Louis Agassiz: A Speech on His Life and Influence

LOUIS AGASSIZ.
1896.
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MCZ LIBRARY
HARVARD UI^ilVERSITY
CAMBRIDGE. MA USA
LOUIS AGASSIZ,
TT would be unnatural to
-^
of
as this
have such an assemblage
meet in the Museum and Faculty Room
this University
and yet have no public word
spoken in honor of a name which must be silently
present to the minds of
our
all
visitors.
At some near future day, it is to be hoped, some
one of you who is well acquainted with Agassiz's
here concerning
scientific career will discourse
I could not
now, even
that of which
than
I.
On
you have
and
is
far
the
more intimate knowledge
for in the
more
—
would, speak to you of
this social occasion it has
what Agassi z stood
influence
I
if
it,
fitting
to that agreeable task I
way
seemed that
of character
and
thing to commemorate,
have been
called.
He
made an impression that was unrivalled. He left
the Agassiz legend, as
a sort of popular myth
in the air about us
behind
him
one might say
and life comes kindlier to all of us, we get more
recognition from the world, because we call our-
—
—
selves naturalists,
he also belonged.
— and that was the
class to
which
The
secret of such an
e&ctive
extraordinarily
influence lay in the equally extraordinary mixture
and
of the animal
social gifts, the intellectual
and the desires and passions
boyhood, he looked on the world as
made
for each other,
living things as
to take mental
of collecting
life
if
if it
his
and he were
and on the vast diversity
he were there
them
possession of
all.
of
authority
w^ith
His habit
began in childhood, and during
knew no bounds
powers,
From
man.
of the
his long
save those that separate the
things of Nature from those of
human
in his student years, in spite of the
Already
art.
most stringent
poverty, his whole scheme of existence was that of
one predestined to greatness,
who
takes that fact for
granted, and stands forth immediately as a scientific
leader of men.
His passion for knowing living things was combined with a rapidity of observation, and a capacity
them again and remember everything
about them, w^hich all his life it seemed an easy
triumph and delight for him to exercise, and which
never allowed him to waste a moment in doubts
to recognize
about the commensurability of his powers with his
tasks.
When
If
a
ever a person lived by faith,
boy
hundred and
artist
of twenty, with
fifty dollars
he
did.
an allowance of two
a year, he maintained an
attached to his employ, a custom which never
afterwards was departed from,
maintained two or three.
very outset to
all
those
He
— except
when he
lectured
from the
who would hear
him.
'^1
feel within
tion/'
myself the strength of a whole genera-
he wrote to his father at that time, and
launched himself upon the publication of
" Poissons
ter
Fossiles "
his costly
with no clear vision of the quar-
from whence the payment might be expected
to come.
At Neuchatel (where between
five
the ages of twenty-
and thirty he enjoyed a stipend that varied
from four hundred
to six
hundred
dollars)
he organ-
academy of natural history, with its
museum, managing by one expedient or another to
employ artists, secretaries, and assistants, and to
keep a lithographic and printing establishment of
his own employed with the work that he put forth.
ized a regular
and
Fishes, fossil and living, echinoderms
transfigured
thirty he
tion,
themselves
under
hand, and at
his
was already at the zenith
recognized by
all
glaciers,
of his reputa-
as one of those naturalists
in the unlimited sense, one of those folio copies of
mankind,
nothing
of
like
less
Linngeus and
who aim
at
than an acquaintance with the whole
His genius for classifying was
animated Nature.
simply marvellous
says,
Cuvier,
;
and, as
nowhere had a
his
latest
single person
biographer
ever given so
decisive an impulse to natural history.
Such was the human being who on an October
morning fifty years ago disembarked at our port,
bringing his hungry heart along with him, his confidence in his destiny, and his imagination full of
plans.
The only
particular resource he
was assured
6
of
was one course
general resource
of
lie
But
Lowell Lectures.
one
of
always was assured, having
whose presence he could
scribe his aims.
find
His belief
to fail,
al-
— and
ways counted on it and never found
that was the good will of every fellow-creature
it
in
an opportunity to de-
in these
was
so intense
and unqualified that he could not conceive of others
not feeling the furtherance of them to be a duty
binding
upon
also
Seneca says
with a man,
:
tlieni.
