VIII 



THE WORLD AND THE UNIVERSITY 



Leaving Home — Creating a Sensation in Pardee ville — A 

 Ride on a Locomotive — At the State Fair in Madison — 

 Employment in a Machine-Shop at Prairie du Chien — 

 Back to Madison — Entering the University — Teaching 

 School — First Lesson in Botany — More Inventions — 

 The University of the Wilderness. 



WHEN I told father that I was about 

 to leave home, and inquired whe- 

 ther, if I should happen to be in 

 need of money, he would send me a little, he 

 said, "No; depend entirely on yourself." Good 

 advice, I suppose, but surely needlessly severe 

 for a bashful, home-loving boy who had worked 

 so hard. I had the gold sovereign that my 

 grandfather had given me when I left Scotland, 

 and a few dollars, perhaps ten, that I had made 

 by raising a few bushels of grain on a little 

 patch of sandy abandoned ground. So when I 

 left home to try the world I had only about 

 fifteen dollars in my pocket. 

 [ 26a ] 



