14 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. [1828, 



in the course of the winter, I picked up and read the 

 article "Botany" in Brewster's "Edinburgh Encyclo- 

 paedia," a poor thing, no doubt, but it interested me 

 much. I bought Eaton's " Manual of Botany," 1 pored 

 over its pages, and waited for spring. Before the 

 spring opened, the short college session being over, I 

 became a medical student, after the country fashion, 

 in the office of Dr. John F. Trowbridge of Bridge- 

 water, Oneida County, nine miles south of my pater- 

 nal home ; continued there for three years, except 

 during the college sessions, where I attended four 

 annual courses before taking my degree of M. D. at 

 the close of the session of 1829-30. 2 The fact will ap- 

 pear, which I did not reveal at the time, that I took this 

 degree six or seven months (I passed my examination, 

 indeed, eight or nine months) before I had attained 

 the legal age of twenty-one. But I looked older, and 

 was in fact such an old stager in the school that no 

 one thought of asking if I was of age. That degree 

 gives me my place high enough on the Harvard Uni- 

 versity list to entitle me to a free dinner at Com- 

 mencement. 



I have mentioned my interest in botany as begin- 

 ning in the winter and out of all reach either of a 

 greenhouse or of a potted plant. But in the spring, 

 I think that of 1828, 1 sallied forth one April day into 

 the bare woods, found an early specimen of a plant in 

 flower, peeping through dead leaves, brought it home, 

 and with Eaton's " Manual " without much difficulty 

 I ran it down to its name, Claytonia Virginica. 



1 Amos Eaton, 1776-1842. Graduated from Williams in 1799. 

 Teacher, lecturer, and author of Manual of the Botany of North Amer- 

 ica, as well as of many reports on geological surveys. 



2 College catalogue of Fairfield, 1830-31. 



