the student body of harvard university at present includes three youths whose remarkable intellectual achievements and the manner of their upbringing have given rise to much discussion in american educational circles. the oldest of these students was graduated from tufts college at the age of fourteen, gained the degree of ph.d. at harvard when only eighteen, and now is continuing his studies abroad as the holder of a harvard travelling fellowship. the youngest of the trio became a special student at harvard before he was twelve, was graduated with honours when scarcely sixteen, and is at present engaged in post-graduate studies. the third passed the regular harvard entrance examinations when less than four114teen, completed his college course with distinction in three years, and to-day is studying law.
what has excited controversial interest in these youths is not so much their precocity, striking though that is, as the fact that in each case they have been educated along novel lines from their earliest childhood. their fathers, who have worked independently of one another, assert, indeed, that their unusual mental development is not due to any exceptional talent, but is the result of the peculiar home training they have received; the implication being that a similar development is possible to every normal child if reared in the same way. besides which, the fathers contend that the prevailing method of giving children little or no formal education until they are old enough to go to school is fundamentally wrong; that the home is the proper place in which to begin a child’s education, and that the proper time to begin is with the first dawning of the child’s ability and desire to use his reasoning powers. or, as one of them has recently declared:
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“in the large majority of children the beginning of education should be between the second and third year. it is at that time that the child begins to form his interests. it is at that critical period that we have to seize the opportunity to guide the child’s formative energies in the right channels. to delay is a mistake and a wrong to the child. we can at that early period awaken a love of knowledge which will persist through life. the child will as eagerly play in the game of knowledge as he now spends the most of his energies in meaningless games and objectless, silly sports.” (boris sidis’s “philistine and genius,” pp. 67–68.)
some few educators in this country have already tentatively approved the new ideas in child-training as exemplified by the methods pursued and the results obtained in the case of these youthful harvard students. for the most part, however, their promulgation has been greeted skeptically, even with caustic criticism. on the one hand, it is alleged that the parents cannot positively prove that the achieve116ments of their boys are not the result of inherited gifts rather than the special education given them; and, on the other hand, the position is taken that, assuming the correctness of their fathers’ contention in this respect, it is by no means evident that such training is desirable.
in the words of one critic, to begin the education of a child at two or three is to rob that child of his childhood. the training in question is described as a “forcing” system, much talk is heard of “mind strain,” and the prediction is freely made that the ultimate outcome can only be to drive children thus educated into an asylum for the insane, or into an early grave.
my own belief is that the critics are wrong. i have long been acquainted with all three of these students, and in one case have had opportunity to observe rather closely the process of mental and physical development for upward of eight years. all three are sturdy, strong young fellows; if anything above the average for their years in stature117 and weight. time alone, of course, can tell whether they will live to a good old age. but if they should die or become insane, i am satisfied that neither misfortune could justly be attributed to their parents’ educational methods. on the contrary, the principles underlying these methods seem to me for the most part so beneficial that i believe the time will come when they will be quite generally adopted.
decidedly, though, i should not express myself with such assurance were it not for the fact that these same principles have long ago been put to the test and impressively vindicated. i wonder if the name of james thomson of annaghmore has ever been heard by those who have so hastily condemned the parents of the three harvard students? doubtless not, else they would surely have moderated their denunciations.
thomson, who was born in the year 1786, the son of a scotch-irish farmer, was pre-eminently a “self-made” man. seemingly doomed to the obscure existence of an ordinary farm-labourer, he had eman118cipated himself by dint of an extraordinary energy. with but slight aid he contrived, while a mere child, to teach himself to read, write, and cipher. in the fields, and by candle-light in his farm home, at every opportunity, he studied little text-books that were to him the most fascinating things in the world because they gave him knowledge. he was determined to become an educated man, and continually he urged his father to let him go to school.
to school eventually he went, in the neighbouring village of ballykine, and there, as in his childhood, he found his greatest delight in the study of mathematics. he must, he told himself, know more about this great science; he must know everything that could be learned about it. also, being of a religious turn of mind, he planned to fit himself to become a clergyman. obviously, whether to learn higher mathematics, or to qualify for the ministry, it was necessary to go to college. and to college he did go; but, so difficult were his circumstances, not until he was a man full-grown.
