Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence Part 24

H.W.L.

An additional word about the "Sat.u.r.day Club," the fame of which has spread beyond the city of its origin, may not be amiss here.

Notwithstanding his close habits of work Aga.s.siz was eminently social, and to this club he was especially attached. Dr. Holmes says of it in his volume on Emerson, who was one of its most constant members: "At one end of the table sat Longfellow, florid, quiet, benignant, soft-voiced, a most agreeable rather than a brilliant talker, but a man upon whom it was always pleasant to look,--whose silence was better than many another man's conversation. At the other end sat Aga.s.siz, robust, sanguine, animated, full of talk, boy-like in his laughter. The stranger who should have asked who were the men ranged along the sides of the table would have heard in answer the names of Hawthorne, Motley, Dana, Lowell, Whipple, Peirce, the distinguished mathematician, Judge h.o.a.r, eminent at the bar and in the cabinet, Dwight, the leading musical critic of Boston for a whole generation, Sumner, the academic champion of freedom, Andrew, 'the great War Governor'

of Ma.s.sachusetts, Dr. Howe, the philanthropist, William Hunt, the painter, with others not unworthy of such company." We may complete the list and add the name of Holmes himself, to whose presence the club owed so much of its wit and wisdom. In such company the guests were tempted to linger long, and if Holmes has described the circle around the table, Lowell has celebrated the late walk at night across the bridge as he and Aga.s.siz returned to Cambridge on foot together. To break the verse by quotation would mar the quiet scene and interrupt the rambling pleasant talk it so graphically describes. But we may keep the parting words:

"At last, arrived at where our paths divide,'Good night!' and, ere the distance grew too wide, 'Good night!' again; and now with cheated ear I half hear his who mine shall never hear."

(* See Memorial poem, ent.i.tled "Aga.s.siz", by James Russell Lowell.)

Aga.s.siz was now the possessor of a small laboratory by the immediate sea-coast. It was situated on the northeastern sh.o.r.e of Nahant, within a stone's throw of broken and bold rocks, where the deep pools furnished him with ever fresh specimens from natural aquariums which were re-stocked at every rise of the tide. This laboratory, with a small cottage adjoining, which was shared during the summer between his own family and that of Professor Felton, was the gift of his father-in-law, Mr. Cary. So carefully were his wishes considered that the microscope table stood on a flat rock sunk in the earth and detached from the floor, in order that no footstep or accidental jarring of door or window in other parts of the building might disturb him at his work.

There, summer after summer, he pursued his researches on the medusae; from the smaller and more exquisite kinds, such as the Pleurobrachyias, Idyias, and Bolinas, to the ma.s.sive Cyaneas, with their large disks and heavy tentacles, many yards in length.

Nothing can be prettier than the smaller kinds of jellyfishes.

Their structure is so delicate, yet so clearly defined, their color so soft, yet often so brilliant, their texture so transparent, that you seek in vain among terrestrial forms for terms of comparison, and are tempted to say that nature has done her finest work in the sea rather than on land. Sometimes hundreds of these smaller medusae might be seen floating together in the deep gla.s.s bowls, or jars, or larger vessels with which Aga.s.siz's laboratory at Nahant was furnished. When the supply was exhausted, new specimens were easily to be obtained by a row in a dory a mile or two from sh.o.r.e, either in the hot, still noon, when the jelly-fish rise toward the surface, or at night, over a brilliantly phosph.o.r.escent sea, when they are sure to be abundant, since they themselves furnish much of the phosph.o.r.escence. In these little excursions, many new and interesting things came to his nets beside those he was seeking.

The fishermen, also, were his friends and coadjutors. They never failed to bring him whatever of rare or curious fell into their hands, sometimes even turning aside from their professional calling to give the laboratory preference over the market.

