[Illustration: ALEXANDER VON HUMBOLDT.]
The great Agassiz, in his eloquent address, in Boston, on the hundredth
anniversary of the birth of Humboldt, said: "All the fundamental facts
of popular education in physical science, beyond the merest elementary
instruction, we owe to him. We are reaping daily in every school
throughout the broad land, where education is the heritage of the
poorest child, the intellectual harvest sown by him.
"There is not a text-book of geography, or a school atlas in the hands
of our children to-day, which does not bear, however blurred and
defaced, the impress of his great mind. But for him our geographies
would be mere enumerations of localities and statistics. He first
suggested the graphic methods of representing natural phenomena which
are now universally adopted. The first geological sections, the first
sections across an entire continent, the first averages of climate
illustrated by lines, were his. Every school-boy is familiar with his
methods now, but he does not know that Humboldt is his teacher...."
Naturally we ask how such a man rose to fame, and what incited him to
stand among the few intellectual leaders of the world.
Frederick William Henry _Alexander_ von Humboldt was born September 14,
1769, in Berlin, the same year as Baron Cuvier. Unlike Cuvier, he came
into a home of wealth and culture. His father was a Prussian officer and
chamberlain to the king. His mother, the widow of Baron von Hollwede,
married Major von Humboldt when he was forty-six years old, bringing
into the family much landed property. Three children were born to them,
a daughter who died in infancy, and the famous brothers, William and
Alexander, the former two years older than the latter.
The father, an exceedingly amiable and benevolent man, died when
Alexander was but ten years old. The mother, left with her two sons, was
wise enough to select superior tutors for them, deeming a good education
their best preparation for a useful life.
Much of their time was spent at their summer home at Tegel, on the banks
of the Havel, about eight miles from Berlin. In 1778 Goethe went there
for a visit, and the two Humboldt lads, nine and eleven years of age,
played and talked with the leading mind of Germany.
The children were not altogether happy there, as Alexander wrote a
friend years afterward. "Vine-clad hills which here we call mountains,
extensive plantations of foreign trees, the meadows surrounding the
house, and lovely views of the lake with its picturesque banks awaiting
the beholder at every turn, render this place undoubtedly one of the
most attractive residences in the neighborhood. If, in addition, you
picture to yourself the high degree of luxury and taste that reigns in
our home, you will indeed be surprised when I tell you that I never
visit this place without a certain feeling of melancholy.... I passed
most of that unhappy time (my youthful days) here at Tegel, among people
who loved me, and showed me kindness, but with whom I had not the least
sympathy, where I was subjected to a thousand restraints and much
self-imposed solitude, and where I was often placed in circumstances
that obliged me to maintain a close reserve, and to make continual
self-sacrifices.
"Now that I am my own master, and living here without restraint, I am
unable to yield myself to the charms of which nature is here so
prodigal, because I am met at every turn by painful recollections of my
childhood, which even the inanimate objects around me are continually
awakening. Sad as such recollections are, however, they are interesting
from the thought that it was just my residence here which exercised so
powerful an influence in the formation of my character and the direction
of my tastes to the study of nature."
Much which seems trying and unsatisfactory is, after all, our best
discipline for life. The strongest and noblest characters are not
developed in the perpetual sunshine of happiness. Rain and sun are alike
necessary for growth.
Alexander early showed great fondness for natural history, collecting
flowers, plants, butterflies, shells, and stones, so that he was called
the "Little Apothecary." He likewise found great delight in drawing. He
says of himself: "Until I reached the age of sixteen, I showed little
inclination for scientific pursuits. I was of a restless disposition,
and wished to be a soldier. This choice was displeasing to my family,
who were desirous that I should devote myself to the study of finance,
so that I had no opportunity of attending a course of botany or
chemistry; I am self-taught in almost all the sciences with which I am
now so occupied, and I acquired them comparatively late in life. Of the
science of botany I never so much as heard till I formed the
acquaintance in 1788 of Herr Willdenow, a youth of my own age, who had
just been publishing a Flora of Berlin. His gentle and amiable character
stimulated the interest I felt in his pursuits. I never received any
lessons professedly, but I used to bring him the specimens I collected,
and he gave me their classifications. I became passionately devoted to
botany, and took especial interest in the study of cryptogamia. The
sight of exotic plants, even when only as dried specimens in an
herbarium, fired my imagination with the pleasure that would be derived
from the view of a tropical vegetation in southern lands."
