The Technologists (9 page)

“I changed my mind,” he said, handing off the cup. “I no longer wish any tea.” As the waiter took the cup away, Blaikie glanced wearily around and said, “Ten. Is that all?”

“Many of the fellows are studying for examinations, Will,” answered one of the other collegians present.

“Ten men? Are there so many wretched digs in this school that we cannot manage more at a meeting of the Christian Brethren?”

“Others are frightened about what happened in the city yesterday. Perhaps we should start the meeting for those who are here,” suggested a soft-spoken junior.

Blaikie ignored this. “Ten men. No wonder a weakling from Tech could think he’d get the better of a Harvard man.”

“What do you mean?”

“A Christian university like Harvard should be able to muster better class feeling than this, that’s what. We are declining, I say, in moral and intellectual strength. Some of our own professors teach disgusting and degrading literature, putting alien languages on the tongues of decent young men. The honor of our school is in danger. That is why an ugly duckling like the Institute of Technology—the ugliest duckling ever seen—would have temerity enough to even put up a building in Boston and dare call it a college, when it is nothing more than a resort of weaklings, which should be duly subordinated.”

“Blaikie, pardon me,” said the junior, “but do you not think we should begin the meeting with our scheduled business?”

“Am I made of glass? Is my skin like water?” Blaikie asked dramatically. “I know you hope to be president of the society when I am graduated, but at the moment that title is mine. You do see me sitting here? Then you would not mind postponing your electioneering until after June. Too many cooks, you know. Pardon me if I happen to personally believe, with all my soul, that our commonwealth’s colleges should turn out men—not machines.”

“Pardon me once again, Blaikie,” the junior replied, just as mildly. “I simply do not think it very Christian to speak poorly of another institution, however odd it might be, out of some personal spite.”

Blaikie rose as if to strike him across the face. When the junior stared back at him, the society president took a long breath and said, “So let us begin, shall we, gentlemen? I would like to add to our agenda a motion that college studies do not afford an excuse for nonattendance of a meeting of the Christian Brethren. We shall also discuss a request from Professor Agassiz of the scientific department to assist in refuting, using Christian principles, the increasing support of Darwin’s theories among certain so-called intellectuals in Boston. Finally, if time permits this morning, we will consider two other proposals—”

Blaikie stopped in midsentence, his gaze fixed past his flock and out the window. The Brethren rose to discover for themselves what had arrested their leader’s attention. Down below in the college yard, the shiny buttons and blue uniform of a Boston policeman caught the sunlight. The representative of the law was marching through the middle of campus, followed by a stout man who had the self-important air of a typical politician and, in fact, was a politician, and another man whose bulky frame required him to slow his steps every few moments to draw a handkerchief across his brow, despite the chill in the air. The more knowledgeable among those watching from all four stories of Stoughton Hall, and from behind the handsome edifice of the library housing nearly one hundred thousand volumes, and from within the university’s busy administrative offices, recognized the stout man as Representative Cyrus Hale of the Massachusetts state legislature. Some of the students who had had the misfortune of being dragged into the police station
after a night of drinking in Boston’s less gentle neighborhoods ruefully recognized Sergeant Carlton, the blue-garbed officer, as well as his superior, Chief of Police John Kurtz.

Dozens of curious watchers wished they could be invisible among the small party on their expedition and know what exciting business had brought them onto the university grounds.

Leaving behind the curious gazes, the three visitors followed a less traveled path to the street opposite Divinity Hall and into the Museum of Comparative Zoölogy building, where they inquired after its director and were pointed to the floor below. On every shelf of the cellar, huge glass jars displayed exotic fish, mollusks, and sea urchins afloat in yellow alcohol. The air smelled of some ancient sea.

“Professor?” called the politician, his inquiry echoing ahead through the chamber. “Professor Agassiz? It is Cyrus Hale here.”

There was the sound of a crash. Among the barrels and jars, the powerful figure of Harvard’s chief scientist came into view, puffing a cigar. He was shaking his head, sweeping his long chestnut-gray locks behind his coat collar. His neck and feet seemed too small to support his grand head and chest. He was scolding a young man who was collecting glass from the floor.

“But it slipped from my hands, Professor,” the student insisted.

“Mr. Danner, you are completely uneducated! Some people perhaps now consider you a bright young man. But when you are fifty years old, if they ever speak of you at all, what they say will be: ‘That Danner, oh, yes, I know him. He used to be a very bright young man!’ ” Agassiz turned and nodded at the Speaker of the House without any formal greeting and without acknowledging the two men from the Boston Police.

“Hush, hold this!” he said in his thick Germanic accent, handing Hale a dead grasshopper. “Danner knocked over the poor fellow’s jar. In natural history, it is not enough for a student to know how to study specimens. You must know how to
handle
them. I cannot impart this. That is my dilemma. I must teach and yet give no information. I must, in short, to all intents and purposes, be as ignorant as that boy over there picking up glass shards. Hale, did you hear what happened?” he asked, his voice rising with excitement. “There was an arson fire at the stables of the racetrack last week. A dozen horses dead—at least, they say. What a pity.”