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from 1810 to 1814—that is, from the age of twenty-four to twenty-eight—he spent six months of every year at the university of glasgow. the other six months he spent earning his living. finally he received the coveted m.a. degree, and having in the meantime become more enamoured of mathematics than of a clerical career, he accepted appointment to the teaching staff of an academy in belfast, where, married to a sweetheart of his glasgow days, he soon entered upon the additional task of bringing up a family.
it is at this point that he becomes of special interest to us. for, looking back at the stupendous obstacles he himself had had to overcome in gaining an education, he resolved to do everything in his power to make the road to learning easy for his children.
to do this, it seemed to him, the proper course to pursue was to begin their education as soon as they showed an intelligent interest in the world about them. for, he argued, quite in the manner of the120 fathers of the three harvard students of to-day, it is because the education of children begins too late that they find it hard to learn, and strain their minds in the attainment of knowledge. let a child get accustomed to using his mind to good purpose in early childhood, and study will never be a tax on him but a perpetual joy. this, thought he, is the way all children should be brought up.
and, with the faithful co-operation of his wife, this was the way james thomson brought up his own children. he taught them, boys and girls, to spell and to read almost as soon as they could speak. he taught them mathematics, history, geography, and the elements of natural science. one of the busiest of men—for he was a writer of mathematical textbooks as well as a classroom instructor—he made great sacrifices for the sake of their education. he would even get up at four in the morning to work on his text-books and to prepare his lectures, so as to be sure of having freedom to instruct his little ones during the day. especially he made it a point121 to fertilise their minds, to whet their interest in worth while things, in the course of table-talk and when out walking with them.
“when spring came,” one of his daughters, mrs. elizabeth king, has recalled in a delightful volume of family reminiscences, “our father generally took a walk with us in the early morning before breakfast, and he used to invent interesting topics of conversation, which were carried on through successive mornings. two of us held his hands and two walked quite near, but the places of honour were shared alternately by the four. i remember all being intensely interested in a series of talks on the progress of civilisation, in which every one, even little willie, suggested ideas, and took part in the conversation.
“we also in these walks made imaginary voyages of discovery, full of adventure, calling at various ports, and sailing up rivers to obtain the products of the countries we visited, and become acquainted with the inhabitants. we explored the icy regions122 of the north, the burning deserts of africa and arabia, and the fragrant forests of ceylon. there was no end to our travels and the wonders we saw when we walked with our father. sometimes we transported ourselves to ancient days, and sailed with the argonauts in search of the golden fleece, or accompanied the greeks to troy to recover the beautiful helen, or joined ulysses in his protracted wanderings. our father always led the talk, but we all assisted.”
his two older sons, james and william, were the special objects of his care, particularly after their mother’s death, which occurred when james was eight and william six. after this sad event he lived more than ever with these two boys, giving up part of his bedroom to them, and diligently drilling them in the rudiments of an all-round education. when, in 1832, he was appointed professor of mathematics at his old university, he continued their home training, and in addition obtained permission for them to123 attend his university lectures and the lectures of some other professors.
two years later, james being then twelve and william ten, they were admitted as full-fledged undergraduates. and, precocious though they were, they also were healthy, vigorous, active boys, full of fun and eager to romp and play. like other boys they delighted in games and toys, with the sole difference that in many instances their toys were scientific instruments. thus, they made with their own hands little electrical machines with which to give harmless and laughter-provoking shocks to their friends.
in a word, all who knew them liked them—and marvelled at them. there was abundant cause for marvel. not only did they keep up with their studies with ease, but in more than one department of knowledge they outdid their classmates, some of whom were well into their twenties. the following excerpt from “the book of the jubilee” gives a vivid idea124 of the scholastic achievements of these two remarkable boys in the first years of their life at glasgow university:
“at the end of his first winter’s work william thomson carried off two prizes in the humanity class; this before he was eleven. in the next session we follow him to the classes of natural history and greek—we wonder what the present occupants of these chairs would say to a stripling under twelve who presented himself at their lectures—and his name figures in both prize-lists.
“sympathy is not lacking for the hard-worked school-boy of to-day; but what would the child of twelve think of the holiday task of translating lucian’s ‘dialogues of the gods,’ with full parsing of the first three dialogues! this is the piece of work for which william thomson, glasgow college, receives a prize in may, 1836.
