Part 4

Accordingly, during his seventeenth year, Louis entered the medical school at Zürich. Here he found still more congenial surroundings; for among the faculty of the university were men of reputation in the particular branches of natural history which most deeply interested him. Under the professor of natural history the study of ornithology was opened to him. Here also the sciences of zoölogy and geology were taught, and Louis eagerly enrolled in the classes that were held in these subjects.

In 1826, after two years at Zürich, Louis entered the great German University of Heidelberg, and there his true university life began. The four years that he passed there were among the most important years of his entire life. They were years of hard conscientious study, combined with wholesome recreation. “First at work, and first at play,” was his motto. Here he made friendships that were tense and enduring. Two fellow students, Braun and Schimper, became particularly his intimates, and with Agassiz formed a trio which their fellow students called “the Little Academy.”

It was an ambitious atmosphere, and the friendships which were formed were based on a love of intellectual pleasures. There was also the vivid vital student life beyond the classrooms; there were long excursions on foot in vacation times; there were duels and love-affairs, and there were boisterous evenings thick with tobacco smoke. Agassiz was a powerful gymnast and an expert fencer. There was nothing in the student life that was good in which he did not participate.

Of the many friendships which his open and affectionate nature so easily formed, his friendship with Alexander Braun was deepest and most lasting. Soon he began to visit Braun at his home in Carlsruhe, where he met his friend’s two talented sisters, one of whom was later to become his wife. And it was here, in the spring of 1827, that the friendly Braun family nursed him back to health after a serious attack of typhoid fever.

The earnestness of these young men is perhaps best described by Agassiz himself. “When our lectures are over, we meet in the evening at Braun’s room or mine, with three or four intimate acquaintances, and talk of scientific matters, each one in his turn presenting a subject which is first developed by him and then discussed by all. These exercises are very instructive. As my share, I have begun to give a course of natural history, or rather of pure zoölogy. Braun talks to us of botany; and another of our company, Mahir, teaches us mathematics and physics in his turn; Schimper will be our professor of philosophy. Thus we shall form a little university, instructing one another, and at the same time learning what we teach more thoroughly, because we shall be obliged to demonstrate it.”

From Heidelberg the three companions now transferred their studies to the new University of Munich, where a far more stimulating intellectual life awaited them. Here were some of the most celebrated teachers of the day, and “the city teemed with resources for the student in arts, letters, philosophy, and science.” A fine spirit existed between students and professors, and there was constant opportunity, not only in the classrooms, but beyond their walls, for the earnest young men to draw on the wells of information which their brilliant instructors freely afforded them.

With an allowance of only $250 a year, Agassiz’s life was necessarily simple and severe. But the three companions soon found that their humble rooms had become the meeting-place of the most brilliant men in the University. Students and even professors crowded their simple living quarters, and naturalists of renown came to visit these extraordinary young men. “Someone was always coming or going; the half-dozen chairs were covered with books, piled one upon another—the bed, also, was used as a seat, and as a receptacle for specimens, drawings and papers.” Specimens of various sorts decorated the walls. In Agassiz’s own room were several hundred fish, “shut up in a wooden tub with a cover and in various big glass jars. A live gudgeon with beautiful stripes is wriggling in his wash-bowl, and he has adorned his table with monkeys.”

During their vacations the young men made expeditions to see such museums as were within reach, and to visit any scientific men to whom they could obtain an introduction. All of southern Germany was included in their rambles, and their wanderings carried them even into explorations of extensive tracts of the Alps.

But although Agassiz had come to Munich for the special purpose of taking the degree of doctor of medicine, his studies soon drifted from those of a medical student to the studies of a true naturalist. He had gone to Heidelberg “with a strong taste for natural history; he left Munich devoted heart and soul to science.” Under these circumstances it was only natural that his first degree should be that of doctor of philosophy; but a year later, to fulfill the desires of his parents, he received the degree of doctor of medicine and surgery.

Up to this time Agassiz had paid no particular attention to the study of ichthyology, which was later to become the great occupation of his life; but in 1829 he was unexpectedly given the opportunity to prepare a history of the fresh-water fishes of Brazil, from a collection which had been made by a celebrated scientist who had died before he could prepare the report covering the collection. Agassiz threw himself enthusiastically into the work of describing and figuring these Brazilian fishes, and in 1829 the work was completed and published with the name of the youthful author on the title-page. His life-work was begun.

It was at this time that he wrote to his father: “I wish it may be said of Louis Agassiz that he was the first naturalist of his time, a good citizen, and a good son, beloved by those who know him.”

In the autumn of 1830 Agassiz left Munich, and after a short visit in Vienna, where he found himself “received as a scientific man for whom no letters of recommendation were necessary,” he returned to Switzerland and the welcome of his proud parents. But it was hard to adjust himself to the quiet village by Lake Morat, and, although money was difficult to secure, a visit to Paris was finally made possible through the generosity of a friend of the family. Here Agassiz formed important friendships with two of the greatest scientists of the age: Cuvier, the leading French zoölogist, and Alexander von Humboldt, the leader of the scientific world.

The years that immediately followed were filled with scientific progress. The “Brazilian Fishes” had determined Agassiz’s specialty, and the reputation of the book led him to plan a history of the fresh-water fishes of Central Europe, including a natural history of fossil fishes. It was an enormous undertaking, for palæontology was a new science, involving the study of fossil specimens scattered through the museums of Europe. But Agassiz foresaw only the value which science would place on such a work, and the five volumes were finally published by him, at intervals, from 1833 to 1843.

