Louis Agassiz: His Life and Correspondence | Page 5

on what errand they had
gone. Her anxiety may be imagined. The lake was not less than two
miles across, and she was by no means sure that the ice was safe. She
hurried to an upper window with a spy-glass to see if she could descry
them anywhere. At the moment she caught sight of them, already far on
their journey, Louis had laid himself down across a fissure in the ice,
thus making a bridge for his little brother, who was creeping over his
back. Their mother directed a workman, an excellent skater, to follow
them as swiftly as possible. He overtook them just as they had gained
the shore, but it did not occur to him that they could return otherwise
than they had come, and he skated back with them across the lake.
Weary, hungry, and disappointed, the boys reached the house without
having seen the fair or enjoyed the drive home with their father in the
afternoon.
When he was ten years old, Agassiz was sent to the college for boys at
Bienne, thus exchanging the easy rule of domestic instruction for the
more serious studies of a public school. He found himself on a level
with his class, however, for his father was an admirable teacher. Indeed
it would seem that Agassiz's own passion for teaching, as well as his
love of young people and his sympathy with intellectual aspiration
everywhere, was an inheritance. Wherever his father was settled as
pastor, at Motier, at Orbe, and later at Concise, his influence was felt in
the schools as much as in the pulpit. A piece of silver remains, a much

prized heir-loom in the family, given to him by the municipality of
Orbe in acknowledgment of his services in the schools.
The rules of the school at Bienne were rather strict, but the life led by
the boys was hardy and invigorating, and they played as heartily as
they worked. Remembering his own school-life, Agassiz often asked
himself whether it was difference of climate or of method, which
makes the public school life in the United States so much more trying
to the health of children than the one under which he was brought up.
The boys and girls in our public schools are said to be overworked with
a session of five hours, and an additional hour or two of study at home.
At the College of Bienne there were nine hours of study, and the boys
were healthy and happy. Perhaps the secret might be found in the
frequent interruption, two or three hours of study alternating with an
interval for play or rest. Agassiz always retained a pleasant impression
of the school and its teachers. Mr. Rickly, the director, he regarded with
an affectionate respect, which ripened into friendship in maturer years.
The vacations were, of course, hailed with delight, and as Motier was
but twenty miles distant from Bienne, Agassiz and his younger brother
Auguste, who joined him at school a year later, were in the habit of
making the journey on foot. The lives of these brothers were so closely
interwoven in their youth that for many years the story of one includes
the story of the other. They had everything in common, and with their
little savings they used to buy books, chosen by Louis, the foundation,
as it proved, of his future library.
Long before dawn on the first day of vacation the two bright, active
boys would be on their homeward way, as happy as holiday could
make them, especially if they were returning for the summer harvest or
the autumn vintage. The latter was then, as now, a season of festivity.
In these more modern days something of its primitive picturesqueness
may have been lost; but when Agassiz was a boy, all the ordinary
occupations were given up for this important annual business, in which
work and play were so happily combined. On the appointed day the
working people might be seen trooping in from neighboring cantons,
where there were no vineyards, to offer themselves for the vintage.

They either camped out at night, sleeping in the open air, or found
shelter in the stables and outhouses. During the grape gathering the
floor of the barn and shed at the parsonage of Motier was often covered
in the evening with tired laborers, both men and women. Of course,
when the weather was fine, these were festival days for the children. A
bushel basket, heaped high with white and amber bunches, stood in the
hall, or in the living room of the family, and young and old were free to
help themselves as they came and went. Then there were the frolics in
the vineyard, the sweet cup of must (unfermented juice of the grape),
and, the ball on