Louis Agassiz story

One day a student named Samuel Scudder went over to the Museum and told Professor Agassiz that he proposed to devote himself to the study of insects. Agassiz presented him with a high-smelling fish and told him to look at it. "By and by," he said, "I will ask you what you have seen," and left the lad with his fish.

"In ten minutes I had seen all that could be seen in that fish. Half an hour passed, an hour, another hour; the fish began to look loathsome. I turned it over and around; looked it in the face, ghastly! From behind, beneath, above, sideways, at a three-quarters view, just as ghastly. I was in despair. At an early hour I concluded that lunch was necessary; so, with infinite relief, the fish was carefully replaced in the jar, and for an hour I was free.

"On my return, I learned that Professor Agassiz had been at the Museum, but had gone, and would not return for several hours. Slowly I drew forth that hideous fish, and, with a feeling of desperation, again looked at it. I might not use a magnifying glass; instruments of all kinds were interdicted. My two hands, my two eyes, and the fish; it seemed a most limited field. . . . At last a happy thought struck me – I would draw the fish; and now, with surprise, I began to discover new features in the creature. Just then the professor returned.

"'That is right,' said he; 'a pencil is one of the best eyes. I am glad to notice, too, that you keep your specimen wet and your bottle corked.' With these encouraging words, he added:– 'Well, what is it like?'

"He listened attentively to my brief rehearsal of the structure of parts whose names were still unknown to me. . . . When I had finished, he waited as if expecting more, and then, with an air of disappointment, 'You have not looked very carefully; why,' he continued most earnestly, 'you haven't even seen one of the most conspicuous features of the animal, which is as plainly before your eyes as the fish itself. Look again! look again!' and he left me to my misery.

"I was piqued; I was mortified. Still more of that wretched fish! But now I set myself to my task with a will, and discovered one new thing after another, until I saw how just the professor's criticism had been. The afternoon passed quickly, and when, toward its close, the professor inquired,–

"'Do you see it yet?'

"'No.' I replied, 'I am certain I do not, but I see how little I saw before.'

"'That is next best,' said he earnestly; 'but I won't hear you now; put away your fish and go home; perhaps you will be ready with a better answer in the morning. I will examine you before you look at the fish.'

"This was disconcerting. Not only must I think of my fish all night, studying, without the object before me, what this unknown but most visible feature might be, but also, without reviewing my new discoveries, I must give an exact account of them the next day. I had a bad memory, so I walked home by Charles River in a disturbed state with my two perplexities.

"The cordial greeting from the professor the next morning was reassuring. Here was a man who seemed to be quite as anxious as I that I should see for myself what he saw.

"'Do you perhaps mean,' I asked, 'that the fish has symmetrical sides with paired organs?'

"His thoroughly pleased 'Of course, of course!' repaid the wakeful hours of the previous night. After he had discoursed most happily and enthusiastically as he always did upon the importance of this point, I ventured to ask what I should do next.

"'Oh, look at your fish!' he said, and left me again to my own devices. In a little more than an hour he returned and heard my new catalogue.

"'That is good, that is good,' he repeated; 'but that is not all; go on.' And so for three long days he placed that fish before my eyes, forbidding me to look at anything else or to use any artificial aid. 'Look! look! look!' was his repeated injunction.

"This was the best entomological lesson I ever had, a lesson whose influence has extended to the details of every subsequent study; a legacy that professor has left to me, as he left it to many others, of inestimable value, which we could not buy, with which we cannot part."

For eight months the lad studied fish, and at the end of the time he declared, "What I had gained by this outside experience has been of greater value than years of later investigation in my favorite group."

A great teacher had come his way, and Samuel Scudder knew it.