Four years were spent at the school at Bienne, and as the end of the fourth year neared, Louis, although only fourteen years old, announced to his parents his desire to become an author. “I wish to advance in the sciences,” he wrote his father. “I have resolved to become a man of letters.” And then he expressed his hope that he might be permitted, after spending a year and a half in commerce at Neuchâtel, to pass four years at a university in Germany, and finally finish his studies at Paris. “Then, at the age of twenty-five,” he concluded, “I could begin to write.” Mature ambitions these, for a boy of fourteen years! It was fortunate that the elder Agassiz recognized in the boy those qualities which were uppermost, and encouraged his studious desires. The year and a half of business training was abandoned, and in its place Louis was sent for two years of additional study at the College of Lausanne. Already he had felt the charm of study, and his boyish pastimes had now become studious investigations which absorbed his interest and energy. His work was as orderly as his mind; his notebooks, written with remarkable neatness in a small fine handwriting, are excellent examples of clear classification of whatever branch of study he undertook. Everything was arranged and classified; subjects were clearly separated and subdivided under marked headings; nothing was begun that was not completed in every detail. At Lausanne, Agassiz had access to the first natural history collection that he had ever seen; and there also he found friends who sympathized with his favorite tastes. While he was at Lausanne, it was decided that he should study medicine, a profession which would meet his natural inclinations and at the same time ultimately yield him the income necessary for his support. Accordingly, during his seventeenth year, Louis entered the medical school at Zürich. Here he found still more congenial surroundings; for among the faculty of the university were men of reputation in the particular branches of natural history which most deeply interested him. Under the professor of natural history the study of ornithology was opened to him. Here also the sciences of zoölogy and geology were taught, and Louis eagerly enrolled in the classes that were held in these subjects. In 1826, after two years at Zürich, Louis entered the great German University of Heidelberg, and there his true university life began. The four years that he passed there were among the most important years of his entire life. They were years of hard conscientious study, combined with wholesome recreation. “First at work, and first at play,” was his motto. Here he made friendships that were tense and enduring. Two fellow students, Braun and Schimper, became particularly his intimates, and with Agassiz formed a trio which their fellow students called “the Little Academy.”