as a
means of education and improvement. For there were in Jena just then two
scientific associations, one for natural history and botany, the other
for mineralogy, as it was then called. Many of the young students, who
had shown living interest and done active work in natural science, were
invited to become members by the President, and this elevating pleasure
was also offered to me. At the moment I certainly possessed few
qualifications for membership; the most I could say was that my faculty
for arranging and classifying might be made of some use in the Natural
History Society, and this, indeed, actually came to pass. Although my
admission to this society had no great effect upon my later life,
because it was dissolved at the death of its founder, and I did not keep
up my acquaintance with the other members afterwards, yet it awakened
that yearning towards higher scientific knowledge which now began to
make itself forcibly felt within me.

During my residence at the university I lived in a very retired and
economical way; my imperfect education, my disposition, and the state of
my purse alike contributing to this. I seldom appeared at places of
public resort, and in my reserved way I made my brother (Traugott) my
only companion; he was studying medicine in Jena during the first year
of my residence there.[22] The theatre alone, of which I was still
passionately fond, I visited now and then. In the second year of this
first studentship, in spite of my quiet life, I found myself in an
awkward position. It began, indeed, with my entrance into the
university, but did not come to a head till my third half-year. When I
went to the university, my father gave me a bank draft for a small
amount to cover my expenses, not only for the first half-year, but for
the entire residence, I think. My brother, who, as I said, was with me
at Jena for the first year, wished me to lend him part of my allowance,
all of which I did not then require, whereas he was for the moment in
difficulties. He hoped soon to be able to repay me the money. I gladly
gave him the greater part of my little draft; but unfortunately I could
not get the money back, and therefore found myself in greater and
greater difficulties. My position became terribly urgent; my small
allowance had come to an end by the close of the first year, but I could
not bring myself to leave the university, especially now that a yearning
for scientific knowledge had seized me, and I