At sixteen, then, the boy did not know for what he was best fitted in
life. How important for young men and women to study themselves, and
know their own tastes and capacities! At nineteen he had never heard of
botany, and yet he became one of the most distinguished of botanists!
The boy also longed to go to sea, not an unusual desire in restless and
ambitious natures. But he was frail in body, and gave little evidence
that he would ever be able to accomplish any of the things for which he
longed.
At nineteen he was ready for college, and with his brother entered at
Frankfort-on-the-Oder. He gave his time largely to finance and political
economy, by his mother's desire, that he might be able to act in some
capacity under the government.
At college, as ever after in life, he found one devoted friend, who
became his inseparable companion. At Frankfort, it was Wegener, a young
theologian, with a warm heart, and great zeal for knowledge. Nor did
this friendship cease when he went to Goettingen some months later, for
better opportunities in the study of science. He wrote to Wegener: "If
God only spare us, nothing can break the bond between two friends who
are to each other more than brothers.... My fervent love and sincere
friendship for you are as imperishable as the soul which gives them
birth.... How happy, how inexpressibly happy should I be, if I had a
friend like you by my side!... I doubt not that among eight hundred men
there must be some with whom I could form a friendship, but how long is
it often before we find each other out! Were not you and I acquainted
for three months before we discovered how completely we were made one
for the other? To be without a friend, what an existence! And where can
I hope to find a friend whom I could place by your side in my
affections!"
These words seem like those of a lover, or an affectionate woman, but
they come from a mind that now, as in after years, towered like a giant
oak in the trees of a forest. Beautiful union of brain and heart! Such
only makes an ideal character.
Humboldt had already met Willdenow, and begun to love botany. Again he
writes to Wegener: "I have just come in from a solitary walk in the
Thiergarten,"--he was for a short time in Berlin,--"where I have been
seeking for mosses, lichens, and fungi, which are just now in
perfection. How sad to wander about alone! And yet there is something
attractive in this solitude, when occupied with nature.... I am
collecting materials for a work on the various properties of plants,
medicinal properties excepted; it is a work requiring such great
research, and such a profound knowledge of botany, as to be far beyond
my unassisted powers, and I am therefore endeavoring to enlist the
cooeperation of several of my friends.... Pray do not imagine that I am
going to appear as an author forthwith; I do not intend that shall
happen for the next ten years, and by that time I trust I shall have
discovered something startlingly new and important."
Goettingen was now at the height of its glory. Humboldt attended courses
of lectures on archaeology, on trade and commerce, on light, heat, and
electricity, on agriculture, and on ancient tragic poets, under Heyne,
of whom he said, "Heyne is undoubtedly the man to whom this century is
the most deeply indebted; to him we owe the spread of religious
enlightenment, by means of the education and training he has instituted
for young village school-masters; to him is due the introduction of a
more liberal tone of thought, the establishment of a literary
archaeology, and the first association of the principles of aesthetics
with the study of philology."
Humboldt was also fond of Greek. He said, "The more I know of the Greek
language, the more am I confirmed in my preconceived opinion, that it is
the true foundation for all the higher branches of learning."
With some friends, he soon founded the Philosophical Society, which,
with the admirable libraries and museums at hand, became of great
assistance to the students.
The next year, 1790, he had become so interested in science, that he
wrote Wegener: "I was away from Goettingen for two months, spending the
vacation in making a scientific tour with a Herr van Genns, a Dutchman
with whom I became acquainted through his writings on botanical
subjects.... Amid the numberless distractions of the journey, which was
made sometimes on foot and sometimes by carriage, and with the incessant
occupation of packing up minerals and plants, I was not very well able
to write to you." The result of this tour was a pamphlet, "Mineralogical
Observations on some Basalts of the Rhine." His next works were two
small treatises, "The Aqueous Origin of Basalt," and "The Metallic Seams
in the Basalt at Unkel." And this youth of twenty-one was self-taught
both in mineralogy and geology!