Neither was his summer work necessarily suspended during winter, his Cambridge and Nahant homes being only about fifteen miles distant from each other. He writes to his friends, the Holbrooks, at this time, "You can hardly imagine what a delightful place Nahant is for me now. I can trace the growth of my little marine animals all the year round without interruption, by going occasionally over there during the winter. I have at this moment young medusae budding from their polyp nurses, which I expect to see freeing themselves in a few weeks." In later years, when his investigations on the medusae were concluded, so far as any teaching from the open book of Nature can be said to be concluded, he pursued here, during a number of years, investigations upon the sharks and skates. For this work, which should have made one of the series of "Contributions," he left much material, unhappily not ready for publication.

In August, 1857, Aga.s.siz received the following letter from M.

Rouland, Minister of Public Instruction in France.

TO PROFESSOR AGa.s.sIZ.

PARIS, August 19, 1857.

SIR,

By the decease of M. d'Orbigny the chair of paleontology in the Museum of Natural History in Paris becomes vacant. You are French; you have enriched your native country by your eminent works and laborious researches. You are a corresponding member of the Inst.i.tute. The emperor would gladly recall to France a savant so distinguished. In his name I offer you the vacant chair, and should congratulate your country on the return of a son who has shown himself capable of such devotion to science.

Accept the a.s.surance of my highest esteem,

ROULAND.

Had it been told to Aga.s.siz when he left Europe that in ten years he should be recalled to fill one of the coveted places at the Jardin des Plantes, the great centre of scientific life and influence in France, he would hardly have believed himself capable of refusing it. Nor does a man reject what would once have seemed to him a great boon without a certain regret. Such momentary regret he felt perhaps, but not an instant of doubt. His answer expressed his grat.i.tude and his pleasure in finding himself so remembered in Europe. He pleaded his work in America as his excuse for declining a position which he nevertheless considered the most brilliant that could be offered to a naturalist. In conclusion he adds: "Permit me to correct an error concerning myself. I am not French, although of French origin. My family has been Swiss for centuries, and spite of my ten years' exile I am Swiss still."

The correspondence did not end here. A few months later the offer was courteously renewed by M. Rouland, with the express condition that the place should remain open for one or even two years to allow time for the completion of the work Aga.s.siz had now on hand.

To this second appeal he could only answer that his work here was the work not of years, but of his life, and once more decline the offer. That his refusal was taken in good part is evident from the fact that the order of the Legion of Honor was sent to him soon after, and that from time to time he received friendly letters from the Minister of Public Instruction, who occasionally consulted him upon general questions of scientific moment.

This invitation excited a good deal of interest among Aga.s.siz's old friends in Europe. Some urged him to accept it, others applauded his resolve to remain out of the great arena of compet.i.tion and ambition. Among the latter was Humboldt. The following extract is from a letter of his (May 9, 1858) to Mr. George Ticknor, of Boston, who had been one of Aga.s.siz's kindest and best friends in America from the moment of his arrival. "Aga.s.siz's large and beautiful work (the first two volumes) reached me a few days since.

It will produce a great effect both by the breadth of its general views and by the extreme sagacity of its special embryological observations. I have never believed that this ill.u.s.trious man, who is also a man of warm heart, a n.o.ble soul, would accept the generous offers made to him from Paris. I knew that grat.i.tude would keep him in the new country, where he finds such an immense territory to explore, and such liberal aid in his work."

In writing of this offer to a friend Aga.s.siz himself says: "On one side, my cottage at Nahant by the sea-sh.o.r.e, the reef of Florida, the vessels of the Coast Survey at my command from Nova Scotia to Mexico, and, if I choose, all along the coast of the Pacific,--and on the other, the Jardin des Plantes, with all its acc.u.mulated treasures. Rightly considered, the chance of studying nature must prevail over the attractions of the (Paris) Museum. I hope I shall be wise enough not to be tempted even by the prospect of a new edition of the 'Poissons Fossiles.'"

