I have already mentioned some of our foreign teachers. Among these was a German, Dr. D——, who had ten children and, as I think, no servant. Yet he told us that he never wanted to dine out, as his wife was such a good cook. This seemed to me a little hard on that good woman. He had the habit of learning, before breakfast, one hundred words of some foreign language! Evidently he was a man of attainments but not of scientific accuracy.
One could pardon, as a poetic flight of fancy, his statement that the mastodon—or some other extinct beast—was as large as the Institution for the Blind. But when it came to the price of cows, that was another matter. He made a misstatement on this subject to the blind boys, some of whom were country lads, and thus lost their confidence. Possibly they were unjust, for the learned professor might have confused German and American prices!
VIII
THE AGASSIZ SCHOOL
Professor and Mrs. Louis Agassiz.—Prof. Alexander Agassiz.—Papanti’s Dancing-school.—I Invent Fancy Dances.—We Swim, Skate, and Ride on Horseback.—Boston’s Purple-glass Windows.
AMONG the pleasant friends who came to “Green Peace” were Professor and Mrs. Louis Agassiz. Thus it naturally happened that I was sent to the Agassiz School. The journey from South Boston to Cambridge took so long, in those days, that I gave it up after three months’ trial. As I was then only twelve years of age, I did not fully appreciate the advantages offered by the school—advantages of which girls from distant parts of the United States were very glad to avail themselves. The special feature of the school, however, even the youngest pupils were old enough to enjoy. Who could help enjoying the closing hour of the day when the scholars assembled in the big class-room to listen to a delightful talk from the lips of the great naturalist himself? As he stood before the great blackboard, now drawing figures, now explaining to us the development of the little animals whose growth forms the coral reefs, the movement of the glaciers, or the reason of the gradual recession of Niagara Falls, we sat listening to his words with eager interest. He adapted himself to our youthful comprehension with the utmost ease—or, if there was any effort made, it was not an apparent one.
A great charm of these talks was that in them the professor brought us the fresh fruits of his own experience. He had personally investigated the glaciers before coming to America. The theory that they had once covered the earth originated with him, if I remember aright. He had also visited the coral reefs. I have understood from Prof. Alexander Agassiz that his father’s views about these were not fully accepted by later scientists. To the lay mind it would appear that Science is almost as fickle as Fashion!
Of Darwinism Professor Agassiz was a vigorous opponent. The new doctrine seemed to him irreconcilable with the idea of a divine Providence, and would, he feared, destroy the faith of mankind. Professor Agassiz and Professor Asa Gray found themselves diametrically opposed on this question. There is a legend of a lively meeting between them in Cambridge, where words almost led to blows!
An account of the Agassiz School would be incomplete if it did not mention the Agassiz omnibus, a white, high-stepped vehicle which took its winding way through the thoroughfares of old-fashioned Boston, calling for the girls at streets and places which have now vanished into the past like the old ’bus itself, or, if they exist at all, exist only as soulless business streets, with great granite blocks of shops replacing the dear old houses shaded by lofty trees.
The purple-glass windows which they had inherited from an earlier generation (some are still to be seen on Beacon Hill) furnished indisputable proof of the wonderful virtue of early Boston boys, or of the extreme watchfulness of Puritan parents.