Return to Cambridge.--Summer School proposed.--Interest of Agassiz.
--Gift of Mr. Anderson.--Prospectus of Penikese School.
--Difficulties.--Opening of School.--Summer Work.--Close of School.
--Last Course of Lectures at Museum.--Lecture before Board of
Agriculture.--Illness.--Death.--Place of Burial.
LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS.
1. PORTRAIT OF LOUIS AGASSIZ AT THE AGE OF NINETEEN; copied by Mrs.
John W. Elliot from a pastel drawing by Cecile Braun.
2. THE STONE BASIN AT MOTIER; drawn by Mrs. Elliot from a
photograph.
3. THE LABORATORY AT NAHANT; from a drawing by Mrs. Elliot.
4. THE BIRTHPLACE OF LOUIS AGASSIZ; from a photograph.
5. HOTEL DES NEUCHATELOIS; copied by Mrs. Elliot from an oil sketch
made on the spot by J. Burkhardt.
6. PORTRAIT OF JACOB LEUTHOLD; from a portrait by Burkhardt.
7. SECOND STATION ON THE AAR GLACIER; Copied by Mrs. Elliot from a
sketch in oil by J. Burkhardt.
8. PORTRAIT OF LOUIS AGASSIZ AT THE AGE OF FIFTY-FIVE; originally
published in "Nature".
9. COTTAGE AT NAHANT; from a photograph.
10. MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE ZOOLOGY; from a photograph.
11. PORTRAIT BUST OF AGASSIZ BY POWERS AT THE MUSEUM OF COMPARATIVE
ZOOLOGY; from a photograph.
12. VIEW OF PENIKESE; from a photograph.
***
LOUIS AGASSIZ.
PART 1. IN EUROPE.
CHAPTER 1.
1807-1827: TO AGE 20.
Birthplace.
Influence of his Mother.
Early Love of Natural History.
Boyish Occupations.
Domestic Education.
First School.
Vacations.
Commercial Life renounced.
College of Lausanne.
Choice of Profession.
Medical School of Zurich.
Life and Studies there.
University of Heidelberg.
Studies interrupted by Illness.
Return to Switzerland.
Occupations during Convalescence.
JEAN LOUIS RODOLPHE AGASSIZ was born May 28, 1807, at the village
of Motier, on the Lake of Morat. His father, Louis Rodolphe
Agassiz, was a clergyman; his mother, Rose Mayor, was the daughter
of a physician whose home was at Cudrefin, on the shore of the Lake
of Neuchatel.
The parsonages in Switzerland are frequently pretty and
picturesque. That of Motier, looking upon the lake and sheltered by
a hill which commands a view over the whole chain of the Bernese
Alps, was especially so. It possessed a vineyard large enough to
add something in good years to the small salary of the pastor; an
orchard containing, among other trees, an apricot famed the country
around for the unblemished beauty of its abundant fruit; a good
vegetable garden, and a delicious spring of water flowing always
fresh and pure into a great stone basin behind the house. That
stone basin was Agassiz's first aquarium; there he had his first
collection of fishes.* (* After his death a touching tribute was
paid to his memory by the inhabitants of his birthplace. With
appropriate ceremonies, a marble slab was placed above the door of
the parsonage of Motier, with this inscription, "J. Louis Agassiz,
celebre naturaliste, est ne dans cette maison, le 28 Mai, 1807.")
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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