580 WILLIAM DWIGHT WHITNEY. 



thei'e, though he paid due atteution to the required studies of the 

 course, he did not coufiue himself to them. He had an inborn taste for 

 the natural sciences, and spent no small share of his time in botanical 

 excursions among the fields and wooded hills encompassing the college 

 town. There too and then he began the work of making and mount- 

 ing the collection of the birds of New England, which he subsequently 

 presented to the Peabody Museum of Yale University. 



In 1845 he received his bachelor's degree. In spite of the time he 

 had given to studies outside of the regular curriculum, he had easily 

 maintained the position at the head of his class. At that period he 

 had little thought of what was to be the work of his life, and the bent 

 of his mind was certainly then rather towards the natural sciences than 

 languages. He at first contemplated pursuing the study of medicine, 

 but an accidental illness prevented him from carrying the scheme at 

 once into effect, and when laid aside it was discarded altogether. In 

 the uncertainty attending his future he remained in his native place, 

 and entei-ed as teller the bank of which his father was president. In 

 that position he continued for more than three years. Whitney was 

 by nature a man of method. It was that quality which enabled him 

 to accomplish with apparent ease so many things which lay outside of 

 the special pursuits to which he directed his main atteution. But 

 while under any circumstances he would have displayed this charac- 

 teristic, there can be no question that the business training which he 

 received during this most impressionable period of his life did much to 

 impart additional strength and efficiency to habits which had been im- 

 planted by nature. In no sense was the time thus employed wasted. 

 Nor were his business occupations so engrossing that he was prevented 

 from carrying on the pursuits in which he had already taken special 

 interest. He completed his collection of New England birds ; he 

 made botanical excursions in the neighborhood of his home ; he prose- 

 cuted vigorously the study of two or three modern languages. These 

 avocations furnished a by no means unsuitable preparation for the 

 work he was to accomplish in other fields. 



Up to this time, as has already been intimated, his interests lay 

 mainly in the direction of the natural sciences. But an event was 

 now about to occur which was destined to change the course of his 

 studies and to determine his whole future. In 1847, his elder brother, 

 Professor J. D. Whitney, had returned from Germany, where he had 

 been devoting himself to the science in which he has become distin- 

 guished. Yet while there he had not limited his attention to it, but 

 had given iq) a good deal of time to language. Among the books he 



