so adore it,
people said; and the very definition and meaning of the word naturalist
underwent a favorable alteration in the common mind.

Certain sayings of Agassiz's, as the famous one that he "had no time
for making money," and his habit of naming his occupation simply as
that of "teacher," have caught the public fancy, and are permanent
benefactions. We all enjoy more consideration for the fact that he
manifested himself here thus before us in his day.

He was a splendid example of the temperament that looks forward and not
backward, and never wastes a moment in regrets for the irrevocable. I
had the privilege of admission to his society during the Thayer
expedition to Brazil. I well remember at night, as we all swung in our
hammocks in the fairy-like moonlight, on the deck of the steamer that
throbbed its way up the Amazon between the forests guarding the stream
on either side, how he turned and whispered, "James, are you awake?"
and continued, "_I_ cannot sleep; I am too happy; I keep thinking of
these glorious plans." The plans contemplated following the Amazon to
its headwaters, and penetrating the Andes in Peru. And yet, when he
arrived at the Peruvian frontier and learned that that country had
broken into revolution, that his letters to officials would be useless,
and that that part of the project must be given up, although he was
indeed bitterly chagrined and excited for part of an hour, when the
hour had passed over it seemed as if he had quite forgotten the
disappointment, so enthusiastically was he occupied already with the
new scheme substituted by his active mind.

Agassiz's influence on methods of teaching in our community was prompt
and decisive,--all the more so that it struck people's imagination by
its very excess. The good old way of committing printed abstractions
to memory seems never to have received such a shock as it encountered
at his hands. There is probably no public school teacher now in New
England who will not tell you how Agassiz used to lock a student up in
a room full of turtle shells, or lobster shells, or oyster shells,
without a book or word to help him, and not let him out till he had
discovered all the truths which the objects contained. Some found the
truths after weeks and months of lonely sorrow; others never found
them. Those who found them were already made into naturalists
thereby--the failures were blotted from the book of honor and of life.
"Go to Nature; tak