120 Early Work in North America 



be necessary to secure my second degree, and then go to Germany. I 

 have not given up my first love, but propose to continue my botanical 

 studies. Will there be any opportunity to do any remunerative work in 

 the botanical laboratory, or in the herbarium.^ 



Once before he had taken and passed entrance examinations. 

 On June 2 he told Dr. Vaughan, 



I prepared for the University and passed most of my entrance examina- 

 tions six years ago this month, securing advanced standing in some 

 branches. Circumstances over which I had no control compelled me to 

 give up my plans, for the time, and seek business which should at once 

 bring me money. I did not however give up my scheme, but have con- 

 tinued my literary and scientific studies. 



He entered the university with advanced standing in English, Eng- 

 lish and American literature, the German and French languages 

 and their literature, the science and art of teaching, and the 

 natural sciences of zoology, entomology, botany, and probably 

 chemistry and physics. He had had the " prescribed elementary 

 course in physics," and his work with the federal weather bureau 

 and his years with the state board of health evidently gave him 

 advanced standing also in meteorology and sanitary science. His 

 years in school work were his qualifications in the science and 

 art of teaching. 



During his first semester, he was permitted to substitute Latin 

 for the requirement of additional mathematics, and during the 

 year he had a semester's work in histology under Instructor 

 Howard Ayers. On November 5, 1885, he wrote Jay P. Lee, one 

 of his roommates while at Lansing and now a lawyer: 



Trig[onometry} comes twice a week in the mornings. Advanced Physics 

 comes every day in form of lectures with written examinations once a 

 week. All the rest of the morning I spend in the Botanical Laboratory. I 

 have taken an interesting group of parasitic fungi and am learning all I 

 can about its members by microscopic examinations of fresh and alcoholic 

 material. The literature of the subject is mostly in French and German 

 and once or twice a week Spalding and I meet and read together. He is 

 the better German. I have the advantage in French. This work is very 

 agreeable and as I am the only one taking the course, I have things all my 

 own way, — something we all like, you know. What additional time I get 

 is given to that everlasting paper on " Sewerage and Death rate in Cities," 

 which drags on interminably. . . . The members of the Faculty so far as 

 I have met them, are very pleasant, and the same may be said of the 

 people who frequent the Unitarian Church. The church is so pleasant and 



