if there was no covert
artifice, there was at all events the native
shrewdness of the Swiss peasant to reckon with,
and doubtless the subtlety of genius—which
will not, or cannot, always reveal itself in full.
In his later years, accordingly, though his
winning manners and his desire that you should
completely display your thought to him might
lead you to suppose him utterly open with
you, you might in the end discover that you
had not fathomed his soul, that there was
that in him which could not be taken captive,
and that there might be a silent invincible re-
jection on his part of something within you
which was foreign to him,
- In Agassiz the theoretical and the practical
life were well balanced. He was both a vision-
ary and a man capable of bringing his visions
to pass. No philosophical conception was too
general for him, and no detail of observation or
inference too small. No fact could appear too
slight for his intense and comprehensive scru-
tiny, and his memory for minute resemblances
and differences was vast; yet the enduring
[ 58 J
PERSONALITY OF AGASSIZ
quality of his work arose from his sense of
order, and from the soundness and rigor of his
principles. He possessed not only physical,
but intellectual and moral courage. In the
face of hardship or difficulty he was undaunted,
ever energetic at the moment, ever hoping for
better times. His power of working was
enormous, for he made virtually no false mo-
tions, but proceeded silently, swiftly, with
no apparent effort, and for long periods without
interruption. *
Much has been said by his friends of the
depth and sincerity of his sentiments in point
of religion. But he had little sympathy with
clergymen, or with the definite forms in which
the religious experience of man has expressed
itself—though these forms are in their essence
and development not unlike the natural forms
which he so reverently studied. -One who
knew him well affirms that in early manhood
Agassiz, if not precisely a materialist, was at
all events a sceptic; but his later studies, with
mature reflection, led him to believe in a Divine
Creator. The external universe became to
him the language in which the Divine Being
5 [ 59 ]
COOPER
conveys his ideas to man, and natural history
the discipline by which men interpret that
language.-: Thus he says, in the Essay on
Classification: ‘To me it appears indisputable
that this order and arrangement of our studies
are based upon the natural, primitive relations
of animal life—those systems, to which we have
given the names of the great leaders of our
science who first proposed them, being in
truth but translations into human language of
the thoughts of the Creator. And if this is in-
deed so, do we not find in this adaptability of
the human intellect to the facts of creation,
by which we become instinctively, and, as I
have said, unconsciously, the translators of the
thoughts of God, the most conclusive proof of
our affinity with the Divine mind? And is
not this intellectual and spiritual connection
with the Almighty worthy of our deepest con-
sideration? If there is any truth in the belief
that man is made in the image of God, it is
surely not amiss for the philosopher to endeavor,
by the study of his own mental operations, to
approximate the workings of the Divine Reason,
learning from the nature of his own mind better
[60]
PERSONALITY OF AGASSIZ
to understand the Infinite Intellect from which
it is derived. Such a suggestion may, at first
sight, appear irreverent. But who is the truly
humble? He who, penetrating into the secrets
of creation, arranges them under a formula,
which he proudly calls his scientific system?
or he who in the same pursuit recognizes his
glorious affinity with the Creator, and in
deepest gratitude for so sublime a birthright
strives to be the faithful interpreter of that
Divine Intellect with whom he is permitted,
nay, with whom he is intended, according to
the laws of his being, to enter into communion?’!
Herein we may discern the secret of his power
as a teacher.
. ‘Agassiz’s influence on methods of teaching
in our community,’ said Professor James, ‘was
prompt and decisive—all the more that it
struck people’s imagination by its very excess.
