Читать книгу Life of Elie Metchnikoff, 1845-1916 - Olga Metchnikoff - Страница 11

Table of Contents

The Kharkoff Lycée—Bogomoloff and Socialism—Atheism—Natural History studies—Private lodgings—Private lessons in histology from Professor Tschelkoff—A borrowed microscope—First article—Italian Opera—The gold medal.

In 1856 Dmitri Ivanovitch took the boys to Kharkoff in order to make them enter the Lycée. They passed their entrance examination quite satisfactorily; Kolia was admitted into the fifth class and Ilia into the one below it. They were day boarders and lived in the house of one of their former tutors.

This was at a time when the new and liberal reign of Alexander II. was giving birth to many hopes; the Lycées preserved but insignificant traces of the hard regime of Nicholas I. Previous narrow and doctrinal teaching was giving way to a current of realistic and rational ideas, physical and natural science had become the vogue, and professors were trying to come into touch with their pupils and to influence their intellectual development. The boys on their side were founding mutual instruction clubs, attending popular Sunday lectures, interesting themselves in social questions—in fact the revolutionary movement was beginning to strike root. Life in general was intense, aspirations exalted, and hopes radiant.

During his first school year Elie worked assiduously in all branches of the curriculum, and his name soon appeared on the honours list. The Russian language teacher became his friend, and greatly contributed to his development by choosing for him books of general knowledge. Under this direction Elie read, among other things, Buckle’s History of Civilisation, which had at that time a very great influence on the young Russian mind. According to the author’s principal thesis, the progress of humanity depended chiefly upon that of positive science; this idea sunk deeply into the boy’s mind and confirmed his scientific aspirations.

When he reached the fifth class he formed a friendship with one of his school-fellows, Bogomoloff, who had great influence over Elie’s ulterior development; he was the son of a colour manufacturer, and his elder brothers were studying chemistry at the Kharkoff University with a view to applying it to their industry. They had travelled abroad and had brought back novel ideas and books forbidden by the Russian censorship; they influenced their young brother, who in his turn initiated Elie. It was thus that the latter became acquainted with materialistic ideas and social theories; he read the Popular Star, the Bell of Herzin, and other publications prohibited in Russia. Little by little he lost the faith which he had held when under his mother’s influence. Atheism, however, was to him more interesting than disappointing; it incited in him a state of general criticism. Ardently passionate in this as in all things, he preached atheism to others and received the nickname of “God is not.” The course of teaching at the Lycée did not escape his criticism; when he had reached the fourth class he omitted those exercises which seemed to him devoid of interest. On the other hand, he plunged with passion into the study of natural science, botany, and geology.

He had ceased to be a model student, but his scientific aspirations became stronger from day to day.

In order to cultivate foreign languages, the two brothers had been placed in a boarding-house where morals were strict and patriarchal, the food bad, and the director’s sermons long and tedious. None of these things suited Elie. This regime, with the addition of dancing lessons, inspired him with the deepest aversion; he resolved to obtain from his parents permission to take furnished rooms for himself and his brother.

In spite of the current of political exaltation which was then universal in Russia, Elie was too deeply immersed in his studies to be carried away in that direction. He did at one time attend popular lectures and the political gatherings of the students, but he felt that science was his real vocation. He was so early and so completely absorbed by it that he was not interested in the great movement for the emancipation of the serfs. It is true that, at Panassovka, the question was not acute as elsewhere, the serfs being quite happy; however, the fact remains that it was his passion for science which kept him, in spite of his exalted ideas and ardent soul, apart from the noble movement for liberation.

In the third class he made friends with a group of students who were devoted to science and to intellectual culture. Elie, owing to his ardour and vivacity, played the part of a ferment in that little circle, each member of which was to make a special study of certain scientific branches in order that they might together edit a new encyclopædia of human knowledge. He studied German so as to read in the original the classical materialistic writers, Vogt, Feuerbach, Buchner, Moleschott, etc. The Lycée lectures were relegated to the background. Nevertheless, owing to his great facility of assimilation, he was successful in every branch. Plans for his ulterior activities were soon definitely fixed.

