Esther ! (Frothingham) Perkins, the former, son of Captain Edmund Perkins, the first of the family to settle in Boston (in the latter
part of the seventeenth century). Colonel Perkins married the daughter of Simon Elliott, of Boston, and had two sons—Thomas H., Jr., and George C.—and five daughters.
Elizabeth Cabot Cary (now Mrs. Agassiz) was educated at home, pursuing her studies under the direction of a governess. She was one of a family of seven children. Her younger brother, Richard Cary, Captain of Company G, Second Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry, commissioned May 24, 1861, fell, mortally wounded, in the battle of Cedar Mountain, Va., August 9, 1862. Her elder sister, Mary Louisa, who married Cornelius C. Felton (President of Harvard University 1860-62), died in 1864, having survived her husband two years.
In the spring of 1850 Elizabeth C. Cary became the wife of Louis Agassiz, professor of zoology and geology in Harvard University, and went with him to his house in Oxford Street, Cambridge, to make a home for him and his son and the two daughters soon to come from Switzerland, and "to be," as said his biographer, Mr. Marcou, writing years after, "the guardian angel of Louis Agassiz and his whole family of children and grandchildren. Mrs. Agassiz not only directed with discretion the affairs of her household, but interested herself in natural history and particularly in zoological studies, and served as her husband's secretary and literary assistant, taking copious notes of his lectures and preparing manuscript for the printer.
Lifelong student, reverently intent to
"Head what was still unread
In the manuscripts of God."
unwearied teacher, rarely equalled in enthusiasm and fitness for his vocation. Professor Agassiz, as everybody knows, had "no time to spare to make money." His salary, however, fell far short of enabling him to meet both domestic and scientific expenses. Hence the establishment in 1855 (the idea originating with his wife) of the Agassiz School for young ladies, which had a prosperous existence of eight years, its pupils, attracted by the fame of the great naturalist, coming from near and from far. The elder Agassiz children, Alexander and Ida, were helpers from the first. Mrs. Agassiz, who did not teach, held the responsible position of director, and had the general management of the school.
In the summer of 1859 Professor and Mrs. Agassiz enjoyed a trip to Europe, passing happy weeks with his mother and sister at Montagny, Switzerland. In April, 1865, they went to South America on the scientific expedition whose history is recorded in the book entitled "A Journey in Brazil.
In December, 1871, they embarked on one of the vessels of the United States Coast Survey, the "Hassler," fitted out for deep-sea dredging, which sailed through the Strait of Magellan and then northward along the Pacific coast to San Francisco, entering the Golden Gate August 24, 1872. During this voyage a journal of scientific and personal experience was kept by Mrs. Agassiz under her husband's direction. A part of it was published in the Atlantic Monthly.
The eighth decade of the nineteenth century, which witnessed in July, 1873, the opening of the School of Natural History at Penikese, and in December following, the funeral of "the Master," was the decade in which a movement was made toward securing for women in Cambridge the real Harvard education or its equivalent. The initiative appears to have been or was taken by Mr. and Mrs. Arthur Oilman. A plan for instituting for women, outside the college, a duplicate course of the Harvard instruction was received with favor in December, 1878, by President Eliot and by some of the faculty who had been consulted. On February 22, 1879, was issued a circular headed "Private Collegiate Instruction for Women," setting forth the project. It was signed by Mrs. Louis Agassiz, Mi's. E. W. Gurney, Mrs. J. P. Cooke, Mrs. J. B. Greenough, Mrs. Arthur Oilman, Miss Alice M. Longfellow, Mrs. Lillian Horsford, and Arthur Oilman, secretary. Examinations for admission to the classes were held in September, and work in the lecture room began at once. Twenty-five students completed the first year's course. On October 16, 1882, it having become necessary to raise a fund to