The good old way of committing printed ab-
stractions to memory never seems to have re-
ceived such a shock as it encountered at his
hands. - There is probably no public school
teacher now [1896] in New England who will
1 Essay on Classification (1859), pp. 9-10.
[61 J
COOPER.
not tell you how Agassiz used to lock a student
up in a room full of turtle-shells, or lobster-
shells, or oyster-shells, without a book or a
word to help him, and not let him out till he
had discovered all the truths which the objects
contained. Some found the truths after weeks
and months of lonely sorrow; others never
found them. Those who found them were
already made into naturalists thereby—the fail-
ures were blotted from the book of honor and
- of life. . “Go to nature; take the facts into
your own hands; look, and see for yourself!””—
these were the maxims which Agassiz preached
wherever he went, and their effect upon peda-
gogy was electric. . . . While on the Thayer
expedition [to Brazil, in 1865], I remember
that I often put questions to him about the
facts of our new tropical habitat, but I doubt
if he ever answered one of these questions of
mine outright. He always said: “There, you
see you have a definite problem. Go and look,
and find the answer for yourself.” ”!
1 William James, Louis Agassiz, Words Spoken .. . at
the Reception of the American Society of Naturalists .. .
[Dec. 30, 1896]. Pp. 9,10. Cambridge, 1897.
[ 62 J
IX
OBITER DICTA BY AGASSIZ}
EVER try to teach what you yourself do
not know, and know well. - If your
school board insists on your teaching
anything and everything, decline firmly to do it.
It is an imposition alike on pupils and teacher
to teach that which he does not know. Those
teachers who are strong enough should squarely
refuse to do such work. This much-needed
reform is already beginning in our colleges, and
Thope it will continue. It is a relic of mediaeval
times, this idea of professing everything. When
teachers begin to decline work which they can-
not do well, improvements begin to come in.
If one will be a successful teacher, he must
1 The first nine of these utterances were taken down by
Dr. David Starr Jordan at Penikese, in the summer of 1873,
from Agassiz’s talks to teachers; see Popular Science Monthly
40. 726-727, and Holder, Louis Agassiz, his Life and Works,
1893, pp. 173-176. The next five come from the article
entitled ‘ Louis Agassiz, Teacher,’ by Professor Burt G. Wilder,
in The Harvard Graduate’s Magazine, June, 1907, and the
last three from Agassiz’s posthumous article, ‘Evolution and
Permanence of Type,’ in the Aélantic Monthly, Jan., 1874
1. 33).
Sey [63]
AGASSIZ
firmly refuse work which he cannot do suc-
cessfully.
- It is a false idea to suppose that everybody
is competent to learn or to teach everything.
Would our great artists have succeeded equally
well in Greek or calculus? A smattering of
everything is worth little. It is a fallacy to
suppose that an encyclopaedic knowledge is
desirable. The mind is made strong, not
through much learning, but by the thorough
possession of something. .
Lay aside all conceit. Learn to read the
book of nature for yourself. Those who have
succeeded best have followed for years some
slim thread which has once in a while broadened
out and disclosed some treasure worth a life-
long search.
A man cannot be a professor of zoology on
one day, and of chemistry on the next, and do
good work in both. As in a concert all are
musicians—one plays one instrument, and one
another, but none all in perfection.
You cannot do without one specialty; you
must have some base-line to measure the work
[ 64 ]
OBITER DICTA
and attainments of others. For a general
view of the subject, study the history of the
sciences. - Broad knowledge of all nature has
been the possession of no naturalist except
Humboldt, and general relations constituted
his specialty. -
Select such subjects that your pupils cannot
walk without seeing them. Train your pupils
to be observers, and have them provided with
the specimens about which you speak. If you
can find nothing better, take a house-fly or a
cricket, and let each hold a specimen and
examine it as you talk.
In 1847 I gave an address at Newton, Massa-
chusetts, before a Teachers’ Institute conducted
by Horace Mann. My subject was grass-
hoppers. I passed around a large jar of these
insects, and made every teacher take one and
hold it while I was speaking. If any one
dropped the insect, I stopped till he picked it
up. ‘This was at that time a great innovation,
and excited much laughter and derision. There
can be no true progress in the teaching of natural
science until such methods become general.
