HO ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT. 



Alexander early showed great fondness for nat- 

 ural history, collecting flowers, plants, butterflies, 

 shells, and stones, so that he was called the " Little 

 Apothecary. 77 He likewise found great delight in 

 drawing. He says of himself : " Until I reached 

 the age of sixteen, I showed little inclination for 

 scientific pursuits. I was of a restless disposition, 

 and wished to be a soldier. This choice was dis- 

 pleasing to my family, who were desirous that I 

 should devote myself to the study of finance, so 

 that I had no opportunity of attending a course of 

 botany or chemistry ; I am self-taught in almost 

 all the sciences with which I am now so occupied, 

 and I acquired them comparatively late in life. Of 

 the science of botany I never so much as heard till 

 I formed the acquaintance in 1788 of Herr Willde- 

 now, a youth of my own age, who had just been 

 publishing a Flora of Berlin. His gentle and 

 amiable character stimulated the interest I felt in 

 his pursuits. I never received any lessons pro- 

 fessedly, but I used to bring him the specimens 

 I collected, and he gave me their classifications. I 

 became passionately devoted to botany, and took 

 especial interest in the study of cryptogamia. The 

 sight of exotic plants, even when only as dried 

 specimens in an herbarium, fifed my imagination 

 with the pleasure that would be derived from the 

 view of a tropical vegetation in southern lands. 7 ' 



At sixteen, then, the boy did not know for what 

 he was best fitted in life. How important for 

 young men and women to study themselves, and 



