With the death of Alexander Agassiz the country has lost one of its most constructive minds, Harvard one of her greatest sons. Versatile in achievement, as in interests, he left upon his many activities the stamp of genius. He contributed greatly to the advancement of science by his illuminative studies and his extensive deep-sea exploration, as well as by organizing and supporting the scientific inquiries of others. Foremost as naturalist and comparative zoologist, he was versed in anthropology and trained in engineering. But whatever line of precise thinking he took up, he brought to it abilities of the first order.

In business, he made himself as preeminent as he did in science, being for many years the head of a great corporation; and to his business he brought the same dignity and high-mindedness which characterized him in all his undertakings. He was a sincere and unostentatious philanthropist, doing good in his quiet way, but with no ungenerous hand. His contributions to Harvard were countless and unstinted. "The immense University Museum, costly in the monetary sense, and absolutely unreplaceable for its carefully gathered specimens, is almost totally owing to him. The money he put out to build and enlarge it he would scorn to have mentioned. But no monument would suit him better than its curious and precious contents which were his life work and his life-long joy."