Louis Agassiz as a Teacher
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Lane Cooper >> Louis Agassiz as a Teacher
When I sat me down before my tin pan, Agassiz brought me a small fish,
placing it before me with the rather stern requirement that I should
study it, but should on no account talk to any one concerning it, nor
read anything relating to fishes, until I had his permission so to do.
To my inquiry, 'What shall I do?' he said in effect: 'Find out what you
can without damaging the specimen; when I think that you have done the
work I will question you.' In the course of an hour I thought I had
compassed that fish; it was rather an unsavory object, giving forth the
stench of old alcohol, then loathsome to me, though in time I came to
like it. Many of the scales were loosened so that they fell off. It
appeared to me to be a case for a summary report, which I was anxious
to make and get on to the next stage of the business. But Agassiz,
though always within call, concerned himself no further with me that
day, nor the next, nor for a week. At first, this neglect was
distressing; but I saw that it was a game, for he was, as I discerned
rather than saw, covertly watching me. So I set my wits to work upon
the thing, and in the course of a hundred hours or so thought I had
done much--a hundred times as much as seemed possible at the start. I
got interested in finding out how the scales went in series, their
shape, the form and placement of the teeth, etc. Finally, I felt full
of the subject, and probably expressed it in my bearing; as for words
about it then, there were none from my master except his cheery 'Good
morning.' At length, on the seventh day, came the question, 'Well?' and
my disgorge of learning to him as he sat on the edge of my table
puffing his cigar. At the end of the hour's telling, he swung off and
away, saying: 'That is not right.' Here I began to think that, after
all, perhaps the rules for scanning Latin verse were not the worst
infliction in the world. Moreover, it was clear that he was playing a
game with me to find if I were capable of doing hard, continuous work
without the support of a teacher, and this stimulated me to labor. I
went at the task anew, discarded my first notes, and in another week of
ten hours a day labor I had results which astonished myself and
satisfied him. Still there was no trace of praise in words or manner.
He signified that it would do by placing before me about a half a peck
of bones, telling me to see what I could make of them, with no further
directions to guide me. I soon found that they were the skeletons of
half a dozen fishes of different species; the jaws told me so much at a
first inspection. The task evidently was to fit the separate bones
together in their proper order. Two months or more went to this task
with no other help than an occasional looking over my grouping with the
stereotyped remark: 'That is not right.' Finally, the task was done,
and I was again set upon alcoholic specimens--this time a remarkable
lot of specimens representing, perhaps, twenty species of the side
-swimmers or Pleuronectidae.
I shall never forget the sense of power in dealing with things which I
felt in beginning the more extended work on a group of animals. I had
learned the art of comparing objects, which is the basis of the
naturalist's work. At this stage I was allowed to read, and to discuss
my work with others about me. I did both eagerly, and acquired a
considerable knowledge of the literature of ichthyology, becoming
especially interested in the system of classification, then most
imperfect. I tried to follow Agassiz's scheme of division into the
order of ctenoids and ganoids, with the result that I found one of my
species of side-swimmers had cycloid scales on one side and ctenoid on
the other. This not only shocked my sense of the value of
classification in a way that permitted of no full recovery of my
original respect for the process, but for a time shook my confidence in
my master's knowledge. At the same time I had a malicious pleasure in
exhibiting my 'find' to him, expecting to repay in part the humiliation
which he had evidently tried to inflict on my conceit. To my question
as to how the nondescript should be classified he said: 'My boy, there
are now two of us who know that.'
This incident of the fish made an end of my novitiate. After that,
with a suddenness of transition which puzzled me, Agassiz became very
communicative; we passed indeed into the relation of friends of like
age and purpose, and he actually consulted me as to what I should like
to take up as a field of study. Finding that I wished to devote myself
to geology, he set me to work on the Brachiopoda as the best group of
fossils to serve as data in determining the Palaeozoic horizons. So far
as his rather limited knowledge of the matter went, he guided me in the
field about Cambridge, in my reading, and to acquaintances of his who
were concerned with earth structures. I came thus to know Charles T.
Jackson, Jules Marcou, and, later, the brothers Rogers, Henry and
James. At the same time I kept up the study of zoology, undertaking to
make myself acquainted with living organic forms as a basis for a
knowledge of fossils.
