May 13, 1898.] 



SCIENCE. 



665 



school, successfully passed his matricula- 

 tions at Prague in the autumn of 1851 with 

 a view to entering that university. 



The young student was already too inde- 

 pendent and critical to be an ardent fre- 

 quenter of the lecture room, where it would 

 have required a man of exceptional ability 

 to have secured his attendance, and it was 

 evident that there were at that time but 

 very few such men at the University of 

 Prague. Botany was represented by 

 Kosteletzky, who was lecturing upon 

 Schleiden's works. Sachs attended two or 

 three lectures and then stayed away; the 

 truth was that he needed no teaching on 

 this subject. He paid special attention to 

 chemistry, physics and mathematics. But 

 the only man who attracted and helped 

 him on was Robert Zimmermann,* who in- 

 vited him to his house. " I went to him 

 with an inclination towards philosophy, but 

 he directed me into the right way," Sachs 

 says, speaking of Zimmermann ; "he and 

 my earlier teacher, Eumpelt, are the only 

 two who gave me any real help ; apart from 

 their aid I am self-taught." He read a good 

 deal of philosophy after he had become 

 acquainted with Zimmermann — Herbart, 

 Leibnitz, Kant, Locke, Hume and even the 

 Schoolmen. At the same time he was pri- 

 vately working at zoology and botany, and 

 for several years paid special attention to 

 physics and mathematics. In 1856 he was 

 made Doctor of Philosophy, a degree which 

 at that time was hard to obtain at Prague. 

 His outward circumstances, since he had 

 separated from Purkiuje, remained pre- 

 carious ; he earned small sums by literary 

 work, drawings of fossils, etc., and at this 

 time made his first experiments in the 

 physiology of plants. In 1857 he was made 

 privat-docent in plant physiology. Up to 



* Robert A. Zimmermann, born at Prague, in 1824, 

 studied philosophy, mathematics and natural science, 

 became professor of philosophy at Prague in 1852, 

 and since 1861 has held the same chair at Vienna. 



that time this had not been a recognized 

 subject and there were various difificulties 

 to overcome. " Two lectures are ample for 

 all there is to say upon the physiology of 

 plants," said Rochleder, the chemist, and at 

 that time he was not so very far wrong. 



Sachs, who later was certainly the best 

 teacher that the new botany has produced, 

 was by no means a success as privat-do- 

 cent. One reason for this may be that he 

 took but slight interest in the art of teaching. 

 He lived wholly for science and was beyond 

 measure studious; "it engrossed my thoughts 

 even when I was out walking," he says. 

 This being so, it came to him, according to 

 his own account, more or less as a revela- 

 tion that what he had to do was not only to 

 acquire as much knowledge as possible, but 

 also to produce some original work. From 

 that time he only sought to work out his 

 own ideas, to attain his own aims. He be- 

 came acquainted with several of the chief 

 exponents of botany of the day, such as 

 Unger, Niigeli and Alexander Braun, all of 

 whom he met at the ISTatural Science Con- 

 gress in 1856 at Vienna ; and also about 

 1857 with Hofmeister who, in the inter- 

 course that lasted between them for many 

 years, influenced Sachs strongly, though, 

 as the latter considered, at times in such a 

 way as to perplex him. 



In the meanwhile he was finding- his life 

 in Prague almost unbearable. The patriotic 

 Czechs of the National party opposed him 

 as a German, and openly told him that 

 they wanted to drive him away. Whilst 

 this was going on, the attention of Profes- 

 sor Stein, the well-known zoologist, had 

 been directed to Sachs. Stein had formerly 

 devoted some of his time and energy to the 

 Academy of Forestry at Tharandt and in- 

 troduced Sachs to the chemist Stockhardt, 

 the director of this institution. Sachs was 

 invited to draw up a statement as to the 

 relation of plant-physiology to agriculture, 

 with the result, that he was called to Tha- 