To his old friend Charles Martins, the naturalist, he writes: "The work I have undertaken here, and the confidence shown in me by those who have at heart the intellectual development of this country, make my return to Europe impossible for the present; and, as you have well understood, I prefer to build anew here rather than to fight my way in the midst of the coteries of Paris. Were I offered absolute power for the reorganization of the Jardin des Plantes, with a revenue of fifty thousand francs, I should not accept it. I like my independence better."

The fact that Aga.s.siz had received and declined this offer from the French government seemed to arouse anew the public interest in his projects and prospects here. It was felt that a man who was ready to make an alliance so uncompromising with the interests of science in the United States should not be left in a precarious and difficult position. His collections were still heaped together in a slight wooden building. The fact that a great part of them were preserved in alcohol made them especially in danger from fire. A spark, a match carelessly thrown down, might destroy them all in half an hour, for with material so combustible, help would be unavailing. This fear was never out of his mind. It disturbed his peace by day and his rest by night. That frail structure, crowded from garret to cellar with seeming rubbish, with boxes, cases, barrels, casks still unpacked and piled one above the other, held for him the treasure out of which he would give form and substance to the dream of his boyhood and the maturer purpose of his manhood.

The hope of creating a great museum intelligently related in all its parts, reflecting nature, and ill.u.s.trating the history of the animal kingdom in the past and the present, had always tempted his imagination. Nor was it merely as a comprehensive and orderly collection that he thought of it. From an educational point of view it had an even greater value for him. His love of teaching prompted him no less than his love of science. Indeed, he hoped to make his ideal museum a powerful auxiliary in the interests of the schools and teachers throughout the State, and less directly throughout the country. He hoped it would become one of the centres for the radiation of knowledge, and that the investigations carried on within its walls would find means of publication, and be a fresh, original contribution to the science of the day. This hope was fully realized. The first number of the Museum Bulletin was published in March, 1863, the first number of the Ill.u.s.trated Catalogue in 1864, and both publications have been continued with regularity ever since.* (* At the time of Aga.s.siz's death nearly three volumes of the Bulletin had been published, and the third volume of the "Memoirs" (Ill.u.s.trated Catalogue Number 7) had been begun.)

In laying out the general plan, which was rarely absent from his thought, he distinguished between the demands which the specialist and the general observer might make upon an inst.i.tution intended to instruct and benefit both. Here the special student should find in the laboratories and work rooms all the needed material for his investigations, stored in large collections, with duplicates enough to allow for that destruction of specimens which is necessarily involved in original research. The casual visitor meanwhile should walk through exhibition rooms, not simply crowded with objects to delight and interest him, but so arranged that the selection of every specimen should have reference to its part and place in nature; while the whole should be so combined as to explain, so far as known, the faunal and systematic relations of animals in the actual world, and in the geological formations; or, in other words, their succession in time, and their distribution in s.p.a.ce.

A favorite part of his plan was a room which he liked to call his synoptic room. Here was to be the most compact and yet the fullest statement in material form of the animal kingdom as a whole, an epitome of the creation, as it were. Of course the specimens must be few in so limited a s.p.a.ce, but each one was to be characteristic of one or other of the various groups included under every large division. Thus each object would contribute to the explanation of the general plan. On the walls there were to be large, legible inscriptions, serving as a guide to the whole, and making this room a simple but comprehensive lesson in natural history. It was intended to be the entrance room for visitors, and to serve as an introduction to the more detailed presentation of the same vast subject, given by the faunal and systematic collections in the other exhibition rooms.

The standard of work involved in this scheme is shown in many of his letters to his students and a.s.sistants, to whom he looked for aid in its execution. To one he writes: "You will get your synoptic series only after you have worked up in detail the systematic collection as a whole, the faunal collections in their totality, the geological sequence of the entire group under consideration, as well as its embryology and geographical distribution. Then alone will you be able to know the representatives in each series which will best throw light upon it and complete the other series."

