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Prof. Agassiz’s Eulogy on Humboldt. 97 
tember,—in that memorable year which gave to the world those 
philosophers, warriors and statesmen who have changed the face 
of science and the condition of affairs in our century. It was in 
that year that Cuvier also and Schiller were born; and among 
the warriors and statesmen, Napoleon, the Duke of Wellington 
and Canning are children of 1769, and it is certainly a year of 
which we can say that its children revolutionized the world. 
Of the early life of Humboldt I know nothing, and I find no 
records except that in his tenth year he lost his father, who had 
been a Major in the army during the seven years’ war, and after- 
wards a chamberlain to the King of Prussia. But his mother 
took excellent care of him, and watched over his early educa- 
tion. The influence she had upon his life is evident from the 
fact that notwithstanding his yearning for the sight of foreign 
lands he did not begin to make active preparations for his trav- 
els during her life time. In the winter o ’88 he was sent 
to the University of Frankfort on the Oder, to study finance. 
He was to be a statesman; he was to enter high offices, for which 
there was a fair chance, owing to his noble birth and the patron- 
age he could expect at the Court. He remained, however, but 
a short time there. 
Not finding those studies to his taste, after a semestre’s resi- 
_ dence in the University we find him again at Berlin, and there 
in intimate friendship with Willdenow, then Professor of Botany, 
and who at that time the erbarium in exist- 
zoology 
on a new foundation. For it is an unquestionable fact that in 
first presenting a classification of the animal kingdom based u 
a knowledge of its structure, Blumenbach in a measure antici- 
ated Cuvier; though it is only by an exaggeration of what Blu- 
menbach did that an unfair writer of later times has attempted 
SECOND SERIES, Vor. XXVIII, No. 82.—JULY, 1859. 
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