The wonder was not so great, perhaps, that a young man of his age should
have written these sketches, as that, being wealthy and of the best
social position, the temptations to ease and enjoyment did not draw him
away from such subjects. Poverty may not be a delight, but the larger
part of the world's work has been done under its stimulus. Wealth should
be an incentive, because it gives leisure for careful study, but this is
not always the case.
At Goettingen, Humboldt found a friend among the eight hundred. At the
house of Heyne he made the acquaintance of George Foster, Heyne's
son-in-law, a man who exerted a remarkable and lasting influence over
him. Foster was thirty-six; Humboldt, fifteen years his junior. He had
been around the world with Captain Cook in his second voyage, and had
published an able book upon the subject. He was skilled in chemistry,
philosophy, literature, and politics, understood Latin, Greek, French,
English, Dutch, and Italian, and was somewhat conversant with the
Swedish, Spanish, Portuguese, Russian, and Polish languages.
The influence of such a man can well be imagined. He became a guiding
star to the young Goettingen student. If we could but estimate the value
of right friendships in life! We flatter ourselves that we are too
strong to be influenced, and yet we are greatly influenced for good or
for evil by those with whom we associate. Humboldt always chose
intellectual friends, and the natural result followed.
In the spring of 1790, he left Goettingen, and, with Foster and Van
Genns, took a journey to the Lower Rhine, Holland, Belgium, England, and
France, studying docks, mines, botanic gardens, manufactures, and
churches, and visiting literary celebrities. Still the new friends did
not take the place of the old, for he writes to Wegener: "I beseech you,
dearest Wegener, by all the affection which you know I bear you, never
to forget our brotherly love and friendship. You are infinitely more to
me than I can ever be to you. I have now seen the most celebrated places
in Germany, Holland, and England--but, believe me, I have in seeing them
never been so happy as while sitting in Steinbart's arm-chair."
The influence of this journey was never lost. Sixty-eight years
afterward, Humboldt said: "For the space of thirty years I have never
known leisure but of an evening, and the half-century that I have spent
in this ceaseless activity has been occupied in telling myself and
others how much I owe my teacher and friend George Foster in the
generalization of my views on nature, and in the strengthening and
development of that which had already dawned in me, before those happy
days of intimate friendship."
In the latter part of 1790, Humboldt went to Hamburg, to enter the
School of Commerce. He wished to study political economy further, and to
learn practical book-keeping. He wrote to a friend: "I am contented with
my mode of life at Hamburg, but not happy, less happy even than at
Goettingen, where the monotony of my existence was relieved by the
society of one or two friends and the vicinity of some moss-grown
mountains. I am, however, always contented when I feel that I am
accomplishing the purpose I have in view.... My leisure hours are
occupied with geology and botany.... In addition, I have begun to learn
Danish and Swedish."
To Wegener he writes: "I have made considerable progress in general
information, and I am beginning to be somewhat more satisfied with my
attainments. I worked very hard at Goettingen, but all I have learned
makes me feel only the more keenly how much remains still to know. My
health suffered severely, but improved somewhat during my journey with
Foster; yet even here I continue so closely occupied that I find it
difficult to spare myself. There is an eager impulse within me, which
often carries me, I fear, beyond the bounds of reason; and yet such
impetuosity is always necessary to insure success."
The "eager impulse" was a sure indication of something to be
accomplished by and by. Success does not come with half-hearted effort;
it comes only through a force and persistence that will allow no
barriers between us and the goal.
At Easter, 1791, Humboldt left Hamburg and hastened to the famous School
of Mines at Freiberg, to study under the celebrated Werner. Here, as
ever, he attached one ardent friend to himself, Freiesleben, a student
in geology. Here every moment was occupied. He studied the works of the
French chemists; Guyton de Moreau, Fourcroy, Lavoisier, and Berthollet.
He was daily in the mines, from six o'clock till twelve. He crowded six
lectures into each afternoon. He made a study of the vegetation of that
lower world, from which the sunlight is ever excluded, and the results
were used later in his comprehensive work, "Flora Subterranea
Fribergensis." He wrote articles for several scientific journals. A busy
life, indeed, for the young man of twenty-two!