American Men of Mind

by Burton Egbert Stevenson

AGASSIZ

Jean Louis Rudolphe Agassiz was also a born naturalist, but no such obstacles confronted him as Audubon surmounted, nor did he strike out for himself a field so absolutely original. Born in Switzerland in 1807, the descendent of six generations of preachers, but destined for the profession of medicine, he refused to be anything but a naturalist. From his earliest years, he showed a passion for gathering specimens, and his first collection of fishes was made when he was ten years old. He received the very best training to be had in Switzerland, France and Germany, and early attracted attention for original work of the most important description. He came to be recognized as the greatest authority on fishes in Europe, and his work on fossil fishes, published in 1843, was a contribution to science of the first importance.

In 1846, Agassiz came to the United States, partly to deliver a course of lectures at Boston and partly to make himself familiar with the geology and natural history of this country. His reception was so cordial and he found so much to interest him here, that he accepted the chair of zoology and geology in the Lawrence Scientific School at Cambridge, Massachusetts, and decided to make the United States his home. He soon made Cambridge a great scientific centre, and proved himself the most inspiring, magnetic and influential teacher of science this country has ever seen.

In succeeding years, he traversed practically the entire country, accumulating vast collections of specimens which formed the foundation of the great natural history museum at Cambridge. He was preparing himself for the publication of a comprehensive work to be called "Contributions to the Natural History of the United States," the first volume of which appeared in 1857. Succeeding years were occupied with a journey to Brazil, another around Cape Horn, and the establishment of the Pekinese Island school of natural history, where he was able to carry out his long contemplated plan of teaching directly from nature. But his labors had impaired his health, and he died in Cambridge in 1873, after a short illness. His grave is marked by a boulder from the glacier of the Aar, and shaded by pine trees brought from his native Switzerland.

Agassiz was one of the most remarkable teachers of science that ever lived. Handsome, enthusiastic, overflowing with vitality, and with a learning broad and deep, his students found in him a real inspiration to intellectual endeavor. His lectures, however technical and abstruse their subjects, were of an incomparable clarity and simplicity. He was one of the first to advocate the teaching of science to women, not in its technical details, but in its broad outlines.

"What I wish for you," he said, one day, addressing a class of girls, "is a culture that is alive and active. My instruction is only intended to show you the thoughts in nature which science reveals.

"A physical fact is as sacred as a moral principle," he used to say. "Our own nature demands from us this double allegiance."

Of the pupils of Agassiz, not the least famous was his son, Alexander, who, after graduating from Harvard, assisted his father in his work, collected many specimens for the museum at Cambridge, and was finally appointed assistant in zoology there. In the following years he put his scientific knowledge to a very practical use. In his geological surveys of the country, he had been impressed with the richness of the copper mines on Lake Superior. For five years, he acted as superintendent of the famous Calumet and Hecla mines, developing them into the most successful copper mines in the world, and himself gaining wealth from them which permitted his making gifts to Harvard aggregating half a million dollars. It was characteristic of him that, after his service with the Calumet and Hecla, he resumed his duties at the museum at Cambridge, and continued as curator until ill health compelled his resignation in 1885.

Among other pupils of Agassiz who won more than ordinary fame as naturalists may be mentioned Albert Smith Bickmore, Alonzo Howard Clark, Charles Frederick Hartt, Alpheus Hyatt, Theodore Lyman, Edward Sylvester Morse, Alpheus Spring Packard, Frederick Ward Putnam, Samuel Hubbard Scudder, Nathaniel Southgate Shaler, William Stimpson, Sanborn Tenney, Addison Emory Merrill, Burt Green Wilder and Henry Augustus Ward—as brilliant a galaxy of names as American science can boast, bearing remarkable testimony to the inspiring qualities of their great teacher.

What Agassiz did for geology and natural history, Asa Gray to some extent did for botany. Born at Paris, N. Y., in 1810, and at an early age abandoning the study of medicine for that of botany, he accepted, in 1842, a call to the Fisher professorship of natural history at Harvard, a post which he held for over thirty years. Gray's work began at the time when the old artificial system of classification was giving way to the natural system, and he, perhaps more than any other one man, established this system firmly on the basis of affinity.