This brings me to the subject of my last letter. It seems that you have misunderstood me, for your answer grants me after all just what I ask. You think that I wish to renounce entirely the study of medicine? On the contrary, the idea has never occurred to me, and, according to my promise, you shall have one of these days a doctor of medicine as a son. What repels me is the thought of practicing medicine for a livelihood, and here you give me free rein just where I wanted it. That is, you consent that I should devote myself wholly to the natural sciences should this career offer me, as I hope it may, a more favorable prospect. It requires, for instance, but two or three years to go around the world at government expense. I will levy contributions on all my senses that not a single chance may escape me for making interesting observations and fine collections, so that I also may be ranked among those who have enlarged the boundaries of science. With that my future is secured, and I shall return content and disposed to do all that you wish. Even then, if medicine had gained greater attraction for me, there would still be time to begin the practice of it. It seems to me there is nothing impracticable in this plan. I beg you to think of it, and to talk it over with papa and with my uncle at Lausanne . . .I am perfectly well and as happy as possible, for I feed in clover here on my favorite studies, with every facility at my command. If you thought my New Year's letter depressed, it was only a momentary gloom due to the memories awakened by the day. . .
FROM HIS FATHER.
ORBE, February 21, 1828.
Your mother's last letter, my dear Louis, was in answer to one from you which crossed it on the way, and gave us, so far as your health and contentment are concerned, great satisfaction. Yet our gratification lacks something; it would be more complete had you not a mania for rushing full gallop into the future. I have often reproved you for this, and you would fare better did you pay more attention to my reproof. If it be an incurable malady with you, at all events do not force your parents to share it. If it be absolutely essential to your happiness that you should break the ice of the two poles in order to find the hairs of a mammoth, or that you should dry your shirt in the sun of the tropics, at least wait till your trunk is packed and your passports are signed before you talk with us about it. Begin by reaching your first aim, a physician's and surgeon's diploma. I will not for the present hear of anything else, and that is more than enough. Talk to us, then in your letters, of your friends, of your personal life, of your wants (which I am always ready to satisfy), of your pleasures, of your feeling for us, but do not put yourself out of our reach with your philosophical syllogisms. My own philosophy is to fulfill my duties in my sphere, and even that gives me more than I can do. . .
The Vaudois "Society of Public Utility" has just announced an altogether new project, that of establishing popular libraries. A committee consisting of eight members, of whom I have the honor to be one, is nominated under the presidency of M. Delessert for the execution of this scheme. What do you think of the idea? To me it seems a delicate matter. I should say that before we insist upon making people read we must begin by preparing them to read usefully?. . .
TO HIS FATHER.
MUNICH, March 3, 1828.
. . .What you tell me of the "Society of Public Utility" has aroused in me a throng of ideas, about which I will write you when they are a little more mature. Meanwhile, please tell me: 1. What is this Society? 2. Of what persons is it composed? 3. What is its principal aim? 4. What are the popular libraries to contain, and for what class are they intended? I believe this project may be of the greatest service to our people, and it is on this account that I desire farther details that I may think it over carefully. Tell me, also, in what way you propose to distribute your libraries at small expense, and how large they are to be. . .
I could not be more satisfied than I am with my stay here. I lead a monotonous but an exceedingly pleasant life, withdrawn from the crowd of students and seeing them but little. When our lectures are over we meet in the evening at Braun's room or mine, with three or four intimate acquaintances, and talk of scientific matters, each one in his turn presenting a subject which is first developed by 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 man sees the road before him, the less likely he is to lose his way or take the wrong turn,—the better he can divide his stages and his resting-places. . .