Life and Writings of Theodore de Sans sure. 5 



'Greek and Latin scholar, and that he continued, even to the 

 latter period of his life, the practice of reading the classics in 

 the two learned languages, which he did with equal facility 

 and pleasure. 



Notwithstanding his numerous and important occupations, 

 Horace Benedict de Saussure was himself the instructor of his 

 family. With the exception of a preceptor, whom he does 

 not appear to have kept long, and a few lessons his children 

 received from Professors Bertrand and Trembley, he took the 

 entire charge of their education. I know not whether he fol- 

 lowed the method of education he recommended in his works ; 

 but if we may be permitted to judge of an educational system 

 from so small a number of applications of it, assuredly the 

 literary and scientific success of Madame Necker and of Theo- 

 dore de Saussure ought to give us a high idea of that, what- 

 ever it may have been, which he adopted with his children. 



Theodore de Saussure spent the greater part of his early 

 youth in the country with his maternal grandmother, who 

 loved him tenderly. At a later period, constantly finding 

 himself, in consequence of the plan adopted for his education, 

 in presence of a man of eminence, but of a decided and stern 

 character, he acquired the habit of holding very little inter- 

 course with children of his own age, and of preferring solitude 

 and serious occupation to every thing else. It was in this 

 way he prepared himself for entering the Academy of Geneva, 

 where his father wished him to be admitted as a regular stu- 

 dent, and where he was not long in distinguishing himself. 

 Before this time his father had made him study under his own 

 eye physics, mineralogy, and natural history, and had inspired 

 him with a taste for experimental chemistry, the necessity of 

 which for mineral analysis he continually felt. He gra- 

 dually associated him with his own labours, and often made 

 him repeat at home, on certain days and hours previously 

 fixed upon, observations which he himself was making in 

 other places and in other positions. He had not yet accom- 

 panied his father in any of his numerous journeys, when, in the 

 month of August 1787, the latter determined to undertake the 

 ascent of Mont Blanc. Theodore de Saussure was then nine- 

 teen years of age. A more admirable opportunity could not 



