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Show 168, first hand examination of the matter and continual COMPARISON of one "slide" or specimen with another. No man is equipped for modern thinking until he has understood the anecdote of Agassiz and the fish: A post graduate student equipped with honors and diplomas went to Agassiz to receive the final and finishing touches. The great man offered him a sunfish and told him to describe it. Post Graduate Student: "That's only a sunfish." Agassiz: "I know that. Write a description of it." After a few minutes the student returned with the description of the Ichthus Heliodiplodkus, or whatever term is used to conceal the common sunfish from vulgar knowledge, family of Heliichtherinkus, etc., as found in textbooks on the subject. Agassiz again told the student to describe the fish. The student produced a four page essay. Agassiz then told him to look at the fish. At the end of three weeks the fish was in an advanced state of decomposition, but the student knew something about it. When Pound turned Agassiz's method on its head, saying we should read books as nineteenth century scientists read Nature, he introduced several ironies. Of course, the postgraduate student had failed to follow an Emersonian dictum, from "The American Scholar." Emerson said, "Books are for the scholar's idle times. When he can read God directly, the hour is too |
