ce 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 travels during her
lifetime. In the winter of 1787-1788 he was sent to the University of
Frankfort on the Oder, to study finances. 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 patronage he could expect at court. He remained,
however, but a short time there.

Not finding these studies to his taste, after a semestre's residence in
the university we find him again at Berlin, and there in intimate
friendship with Wildenow, then professor of botany, and who at that time
possessed the greatest herbarium in existence. Botany was the first
branch of natural science to which Humboldt paid especial attention. The
next year he went to Goettingen--being then a youth of twenty years; and
here he studied natural history with Blumenbach, and thus had an
opportunity of seeing the progress zooelogy was making in anticipation of
the great movement by which Cuvier placed zooelogy on a new foundation.

For it is an unquestionable fact that in first presenting a
classification of the animal kingdom based upon a knowledge of its
structure, Blumenbach in a measure anticipated Cuvier; though it is
only by an exaggeration of what Blumenbach did that an unfair writer of
later times has attempted to deprive Cuvier of the glory of having
accomplished this object upon the broadest possible basis. From
Goettingen he visited the Rhine, for the purpose of studying geology, and
in particular the basaltic formations of the Seven Mountains. At Mayence
he became acquainted with George Forster, who proposed to accompany him
on a journey to England. You may imagine what impression the
conversation of that active, impetuous and powerful man had upon the
youthful Humboldt. They went to Belgium and Holland, and thence to
England, where Forster introduced him to Sir Joseph Banks. Thus the
companions of Captain Cook in his first and second voyages round the
world, who were already venerable in years and eminent promoters of
physical science not yet established in the popular favor, were the
early guides of Humboldt in his aspirations for scientific distinction.
Yet Humboldt had a worldly career to accomplish. He was to be a
statesman, and this required that he should go to the Academy of
Commerce at Hamburg. He remai