Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence | Page 7

headings, showing even then a tendency toward an orderly classification of facts and thoughts.
It is evident from the boyish sketch which he drew of his future plans that the hope of escaping the commercial life projected for him, and of dedicating himself to letters and learning, was already dawning. He had begun to feel the charm of study, and his scientific tastes, though still pursued rather as the pastimes of a boy than as the investigations of a student, were nevertheless becoming more and more absorbing. He was fifteen years old and the time had come when, according to a purpose long decided upon, he was to leave school and enter the business house of his uncle, Francois Mayor, at Neuchatel. He begged for a farther delay, to be spent in two additional years of study at the College of Lausanne. He was supported in his request by several of his teachers, and especially by Mr. Rickly, who urged his parents to encourage the remarkable intelligence and zeal already shown by their son in his studies. They were not difficult to persuade; indeed, only want of means, never want of will, limited the educational advantages they gave to their children.
It was decided, therefore, that he should go to Lausanne. Here his love for everything bearing on the study of nature was confirmed. Professor Chavannes, Director of the Cantonal Museum, in whom he found not only an interesting teacher, but a friend who sympathized with his favorite tastes, possessed the only collection of Natural History in the Canton de Vaud. To this Agassiz now had access. His uncle, Dr. Mathias Mayor, his mother's brother and a physician of note in Lausanne, whose opinion had great weight with M. and Mme. Agassiz, was also attracted by the boy's intelligent interest in anatomy and kindred subjects. He advised that his nephew should be allowed to study medicine, and at the close of Agassiz's college course at Lausanne the commercial plan was finally abandoned, and he was permitted to choose the medical profession as the one most akin to his inclination.
Being now seventeen years of age, he went to the medical school of Zurich. Here, for the first time, he came into contact with men whose instruction derived freshness and vigor from their original researches. He was especially indebted to Professor Schinz, a man of learning and ability, who held the chair of Natural History and Physiology, and who showed the warmest interest in his pupil's progress. He gave Agassiz a key to his private library, as well as to his collection of birds. This liberality was invaluable to one whose poverty made books an unattainable luxury. Many an hour did the young student pass at that time in copying books which were beyond his means, though some of them did not cost more than a dollar a volume. His brother Auguste, still his constant companion, shared this task, a pure labor of love with him, for the books were more necessary to Louis's studies than to his own.
During the two years passed by Agassiz in Zurich he saw little of society beyond the walls of the university. His brother and he had a pleasant home in a private house, where they shared the family life of their host and hostess. In company with them, Agassiz made his first excursion of any importance into the Alps. They ascended the Righi and passed the night there. At about sunset a fearful thunder-storm gathered below them, while on the summit of the mountain the weather remained perfectly clear and calm. Under a blue sky they watched the lightning, and listened to the thunder in the dark clouds, which were pouring torrents of rain upon the plain and the Lake of Lucerne. The storm lasted long after night had closed in, and Agassiz lingered when all his companions had retired to rest, till at last the clouds drifted softly away, letting down the light of moon and stars on the lake and landscape. He used to say that in his subsequent Alpine excursions he had rarely witnessed a scene of greater beauty.
Such of his letters from Zurich as have been preserved have only a home interest. In one of them, however, he alludes to a curious circumstance, which might have changed the tenor of his life. He and his brother were returning on foot, for the vacation, from Zurich to their home which was now in Orbe, where their father and mother had been settled since 1821. Between Neuchatel and Orbe they were overtaken by a traveling carriage. A gentleman who was its sole occupant invited them to get in, made them welcome to his lunch, talked to them of their student life, and their future plans, and drove them to the parsonage, where he introduced himself