Americans by adoption : $b Brief biographies of great citizens born in foreign landsHusband, Joseph
History
Americans by adoption : $b Brief biographies of great citizens born in foreign lands
Husband, Joseph
United States -- Biography
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_
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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