STUDENT YEARS 
49 
and asked him if he would undertake the duties. 
Though astonished at the request to a student of 
little more than two years standing, to lecture publicly 
before so great a university, he yet assented with 
respect, provided the Professor ventured to entrust 
him with the task. Professor Roberg stoutly opposed 
this, that a youth should be let loose on such a confi¬ 
dential commission, but it happened that no one else 
was available. It can easily be imagined that among 
the students it would awaken great attention, and 
therefore when on the 4th May Linnaeus began his 
demonstrations, and during the whole of the following 
period from Easter till Midsummer the garden was 
filled with auditors : he wrote to Stobaeus that he had 
almost always from two hundred to four hundred 
hearers, whilst the professors seldom had more than 
eighty, and he hoped that he would always acquit 
himself with credit. 
What was the character of these first lectures of the 
young fellow? That they completely met the then 
wants and wishes of the students is evident, but how 
did he comport himself when compared with the 
standard of later times? It cannot be denied that 
according to our ideas, they must be regarded as 
tolerably lean and scantily scientific; they were 
restricted practically to the giving of the names of the 
plants in question and their so-called virtues, especially 
in medicine, some etymological remarks with a few 
anecdotes from classic authors. But the lectures 
given by the learned Rudbeck were just of the same 
sort, and Linnaeus at the end of his first term, justified 
expectations. Moreover, it is very likely that youth¬ 
ful enthusiasm gave a fresh and brisk grace, which was 
appreciated by his audience. 
The uncontested progress as teacher which he 
thus gained prepared him soon for another advantage 
for on the 13th June, Jubilee Day, he removed from 
Dr. Celsius’s house to that of Professor Rudbeck, who 
was so kind as to permit him to act as tutor to his three 
D 
