After leaving school, he studied for nearly a year with a country doctor, a relative of his, going about with him and assisting in many ways, but developed no liking for the profession and so gave it up and, together with his brother Henry, decided to come to America whither Frederic had already gone. This was in eighteen hundred and forty-nine, when a new spirit was abroad in Germany and when people looked to this country both as a land of freedom and also as a place where one could almost literally pick up gold and silver on the streets. At that time it was the rule in Meiningen that upon emigrating, you forfeited all rights and claims upon that Government and before leaving he went to the Castle and signed papers giving up all rights of German citizenship. He left Germany with the definite idea of settling in the United States, making it his permanent home and becoming a part of this new country. From the first, therefore, he chose to associate with Americans and to use the English language rather than keep up his German associations. Coming to this country from Havre to New York on a sailing ship was a long and hard journey of fifty-three days and by the end of that time, what with the hardships and poor fare, many of the passengers were down with cholera. Father, among others, was taken to quarantine, which was a very different place from what it is now. While many were dying in the hospital—and he was taken to the ward where all the very worst cases were—he did not believe that he was very ill or going to die. Watching what was going on he saw them take one patient after another and dump them into a bath without changing the water and finally they started for him. This was too much, and he jumped up and ran back into another ward where the less serious cases were. Here they let him stay until he was able to leave the hospital. He had expected to find the people of this country living in great ignorance, and came expecting to teach, but he was adaptable and finding that such services were not required from him, a young immigrant lad, he quickly turned to other things.