Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence | Page 6

the last evening at the close of the merry-making.
Sometimes the boys passed their vacations at Cudrefin, with their
grandfather Mayor. He was a kind old man, much respected in his
profession, and greatly beloved for his benevolence. His little white
horse was well known in all the paths and by-roads of the country
around, as he went from village to village among the sick. The
grandmother was frail in health, but a great favorite among the children,
for whom she had an endless fund of stories, songs, and hymns. Aunt
Lisette, an unmarried daughter, who long lived to maintain the
hospitality of the old Cudrefin house and to be beloved as the kindest
of maiden aunts by two or three generations of nephews and nieces,
was the domestic providence of these family gatherings, where the
praises of her excellent dishes were annually sung. The roof was elastic;
there was no question about numbers, for all came who could; the more,
the merrier, with no diminution of good cheer.
The Sunday after Easter was the great popular fete. Then every house
was busy coloring Easter eggs and making fritters. The young girls and
the lads of the village, the former in their prettiest dresses and the latter
with enormous bouquets of artificial flowers in their hats, went together
to church in the morning. In the afternoon the traditional match
between two runners, chosen from the village youths, took place. They
were dressed in white, and adorned with bright ribbons. With music
before them, and followed by all the young people, they went in
procession to the place where a quantity of Easter eggs had been
distributed upon the ground. At a signal the runners separated, the one
to pick up the eggs according to a prescribed course, the other to run to

the next village and back again. The victory was to the one who
accomplished his task first, and he was proclaimed king of the feast.
Hand in hand the runners, followed as before by all their companions,
returned to join in the dance now to take place before the house of Dr.
Mayor. After a time the festivities were interrupted by a little address in
patois from the first musician, who concluded by announcing from his
platform a special dance in honor of the family of Dr. Mayor. In this
dance the family with some of their friends and neighbors took
part,--the young ladies dancing with the peasant lads and the young
gentlemen with the girls of the village,--while the rest formed a circle
to look on.
Thus, between study and recreation, the four years which Agassiz's
father and mother intended he should pass at Bienne drew to a close. A
yellow, time-worn sheet of foolscap, on which during the last year of
his school-life he wrote his desiderata in the way of books, tells
something of his progress and his aspirations at fourteen years of age.
"I wish," so it runs, "to advance in the sciences, and for that I need
d'Anville, Ritter, an Italian dictionary, a Strabo in Greek, Mannert and
Thiersch; and also the works of Malte-Brun and Seyfert. I have
resolved, as far as I am allowed to do so, to become a man of letters,
and at present I can go no further: 1st, in ancient geography, for I
already know all my notebooks, and I have only such books as Mr.
Rickly can lend me; I must have d'Anville or Mannert; 2nd, in modern
geography, also, I have only such books as Mr. Rickly can lend me,
and the Osterwald geography, which does not accord with the new
divisions; I must have Ritter or Malte-Brun; 3rd, for Greek I need a
new grammar, and I shall choose Thiersch; 4th, I have no Italian
dictionary, except one lent me by Mr. Moltz; I must have one; 5th, for
Latin I need a larger grammar than the one I have, and I should like
Seyfert; 6th, Mr. Rickly tells me that as I have a taste for geography he
will give me a lesson in Greek (gratis), in which we would translate
Strabo, provided I can find one. For all this I ought to have about
twelve louis. I should like to stay at Bienne till the month of July, and
afterward serve my apprenticeship in commerce at Neuchatel for a year
and a half. Then I should like to pass four years at a university in
Germany, and finally finish my studies at Paris, where I would stay

about five years. Then, at the age of twenty-five, I could begin to
write."
Agassiz's note-books, preserved by his parents, who followed the
education of their children with the deepest interest, give evidence of
his faithful work both at school and college. They form a great pile