He endeavored to inculcate the true spirit of
scholarship among the students,--not to study for rank but from a genuine
love of the subject. The opposition that his reforms excited made him
unpopular, and Freshmen came to college so prejudiced against him that
all his kindness and good will were wasted upon them.
"There goes the greatest man in this country," said a fashionable Boston
youth, one day in the spring of 1866. It was Louis Agassiz returning from
a call on President Hill. Such a statement shows that the speaker
belonged to a class of people called Tories, in 1776, and who might
properly be called so still. As a matter of fact, Agassiz had long since
passed the meridian of his reputation, and his sun was now not far from
setting. He had returned from his expedition to South America with a
valuable collection of fishes and other scientific materials; but his
theory of glaciers; which he went there to substantiate, had not been
proven. Darwin's "Origin of Species" had already swept his nicely-
constructed plans of original types into the fire of futile speculation.
Yet Agassiz was a great man in his way, and his importance was
universally recognized. He had given a vigorous and much-needed impetus
to the study of geology in America, and as a compendium of all the
different branches of natural history there was nobody like him.
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