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 Facultät_, as an earnest delver into _Theoretische und praktische national-ekonomic_. I took two _privatim_ twenty-mark lectures in my major, each semester that I was in the university. Professors Wagner and Schmoller were my instructors in these courses. With Professor Wagner I never became well acquainted, but an interview that I once had with Professor Schmoller has always remained memorable. I had spent twenty marks semester after semester on his lectures and it did not seem to me that I was getting on very fast in my subject. Being a near neighbor of ours, I resolved one day to call on him in his villa and find out whether the trouble was on his side or mine. I had other uses for the semester twenty marks, unless he absolutely needed them. He asked me point blank what my preparation for university work had been previous to matriculating at Berlin, and how it had come about that Political Economy had been selected as my major. I told him the truth, even resorting to anecdotes about riding freight cars, to make myself clear. He laughed. "And what have you in mind as a topic for a thesis?" he asked me. I had been four semesters in the university, and it was time for me to begin to think seriously about a thesis if I intended to _promoviren_. My thoughts were very scattered on this point, but I finally 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: "Vagrancy and geography don't combine the way you infer at any German university. Geography and Political Economy, however, make excellent mates, and are well worth studying together. Perhaps you might find it easier to get your degree at one of the South German universities." The insinuating suggestion at the last piqued me somewhat, but I continued to listen to Professor Schmoller for another long semester.