ssification of the _Vermae_ or worms was his first achievement.
The ability and knowledge shown in this work procured him the friendship of
the greatest naturalists of France. He was invited to Paris, took a chair
at the Ecole Centrale, and was received by the Institute as a member of the
first class. His lectures on natural history, distinguished not less for
the elegance of their style than for profound knowledge and daring
speculation, were attended by some of the most accomplished persons of
Paris. In January, 1800, Cuvier was appointed to the College de France.
Under Napoleon, who fully recognized his merits, Cuvier held important
offices in the department of public instruction. Under the Restoration he
was made one of the forty members of the French Academy. In 1831, a year
prior to his death, he was appointed a Peer of France. Among the numerous
works by which Cuvier greatly expanded the study of natural history may be
mentioned as foremost "Researches into Fossil Bones," "Discourse of the
Revolutions on the Surface of the Globe," "A Course of Comparative
Anatomy," "Natural History of Fishes," and his great work, "The Animal
Kingdom," with its subdivisions into the four great classes--vertebrates,
mollusks, articulates and radiates.

[Sidenote: Death of Goethe]

On March 22, Wolfgang von Goethe, Germany's foremost man of letters,
expired at Weimar. Johann Wolfgang von Goethe was born in 1749, at
Frankfort-on-the-Main, the son of a councillor under the old German empire.
His best traits were inherited from his mother. As he himself sang in later
years:

Vom Vater hab ich die Statur,
Des Lebens ernstes Fuhren,
Vom Mutterchen die Frohnatur
Und Lust zum Fabuliren.[A]

[Footnote A:
From my father I have my stature
And serious view of life;
From dear little mother my glad heart
And fondness for telling stories.]

[Sidenote: Goethe's career]

[Sidenote: "Goetz von Berlichingen"]

[Sidenote: "The Sorrows of Werther"]

[Sidenote: Goethe at Weimar]

[Sidenote: "Hermann und Dorothea"]

His father had him educated for the study of law. In his sixteenth year he
was sent to the University at Leipzig. Later he went to Strasburg, where he
became acquainted with the poet Herder, and had his first love affair with
Friederike Brion of Sesenheim, whose charm has been kept alive in Goethe's
autobiography, "Dichtung und Wahrheit." In 1772 he returned to Frankfort
and practiced law. While thus engaged he