was explained to the Museum staff; we assembled in the lecture-room,
and the discourse began. To the dismay of some of us it proved to be in
French, but we tried to look as if we comprehended it all.

Agassiz handled all specimens with the greatest care, and naturally
had little patience with clumsiness; the following incident illustrates
both his kindly spirit and his self-restraint. At one of the lectures
he had handed down for inspection a very rare and costly fossil, from
the coal-measures, I think; including the matrix, it had about the size
and shape of the palm of the hand. He cautioned us not to drop it. When
it had reached about the middle of the audience a crash was heard. The
precious thing had been dropped by a new and somewhat uncouth assistant
whom we will call Dr. X. He hastily gathered up the pieces and rushed
out of the room. For a few seconds Agassiz stood as if himself
petrified; then, without even an 'Excuse me,' he vanished by the same
door. Presently he returned, flushed, gazing ruefully at the fragments
in his hand, covered with mucilage or liquid glue. After a pause,
during which those who knew him not awaited an explosive denunciation
of gaucherie, Agassiz said quietly: 'In Natural History it is not
enough to know how to study specimens; it is also necessary to know how
to handle them'--and then proceeded with his lecture.

His helpful attitude toward prospective teachers was exhibited in the
following incidents. After my appointment to Cornell University in
October, 1867, he arranged for me to give a course of six 'University
Lectures,' and warned me to prepare for them carefully, because he
should give me a 'raking down.' He attended them all (at what
interruption of his own work I realize better now), and discussed them
and my methods very frankly with me. Omitting the commendations, the
following comments may be useful to other professorial tyros: 1. The