He did not live to fill in this comprehensive outline with the completeness which he intended, but all its details were fully explained by him before his death, and since that time have been carried out by his son, Alexander Aga.s.siz. The synoptic room, and in great part the systematic and faunal collections, are now arranged and under exhibition, and the throngs of visitors during all the pleasant months of the year attest the interest they excite.

This conception, of which the present Museum is the expression, was matured in the brain of the founder before a brick of the building was laid, or a dollar provided for the support of such an inst.i.tution. It existed for him as his picture does for the artist before it lives upon the canvas. One must have been the intimate companion of his thoughts to know how and to what degree it possessed his imagination, to his delight always, yet sometimes to his sorrow also, for he had it and he had it not. The thought alone was his; the means of execution were far beyond his reach.

His plan was, however, known to many of his friends, and especially he had explained it to Mr. Francis C. Gray, whose intellectual sympathy made him a delightful listener to the presentation of any enlightened purpose. In 1858 Mr. Gray died, leaving in his will the sum of fifty thousand dollars for the establishment of a Museum of Comparative Zoology, with the condition that this sum should be used neither for the erection of buildings nor for salaries, but for the purely scientific needs of such an inst.i.tution. Though this bequest was not connected in set terms with the collections already existing in Cambridge, its purpose was well understood; and Mr.

Gray's nephew, Mr. William Gray, acting upon the intention of his uncle as residuary legatee, gave it into the hands of the President and Fellows of Harvard University. In pa.s.sing over this trust, the following condition, among others, was made, namely: "That neither the collections nor any building which may contain the same shall ever be designated by any other name than the Museum of Comparative Zoology at Harvard." This is worth noting, because the t.i.tle was chosen and insisted upon by Aga.s.siz himself in opposition to many who would have had it called after him. To such honor as might be found in connecting his own name with a public undertaking of any kind he was absolutely indifferent. It was characteristic of him to wish, on the contrary, that the name should be as impersonal and as comprehensive as the uses and aims of the inst.i.tution itself. Yet he could not wholly escape the distinction he deprecated. The popular imagination, identifying him with his work, has re-christened the inst.i.tution; and, spite of its legal t.i.tle, its familiar designation is almost invariably the "Aga.s.siz Museum."

Mr. Gray's legacy started a movement which became every day more active and successful. The university followed up his bequest by a grant of land suitable for the site of the building, and since the Gray fund provided for no edifice, an appeal was made to the Legislature of Ma.s.sachusetts to make good that deficiency. The Legislature granted lands to the amount of one hundred thousand dollars, on condition that a certain additional contribution should be made by private subscription. The sum of seventy-one thousand one hundred and twenty-five dollars, somewhat exceeding that stipulated, was promptly subscribed, chiefly by citizens of Boston and Cambridge, and Aga.s.siz himself gave all the collections he had brought together during the last four or five years, estimated, merely by the outlay made upon them, at ten thousand dollars. The architects, Mr. Henry Greenough and Mr. George Snell, offered the plan as their contribution. The former had long been familiar with Aga.s.siz's views respecting the internal arrangements of the building. The main features had been discussed between them, and now, that the opportunity offered, the plan was practically ready for execution. These events followed each other so rapidly that although Mr. Gray's bequest was announced only in December, 1858, the first sod was turned and the corner-stone of the future Museum was laid on a sunny afternoon in the following June, 1859.* (* The plan, made with reference to the future increase as well as the present needs of the Museum, included a main building 364 feet in length by 64 in width, with wings 205 feet in length by 64 in width, the whole enclosing a hollow square. The structure erected 1859-60 was but a section of the north wing, being two fifths of its whole length. This gave ample s.p.a.ce at the time for the immediate requirements of the Museum. Additions have since been made, and the north wing is completed, while the Peabody Museum occupies a portion of the ground allotted to the south wing.)