— Strength
it
Vdle non
can't be taught.
discitai\
as
must be born
of desire
And
Agassiz came
one with such enthusiasm glowing in his
before
countenance,
— such a persuasion radiating from
his
person that his projects w^ere the sole things really
fit
to interest
irresistible.
man as man,
He came, in
— that he was absolutely
Byron's words, with vic-
tory beaming from his breast, and every one went
down
time,
before him, some yielding him money, some
some specimens, and some
labor, but all con-
tributing their applause and their godspeed.
so, livino;
And
amono; us from month to month and from
year to year, with no relation to prudence except
his pertinacious violation of all her usual laws,
on the whole achieved the compass
studied
the
geology and fauna
of
he
of his desires,
a
continent,
trained a generation of zoologists, founded one of
the chief
museums
of the world,
to scientific education in
gave a new impulse
America, and died the idol
of the public, as well as of his circle of
pupils and friends.
immediate
The
ideals
secret of
it all
was, that while his scientific
were an integral part
of his being,
something
that he never forgot or laid aside, so that wherever
he went he came forward as " the Professor/' and
talked
or
''^
shop " to every person, young or
whom
learned or unlearned, with
little,
old, great
he was
thrown, he was at the same time so commanding a
presence, so
curious
and expansive, and
self
and
" Here
a
man on
rice
and
no musty savant, but a man, a great man,
the heroic scale, not to serve
He
sin."
what a student
Franklin,
generous and reckless of him-
own, that every one said immediately,
of his
is
so
and inquiring, so responsive
of
is
ava-
elevated the popular notion of
Nature could
Since Benjamin
be.
we had never had among
more popularly impressive
for students to
whom
come
to
him
;
us a person of
He
type.
did not wait
he made inquiry for
promising youthful collectors, and
when he heard
of
him to come.
the American nat-
one, he wrote, inviting and urging
Thus- there
is
uralists of
my
hardlj^
Nay, more
train.
one now of
generation
;
whom
Agassiz did not
he said to every one that a year
or two of natural history, studied as he understood
would give the best training
for
any kind
of
it,
mental
Sometimes he was amusingly naif in this regard, as when he offered to put his whole Museum at
work.
the disposition of the
Emperor
but come and labor there.
how
of Brazil
And
if
I well
he would
remember
certain officials of the Brazilian empire smiled
at the cordiality with which he pressed
upon them a
8
similar
invitation.
But
it
had
a
great
effect.
Natural history must indeed be a godlike pursuit,
if
man
such a
as this can so adore
it,
and the very definition and meaning
people said
of
underwent a favorable alteration
naturalist
;
the Avord
in
the
common mind.
Certain sayings of Agassiz's, as the famous one
that he " had no time for
habit
naming
of
making money," and
his occupation
his
simply as that of
" teacher," have caught the public fancy, and are
permanent benefactions.
sideration for the fact
AVe
all
enjoy more con-
that he manifested
himself
here thus before us in his day.
He was
that
looks forward and not backward, and
wastes a
had
a splendid example of the temperament
moment
never
in regrets for the irrevocable.
I
the privilege of admission to his society during
remember
our hammocks in the
the Thayer expedition to Brazil.
at night, as w^e all
fairy-like
swung
in
I w^ell
moonlight, on the deck of the steamer that
Amazon between the forests
o'uardino; the stream on either side, how he turned
and whispered, "James, are you awake?" and continued,
/ cannot sleep I am too happy I keep
thinking of these glorious plans."
The plans contemplated following the Amazon to its head-waters,
and penetrating the Andes in Peru. And yet, w^hen
throbbed
its
way up
^'
the
;
;
he arrived at the Peruvian frontier and learned that
that country
had broken
letters to officials
would be
into revolution, that his
useless,
and that that part
9
of the project
indeed bitterly
hour,
when
must be given up, although he was
chagrined and excited for part of an
the hour had passed over
seemed
it
as
if
he had quite forgotten the disappointment, so enthusiastically
was he occupied already with the new
scheme substituted by his active mind.
