onising in general the thought of
the world as to the method of creation, Agassiz stood almost solitary
among authorities rejecting evolution and clinging to the doctrine of
a special calling into being of each species. His stand against the
new teaching was definite and bold, but can it be called broad-minded?
This is but the limitation that makes human a greatness which the
world regards with thorough and affectionate reverence. Fortunate
are those in whose memories live the voice and countenance of Louis
Agassiz.

Those whose privilege it was to know both father and son will be slow
to admit that the elder Agassiz was the greater man. Alexander (to
his intimates he was always, affectionately, Alex), was a teacher only
transiently, and I believe never before a class showed the enkindling
power which in the father was so marked a gift. His attainments,
however, were probably not less great, and it remains to be seen
whether his discoveries were not as epoch-making. He possessed,
moreover, a versatility which his father never showed (perhaps because
he never took time to show it), standing as a brilliant figure
among financiers and captains of industry. Finally, in a high sense,
Alexander was a philanthropist, and his benefactions were no more
munificent than they were wisely applied; for he watched well his
generous hand, guiding the flow into channels where it might most
effectually revive and enrich. While possibly in the case of the elder
Agassiz, the recognition of truth was sometimes unduly circumscribed,
that could never be said of Alexander. He was eminently broad-minded,
estimating with just candour whatever might be advanced in his own
field, and outside of his field, entering with sympathetic interest
into all that life might present.

I recall him first on a day soon after our entrance into college in
1851. A civic celebration was to take place in Boston, and the Harvard
students were to march in the procession. That day I first heard
_Fair Harvard_, sonorously rendered by the band at the head of
our column, as we formed on the Beacon Street mall before the State
House. A boy of sixteen, dressed in gray, came down the steps to
take his place in our class--a handsome fellow, brown-eyed, and
dark-haired, trimly built, and well-grown for his years. His face had
a foreign air, and when he spoke a peculiarity marked his speech. This
he never lost, but it was no imperfection. Rather it gave distinction
to his o