V
HOW AGASSIZ TAUGHT PROFESSOR VERRILL
[Footnote: From a private letter from Professor Addison Emery Verrill
to Lane Cooper. The extract is printed with the consent of Professor
Verrill.]
In regard to the methods of instruction of Agassiz I must say that so
far as I saw and experienced he had no regular or fixed method, except
that his plan was to make young students depend on natural objects
rather than on statements in books. To that end he treated each one of
his new students differently, according to the amount of knowledge and
experience that the student had previously acquired, and often in line
with what the student had done before. Not infrequently young men came
to him who were utterly destitute of any knowledge or ability to study
natural science, or zoology in particular, but had an idea that it
would be a 'soft snap,' as the boys say. In such cases he often did
give them a lot of mixed stuff to mull over, to see what they could do,
and also to discourage those that seemed unfit. Sometimes he was
mistaken, of course, and the student would persevere and stay on--and
sometimes turned out well later. In fact, his treatment was highly and
essentially individualistic.
In my own case, he questioned me closely as to what I had previously
done and learned. He found I had made collections of birds, mammals,
plants, etc., and had mounted and identified them for several years,
and in that way was not a beginner exactly. I remember that before I
had been with him six months he told me I knew more zoology than most
students did when they graduated. Therefore my case was not like some
others. He had an idea, of course, that though I had collected and
mounted birds, and knew their names and habits, I probably knew little
about their anatomy. At any rate the first thing he did was to give me
a badly mutilated old loon, from old alcohol, telling me to prepare the
skeleton. This I did so well and so quickly that he expressed regret
that he had not given me some better bird with unbroken bones. He gave
me next a blue heron, but it being spring, I 'went collecting' in the
vicinity, following my usual inclination, before breakfast and after
laboratory hours, and brought in a number of incubated birds'-eggs.
When Agassiz came into the laboratory, I was extracting and preserving
the embryos, being interested in embryology. He at once exclaimed that
he was delighted, and told me to put aside the skeletons and go right
on with collecting and preparing embryo birds, and making drawings,
etc. This I did all that season, obtaining about 2,000 embryos, mostly
of sea birds, for he sent me to Grand Manan Island, etc., for that
purpose. Before the end of the first year he gave me entire charge of
the birds and mammals in the Museum, as well as the coral collection,
which was large even then.
In the case of Hyatt, who went there just before I did, I think he was
kept working over a lot of mixed fish skeletons, more or less broken,
to 'see what he could make of them.' A little later he put Hyatt at
work on the Unionidae, studying the anatomy as well as the shells.
Within two years he put him on the Ammonites, a big collection having
been received from Europe at that time. Hyatt, however, had never done
anything in zoology or botany before he went to Agassiz and he found it
hard to get a beginning, and so lost time. I mention these cases to
show how different his methods were in different cases.
VI
HOW AGASSIZ TAUGHT PROFESSOR WILDER
[Footnote: From an article by Professor Burt G. Wilder, of Cornell
University, in _The Harvard Graduates' Magazine_, June, 1907. The
extract is taken from a reprint with slight changes by the author, and
is given with slight omissions by the present writer.]
The phrase adopted as the title of this article ['Louis Agassiz,
Teacher'] begins his simple will, Agassiz was likewise an investigator,
a director of research, and the founder of a great museum. He really
was four men in one. Without detracting from the extent and value of
the three other elements of his intense and composite American life--
from his first course of lectures before the Lowell Institute in 1846
to the inauguration of the Anderson Summer School of Natural History at
Penikese Island, July 8, 1873, and his address before the Massachusetts
State Board of Agriculture, twelve days before his untimely death on
December 14, 1873,--Agassiz was pre-eminently a teacher. He taught his
assistants; he taught the teachers in the public schools; he taught
college students; he taught the public, and the common people heard him
gladly. His unparalleled achievements as an instructor are thus
chronicled by his wife:
'A teacher in the widest sense, he sought and found his pupils in
every class. But in America for the first time did he come into contact
with the general mass of the people on this common ground, and it
influenced strongly his final resolve to remain in this country. Indeed
the secret of his greatest power was to be found in the sympathetic,
human side of his character. Out of his broad humanity grew the genial
personal influence by which he awakened the enthusiasm of his audiences
for unwonted themes, inspired his students to disinterested services
like his own, delighted children in the school-room, and won the
cordial interest, as well as the co-operation in the higher aims of
science, of all classes, whether rich or poor.'