[65]
AGASSIZ
There is no part of the country where, in the
summer, you cannot get a sufficient supply of
the best specimens. Teach your children to
bring them in themselves. Take your text
from the brooks, not from the book-sellers.
It is better to have a few forms well known
than to teach a little about many hundred
species. Better a dozen specimens thoroughly
studied as the result of the first year’s work,
than to have two thousand dollars’ worth of
shells and corals bought from a curiosity-shop.
The dozen animals would be your own.
The study of nature is an intercourse with
the highest mind. You should never trifle
with nature. At the lowest her works are the
works of the highest powers—the highest some-
thing, in whatever way we may look at it.
It is much more important for a naturalist
to understand the structure of a few animals
than to command the whole field of scientific
nomenclature.
Methods may determine the result.
The only true scientific system must be one
[ 66 ]
OBITER DICTA
in which the thought, the intellectual structure,
rises out of, and is based upon, facts.
He is lost, as an observer, who believes that
he can, with impunity, affirm that for which
he can adduce no evidence.
Have the courage to say: ‘I do not know.’ .
- Since the ability of combining facts is a much
rarer gift than that of discerning them, many
students lost sight of the unity of structural
design in the multiplicity of structural detail.! -
- It cannot be too soon understood that science
is one, and that whether we investigate lan-
guage, philosophy, theology, history, or physics,
we are dealing with the same problem, cul-
minating in the knowledge of ourselves. Speech
is known only in connection with the organs
of man, thought in connection with his brain,
religion as the expression of his aspirations,
history as the record of his deeds, and physical
sciences as the laws under which he lives.” .
The most advanced Darwinians seem re-
luctant to acknowledge the intervention of an
1 Atlantic Monthly 33. 93.
2 Atlantic Monthly 33. 95.
[ 67 ]
AGAISSIZ
intellectual power in the diversity which obtains
in nature, under the plea that such an ad-
mission implies distinct creative acts for every
species. What of it, if it were true? Have
those who object to repeated acts of creation
ever considered that no progress can be made
in knowledge without repeated acts of thinking?
And what are thoughts but specific acts of
the mind? Why should it then be unscientific
to infer that the facts of nature are the result
of a similar process, since there is no evidence
of any other cause? The world has arisen in
some way or other. How it originated is the
great question, and Darwin’s theory, like all
other attempts to explain the origin of life, is
thus far merely conjectural. I believe he has
not even made the best conjecture possible in
the present state of our knowledge.
- The more I look at the great complex of the
animal world, the more sure do I feel that we
have not yet reached its hidden meaning, and
the more do I regret that the young and ardent
spirits of our day give themselves to speculation
rather than to close and accurate investigation.?
* Atlantic Monthly 33. 101.
[ 68 J
xX
PASSAGES FOR COMPARISON WITH
THE METHOD OF AGASSIZ
BorEcKH ON THE Stupy oF HisTrory AND
LITERATURE!
HE person who first seeks to acquire a
general survey of a science, and then
gradually to descend to details, will
never attain to sound and exact knowledge,
but will for ever dissipate his energies, and,
knowing many things, will yet know nothing.
In his lectures on the Method of Academical
Study, Schelling remarks with great justice
that, in history, to begin with a survey of the
entire past is in the highest degree useless and
injurious, since it gives one mere compartments
for knowledge, without anything to fill them.
In history, his advice is, first study one period
in detail, and from this broaden out in all
1 August Boeckh; Encyclopiidie und Methodologie der
Philologischen Wissenschaften, pp. 46-47.
