ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT 347 



material gathered and arranged in Volumes I. and II. will always be 

 worthy of consideration and the methods employed in securing it will 

 never fail to be suggestive and useful. That his opinions would require 

 modification, and that some of them might be rejected altogether, is 

 what Humboldt himself anticipated. He calls attention repeatedly to 

 the fact that he and his fellow students were on the threshold of dis- 

 coveries which might change the entire scientific outlook and furnish 

 even the next generation with an immense advantage over his own. 



Friedrich Heinrich Alexander von Humboldt was born at Tegel, 

 near Berlin, on September 14, 1769. He died in Potsdam, where his 

 house is still shown to visitors from every civilized country, on May 6, 

 1859. His elder brother, William, was distinguished as a statesman, 

 diplomatist and linguist. As the founder, while minister of public 

 instruction of the University of Berlin, he made a great contribution to 

 the intellectual development of the German people. The father was a 

 major in the Prussian army and had been chamberlain at the court of 

 the king. The mother, Marie Elizabeth von Colamb, the widow of 

 Baron von HoUande, was a woman of rare gifts. She devoted herself 

 almost entirely to the training of her two sons, her only children, 

 William and Alexander. As the father died when Alexander was but 

 ten years old, the responsibility of their education fell upon her. 

 Fortunately the family was wealthy, so that private teachers could be 

 provided for the boys at Tegel, among them men like J. H. Camp, 

 famous for his ability to impart knowledge; Christian Kunth, eminent 

 in the educational world, and T. T. Engel. From Tegel the boys were 

 sent to Berlin and put under the care of specialists, whence they were 

 removed to the University of Frankfort on the Oder, thence to Got- 

 tingen, where Alexander studied philology and archeology under Heyne, 

 and gave special attention to the philosophy of Kant. His natural love 

 for science was deepened and strengthened by his association with 

 Professor Blumenbach, one of the great men of the university. Destined 

 for business, young Humboldt went from Gottingen to Hamburg and 

 entered the commercial school of Bursch, where he studied modern 

 languages with much zest and listened to lectures on banking and trade. 

 But he soon found that his love for science was greater than his love for 

 money-making, and for this reason, without wholly giving up the 

 thought of a business career, he left Hamburg for the mining school at 

 Freiburg, where he enjoyed the instruction of Werner, the geologist, of 

 the equally famous Leopold de Buch and of Andre del Eio. In a single 

 year he made such progress that in 1792 he was appointed director 

 general of the mines in the district of Franconia and Aspach, with head- 

 quarters at Bayreuth. In this position he remained five years, but while 

 faithfully discharging the duties of his official life he found time for 

 brief visits to the Tyrol, Switzerland and Lombardy for the study of 

 botany and geology. With George Foster, a friend of his student years. 



