The corner-stone of the great Museum of Comparative Zoölogy at Harvard was laid in 1859, and in the years that have followed, the collection has grown to proportions which make it a worthy memorial to its celebrated founder. Into this edifice Agassiz freely poured the material which he had collected on his many expeditions, including a wealth of specimens gathered in 1865 and 1866, on an expedition to Brazil; and in 1871 and 1872, in a specially designed ship, the Hassler, he rounded the Horn, and with dredging apparatus collected along both coasts of the South American continent valuable data concerning the fauna and physical conditions which were found at great depths. Meanwhile, although constantly neglectful of his own income, he devoted his rare personal persuasion to the cause of obtaining the large sum necessary for the building and maintenance of the Museum. And it is to him alone that credit is due for the money that was thus raised, at a cost to science of priceless hours of his own all-too-limited time and energy.

The intellect of Agassiz was gigantic, and yet he combined with his mighty forces an unfailing patience with dull or ignorant people. His craving for knowledge was equaled only by his ability in imparting it to others. Nothing that he achieved was for himself: his all was attained that he might give it to the world. “Good teachers are not commonly original investigators; and original investigators often lack both the will and power to tell other people what they know.” To this Agassiz was perhaps the greatest exception that the world has ever seen. The scientific world will ever remember Louis Agassiz for his discoveries in zoölogy, for his vast researches in the study of fishes, and for his glacial theories and subsequent revelations in geology; but the world at large will hold him perhaps more dear as the master who brought to the United States the old sciences of an older civilization and, infusing them with his own vitality, became to the people of America the first and the great teacher of the history of the mighty book of nature, which before his time had remained closed to them.

On December 14, 1873, Louis Agassiz died at Cambridge, in the shadow of the walls of the great University of which he had become so loyal a member. Above his grave a simple granite boulder from the glacier of the Aar, sent by loving friends in the land of his birth, gives in its brief inscription the name of a man whom the United States proudly claims as citizen, and whom the world honors as a man.

IV
CARL SCHURZ

Born in Liblar, Germany, 1829
Died in New York City, 1906

There are few Americans who can say that they were born in a castle, for the castle-born children of Europe of whom history tells us have been the children of royalty who have by virtue of their birth inherited the privileges of a ruling clan and have ever handed down these same privileges to succeeding generations. Europe was for centuries ruled by the castle-born. Supreme was the tradition of royalty. And strange in contrast is the story of a baby of humble parentage who by chance first saw the light through the high windows of a castle wall, and lived to become an honored citizen of a land where royalty is unknown and all men are equal.

In the great republic of the United States, men who had become wearied of the old order of things had built a nation on another plan. Here there was no royalty; it was not where or how a boy was born that counted, but what kind of a man he became. To all, equal opportunities were offered. It was not who you were, but what you were, that counted; and that is what counts to-day in the United States.

Copyright by Pach Brothers

C. Schurz. (signature)