The School As A Means

[herschel And Humboldt] Stirred Up In Me A Burning Zeal To Add Even The Most Humble Contribution To The Noble Structure Of Natural Science. No One Or A Dozen Other Books Influenced Me Nearly So Much As These Two. I Copied Out From Humboldt Long Passages About Teneriffe And Read Them Aloud On One Of [my Walking Excursions].

Man Scans With Scrupulous Care The Character And Pedigree Of His Horses, Cattle, And Dogs Before He Matches Them; But When He Comes To His Own Marriage He Rarely, Or Never, Takes Any Such Care.

One General Law, Leading To The Advancement Of All Organic Beings, Namely, Multiply, Vary, Let The Strongest Live And The Weakest Die.

Even When We Are Quite Alone, How Often Do We Think With Pleasure Or Pain Of What Others Think Of Us - Of Their Imagined Approbation Or Disapprobation.

Man May Be Excused For Feeling Some Pride At Having Risen, Though Not Through His Own Exertions, To The Very Summit Of The Organic Scale; And The Fact Of His Having Thus Risen, Instead Of Having Been Aboriginally Placed There, May Give Him Hopes For A Still Higher Destiny In The Distant Future.