As a general statement the foregoing could not be improved. But the
invitation to prepare this article contained a suggestion of
particularity with which it is possible for me to comply.[Footnote: Not
only have I preserved all the letters from Agassiz, the first dated
Sept. 4, 1866, and the last Nov. 25, 1873, but also my diaries in which
are recorded all significant incidents and conversations from my first
introduction in 1856 to the last interview, Sept. 5, 1873. [Note by
Professor Wilder.]] The courses given by Agassiz on zoology and geology
were attended by me during the three years (1859-62) of my pupilage
with Jeffries Wyman, and the two years (1866-68) in which I was the
assistant of Agassiz himself. Naturally, and also for special reasons,
the deepest impression was made by the first and the last of these
courses. With the former the charm of novelty intensified the great,
indeed indescribable, charm of the speaker. No topic was to me so
important as the general problem of animal life, and no expositor could
compare with Agassiz. As an outlet for my enthusiasm each discourse was
repeated, to the best of my ability, for the benefit of my companion,
James Herbert Morse, '63, on the daily four-mile walk between Cambridge
and our Brookline home. So sure was I that all the statements of
Agassiz were correct and all his conclusions sound, that any doubts or
criticisms upon the part of my acute and unprejudiced friend shocked me
as a reprehensible compound of heresy and lese-majesty.
The last course that I heard from Agassiz in Cambridge began on
October 23, 1867, and closed on January 11, 1868. It was memorable for
him and for me. At the outset he announced that some progress had been
made in the University toward the adoption of an elective system for
the students, and that he proposed to apply the principle to his own
instruction, and should devote the entire course of twenty-one lectures
to the Selachians (sharks and rays), a group in which he had been
deeply interested for many years, and upon which he was then preparing
a volume. This limitation to a favorite topic inspired him to unusual
energy and eloquence. My notes are quite full, but I now wish the
lectures had been reported verbatim. This course was signalized also by
two special innovations, viz.: the exhibition of living fish, and the
free use of museum specimens. That, so far as possible, all biologic
instruction should be objective was with Agassiz an educational dogma,
and upon several notable occasions its validity had been demonstrated
under very unfavorable conditions. Yet, during the five years of my
attendance upon his lectures, they were seldom illustrated otherwise
than by his ready and graphic blackboard drawings. The simple fact was
that the intervals between his lectures were so crowded with
multifarious, pressing, and never-ending demands upon his time and
strength that he could seldom determine upon the precise subject long
enough in advance for him, or any one else, to bring together the
desirable specimens or even charts. The second lecture of the course
already mentioned is characterized in my diary as 'splendid,' and as
'for the first time illustrated with many specimens.' At one of the
later lectures, after speaking about fifteen minutes, he invited his
hearers to examine living salmon embryos under his direction at one
table, and living shark embryos under mine at another.
Like those of Wyman, the courses given by Agassiz were Senior
electives. I never heard of any examination upon them; nor is it easy
to imagine Agassiz as preparing a syllabus, or formulating or
correcting an examination-paper. His personality and the invariable
attendance of teachers and other adults precluded the necessity of
disciplinary measures. But his attitude toward student misconduct was
clearly shown in an incident recorded by me elsewhere.[Footnote:
'Agassiz at Penikese,' _American Naturalist_, March, 1898, p. 194.
[Note by Professor Wilder.]] The method pursued by Agassiz with his
laboratory students has been described by Scudder.[Footnote: See below,
p. 40.] Although I was to prepare specimens at his personal expense, a
somewhat similar test was applied. He placed before me a dozen young
'acanths' (dog-fish sharks), telling me to find out what I could about
them. After three days he gave me other specimens, saying: 'When you go
back to the little sharks you will know more about them than if you
kept on with them now'--meaning, I suppose, that I should then have
gained a better perspective.
