A testimonial from my father attesting my capacity for the curriculum
procured me matriculation without difficulty. My matriculation
certificate called me a student of philosophy, which seemed very
strange, because I had set before me as the object of my studies
practical knowledge; and as to philosophy, of which I had so often
heard, I had formed a very high idea of it. The word made a great
impression upon my dreamy, easily-excited, and receptive nature.
Although the impression disappeared almost as soon as conceived, it
gave, however, higher and unexpected relations to my studies.

The lectures I heard were only those which promised to be useful in the
career I had now again embraced. I heard lectures on applied
mathematics, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, mineralogy, botany, natural
history, physics, chemistry, accounts, cultivation of forest trees and
management of forests, architecture, house-building, and land-surveying.
I continued topographical drawing. I heard nothing purely theoretical
except mathematics; and of philosophical teaching and thought I learnt
only so much as the intercourse of university life brought with it; but
it was precisely through this intercourse that I received in various
ways a many-sided intellectual impulse. I usually grasped what had been
taught; the more thoroughly since, through my previous life, I had
become well acquainted with the principal subjects, and already knew
their relation to practical work.

Some of the lectures were almost easy for me--for instance, those on
mathematics. I have always been able to perceive with ease and pleasure
relations of geometrical figures and of planes; so that it seemed
inexplicable to me that every farmer should not be equally capable of
understanding them. This I had said before to my brother, who tried to
give me an explanation; but I did not yet grasp it. I had expected I
don't know exactly what, but certainly something higher, something
grandiose; very likely I had expected something with more life in it.
The mathematical course, therefore, at first seemed to me unimportant;
but later on I found that I, also, could not follow every detail.
However, I did not think much of this, because I readily understood the
general meaning, and I said to myself that particular cases would not
cause me any mental fatigue if I found it necessary to learn them.

The lectures of my excellent teacher were not so useful to me as they
might have been, if I c