Benton would continue to visit until his death. In 1888, his brother William purchased an estate in Shirley that the family would come to call "The Cottage". Eight-year-old Benton was immediately enamored with the beauty and freedom of the country, proclaiming he enjoyed it far more than urban existence. Shortly after William died of a sudden respiratory disease in 1889, the family moved to Washington, D.C. An indifferent student, MacKaye once described school as "a place that boys like to run away from". Drawn to the study of the natural world, he often pursued knowledge on his own; he spent much time in the Smithsonian, making sketches of the abundant collections and volunteering to help scientists in their labs. He befriended assistant curator James Benedict, and attended lectures given by Civil War hero John Wesley Powell and arctic explorer Robert Peary. His early immersion in nature helped him cope with tragedy that eventually struck the MacKaye family; the frequently absent Steele died in early 1894, when Benton was fourteen. While attending high school in Cambridge, Massachusetts, he began charting the landscape around Shirley Center, documenting vegetation, landforms, rivers, and roads in numbered notebooks. Lewis Mumford, a close friend of MacKaye and his future biographer, wrote that "This direct, first-hand education through the senses and feelings, with its deliberate observation of nature in every guise—including the human animal—has nourished MacKaye all his life." Harvard and forestry After dropping out of school in order to prepare for college entrance exams on his own, in 1896 MacKaye followed his brothers—James, an engineer and philosopher, and Percy, a dramatist and poet—to Harvard University, where he studied geology. It took him two years to overcome deficiencies in subjects such as German, algebra and physics. When he graduated in June 1905, MacKaye was still unsure what career he should embark upon. During this time, he read Thomas Henry Huxley's 1877 work Physiography: An Introduction to the Study of Nature—a gift from his brother James, and a work that would prove influential in MacKaye's future regional planning. In October 1903, he enrolled in Harvard's newly established forestry school; he was the school's first student to graduate, in 1905. For the next five years, he alternated between teaching at Harvard's newly created forestry school near Petersham, Massachusetts, and working as a Forest Assistant with the Forest Service. MacKaye made some important contributions during the early years of national