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Louis Agassiz as a Teacher: Illustrative Extracts on His Method of Instruction

1946; American Society of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists; Volume: 1946; Issue: 2 Linguagem: Inglês

10.2307/1437865

1938-5110

Karl P. Schmidt, Lane Cooper,

Historical and Literary Studies

narrow' one.His example should there- fore be salutary to those persons, on the one hand, who think that a man can have general culture without knowing some one thing from the bottom up, and, on the other, to those who immerse themselves and their pupils blindly in special investigation, without thought of the prima philosophia that gives life and meaning to all particular knowledge.There can be no doubt that science and scholarship in this country are suffering from a lack of sympathy and contact between the devotees of the several branches, and for want of definite efforts to bridge the gaps between various disciplines wherever this is possible.It may not often[vi] PREFACE be possible until men of science generally again take up the study of Plato and Aristotle, or at least busy themselves, as did Agassiz, with some comprehensive modern philosopher like Schelling.But it should not be very hard for those who are engaged in the biological sciences and those who are given to literary pursuits to realize that they are alike inter- ested in the manifestations of one and the same thing, the principle of life.In Agassiz himself the vitality of his studies and the vitality of the man are easily identified.