I cite these events because they show that the early youth of Alexander Agassiz was passed in a period of domestic confusion and sorrow which may have left its mark upon him throughout life, for his great self-reliance was a characteristic rarely developed in those whose early years have been free from care. Life was a severe struggle for him, and though his victories were great they were won after hard-fought battles.
After the departure of his father from Neuchâtel Alexander remained with his mother throughout the period of her failing health, and after her death his father's cousin, Dr. Mayor, and the Reverend Marc Fivaz brought him to America, where he rejoined his father in America in June, 1849, and entered the Cambridge High School in the autumn of the same year.
The earliest published picture of Alexander Agassiz is by his father's artist Dinkel and appears upon the cover of the first livraison of the "Histoire naturelles des Poissons d Eau douce de l'Europe Centrale" published in 1839. It shows him as a little boy of four years fishing upon the shore of the Lake of Neuchâtel.
In early life Alexander exhibited his independence of character and incurred the Prussian governor's displeasure and his father's reproof through his willful neglect to salute this official when he passed upon the opposite side of the street. He must also have shown his characteristic pertinacity, for before he came to America he could play well upon the violin, an accomplishment which he allowed to fall into abeyance in later years.
In the spring of 1850, soon after the arrival of Alexander in America, his father took for his second wife Miss Elizabeth C. Cary, of Boston, in whom he found a new mother throughout life, and he took the most tender care of her until her death long years afterwards, when he himself was an old man. Doubtless many of the finer traits of his rugged character were developed through the refining influence due to the care and teaching he received from this superior woman. Nature and his father made him a naturalist, and his reverence for his father was almost a religion with him. He became the first student his father taught in America.
He entered Harvard College and graduated in 1855 with the degree of A.B., and then studied engineering, geology and chemistry in the Lawrence Scientific School, obtaining one B.S. in 1857, and another in natural history in 1862. During his college days he was much interested in rowing and was bow oar of the four-oared crew which won the race against Yale on the Connecticut River at Springfield on July 22, 1855, at which time he weighed only 145 pounds. He continued to row on the university crew until 1858, when the future President Eliot was one of his comrades in the boat.