At that time of intense intellectual effervescence in Russia, libraries were invaded by a number of translations of works on natural science. Elie absorbed them with avidity, and read amongst others a Russian translation of Bronn’s book on the Classes and Orders of the Animal Kingdom. He saw for the first time in the plates of that work pictures of micro-organisms, amoebæ, Infusoria, Rhizopoda, etc. That world of lower beings impressed him so strongly that he resolved from that moment to devote himself to the study of them, that is, to the study of the primitive manifestations of life in its simplest forms.

He was then fifteen years old. The two brothers now obtained from their parents permission to live in furnished rooms, an independent arrangement which allowed each of them to satisfy his individual tastes. Apart from the Lycée, Kolia spent his time in playing cards and billiards and in other amusements, whilst Elie worked with ardour, his only recreations being music and debates on abstract subjects. When he entered the second class he had become completely specialised. In order to tackle serious scientific studies, he tried to come into touch with one of the University professors. The University of Kharkoff was still making use of ancient methods; teaching was given by means of manuals, with practical application; but Elie, who did not know that, dreamt of finding in laboratories assistance and means of, at least, undertaking personal scientific work. He attended a lecture on comparative anatomy, and, in order not to appear too young, he wore his ordinary clothes instead of the Lycée uniform. After the lecture was over, he shyly approached the professor and begged to be allowed to study protoplasm under his direction. The professor received him coldly, and told him in a pedantic tone that he was in too much of a hurry, and that he should first of all finish his course at the Lycée and then get admitted into the University.

It was a disappointment for the eager boy; however, he did not lose heart but continued to attend divers University lectures, clinging to the hope that another professor might be more sympathetic. He was pleased with the lectures of a young physiologist, Tschelkoff by name, and decided to make another attempt. This time he was successful. The professor received him kindly and consented to give him private lessons in histology. Then, fired with a passionate desire to produce something personal in medical science, and attracted by Virchow’s cellular theory, he dreamt that he might create a general theory of his own in medicine. In order to increase his scientific knowledge, he undertook with his friend Zalensky the translation of Grove’s work, The Unity of Physical Forces. The professor of chemistry and natural history willingly encouraged the two boys in this work, to which they gave up the whole of the school year. Elie wasted no opportunity of learning; during those lectures which did not interest him he used to read scientific books. One day that he was doing so during catechism he did not notice that the priest, wishing to know what he was reading, had come up to him. The latter, however, was greatly impressed by the title of Radlkoffer’s learned work on The Crystals of Proteic Substances; he returned the book without a word and never interfered with him again.

Through the assistance of some medical students, Elie obtained the loan of a microscope; he studied Infusoria and imagined that he had made divers discoveries; he hastened to write an article, and sent it to the only scientific Russian paper then in existence, the Bulletin of the Moscow Society of Naturalists. To his great joy his MS. was accepted, but before long the young scientist perceived that his deductions were erroneous, for he had mistaken phenomena of degenerescence for phenomena of development. He was able to stop the publication of this article, the first he ever wrote, and it never appeared.

Thanks to Tschelkoff, who lent him a microscope for the duration of the holidays, he was able to study the local fauna of inferior animals. At the beginning of his last year at the Lycée, he read a text-book of geology by a Kharkoff professor and, with juvenile assurance, wrote a critical analysis of it. Inserted in the Journal de Moscou, this was Elie’s first publication; he was then sixteen years old. Encouraged by this success, he sent several other criticisms, but they were not accepted.

The last examinations were coming near: Elie wished to obtain the gold medal, not only out of pride, but in order to prove to his parents that he deserved their assistance in order to go abroad to continue his studies. He therefore provisionally suspended his favourite pursuits and resumed the study of the long-neglected school programme. The last examinations took place in the spring of 1862. It happened to be the Italian Opera season and Elie could not resist the temptations offered him by music. In order to make up the time, he often had to work the whole night long at the cost of severe fatigue.

In spite of this complication, he passed his examinations brilliantly and obtained the gold medal. He now wished for nothing but to devote himself to scientific study.