The funeral of Professor Alexander Agassiz '55, S.B., LL.D., D.Sc., director of the University Museum, will be held in Appleton Chapel at 2 o'clock tomorrow. The Rev. Samuel M. Crothers h. '99, rector of the First Parish Church, Cambridge, will officiate, assisted by the Rev. E. C. Moore.
The ushers will be Major Henry L. Higginson '55, Dr. John C. Warren '63, Mr. James S. Russell '87, Mr. Quincy A. Shaw '91, Dr. Theodore Lyman '97, Mr. Joseph Warren '97, Mr. R. G. Shaw, 2nd., '99, Mr. Richard Ames '07, and Mr. Robert R. Ames '07. The burial will be in Mt. Auburn Cemetery.
The following appreciations of Professor Agassiz's life, work, and character were written at the request of the CRIMSON:
By Major Henry L. Higginson '55.
When I first knew Mr. Agassiz, we were just entering College in the fall of '51. He was but sixteen years old, and a very handsome, attractive boy. He did his College work well and, as time went on, better still, until he was very near the head of his class. He was a great favorite, a member of the attractive clubs, which were few in those days, and he was very welcome in general society. He took much interest in rowing, and was the bow-oar in a famous four-oared boat, which rowed without a coxswain and which used to win almost invariably.
Upon graduating, he entered the Scientific School, and also taught in his father's school for girls, which was opened in the autumn of '55. This task of a handsome young fellow instructing a lot of girls who were just beginning to live was embarrassing no doubt, but he got through that trial well. After graduating from the Scientific School, he entered the coast survey, and presently turned up in California, where he lived for some time. He had originally meant to be a civil engineer and to go onto some of the railroads, thinking the west a great field, but he inevitably drifted into his father's interests, came home in the autumn of 1860, was engaged to be married to Miss Anna Russell, and was married in November of that year.
He was made an under-officer in the Zoological Museum over which his father presided and was there for several years at a very small salary, living all this time in his father's house.
Presently, his brother-in-law, Mr. Shaw, acquired an interest in a copper property at Lake Superior and interested Mr. Agassiz in this property. Difficulties in the management arose, and Mr. Agassiz went to Calumet, in the upper peninsula of Michigan, with his wife and oldest child, George, and lived there for two years, organizing the work and developing the mine, putting in new machinery and generally getting everything into good order.
After a time he came to Cambridge again and lived there a short time, and then went to Europe with his wife for a vacation, as he was very tired and needed the rest, and he also wished to see his relatives in Switzerland and Germany. His second son, Maximilian, was born in '66, and the two children went with their parents to Europe.
In the last month of '69 the Calumet Mine began to pay dividends, and thereafter Mr. Agassiz was easy, so far as money was concerned. He had been enabled to get some stock of this mine through the help of friends, and presently was able to pay off his indebtedness. When he came back, he worked in the Museum with his father until the death of the latter, which occurred in 1873, at which time also Mr. Alexander Agassiz lost his wife. At his father's death he was put in charge of the Museum, and carried on the work according to his father's ideas and his own. From that time forward he went away every winter on various excursions and, as time passed, these excursions were to distant parts of the world.
As years went on, he built the present Zoological Museum one piece after another on his own plans, and of course paid for it. He served for some years, at two different times, as a member of the Corporation of the University, and he always watched and guided the work in the Museum personally and with great care. In summer he lived at Newport where he had a nice house and an excellent laboratory, which was sometimes filled with students. He enjoyed his life at Newport, as the climate suited him and, although he did not go on the water much, he sailed a little near land.
He always took deep interest in the University from the beginning, helped it in various ways, and had very distinct notions of what should be done in the way of education and development. He was as well-known in Europe as here, especially among the scientific men, and was invited to examine and sought several times the specimens brought home by other explorers, and always got his part of them.
His life was very simple and easy, and he saw a good many guests at his own house and at other places, and was a great favorite in society, -- indeed, his presence was enough to make any dinner party a success. All this while he worked over the Calumet Mine, going there twice a year and often more, passing a week or ten days, following each development, ordering new machinery when necessary and, in short, guiding the work. This was all done with the advice and assistance of his brother-in-law, Mr. Shaw, and, indeed, these two gentlemen developed a great property and made it a wonder of safety and good management. To the end he was as simple in his ways and as kindly and affectionate in his greetings to old friends as a man could be, and the change from the boy to the man often did not appear at all.
No man within my knowledge has as many foreign orders as Mr. Agassiz, and he was the head of the National Academy of Science in Washington, also of the American Academy of Science.
This winter he went to Egypt to have a quiet, pleasant time, and has enjoyed himself very much. Just before going he had begun another plan for helping the American Academy of Science here. Nobody ever saw any sign of money in his life, except as he could use it for the good of education or to help other peo- ple, and whenever it happened that any man at Cambridge died, whose family needed relief, Mr. Agassiz was always to the fore. A nobler, higher or more useful life no man ever lived, and withal he has kept the very warm respect and affection of his classmates and his numberless friends. H. L. HIGGINSON '55.
By Col. Thomas L. Livermore.
In 1867 Mr. Agassiz, who was then managing a coal mine in Pennsylvania, was called by his brother-in-law, Mr. Quincy A. Shaw, to go to Michigan to represent his interests in the supervision of the operations in the Calumet, Hecla and Huron Copper properties, the controlling interest in which Mr. Shaw had acquired. With his arrival there Agassiz began his career in copper mining, in which he continued uninterruptedly for forty-four years. He long survived the term of all his early contemporaries in the direction of that industry in Michigan. During his career he not only developed the largest and most profitable mine in the world's history, but also achieved greatness as a geologist, an engineer, a business manager, and the molder of a contented prosperous and orderly community of about forty thousand souls, which during his time grew from a single cabin in the wilderness to its present proportions. At the time of his arrival the primeval forest covered the field of his future work and nearly all the remainder of the Keweenaw peninsula--the northerly extension of the state of Michigan into Lake Superior. From the site of the Calumet Mine it was ten miles to the nearest settlement. His interest in the venture being en
Read more in News
Crimson Anniversary Celebration