July, and afterward serve my apprenticeship in commerce at Neuchatel for a year and a half. Then I should like to pass four years at a university in Germany, and finally finish my studies at Paris, where I would stay about five years. Then, at the age of twenty-five, I could begin to write." Agassiz's note-books, preserved by his parents, who followed the education of their children with the deepest interest, give evidence of his faithful work both at school and college. They form a great pile of manuscript, from the paper copy-books of the school-boy to the carefully collated reports of the college student, begun when the writer was ten or eleven years of age and continued with little interruption till he was eighteen or nineteen. The later volumes are of nearly quarto size and very thick, some of them containing from four to six hundred closely covered pages; the handwriting is small, no doubt for economy of space, but very clear. The subjects are physiological, pathological, and anatomical, with more or less of general natural history. This series of books is kept with remarkable neatness. Even in the boy's copy-books, containing exercises in Greek, Latin, French and German, with compositions on a variety of topics, the writing is even and distinct, with scarcely a blot or an erasure. From the very beginning there is a careful division of subjects under clearly marked headings, showing even then a tendency toward an orderly classification of facts and thoughts. It is evident from the boyish sketch which he drew of his future plans that the hope of escaping the commercial life projected for him, and of dedicating himself to letters and learning, was already dawning. He had begun to feel the charm of study, and his scientific tastes, though still pursued rather as the pastimes of a boy than as the investigations of a student, were nevertheless becoming more and more absorbing. He was fifteen years old and the time had come when, according to a purpose long decided upon, he was to leave school and enter the business house of his uncle, Francois Mayor, at Neuchatel. He begged for a farther delay, to be spent in two additional years of study at the College of Lausanne. He was supported in his request by several of his teachers, and especially by Mr. Rickly, who urged his parents to encourage the remarkable intelligence and zeal already shown by their son in his studies. They were not difficult to persuade; indeed, only want of means, never want of will, limited the educational advantages they gave to their children.