CHAPTER II 



AT THE UNIVEKSITT 



IT was botany itself that thwarted aU these 

 designs. The examination had passed off 

 happily. Rooms were taken at Jena, at the 

 Easter of 1852, for the advanced study under 

 Schleiden. Then the indefatigable collector had 

 an adventure on a cold March day. He spent 

 hours in the wet meadows by the river Saale, 

 searching for a rare plant, the squill (Scilla 

 hifolia). He met with the fate of the angler in 

 the story, who fell into the water in his haste 

 to secure his big pike. He landed the fish, but 

 not himself. The plant was found, but Haeckel's 

 zeal was punished with a severe rheumatism. 

 He had to go home to his parents at Berlin to 

 be tended. At Berlin he begins his studies, and 

 the event to some extent decides his career. It 

 would now be many years before he would see 

 Jena again ; and through his efforts it would 

 become one of the leading schools, not of botany, 

 but of zoology — a school of philosophical zoology, 

 however, in the sense of Schleiden. 



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