Elizabeth Cary Agassiz, Louis Agassiz: his life and correspondence, third edition

[767] was impassioned. It kept the freshness of youth, because the things of which he spoke never grew old to him, but moved him to the last hour of his life as forcibly as in his earlier years.

This appeal to the Legislature, spoken in the morning, chanced to be read in the evening papers of the same day by Mr. John Anderson, a rich merchant of New York. It at once enlisted his sympathy both for the work and for the man. Within the week he offered to Agassiz, as a site for the school, the island of Penikese, in Buzzard's Bay, with the buildings upon it, consisting of a furnished dwelling-house and barn. Scarcely was this gift accepted than he added to it an endowment of $50,000 for the equipment of the school. Adjectives belittle deeds like these. The bare statement says more than the most laudatory epithets.

Agassiz was no less surprised than touched at the aid thus unexpectedly offered. In his letter of acknowledgment he says: ‘You do not know what it is suddenly and unexpectedly to find a friend at your side, full of sympathy, and offering support to a scheme which you have been trying to carry out under difficulties and with very scanty means. ’