Charles Darwin's
early years

In 1825, Darwin spent the whole summer as a medical apprentice, helping his father to assist people in need in Shropshire. After his help with his father, and by his decision, Charles went to the University of Edinburgh to study medicine where he found his classes very tedious and insufferable surgery, so he did not apply to his medical studies. So, after some courses, his father proposed an ecclesiastical career with the idea of ​​being able to become a rural cleric, making Darwin in early 1828 to enter Christ’s College in Cambridge.

During the period in which Charles stayed in Cambridge he read three books that would exert a fundamental influence on the evolution of his thinking: Natural Theology (Paley), A preliminary speech in the study of natural philosophy (John Herschel) and the Journey to the equinoctial regions of the New Continent (Alexander von Humboldt).

Additionally, Darwin benefited both cognitive and social in Cambridge from his voluntary attendance at the botanist and entomologist John Henslow's classes, the same who would provide Darwin with the opportunity to embark on a trip around the world as a naturalist aboard the Beagle.