“It will naturally be far more difficult for me to give you a satisfactory explanation of my position regarding science, than regarding practical affairs, since I will not even boast of having come to fixed views on the subject myself. Indeed I consider it a main point during the first part of my stay at the University, and one by no means easily or quickly settled, to come to an understanding with myself about this, and to take a steady survey of my whole course in life, but particularly of my studies. For I feel more and more this important distinction between the school and the university, that here one is suddenly deprived of all guidance and special instruction as to the direction which one should pursue. The many beginnings made at school, without any definite aim in view, must be either continued or abandoned, either pursued more zealously or regarded as a side issue, according to one’s own choice and judgment. On this account, too, I do not reproach myself that as yet I have no unalterable plan nor perfect system in my studies, since scarcely anyone could have made such a decision so quickly, or, were such a hastily formed scheme adopted, it might lead to a one-sided development which should be most foreign to philology especially. Altogether, there is no science in which this question can be more important and at the same time more difficult, than in ours, since we have no positive series of lectures to observe, like the lawyers, doctors, and theologians, but each must choose and trace out his own road over the boundless field of philology, according to his own powers and individual character. Now, so far as my purely scientific education is concerned, from the very beginning two main paths present themselves, between which most students make a voluntary or involuntary choice; namely, philology proper and archæology. Naturally, they are so closely connected that one can never be entirely divorced from the other, but nevertheless every one devotes himself more to one than the other. Indeed either of the two departments alone is sufficiently extensive to demand all the powers of one person. This distinction between, and this independence of, the two branches have been most fully illustrated in our two greatest philologists, Hermann and Böckh, each of whom has formed his own school, entirely distinct from the other. I would think it rash and foolish at present to wish to decide in favor of either, since I know too little of either to make such a decision from my own conviction and independent judgment. In any case it is well for me at first, as far as possible, to attach myself to the school of Hermann, and apply myself entirely to languages, for an accurate knowledge of languages is an