Page:American Medical Biographies - Kelly, Burrage.djvu/27

AGASSIZ said to have owed much of his dexterity in manipulation to the training of the eye and hand, gained in making shoes and toys for his sister's dolls. He was a bright, active child and a general favorite. The love of teaching he showed in later life may in part at least be traced back to his father from whom he had his earliest lessons.

At the age of ten he went to the College for Boys at Binne and later he spent two years at that of Lausanne. A brilliant student, he showed much greater capacity for languages and natural history than for mathematics, physics, and chemistry. He became proficient in Latin and Greek as well as in German and Italian. He was a splendid swimmer but did not care for riding horses. He took no interest in shooting. Later, during his university life, he was a proficient fencer.

While at Lausanne, Agassiz came much under the influence of Dr. Mathias Mayer, a physician with a large practice and under him studied anatomy. He likewise met several scientists, who aroused an ambition in him to become a naturalist. Accordingly he persuaded his parents to let him give up going into business after finishing school, as planned, and to send him to Zurich University to study medicine. To become a country doctor seemed Louis' desire in order that he might have opportunity to study natural history.

Two years followed at Zurich University, a year at Heidelberg, and finally three at Munich University. While at Zurich, Agassiz gave a good deal of attention to the study of natural history and his subsequent university career was guided a good deal more by his devotion to zoology than by his medical studies. He took the degree of doctor of philosophy when he was twenty-two, a year before he became a doctor of medicine. It was chiefly owing to the pleadings of his parents that he spent enough time on medical studies to take his degree. As a university student, he was a leader both in intellectual pursuits and in convivial recreation.

When twenty-two, he had already done important scientific work, and was mastered by an ambition to become a foremost student of natural science. During his student days, while engaged in scientific work, he kept one and sometimes two artists in his employ,—not easy, he says with an allowance of $250 per per year; but they were poorer than he, and so managed to get along together.

His first important work, undertaken at the request of Martius, was a description of Brazilian fishes collected by Spix, and a little later he began his great independent work on fossil fishes.

In 1832, when twenty-five, after a period of study under the influence of Cuvier in Paris, Agassiz entered upon a professorship of natural history at Neuchatel. He retained this professorship until his removal to America. While occupying this position, he extended his studies on fossil fishes, did valuable work on echinoderms, and made important contributions on the action of glaciers. To him is due primarily the knowledge of a general glacial epoch.

Agassiz had a wonderful power of attracting people and making them devoted to his interests. In his student days he not only got other students to join in with him in forming clubs for scientific study, but induced artists to work for him for almost nothing. He went about things as if he were very rich instead of poor and then managed to get relatives and friends to help him out of his financial troubles. At Neuchatel, where his salary at first was but $400, he had a large staff of scientific assistants and artists and got into very serious financial difficulties. His reckless daring in expenditures, however, enabled him to do a prodigious amount of scientific work, which otherwise would have been impossible. At the age of thirty he had achieved a worldwide reputation as a naturalist and had done the most important work on which his reputation as a scientist rests. After this period his scientific contributions, though considerable in amount and valuable, were hampered on the one hand by a too complex, unorganized, and not always harmonious staff of assistants, and on the other hand by the need to raise money to pay debts in which his undertakings involved him.

In 1846 his financial difficulties had reached such an acute stage that his home was broken up, while his wife, the sister of Alexander Braun, the botanist, a student and life-long friend of Agassiz, went with her three children to live with her brother. Agassiz departed for America on a grant obtained in his behalf from the King of Prussia by Alexander von Humboldt. On Agassiz's first visit to Paris in 1831–2 he had met and much attracted Von Humboldt, who was then at the zenith of his power. After this period, Von Humboldt showed his friendship for Agassiz in many ways, not the least of which was the obtaining of this grant.

Agassiz came to America at the age of thirty-nine. His primary object was to study the natural history of the country. He prepared