“It is a terrible loss of property,” Hale said, nodding.

“Horrible!” Agassiz exclaimed with emotion. “Poor noble animals! However,” he said brightly, “for years I have wished to compare the skeletons of Thoroughbred horses to those of the usual kind. I have sent one of my assistants there.”

“Why, he shall be tarred and feathered for asking such a thing only days after a fire,” Hale said.

Agassiz threw up his large, expressive hands. “Science is not always a safe pursuit, Cyrus! I venture to bet my student shall not return without a skeleton, even if pursued the whole way by a mob of angry jockeys. Are these gentlemen here to talk with me?”

Hale nodded.

“Fine, fine. I shall take you upstairs, and I will try to make a guess of the subject along the way.”

Climbing the stairs, as Agassiz sang the second half of an old French song, they passed through several rooms of young men bent over magnifying glasses as they sorted through plant specimens. Reaching his lecture room, Agassiz proudly showed them cases filled with specimens of insects and fossils. The police chief winced as he studied a hideous dead insect with fiery red eyes.

“Did you know there are more than ten thousand fly species living among us?” Agassiz advised, upon seeing the officer’s interest. Finally he sat down after his guests had chosen their chairs. “My guess is you wish to speak of my proposal to fund an addition to the museum.”

“This is something else, I’m afraid, my dear Agassiz,” Hale said. “You have heard the tidings about the terrible incidents of late around Boston.”

The light in Agassiz’s bright eyes dimmed, his interest evaporating. “Of course—I suppose nobody has been immune from hearing of it.”

“The scientific knowledge needed to comprehend what has transpired is vast, and beyond the police. Yesterday afternoon, after the event that came to pass in the business district, we voted to pass an emergency measure in the legislature to engage a consultant for the police department. Nobody, even the municipal experts, has been able to properly investigate what happened. We wish the consultant to be you. Will you do it, Professor?”

“Me? Are you not aware how occupied I am currently with the museum, Hale?”

Chief Kurtz broke in. “Sergeant Carlton has been leaving notes for you, Professor, over the last week, which he says you have not answered. These are matters of life and death, happening practically outside your window!”

“Do you not think what we do here is important,
is
life and death, even if it is not written about in the newspapers?” Agassiz demanded, his round face turning a dull crimson. “How sad for a naturalist to grow old. I see so much to be done that I can never complete. Look, look, look—in that glass case behind you. Yes. See what you can make of it. Those are Jurassic cephalopods. Soon we will outrun even the best museums of Europe.”

“Professor, I speak of life right here in Boston yesterday, today, and tomorrow,” Hale said firmly. “You have seen these? God save the commonwealth!”

He slid a pile of newspaper cuttings across the table.

“Scientific curiosity a curse?” Agassiz laughed derisively at the newspaper heading.

Hale continued, “Chief Kurtz has assigned Sergeant Carlton to assist you with your inquiries.”

“At your service,” said Carlton.

Agassiz, not trying to hide his anger, exploded from his chair and circled the lecture room.

“Professor,” Hale said with a mollifying smile, “I understand you are enough occupied already following your fossil footprints and such. We all were occupied in other matters. Why, I must contend with another attempt from the blasted trade unions to pass a ten-hours bill. But we have entered the midst of a true crisis, the scale of which I cannot recall.”

“Me! Why come to me?”

“Is there a single man in Boston with the same mastery of all branches and departments of science?” Hale asked.

Agassiz paused very briefly before continuing to pace, showing no sign of disagreeing with the sentiment. The stalemate went on.

“The alcohol you use to preserve your specimens. We passed that measure so that your museum would not have to pay the usual duties on alcohol. Remember that?” Hale’s tone was less friendly now. “We handed you a check of ten thousand dollars even when our budget was severely strained during the war. Your latest proposals for expansion are expensive ones—seventy-five thousand dollars, at least.”

“So that is true. I am afraid I must rely on the generosity of the state and my benefactors, Hale. I haven’t had the time in my life to stop and make money! This museum shall be the pride of Boston and of the country when it is finished. The revelations that are dawning upon mankind from the study of nature cannot fail to bring His intelligent children nearer to their Creator. Someone must counter such places as the Institute of Technology, with its unbridled quest to expand the profits of industry using science!”

“You speak of money, Professor Agassiz,” said Chief Kurtz, suddenly impassioned. “Boston is no longer the town it once was. It is a true city. Investors and foreign interests already are being driven away from State Street because the banks and the brokers cannot explain to them what
happened yesterday. Between that and the merchants that already left the harbor, the whole city may spiral into a state of debt, leaving none of us unaffected.”