Life in Paris soon proved difficult for the young scientist, and his poverty was particularly noticeable, for here there was wealth and position even among scientific men. He had only forty dollars a month, and his clothing had become so worn that it was not possible for him to accept invitations from well-to-do friends. The position of professor of natural history at Neuchâtel was offered him, and, although the salary was only $400 a year, it seemed wise to accept. His acceptance, and with it the close of his year in Paris, marks the end of his boyhood and student days. A new period awaited him.

The college of Neuchâtel was small and unimportant. The chair of natural history was new, and there was no scientific apparatus, museum, or lecture-room. But this mattered little to the young professor. Soon after his arrival he founded a Natural History Society among the leading citizens of the town; his lectures were given in the city hall, and his own collection formed the nucleus of a natural history museum.

As in college, so in the quiet Swiss village, Agassiz soon gathered about him a group of scientific men as his students and assistants, many of whom in later life became themselves naturalists of reputation. It was a “scientific factory” of which Agassiz was the mainspring. He was poor, but somehow he managed to go on, supporting many of his staff in his own house, printing and lithographing his own publications, and supporting his own family as well, for his marriage had now brought additional responsibilities upon his broad shoulders. It was an unstable basis, but in one way or another Agassiz found the means to proceed. Money was but the means to an end, never the end itself. “I cannot spend my time in making money!” he once said when a profitable business offer was made to him. The remark expressed clearly his firm devotion to his chosen profession.

It was during this period of his life that Agassiz added to scientific knowledge the proof that at some remote time in the earth’s existence vast glaciers, moving fields of ice miles in area and often hundreds of feet in thickness, had played a part in the earth’s formation almost as important as the recognized agents, fire and water. It was a geological discovery the proof of which, although indisputable, seemed so startling, that it was with difficulty that it was accepted even by the best scientific minds of the day.

In the Alpine country had been found great boulders dropped apparently by some strange force in fields far from the quarries of native rock from which they had been torn. Here also were moraines and dikes, great piles of loose gravel deposited by some unknown agency; and here also, where the bedrock was visible, could be seen deep furrows and scratches on the polished stone as if chiseled by a giant tool.

Glaciers existed in the Alps, but it was hard for men to believe that glaciers had once existed where now were green fields and meadows. But Agassiz was not the man to endeavor to found a belief on unsupported theory, and only after six years of study of the glaciers and glacial traces in the Alps and actual observations on the glacier of the Aar, was he prepared to give his proofs of the theory to the scientific world.

Basing his demonstration on this accumulated evidence, Agassiz proved that at one time glaciers had covered a large part of the now civilized world. The great boulders had been scooped up by them in their progress, and perhaps some thousands of years later had been dropped a hundred miles away by the melting ice-sheet. So also had the masses of gravel been carried far from their sources, to form strange new glacial deposits. And on the scarred and grooved rocks was the final evidence; for these deep scratches had surely been ground by the advancing glacier as it slowly and silently moved onward. “The idea that such phenomena were not restricted to regions where glaciers now are found, but that traces of glacial action could be seen over enormous tracts of the earth’s surface, perhaps including regions in the tropics, and that in countries now temperate there might be discovered, not only the remains of tropical fauna and flora, but also distinct indications of a period of arctic cold—this was as new as startling.”

During the years of his professorship at Neuchâtel, Agassiz published many important contributions to scientific knowledge in those particular departments of natural science to which he had devoted himself. At the same time came also many honors, including offers of professorships from the universities of Geneva and Lausanne, and the award of the Wollaston Medal by the Geographical Society of London.

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.”

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.

The first President, George Washington, was a farmer. Abraham Lincoln was born in a log-cabin and taught himself to read and write in the early days of his hard boyhood. Woodrow Wilson was a schoolteacher. Rich men and poor men have risen to the presidency; men with the blood of many nations in their veins. The log-cabin or the castle birthplace has counted little; high posts of honor have been won by all.

Carl Schurz was born in a castle at Liblar, a small German town a few miles distant from the great city of Cologne, in the year 1829. But in spite of his castle birthplace, Carl was not of royal blood, but a poor boy. Like the fathers of so many other distinguished sons, the elder Schurz was a schoolmaster; but so small was his pay that he and his family came to live with his wife’s father, a tenant farmer, in the ancient castle at Liblar. And in this castle was born the boy Carl who, in the many years of his useful life, was destined to fill high places in the great Republic beyond the seas.

Life in the great castle was much the same in 1829 that it had been for hundreds of years, for changes came slowly in the peaceful, beautiful German country. At harvest-time the young and old, with a spirit of mutual helpfulness, gathered the harvest; and at other times they met for Rhineland festivals, with much happy visiting of relatives, with games and contests of strength and skill. In the big stone hall of the castle the “folk” assembled for their meals at long wooden tables, and ate their soup or porridge out of deep wooden bowls with wooden spoons. During the day the women spun flax at their spinning-wheels and the men worked in the shops, the stables, and the fields.

In the twilight hours the boy listened to stories of the “French Times,” when the great Napoleon passed through the land with his mighty army before the Russian campaign, and later returned, his army shattered and defeated. He heard of the Cossacks, uncouth, dirty, bearded men on shaggy ponies, who followed Napoleon’s retreating army, and how they stole and plundered and ate the tallow candles in people’s houses. And he heard, too, of the great men whose fame was not created by the sword—Schiller, Goethe Tasso, Shakespeare, Voltaire, Rousseau. Perhaps the stories of these famous men of history inspired the boy in later years to become himself a leader among men.