Louis Agassiz as a Teacher

Louis Agassiz as a Teacher

The Project Gutenberg EBook of Louis Agassiz as a Teacher, by Lane
Cooper Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to
check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or
redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg eBook.
This header should be the first thing seen when viewing this Project
Gutenberg file. Please do not remove it. Do not change or edit the
header without written permission.
Please read the "legal small print," and other information about the
eBook and Project Gutenberg at the bottom of this file. Included is
important information about your specific rights and restrictions in how
the file may be used. You can also find out about how to make a
donation to Project Gutenberg, and how to get involved.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**eBooks Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since
1971**
*****These eBooks Were Prepared By Thousands of
Volunteers!*****
Title: Louis Agassiz as a Teacher
Author: Lane Cooper
Release Date: December, 2004 [EBook #7020] [Yes, we are more than
one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on February 23,
2003]
Edition: 10
Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LOUIS
AGASSIZ AS A TEACHER ***

This eBook was produced by Avinash Kothare, David Starner and the
Online Distributed Proofreading Team

LOUIS AGASSIZ.
ILLUSTRATIVE EXTRACTS ON HIS METHOD OF
INSTRUCTION
WITH AN INTRODUCTORY NOTE
BY
LANE COOPER
PROFESSOR OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE AND LITERATURE
IN CORNELL UNIVERSITY.

The beauty of his better self lives on In minds he touched with fire, in
many an eye He trained to Truth's exact severity; He was a Teacher:
why be grieved for him Whose living word still stimulates the air? In
endless file shall loving scholars come The glow of his transmitted
touch to share.
--Lowell, Agassiz.

PREFACE
If it be asked why a teacher of English should be moved to issue this
book on Agassiz, my reply might be: 'Read the Introductory Note'-for
the answer is there. But doubtless the primary reason is that I have been
taught, and I try to teach others, after a method in essence identical with
that employed by the great naturalist. And I might go on to show in
some detail that a doctoral investigation in the humanities, when the
subject is well chosen, serves the same purpose in the education of a
student of language and literature as the independent, intensive study of
a living or a fossil animal, when prescribed by Agassiz to a beginner in
natural science. But there is no need to elaborate the point. Of those

who are likely to examine the book, some already know the underlying
truth involved, others will grasp it when it is first presented to them
(and for these my slight and pleasant labors are designed), and the rest
will find a stumbling-block and foolishness--save for the entertainment
to be had in the reading of biography.
I have naturally kept in mind the needs of my own students, past and
present, yet I believe these pages may be useful to students of natural
science as well as to those who concern themselves with the humanities.
We live in an age of narrow specialization--at all events in America.
Agassiz was a specialist, but not a 'narrow' one. His example should
therefore be salutary to those persons, on the one hand, who think that a
man can have general culture without knowing some one thing from
the bottom up, and, on the other, to those who immerse themselves and
their pupils blindly in special investigation, without thought of the
prima philosophia that gives life and meaning to all particular
knowledge. There can be no doubt that science and scholarship in this
country are suffering from a lack of sympathy and contact between the
devotees of the several branches, and for want of definite efforts to
bridge the gaps between various disciplines wherever this is possible. It
may not often be possible until men of science generally again take up
the study of Plato and Aristotle, or at least busy themselves, as did
Agassiz, with some comprehensive modern philosopher like Schelling.
But it should not be very hard for those who are engaged in the
biological sciences and those who are given to literary pursuits to
realize that they are alike interested in the manifestations of one and the
same thing, the principle of life. In Agassiz himself the vitality of his
studies and the vitality of the man are easily identified.
In conclusion I must thank the publishers, Houghton Mifflin Company,
for the use of selections from the copyright books of Mrs. Agassiz and
Professor Shaler; these and all other obligations are, I trust, indicated