LIFE OF ELIE METCHNIKOFF 63 



country, near Moscow. Their young friend Mile. 

 Fedorovitch, whom he had already met in Petersburg, 

 was staying with them, and she and Elie became very 

 good friends. His affection for the B. children led 

 him to ponder over general educational questions. 

 He was struck for the first time by the lack of harmony 

 in human nature, which was due, he thought, to the 

 considerable difference between the organism of the 

 child and that of the adult, a difference which does 

 not exist in animals to the same degree.^ As soon 

 as he returned to Petersburg he tried to study this 

 subject, and made comparisons between the brain of a 

 man and that of a dog at various ages, but without 

 result. 



He was not long in realising that the conditions 

 of work in his new post were extremely unsatisfactory. 

 He had no proper laboratory and had to work between 

 two specimen cases in a non-heated zoological museum ; 

 there was no room for practical work. All his enthusi- 

 asm, all his aspirations towards scientific activity and 

 rational teaching struck against indifference, lack of 

 organisation, and lack of means. He protested with 

 his usual vehemence, but could obtain nothing ; being 

 equally unable to adapt himself to his uncongenial 

 surroundings, he found himself getting more and more 

 discontented and unnerved. Moreover, his every- 

 day life was most uncomfortable, for he wished to do 

 without servants, on principle and in order to econo- 

 mise, and to do his household work himself ; but he 

 soon tired of taking the necessary care of his rooms, 

 which became a regular chaos. He left off preparing 

 his own meals and went out for them to an inferior 



^ He ultimately developed these considerations in a paper entitled 

 Education from an Anthropological Point of View, of which mention will 

 be made hereafter. 



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