This event, so full of significance for Aga.s.siz, took place a few days before he sailed for Europe, having determined to devote the few weeks of the college and school vacation to a flying visit in Switzerland. The incidents of this visit were of a wholly domestic nature and hardly belong here. He paused a few days in Ireland and England to see his old friends, the Earl of Enniskillen and Sir Philip Egerton, and review their collections. A day or two in London gave him, in like manner, a few hours at the British Museum, a day with Owen at Richmond, and an opportunity to greet old friends and colleagues called together to meet him at Sir Roderick Murchison's. He allowed himself also a week in Paris, made delightful by the cordiality and hospitality of the professors of the Jardin des Plantes, and by the welcome he received at the Academy, when he made his appearance there. The happiest hours of this brief sojourn in Paris were perhaps spent with his old and dear friend Valenciennes, the a.s.sociate of earlier days in Paris, when the presence of Cuvier and Humboldt gave a crowning interest to scientific work there.

From Paris he hastened on to his mother in Switzerland, devoting to her and to his immediate family all the time which remained to him before returning to his duties in Cambridge. They were very happy weeks, pa.s.sed, for the most part, in absolute retirement, at Montagny, near the foot of the Jura, where Madame Aga.s.siz was then residing with her daughter. The days were chiefly spent in an old-fas.h.i.+oned garden, where a corner shut in by ivy and shaded by trees made a pleasant out-of-door sitting-room. There he told his mother, as he had never been able to tell her in letters, of his life and home in the United States, and of the Museum to which he was returning, and which was to give him the means of doing for the study of nature all he had ever hoped to accomplish. His quiet stay here was interrupted only by a visit of a few days to his sister at Lausanne, and a trip to the Diablerets, where his brother, then a great invalid, was staying. He also pa.s.sed a day or two at Geneva, where he was called to a meeting of the Helvetic Society, which gave him an opportunity of renewing old ties of friends.h.i.+p, as well as scientific relations, with the naturalists of his own country, with Pictet de la Rive, de Candolle, Favre, and others.

CHAPTER 19.

1860-1863: AGE 53-56.

Return to Cambridge.

Removal of Collection to New Museum Building.

Distribution of Work.

Relations with his Students.

Breaking out of the War between North and South.

Interest of Aga.s.siz in the Preservation of the Union.

Commencement of Museum Publications.

Reception of Third and Fourth Volumes of "Contributions."

Copley Medal.

General Correspondence.

Lecturing Tour in the West.

Circular Letter concerning Anthropological Collections.

Letter to Mr. Ticknor concerning Geographical Distribution of Fishes in Spain.

On his return to Cambridge at the end of September, Aga.s.siz found the Museum building well advanced. It was completed in the course of the next year, and the dedication took place on the 13th November, 1860. The transfer of the collections to their new and safe abode was made as rapidly as possible, and the work of developing the inst.i.tution under these more favorable conditions moved steadily on. The lecture rooms were at once opened, not only to students but to other persons not connected with the university.

Especially welcome were teachers of schools for whom admittance was free. It was a great pleasure to Aga.s.siz thus to renew and strengthen his connection with the teachers of the State, with whom, from the time of his arrival in this country, he had held most cordial relations, attending the Teachers' Inst.i.tutes, visiting the normal schools, and a.s.sociating himself actively, as far as he could, with the interests of public education in Ma.s.sachusetts. From this time forward his college lectures were open to women as well as to men. He had great sympathy with the desire of women for larger and more various fields of study and work, and a certain number of women have always been employed as a.s.sistants at the Museum.

The story of the next three years was one of unceasing but seemingly uneventful work. The daylight hours from nine or ten o'clock in the morning were spent, with the exception of the hour devoted to the school, at the Museum, not only in personal researches and in lecturing, but in organizing, distributing, and superintending the work of the laboratories, all of which was directed by him. Pa.s.sing from bench to bench, from table to table, with a suggestion here, a kindly but scrutinizing glance there, he made his sympathetic presence felt by the whole establishment. No man ever exercised a more genial personal influence over his students and a.s.sistants. His initiatory steps in teaching special students of natural history were not a little discouraging.

