Thus disappeared once more the light, the sunshine, which had gladdened me with its warmth, especially in the more recent part of my life.  The wings of my mind, which had begun to flutter of themselves, were again bound, and my life once more appeared all cold and harsh before me.  Then it happened that my father had to send some money to my brother (Traugott), who was studying medicine in Jena.  The matter pressed; so, as I had nothing to do, it was decided that I should be the messenger.

When I reached Jena I was seized by the stirring intellectual life of the place, and I longed to remain there a little time.  Eight weeks of the summer half-year’s session of 1799 yet remained.  My brother wrote to my father that I could fill that time usefully and profitably in Jena, and in consequence of this letter I was permitted to stay.  I took lessons in map and plan-drawing, and I devoted all the time I had to the work.  At Michaelmas I went home with my brother, and my step-mother observed that I could now fairly say I had passed through the university.  But I thought differently; my intelligence and my soul had been stimulated in many ways, and I expressed my wish to my father to be allowed to study finance there, thus returning to my previous career.  My father was willing to give his permission if I could tell him how to find the means.  I possessed a very small property inherited from my mother, but I thought it would be insufficient.  However, after having conferred with my brother, I talked it over with my father.  I was still a minor, and therefore had to ask the consent of my trustee to realise my property; but as soon as I had obtained this I went as a student to Jena, in 1799.  I was then seventeen years and a half old.

A testimonial from my father attesting my capacity for the curriculum procured me matriculation without difficulty.  My matriculation certificate called me a student of philosophy, which seemed very strange, because I had set before me as the object of my studies practical knowledge; and as to philosophy, of which I had so often heard, I had formed a very high idea of it.  The word made a great impression upon my dreamy, easily-excited, and receptive nature.  Although the impression disappeared almost as soon as conceived, it gave, however, higher and unexpected relations to my studies.

The lectures I heard were only those which promised to be useful in the career I had now again embraced.  I heard lectures on applied mathematics, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, mineralogy, botany, natural history, physics, chemistry, accounts, cultivation of forest trees and management of forests, architecture, house-building, and land-surveying.  I continued topographical drawing.  I heard nothing purely theoretical except mathematics; and of philosophical teaching and thought I learnt only so much as the intercourse of university life brought with it; but it was precisely through this intercourse that I received in various ways a many-sided intellectual impulse.  I usually grasped what had been taught; the more thoroughly since, through my previous life, I had become well acquainted with the principal subjects, and already knew their relation to practical work.