It was in the Rittersaal of the Academia Carolina of Stuttgardt that Pfaff, the once famous supporter of Volta, and in 1787, the fellow-student of Cuvier, first became personally acquainted with him. Although they had been three years together at the same university, the classification of students there adopted had prevented any personal acquaintance. Pupils were admitted at the age of nine, and commenced their studies with the classic languages. Thence they passed to the philosophical class, and from that they went to one of the four faculties: Law, Medicine, Administration, and Military Science. Each faculty, of course, was kept distinct; and as Pfaff was studying philosophy at the time Cuvier was occupied with the administrative sciences, they never met, the more so as the dormitories and hours of recreation were different. The academy was organized on military principles. The three hundred students were divided into six classes, two of which comprised the nobles, and the other four the bourgeoisie. Each of these classes had its own dormitory, and was placed under the charge of a captain, a lieutenant, and two inferior officers. These six classes in which the students were entered according to their age, size, and time of admission, were kept separate in their recreations, as in their studies. But those of the students who particularly distinguished themselves in the public examinations were raised to the rank of knights, and had a dormitory to themselves, besides dining at the same table with the young princes who were then studying at the university. Pfaff and Cuvier were raised to this dignity at the same time, and here commenced their friendship. What a charm there is in school friendships, when youth is not less eager to communicate its plans and hopes, than to believe in the plans and hopes of others; when studies are pursued in common, opinions frankly interchanged, and the superiority of a friend is gladly acknowledged, even becoming a source of pride, instead of being, as in after years, a thorn in the side of friendship! This charm was felt by Cuvier and Pfaff, and a small circle of fellow-students who particularly devoted themselves to Natural History. They formed themselves into a society, of which Cuvier drew up the statutes and became the president. They read memoirs, and discussed discoveries with all the gravity of older societies, and even published, among themselves, a sort of _Comptes Rendus_. They made botanical, entomological, and geological excursions; and, still further to stimulate their zeal, Cuvier instituted an Order of Merit, painting himself the medallion: it represented a star, with the portrait of Linnæus in the centre, and between the rays various treasures of the animal and vegetable world. And do you think these boys were not proud when their president awarded them this medal for some happy observation of a new species, or some well-considered essay on a scientific question?