Observation and comparison being in his opinion the intellectual tools most indispensable to the naturalist, his first lesson was one in LOOKING. He gave no a.s.sistance; he simply left his student with the specimen, telling him to use his eyes diligently, and report upon what he saw. He returned from time to time to inquire after the beginner's progress, but he never asked him a leading question, never pointed out a single feature of the structure, never prompted an inference or a conclusion. This process lasted sometimes for days, the professor requiring the pupil not only to distinguish the various parts of the animal, but to detect also the relation of these details to more general typical features. His students still retain amusing reminiscences of their despair when thus confronted with their single specimen; no aid to be had from outside until they had wrung from it the secret of its structure.

But all of them have recognized the fact that this one lesson in looking, which forced them to such careful scrutiny of the object before them, influenced all their subsequent habits of observation, whatever field they might choose for their special subject of study. One of them who was intending to be an entomologist concludes a very clever and entertaining account of such a first lesson, entirely devoted to a single fish, with these words: "This was the best entomological lesson I ever had,--a lesson whose influence has extended to the details of every subsequent study; a legacy the professor has left to me, as he left it to many others, of inestimable value, which we could not buy, with which we could not part."* (* "In the Laboratory with Aga.s.siz", by S.H. Scudder.)

But if Aga.s.siz, in order to develop independence and accuracy of observation, threw his students on their own resources at first, there was never a more generous teacher in the end than he. All his intellectual capital was thrown open to his pupils. His original material, his unpublished investigations, his most precious specimens, his drawings and ill.u.s.trations were at their command.

This liberality led in itself to a serviceable training, for he taught them to use with respect the valuable, often unique, objects intrusted to their care. Out of the intellectual good-fellows.h.i.+p which he established and encouraged in the laboratory grew the warmest relations between his students and himself. Many of them were deeply attached to him, and he was extremely dependent upon their sympathy and affection. By some among them he will never be forgotten. He is still their teacher and their friend, scarcely more absent from their work now than when the glow of his enthusiasm made itself felt in his personal presence.

But to return to the distribution of his time in these busy days.

Having pa.s.sed, as we have seen, the greater part of the day in the Museum and the school, he had the hours of the night for writing, and rarely left his desk before one or two o'clock in the morning, or even later. His last two volumes of the "Contributions," upon the Acalephs, were completed during these years. In the mean time, the war between North and South had broken out, and no American cared more than he for the preservation of the Union and the inst.i.tutions it represented. He felt that the task of those who served letters and science was to hold together the intellectual aims and resources of the country during this struggle for national existence, to fortify the strongholds of learning, abating nothing of their efficiency, but keeping their armories bright against the return of peace, when the better weapons of civilization should again be in force. Toward this end he worked with renewed ardor, and while his friends urged him to suspend operations at the Museum and husband his resources until the storm should have pa.s.sed over, he, on the contrary, stimulated its progress by every means in his power. Occasionally he was a.s.sisted by the Legislature, and early in this period an additional grant of ten thousand dollars was made to the Museum. With this grant was begun the series of ill.u.s.trated publications already mentioned, known as the "Bulletin of the Museum of Comparative Zoology in Cambridge."

During this period he urged also the foundation of a National Academy of Sciences, and was active in furthering its organization and incorporation (1863) by Congress. With respect to this effort, and to those he was at the same time making for the Museum, he was wont to recall the history of the University of Berlin. In an appeal to the people in behalf of the intellectual inst.i.tutions of the United States during the early years of the war he says: "A well known fact in the history of Germany has shown that the moment of political danger may be that in which the firmest foundations for the intellectual strength of a country may be laid. When in 1806, after the battle of Jena, the Prussian monarchy had been crushed and the king was despairing even of the existence of his realm, he planned the foundation of the University of Berlin, by the advice of Fichte, the philosopher. It was inaugurated the very year that the despondent monarch returned to his capital. Since that time it has been the greatest glory of the Prussian crown, and has made Berlin the intellectual centre of Germany."