My Life

own before the student can matriculate. In 1890, my matriculating year, all that was necessary to become enrolled as a student in good standing, was to have a twenty-mark piece in

nteen years of age. Germans had to show a Gymnasium cert

stock-taking of my other qualifications would have left me woefully in the lurch had the other qualifications not been taken for granted. There were two years at an American college to my credit, it is true, an

ing at least one academic child in the family, and my presence in Berlin and willingness to behave, renewed her hopes that this ambition was to be realized. Fortunate it was for her ambition and my sensibilities that the matriculation ceremonies were so simple. My German at the time had been selected principally from the coal-passers' vocabulary, but I was quick in overhauling it, and when re

rector assured me. "You are here to learn;

sity and the students never impressed me greatly, until a friend of mine had a wordy difference with one of the officials at the Royal Library. My friend was lame, having to use crutches. One day, when entering the room where borrowed books are returned, he proceeded to the desk with his hat on, being unab

sm" while in the university, but it was a kind of littl

ir mastery of his major subject succeeded in getting a degree. There were no examinations until the candidates for degrees were ready to promoviren, to try for their Doctor's degree. At the end of three years, six semesters, such candidates were called before their professors and made to tell what they knew both in th

acquirements, but what these amounted to puzzled me much at the time, and they do yet. Occasionally some visiting clergyman would preach for our local pasto

came "Lorn Gone," and I am afraid that some of us called the good man "Lorn Gone." He staid with us twenty years or more, I think, and he and his wife did much to get the money to build the present American Church. He very kindly took an interest in my selection of lectures at the university. For the life of me I cannot recall now why he or I chose Political Economy for my major. It may have been because my father had been much interested in this subject and had possessed a fine library on economic questions. It may also be accounted for by my cursory look into John Stuart Mill's book previous to leaving for Liverpool. Still, again, it may have been one of those haphazard selections which are resorted to in cases like mine; the subject was safe at least, and perhaps the good Doctor thought that studying might inculcate good principles in me about personal economy. Whatever the cause may have been, I was enrolled in der philosophischen Facult?t, as an earnest delver into Theoretische u

managed to tell the professor that vagrancy and geography seemed to have considerable in common, and that I contemplated a thesis which would consolidate my learning on these subjects. Again the professor laughed. He finally delivered himself of this dictum: "Vagranc

d me somewhat, but I continued to listen to

pathologist; Kiepert, the geographer; Curtius, the Greek historian; Pfleiderer, the theologian; Helmholtz, the chemist, and I got glimpses of Mommsen. He was not reading in the university during my stay in Berlin, but he lived not far from my mother's home, and I used to see him in the street cars. He was a very much shriveled-up looking individual, and when sitting down looked very diminutive. He wore immense glasses, which gave his eyes an owlish appearance; I saw him to the best advantage one afternoon when we were riding alone in a street car through the Thiergarten. He had a corner in the front, and I had taken one in the rear. I hardly noticed him at first, and had opened a book to read,

Our political chat finished, he asked me whether I was interested in Anthropology, advising me that the local Anthropological Society was to have a meeting that same evening, and that I would be welcome. I told him that I was interested in Anthropology in so far as it threw light on Criminology. The old gentleman must have mistaken my meaning, or I did not know myself what I was trying to say, for my reply startled him into what seemed to me unwonted nervous activity. During the political chat he had been very quiet and calm, talking even about Bismarck in a rather subdued voice. But when I ventured to connect Anthropology and Criminology, barely mentioning Lombroso's name, it was as if some one had thrown a stone through the w

of skulls, bones and "pickled" things that it was all one could do not to knock something over when moving about. I had to leave the manuscript with him for correction. He sen

the Unter den Linden just as Bismarck's carriage came by. I shall always remember his strong face and remarkable big eyes, but this was about all that I saw. A woman recognized Bismarck just as I did, and ran toward his carriage, crying: "Oh, Prince Bismarck! Prince Bismarck!" There was something in her manner which made one think tha

ny, dictate her foreign policy for years, and hold his own, in and out of parliament, as a master mind, but he could not associate with Virchow. Two great Germans, both iconoclasts and builders, both dwellers in th

g in Germany, either zero-wards or otherwise. The library advanced me ten books at a draw in any language I felt equal to, and the Thiergarten helped me to ponder over what I had read and did not understand. Certainly no professor ever felt more learned than I did when I tramped through the park to my home, with the ten books slung over my shoulder. My mother used to love to see me c

plain. In the final analysis I suppose it was mere temperament. By my third semester I knew ten times more about Africa than I knew about my own country, and an unfathomable number

traveling in the world was never intended to be done by me. Of course, I had dreams of becoming an explorer, but they were harmless arm-chair efforts, that gave my mother no anxiety, and were pr

said that we were all bound devil-wards. We attended Kneipen, spent our Sundays in the Gruhewald, and would schw?nzen-omit attendance at lectures, when convenient. But all of my friends except one have done well. The unfortunate exception was probably the most strenuous streber in the company. He took his degree with all sails set for a promised professorship at home, went home, was disappointed in what he had been led to think he was to teach, became discouraged and despondent, and finally tossed himself in front of a train. Poor "Zink"!

was English-and apparently never wanting to. Pilsner beer was the only German product she would succumb to. Three saucerfuls after each afternoon tramp constituted her portion. As she never staggered,

llism and herself. My mother and younger sister brought her to Berlin, and mother presented her to me, in the same language as in former days when she had given me "Major"-"Josiah, I've brought you a dog!" I rejoiced at twenty-two over such a gift as much as I did in my early teens. Little did I reckon

parlor and made to chase her stub of a tail. If her guests were looking for other amusement they were disappointed, but "Pizey" wasn't, and I think that mother enjoyed the fracas. She once tol

increased the Anglo-German entente by at least forty-seven little "Pizeys." Some of her progeny found their way in

ly refused to emigrate. They say that she was stricken with asthma, and had to be put out of the way. I only hope that she was put out of the way in a square deal. The German scientists are very much given to diss