14 AUTOBIOGRAPHY. [1828, 
in the course of the winter, I picked up and read the 
article “ Botany” in Brewster’s ‘‘ Edinburgh Eneyelo- 
predia,” a poor thing, no doubt, but it interested me 
much. I bought Eaion’s ‘Manual of Botany,” ! pored 
over its pages, and waited for spring. Before the 
spring opened, the short college session being over, I 
became a medical student, after the country fashion, 
in the office of Dr. John F. Trowbridge of Bridge- 
water, Oneida County, nine miles south of my pater- 
nal home; continued there for three years, except 
during the college sessions, where I attended four 
annual courses before taking my degree of M. D. at 
the close of the session of 1829-30.2 The fact will ap- 
pear, which [ did not reveal at the time, that I took this 
degree six or seven months (1 passed my examination, 
indeed, eight or nine months) before 1 had attained 
the legal age of twenty-one. But I looked older, and 
was in fact such an old stager in the school that no 
one thought of asking if I was of age. That degree 
gives me my place high enough on the Harvard Uni- 
versity list to entitle me to a free dinner at Com- 
mencement. 
I have mentioned my interest in botany as begin- 
ning in the winter and out of all reach either a a 
greenhouse or of a potted plant. But in the spring, 
I think that of 1828, I sallied forth one April day into 
the bare woods, found an early specimen of a plant in 
flower, peeping through dead leaves, brought it home, 
and with Eaton’s “ Manual” without much difficulty 
I ran it down to its name, Claytonia Virginica. 
1 Amos Eaton, 1776-1842. Graduated from Williams in 1799, 
Teacher, lecturer, and author of Manual of the Botany of North Amer- 
ica, as well as of many reports on geological surveys 
2 College catalogue of Fairfield, 1830-31. 