Agassiz's influence on methods of teaching
community was prompt and
The good
excess.
is
old
way
of
it
will not tell
its
very
by
There
and not
let
now
in
room
book or word
him out till he had discovered
found the truths after weeks and months
-,
to
full of turtle shells, or
the truths which the objects contained.
sorrow
New
you how Agassiz used
lobster shells, or oyster shells, without a
all
more
encountered at his hands.
lock a student up in a
to help him,
the
have received
to
probably no public school teacher
England who
all
committing printed
memory seems never
such a shock as
—
people's imagination
so that it struck
abstractions to
decisive,
in our
others never found them.
them were already made
Some
of lonely
Those who found
into naturalists thereby
—
the failures were blotted from the book of honor
and of
life.
''
your own hands
Go
;
to
look,
Nature
;
take the facts into
and see for yourself
!
— these
were the maxims which Agassiz preached wherever
he went, and their effect on pedagogy was
electric.
The extreme rigor of his devotion to this concrete
method of learning was the natural consequence
of his
own
peculiar type of intellect, in which the
capacity for abstraction and causal
reasoning and
10
tracing chains of consequences from hypotheses
so
much
was
developed than the genius for acquaint-
less
ance with vast volumes of
and for seizing upon
detail,
more proximate and
While on the Thayer expedition, I
concrete kind.
remember that I often put questions to him about
analogies and relations of the
the facts of our
new
doubt
tropical habitat, but I
if
he ever answered one of these questions of mine
He
outright.
always said
have a definite problem
" There, you
go and look and
:
More than once have
him quote with deep feeling the
Grau, tlieurer Freiuid,
Unci grim
The
the
only
man he
man who
cles
lines
ist alle
and
;
I
really loved
heard
from Faust:
Theorie,
and had use for was
To
could bring him facts.
life
see facts,
meant
for
think he often positively loathed the
ratiocinating type of mind.
toialhj
I
Lebens goldner Baiim."
not to argue or raisonnircu, was what
him
find the
and would-be
abstractionists
all
biological philosophers.
''
you
see
His severity in this line was
answer for yourself."
a living rebuke to
:
uneducated
!
" I
'•
Mr.
Blank, you are
heard him once say to a
who propounded to him some glittering
And on a similar occasion
theoretic generality.
student
he gave an admonition that must have sunk deep
into the
him
heart of
to
whom
" Mr. X., some people perhaps
bright
if
young man
;
now
but when you are
they ever speak of you then,
will
be this:
^
That
it
X.,
—
was addressed.
consider
fifty
a
years old,
what they
oh, yes, I
you
will say
know him; he
11
used to be a very bright young man!'"
is
the conceited youth
who
Happy
proper moment
at the
receives such salutary cold water therapeutics as this
from one who,
We
cannot
all
in other respects,
is
a kind friend.
escape from being abstractionists.
I
myself, for instance, have never been able to escape
but the hours
difference
I
spent with Agassiz so taught
between
livers in the light of the world's concrete
that I have never been able to forget
of
mind have
me
it.
the
and
all possible abstractionists
;
all
fulness,
Both kinds
their place in the infinite design, but
there can be no question as to which kind
lies
the
nearer to the divine type of thinking.
view
Agassiz' s
of
Nature
was saturated with
simple religious feeling, and for this deep but un-
conventional religiosity he found
at
most sympathetic possible environment.
years that have
knowledge
of
sped
since
Harvard the
In the
fifty
he arrived here our
Nature has penetrated into joints and
recesses which his vision never pierced.
elements and not the totals are what
most passionately concerned
to
The causal
we are now
understand
;
and
naked and poverty-stricken enough do the strippedout elements and forces occasionally appear to us
But the truth of things is after all their living fulness, and some day, from a more commanding point of view than was possible to any one in
to be.
Agassiz's generation, our descendants, enriched with
the spoils of
round again
all
our analytic investigations, will get
to that higher
and simpler way
of look-
44 072 175 516
12
ing at Nature.
Meanwhile
Agassiz, there floats
ing,
that
as
we look back upon
up a breath
as of life's
morn-
makes the world seem young and fresh
once more.
May
and especially may those
who never
a grateful thought to his memory
throuo-h that Museum which he
younger members
knew him, give
as we wander
w^e all,
of
our association
founded, and through this University whose ideals
he did so much to elevate and define.