Some
time later, on Dr. Rothman's advice, Linnaeus entered the University of
Upsala, then the most celebrated university of Northern Europe. His
parents were able to spare him but one hundred silver thalers for his
expenses. At the end of a year his money was spent, his clothing and
shoes were worn out, and he was without prospects of obtaining a
scholarship. When things were at their gloomiest he accidentally entered
into a discussion with a stranger in the botanical garden, who turned
out to be a clergyman scientist named Celsius. Celsius, while staying at
Upsala, had conceived the plan of given a botanical description of
biblical plants. Having learned that Linnaeus had a herbarium of 600
plants, he took the young man under his protection, and opened up to him
his home and library.
While studying in this library, his observations regarding the sexes in
plants, hitherto in a chaotic state, took form, stimulated by an
abstract published in a German journal of Vaillant's views, and before
the end of 1729 the basis of the sexual system had appeared in
manuscript. This treatise having been seen by a member of the university
faculty, Linnaeus was invited to fill a temporary vacancy, and lectured
with great success therein one and a half years. Meanwhile the
foundation of the celebrated treatises afterward published on the sexual
system of classification and on plant nomenclature had been laid.
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