him, and then discussed by all. These exercises are very
instructive. As my share, I have begun to give a course of natural
history, or rather of pure zoology. Braun talks to us of botany,
and another of our company, Mahir, who is an excellent fellow,
teaches us mathematics and physics in his turn. In two months our
friend Schimper, whom we left at Heidelberg, will join us, and he
will then be our professor of philosophy. Thus we shall form a
little university, instructing each other and at the same time
learning what we teach more thoroughly, because we shall be obliged
to demonstrate it. Each session lasts two or three hours, during
which the professor in charge retails his merchandise without aid
of notes or book. You can imagine how useful this must be in
preparing us to speak in public and with coherence; the experience
is the more important, since we all desire nothing so much as
sooner or later to become professors in very truth, after having
played at professor in the university.

This brings me naturally to my projects again. Your letter made me
feel so keenly the anxiety I had caused you by my passion for
travel, that I will not recur to it; but as my object was to make
in that way a name that would win for me a professorship, I venture
upon another proposition. If during the course of my studies I
succeed in making myself known by a work of distinction, will you
not then consent that I shall study, at least during one year, the
natural sciences alone, and then accept a professorship of natural
history, with the understanding that in the first place, and in the
time agreed upon, I shall take my Doctor's degree? This is, indeed,
essential to my obtaining what I wish, at least in Germany. You
will object that, before thinking of anything beyond, I ought first
to fulfill the condition. But let me say that the more clearly a