But the second period in Agassiz’s life was drawing to a close: a great country beyond the Atlantic would soon be ready to receive him. Agassiz, the student and now the discoverer, was about to begin his final great activity as the pioneer and teacher of natural history to a strange people in a foreign land. Each year at Neuchâtel had plunged Agassiz deeper and deeper into debt; his situation had passed from bad to well-nigh hopeless. Then, unexpectedly, help was offered. The King of Prussia offered him three thousand dollars, to be spent in travel for scientific purposes; and at the same time came an invitation from the Lowell Institute of Boston to visit the United States. Agassiz could not refuse. It was a solution of all his immediate difficulties; a wide horizon in the eager young republic spread before him. In September, 1846, Agassiz sailed for Boston.
He had left behind him all that is wealth to a scientific man. Books and collections were the tools of his trade; in his fellow naturalists he had found help and inspiration. In the United States bountiful nature had provided a fertile and unexplored field, but here he must work alone. “He came, perhaps, in a spirit of adventure and of curiosity; but he stayed because he loved a country where new things could be built up; where he could think and speak as he pleased; and where his ceaseless activity would be considered of high quality.”
On his arrival in Boston Agassiz was cordially received by John A. Lowell, who, as trustee of the Lowell Institute, had extended to him the invitation which was in a large measure responsible for his coming. The course of lectures which Agassiz had planned for the Lowell Institute was entitled “The Plan of Creation.” His success was immediate. The people were eager to hear the message of the great lecturer. A second course, on “Glaciers,” was soon arranged, and in a few months Agassiz found himself the most popular lecturer in all the great Eastern cities.
The subjects which he chose were always of a character which made it possible for large untrained audiences to follow him and clearly understand the points which he logically developed. His command of English was at first faulty, but he was never embarrassed, and his audiences found a peculiar charm in his foreign accent and the unusual phrases which he so frequently employed. But the blackboard was his unfailing assistant, and as he talked, his quick hand illustrated the subject with sketches so simple and so clear that the lecture could almost have been comprehended by these alone.
He had left his collections behind him, but almost immediately new collections began to grow, and a new “scientific factory” was established in his house in East Boston. He always spoke of his specimens as “material for investigation,” for to Agassiz every stone and every insect held a story filled with wonder and romance which only patient study could unfold. His house, his garden, and even his pockets were filled with “material”; as an illustration may be mentioned the occasion when Agassiz, on being asked by a lady sitting beside him at a dinner-party to explain the difference between a toad and a frog, instantly produced, to the amazement of his companions, a live frog and a live toad from his pockets.
It was but natural that Agassiz should find in Harvard University, the oldest and most celebrated seat of learning in the United States, the congenial atmosphere which his work required. And it is equally natural that the great University should recognize in Agassiz a master-teacher who would prove a most desirable addition to its faculty. Agassiz had already found in the United States a cordial welcome and a deep appreciation. The year 1848 marks definitely the beginning of the last phase of his life, for in this year the death of his wife in Carlsruhe and his acceptance of the chair of zoölogy and geology at Harvard led him to abandon forever his thought of some day returning to his native land.
Two years later his marriage to Elizabeth Cabot Cary of Boston bound him still closer to the land of his adoption, and the remaining years of his life were years of consistent activity filled with growth and honor. An expedition to Lake Superior in 1848 was followed by a trip to study the Florida reefs in 1850 and a visit to the Mississippi River in 1853. During these years his collections were rapidly increased, and already he was planning for the establishment at Harvard of a great Museum of Natural History.
Life in Boston and in the clear atmosphere of the University must have been highly stimulating to a man of Agassiz’s sensitive susceptibilities. Emerson, Holmes, Hawthorne, Motley, and Longfellow were his companions, and a group of brilliant younger minds surrounded him in his work.
From abroad now came honors the larger part of which Agassiz saw fit to decline. In 1852 the Prix Cuvier was awarded to him in recognition of his work on fossil fishes. A call to the University of Zürich was declined in 1854; and during the four years between 1857 and 1861 he three times declined a call to the chair of palæontology at Paris, perhaps the highest scientific honor which the world could afford. But neither honors nor wealth could tempt him. His affection for America and his love for his work in that appreciative country held him fast. In 1861 he became a naturalized citizen of the United States.
Rarely, if ever, was there a man of more lovable and winning personality. “Everybody sought his society, and no one could stand before his words and his smile. The fishermen at Nahant would pull two or three miles to get him a rare fish.” Rich and poor, the educated and the uneducated, all paid homage to his magnetic personality. Physically large, his genial countenance and smiling eyes made friends with everyone. And at the same time those laughing brown eyes, that seemed made only for pleasure and jollity, “saw more than did all our eyes put together; for he looked, but we only stared.”