AUTOBIOGRAPHICAL SKETCH. 145 



objects. My highest ambition, at that time, 

 was to be able to designate the plants and 

 animals of my native country correctly by a 

 Latin name, and to extend gradually a similar 

 knowledge in its application to the productions 

 of other countries. This seemed to me, in 

 those days, the legitimate aim and proper work 

 of a naturalist. I still possess manuscript 

 volumes in which I entered the names of all 

 the animals and plants with which I became 

 acquainted, and I well remember that I then 

 ardently hoped to acquire the same superficial 

 familiarity with the whole creation. I did not 

 then know how much more important it is 

 to the naturalist to understand the structure 

 of a few animals, than to command the whole 

 field of scientific nomenclature. Since I have 

 become a teacher, and have watched the prog- 

 ress of students, I have seen that they all 

 begin in the same way ; but how many have 

 grown old in the pursuit, without ever rising 

 to any higher conception of the study of na- 

 ture, spending their life in the determination 

 of species, and in extending scientific termi- 

 nology ! Long before I went to the univer- 

 sity, and before I began to study natural 

 history under the guidance of men who were 

 masters in the science during the early part of 

 10 



