120 ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



dren of the miners grow up in ignorance. He 

 therefore opened free schools for them, and paid 

 the teachers from his own purse. Not many young 

 men at twenty-four would have thought of so 

 admirable a plan. 



Meantime he was experiencing the first keen joy 

 of fame. The Elector of Saxony had sent the 

 author of "Flora Fribergensis " a gold medal. 

 The Swedish botanist Vahl had named a magnifi- 

 cent species of an East Indian laurel after him, 

 the laurifolia Humboldtia. It had paid to be a 

 student ; to be led by the " eager impulse " within 

 him. 



The next year he wrote to Freiesleben : 



"You are aware that I am quite mad enough to 

 be engaged upon three books at once. ... I have 

 discovered several new lichens. I have also been 

 occupied upon the history of the weaving of the 

 ancients. . . . My head is quite distracted with all 

 I have to attend to mining, banking, manufac- 

 turing, and organizing; . . . the mines, however, 

 are prospering. ... I am promoted to be counsel- 

 lor of mines at Berlin, with a salary, probably, of 

 fifteen hundred thalers (here I have four hundred), 

 and, after remaining there a few months, I shall 

 most likely be appointed director of mines, either 

 in Westphalia or Kothenburg, and receive from 

 two thousand to three thousand thalers. I tell 

 you everything, and open my heart to you." 



In 1795, having resigned his position in the ser- 

 vice of the state, because of his desire for travel 