[ 69 ]
BOECKH
7
directions.. For the study of language and
literature (which corresponds with history in
its most general sense) a similar procedure is
the only right one. - Everything in science is
related; although science itself is endless, yet
the whole system is pervaded with sympathies
and correspondences. Let the student place
himself where he will—so long as he selects
something significant and worth while,—and
he will be compelled to broaden out from this
point of departure in every direction in order
to reach a complete understanding of his
subject. From each and every detail one is
driven to consider the whole; the only thing
that matters is that one go to work in the
right way, with strength, intelligence, and
avidity. Let one choose several different points
of departure, working through from each of
them to the whole, and one will grasp the
whole all the more surely, and comprehend the
wealth of detail all the more fully. Accordingly,
by sinking deep into the particular, one most
easily avoids the danger of becoming narrow. -
[70]
PASSAGES FOR COMPARISON
FROM THE SYMPOSIUM OF Pato
* [The passage is thus summarized by Jowett:
‘He who would be truly initiated should pass
from the concrete to the abstract, from the
individual to the universal, from the universal
to the universe of truth and beauty.’] -
- Diotima. . . . These are the lesser mysteries
of love, into which even you, Socrates, may
enter; ‘to the greater and more hidden ones
which are the crown of these, and to which,
if you pursue them in a right spirit, they will
lead, I know not whether you will be able to
attain. But I will do my utmost to inform you,
and do you follow if you can. - He who would
proceed aright in this matter should begin in
youth to visit beautiful forms; and first, if he
be guided by his instructor aright, to love one
such form only—out of that he should create
fair thoughts. And soon he will of himself
perceive that the beauty of one form is akin to
the beauty of another; and then, if beauty of
form in general is his pursuit, how foolish would
1Plato, Symposium. The Dialogues of Plato, translated
by Jowett, New York, Oxford University Press, 1892, 1. 580-
582.
[71]
PLATO
he be not to recognize that the beauty in every
form is one and the same! And when he per-
ceives this, he will abate his violent love of
the one, which he will despise and deem a
small thing, and will become a lover of all
beautiful forms. In the next stage he will
consider that the beauty of the mind is more
honorable than the beauty of the outward form.
So that if a virtuous soul have but a little
comeliness, he will be content to love and tend
him, and will search out and bring to the birth
thoughts which may improve the young, until
he is compelled to contemplate and see the
beauty of institutions and laws, and to under-
stand that the beauty of them all is of one
family, and that personal beauty is a trifle.
And after laws and institutions he will go on
to the sciences, that he may see their beauty,
being not, like a servant, in love with the
beauty of one youth or man or institution,
himself a slave, mean and narrow-minded,
but drawing towards and contemplating the
vast sea of beauty, he will create many fair and
noble thoughts and notions in boundless love
of wisdom; until on that shore he grows and
[72]
PASSAGES FOR COMPARISON
waxes strong, and at last the vision is revealed.
to him of a single science, which is the science
of beauty everywhere. .. .
He who has been instructed thus far in the
things of love, and who has learned to see the
beautiful in due order and succession, when he
comes toward the end will suddenly perceive a
nature of wondrous beauty (and this, Socrates,
is the final cause of all our former toils)—a
nature which in the first place is everlasting,
not growing and decaying, or waxing and
waning; secondly, not fair in one point of view
and foul in another, or at one time or in one
relation or at one place fair, at another time
or in another relation or at another place foul,
as if fair to some and foul to others, or in the
likeness of a face or hands or any other part
of the bodily frame, or in any form of speech
or knowledge, or existing in any other being,
as, for example, in an animal, or in heaven, or
in earth, or in any other place; but beauty
absolute, separate, simple, and _ everlasting,
which without diminution and without increase,
or any change, is imparted to the ever-growing
and perishing beauties of all other things.
[73 ]
PLATO
He who from these ascending under the in-
fluence of true love, begins to perceive that
beauty, is not far from the end. And the true
order of going, or being led by another, to the
things of love is to begin from the beauties of
earth, and mount upwards for the sake of that
other beauty, using these as steps only, and
from one going on to two, and from two to
all fair forms, and from fair forms to fair
practices, and from fair practices to fair notions,
until from fair notions he arrives at the notion
of absolute beauty, and at last knows what
the essence of beauty is.
[ 74]
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