consideration? If there is any truth in the belief that man is made in
the image of God, it is surely not amiss for the philosopher to
endeavor, by the study of his own mental operations, to approximate the
workings of the Divine Reason, learning from the nature of his own mind
better to understand the Infinite Intellect from which it is derived.
Such a suggestion may, at first sight, appear irreverent. But who is
the truly humble? He who, penetrating into the secrets of creation,
arranges them under a formula, which he proudly calls his scientific
system? or he who in the same pursuit recognizes his glorious affinity
with the Creator, and in deepest gratitude for so sublime a birthright
strives to be the faithful interpreter of that Divine Intellect with
whom he is permitted, nay, with whom he is intended, according to the
laws of his being, to enter into communion? [Footnote: _Essay on
Classification_ (1859), pp. 9-10.] Herein we may discern the secret
of his power as a teacher.

'Agassiz's influence on methods of teaching in our community,' said
Professor James, 'was prompt and decisive--all the more that it struck
people's imagination by its very excess. The good old way of committing
printed abstractions to memory never seems to have received such a shock
as it encountered at his hands. There is probably no public school
teacher now [1896] in New England who will not tell you how Agassiz used
to lock a student up in a room full of turtle-shells, or lobster-shells,
or oyster-shells, without a book or a word to help him, and not let him
out till he had discovered all the truths which the objects contained.
Some found the truths after weeks and months of lonely sorrow; others
never found them. Those who found them were already made into naturalists
thereby--the failures were blotted from the book of honor and of life.
"Go to nature; take the facts into your own hands; look, and see for
yourself!"--these were the maxims which Agassiz preached wherever he