Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, Louis Agassiz: his life and correspondence, third edition

[775] a day. In the morning session he would prepare his class for the work of the day; in the afternoon he would draw out their own observations by questions, and lead them, by comparison and combination of the facts they had observed, to understand the significance of their results. Every lecture from him at this time was a lesson in teaching as well as in natural history, and to many of his hearers this gave his lectures a twofold value, as bearing directly upon their own occupation. In his opening address he had said to them: ‘You will find the same elements of instruction all about you wherever you may be teaching. You can take your classes out, and give them the same lessons, and lead them up to the same subjects you are yourselves studying here. And this mode of teaching children is so natural, so suggestive, so true. That is the charm of teaching from Nature herself. No one can warp her to suit his own views. She brings us back to absolute truth as often as we wander.’

This was the bright side of the picture. Those who stood nearest to Agassiz, however, felt that the strain not only of work, but of the anxiety and responsibility attendant upon a new and important undertaking, was perilous