Although, as I recall upon several occasions, Agassiz could express
his views delightfully and impressively to a single auditor, his
eminently social nature and his lifelong habit rendered it easier for
him to address a group of interested listeners. The following incident
does not seem to have been recorded in my diary, but it is distinctly
remembered. During the publication of the _Journey in Brazil_, a
French translation was made by M. Felix Vogeli. With this the
publishers desired to incorporate a chapter giving the latest views of
Agassiz upon classification and evolution. In vain was he besought to
write it. He hated writing, and was too busy. At last, in desperation,
M. Vogeli came to the Museum with Mrs. Agassiz, and together they
persuaded the Professor to dictate the required matter in the form of a
lecture. For this, however, an audience was indispensable. The exigency
was explained to the Museum staff; we assembled in the lecture-room,
and the discourse began. To the dismay of some of us it proved to be in
French, but we tried to look as if we comprehended it all.
Agassiz handled all specimens with the greatest care, and naturally
had little patience with clumsiness; the following incident illustrates
both his kindly spirit and his self-restraint. At one of the lectures
he had handed down for inspection a very rare and costly fossil, from
the coal-measures, I think; including the matrix, it had about the size
and shape of the palm of the hand. He cautioned us not to drop it. When
it had reached about the middle of the audience a crash was heard. The
precious thing had been dropped by a new and somewhat uncouth assistant
whom we will call Dr. X. He hastily gathered up the pieces and rushed
out of the room. For a few seconds Agassiz stood as if himself
petrified; then, without even an 'Excuse me,' he vanished by the same
door. Presently he returned, flushed, gazing ruefully at the fragments
in his hand, covered with mucilage or liquid glue. After a pause,
during which those who knew him not awaited an explosive denunciation
of gaucherie, Agassiz said quietly: 'In Natural History it is not
enough to know how to study specimens; it is also necessary to know how
to handle them'--and then proceeded with his lecture.
His helpful attitude toward prospective teachers was exhibited in the
following incidents. After my appointment to Cornell University in
October, 1867, he arranged for me to give a course of six 'University
Lectures,' and warned me to prepare for them carefully, because he
should give me a 'raking down.' He attended them all (at what
interruption of his own work I realize better now), and discussed them
and my methods very frankly with me. Omitting the commendations, the
following comments may be useful to other professorial tyros: 1. The
main question or thesis should be stated clearly and concisely at the
outset, without compelling the hearer to perform all the mental
operations that have led the speaker to his own standpoint. 2. In
dealing with the history of a subject, the value of each successive
contribution should be estimated in the light of the knowledge at the
period, not of that at the present time.
VII
HOW AGASSIZ TAUGHT PROFESSOR SCUDDER
[Footnote: 'In the Laboratory with Agassiz,' by Samuel H. Scudder,
from _Every Saturday_ (April 4, 1874) 16, 369-370.]
It was more than fifteen years ago [from 1874] that I entered the
laboratory of Professor Agassiz, and told him I had enrolled my name in
the Scientific School as a student of natural history. He asked me a
few questions about my object in coming, my antecedents generally, the
mode in which I afterwards proposed to use the knowledge I might
acquire, and, finally, whether I wished to study any special branch. To
the latter I replied that, while I wished to be well grounded in all
departments of zoology, I purposed to devote myself specially to
insects.
'When do you wish to begin?' he asked.
'Now,' I replied.
This seemed to please him, and with an energetic 'Very well!' he
reached from a shelf a huge jar of specimens in yellow alcohol.
'Take this fish,' said he, 'and look at it; we call it a haemulon; by
and by I will ask what you have seen.'
With that he left me, but in a moment returned with explicit
instructions as to the care of the object entrusted to me.
'No man is fit to be a naturalist,' said he, 'who does not know how to
take care of specimens.'
I was to keep the fish before me in a tin tray, and occasionally
moisten the surface with alcohol from the jar, always taking care to
replace the stopper tightly. Those were not the days of ground-glass
stoppers and elegantly shaped exhibition jars; all the old students
will recall the huge neckless glass bottles with their leaky, wax
-besmeared corks, half eaten by insects, and begrimed with cellar dust.
Entomology was a cleaner science than ichthyology, but the example of
the Professor, who had unhesitatingly plunged to the bottom of the jar
to produce the fish, was infectious; and though this alcohol had 'a
very ancient and fishlike smell,' I really dared not show any aversion
within these sacred precincts, and treated the alcohol as though it
were pure water. Still I was conscious of a passing feeling of
disappointment, for gazing at a fish did not commend itself to an
ardent entomologist. My friends at home, too, were annoyed, when they
discovered that no amount of eau-de-Cologne would drown the perfume
which haunted me like a shadow.
In ten minutes I had seen all that could be seen in that fish, and
started in search of the Professor--who had, however, left the Museum;
and when I returned, after lingering over some of the odd animals
stored in the upper apartment, my specimen was dry all over. I dashed
the fluid over the fish as if to resuscitate the beast from a fainting
-fit, and looked with anxiety for a return of the normal sloppy
appearance. This little excitement over, nothing was to be done but to
return to a steadfast gaze at my mute companion. Half an hour passed
--an hour--another hour; the fish began to look loathsome. I turned it
over and around; looked it in the face--ghastly, from behind, beneath,
above, sideways, at a three-quarters' view--just as ghastly. I was in
despair; at an early hour I concluded that lunch was necessary; so,
with infinite relief, the fish was carefully replaced in the jar, and
for an hour I was free.
On my return, I learned that Professor Agassiz had been at the Museum,
but had gone, and would not return for several hours. My fellow-students
were too busy to be disturbed by continued conversation. Slowly I drew
forth that hideous fish, and with a feeling of desperation again looked
at it. I might not use a magnifying-glass; instruments of all kinds were
interdicted. My two hands, my two eyes, and the fish: it seemed a most
limited field. I pushed my finger down its throat to feel how sharp the
teeth were. I began to count the scales in the different rows, until I
was convinced that that was nonsense. At last a happy thought struck me
--I would draw the fish; and now with surprise I began to discover new
features in the creature. Just then the Professor returned.
'That is right,' said he; 'a pencil is one of the best of eyes. I am
glad to notice, too, that you keep your specimen wet, and your bottle
corked.'
With these encouraging words, he added:
'Well, what is it like?'
He listened attentively to my brief rehearsal of the structure of
parts whose names were still unknown to me: the fringed gill-arches and
movable operculum; the pores of the head, fleshy lips and lidless eyes;
the lateral line, the spinous fins and forked tail; the compressed and
arched body. When I had finished, he waited as if expecting more, and
then, with an air of disappointment:
'You have not looked very carefully; why,' he continued more
earnestly,' you haven't even seen one of the most conspicuous features
of the animal, which is as plainly before your eyes as the fish itself;
look again, look again!' and he left me to my misery.
I was piqued; I was mortified. Still more of that wretched fish! But
now I set myself to my task with a will, and discovered one new thing
after another, until I saw how just the Professor's criticism had been.
The afternoon passed quickly; and when, toward its close, the Professor
inquired:
'Do you see it yet?'
'No,' I replied, 'I am certain I do not, but I see how little I saw
before.'
'That is next best,' said he, earnestly, 'but I won't hear you now;
put away your fish and go home; perhaps you will be ready with a better
answer in the morning. I will examine you before you look at the fish.'
This was disconcerting. Not only must I think of my fish all night,
studying, without the object before me, what this unknown but most
visible feature might be; but also, without reviewing my new discoveries,
I must give an exact account of them the next day. I had a bad memory;
so I walked home by Charles River in a distracted state, with my two
perplexities.
The cordial greeting from the Professor the next morning was
reassuring; here was a man who seemed to be quite as anxious as I that
I should see for myself what he saw.
'Do you perhaps mean,' I asked, 'that the fish has symmetrical sides
with paired organs?'
His thoroughly pleased 'Of course! of course!' repaid the wakeful
hours of the previous night. After he had discoursed most happily and
enthusiastically--as he always did-upon the importance of this point,
I ventured to ask what I should do next.
'Oh, look at your fish!' he said, and left me again to my own devices.
In a little more than an hour he returned, and heard my new catalogue.
'That is good, that is good!' he repeated; 'but that is not all; go
on;' and so for three long days he placed that fish before my eyes,
forbidding me to look at anything else, or to use any artificial aid.
'Look, look, look,' was his repeated injunction.