“next session we find the two brothers together in the junior mathematical class, of the junior division of which they are first and second prize-men.125 they appear again at the head of the list for the monthly voluntary examinations on the work of the class and its applications. proceeding to the senior mathematical class in 1837–38, they again stand at the top, nor have they failed to present themselves for the voluntary examinations. william is not satisfied with this class, but in addition receives the second prize in the junior division of professor robert buchanan’s logic class.”
and, continuing to win laurels, at the close of the next session they took the first and second places as prize-men in natural philosophy, while william the following year gained the class prize in astronomy, and was awarded a university medal for an essay, “on the figure of the earth,” the manuscript of which, a carefully bound volume of eighty-five pages, is still in existence. he was then not sixteen years old.
of course there were not lacking wiseacres who dolefully predicted all manner of unpleasant things for these “unhappy victims of a father’s folly,126” who must inevitably fade into an early grave. but the father only smiled serenely, confident that the future would vindicate his educational innovation. and, of a surety, the future did. for james thomson, the older of the two, living to the age of seventy, left behind him the reputation of one of england’s leading authorities on engineering; while william, who did not die until he was eighty-three, became even more famous, winning, as lord kelvin of largs, a place in the annals of science fairly comparable with that held by the immortal newton.
a similar process of intensive child culture was carried out, with similarly happy results, in the case of john stuart mill, whose father modelled his whole upbringing in accordance with the theory that the mind, like the body, grows with exercise, and that the sooner the process of exercising and training it begins, the better the child’s prospects for a worthy and efficient manhood. like james thomson the elder mill was an exceedingly busy man, but this did not prevent him from making the intellectual127 development of his son a matter of patient, personal attention. almost as soon as the little john could talk, his formal education began, and throughout his childhood was continued along lines that have provoked indignant comment in many quarters.
“i have no remembrance,” he tells us, in his interesting “autobiography,” “of the time when i began to learn greek. i have been told that it was when i was three years old. my earliest recollection on the subject is that of committing to memory what my father termed vocables, being lists of common greek words, with their signification in english, which he wrote out for me on cards. of grammar, until some years later, i learned no more than the inflexions of the nouns and verbs, but after a course of vocables, proceeded at once to translation; and i faintly remember going through ‘?sop’s fables,’ the first greek book which i read. the ‘anabasis,’ which i remember better, was the second. i learned no latin until my eighth year.
“at that time i had read, under my father’s tui128tion, a number of greek prose authors, among whom i remember the whole of herodotus, and of xenophon’s ‘cyropaedia’ and ‘memorials of socrates’; some of the lives of the philosophers by diogenes laertius; part of lucian; and ‘isocrates ad demonicum’ and ‘ad nicoclem.’... what he himself was willing to undergo for the sake of my instruction, may be judged from the fact that i went through the whole process of preparing my greek lessons in the same room and at the same table at which he was writing; and as in those days greek and english lexicons were not, and i could make no more use of a greek and latin lexicon than could be made without having yet begun to learn latin, i was forced to have recourse to him for the meaning of every word which i did not know. this incessant interruption he, one of the most impatient of men, submitted to, and wrote under that interruption several volumes of his history and all else that he had to write during those years.
“the only thing besides greek that i learned as a129 lesson in this part of my childhood was arithmetic; this also my father taught me. it was the task of the evenings, and i well remember its disagreeableness. but the lessons were only a part of the daily instruction i received. much of it consisted in the books i read by myself, and my father’s discourses to me, chiefly during our walks.
“from 1810 to 1813 (that is, from mill’s fourth to eighth year) we were living in kensington green, then an almost rustic neighbourhood. my father’s health required considerable and constant exercise, and he walked habitually before breakfast, generally in the green lanes toward hornsey. in these walks i always accompanied him, and with my earliest recollections of green fields and wild-flowers, is mingled that of the account i gave him daily of what i had read the day before. to the best of my remembrance, this was a voluntary rather than a prescribed exercise. i made notes on slips of paper while reading, and from these in the morning walks i told the story to him....
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“in these frequent talks about the books i read, he used, as opportunity offered, to give me explanations and ideas respecting civilisation, government, morality, mental cultivation, which he required me afterward to restate to him in my own words.... he was fond of putting into my hands books which exhibited men of energy and resource in unusual circumstances, struggling against difficulties and overcoming them: of such works i remember beaver’s ‘african memoranda,’ and collins’s ‘account of the first settlement of new south wales.’... of children’s books, any more than of playthings, i had scarcely any, except an occasional gift from a relation or acquaintance: among those i had, ‘robinson crusoe’ was pre-eminent, and continued to delight me through all my boyhood.
“it was no part, however, of my father’s system to exclude books of amusement, though he allowed them very sparingly. of such books he possessed at that time next to none, but he borrowed several for me; those which i remember are the ‘arabian131 nights,’ cazotte’s ‘arabian tales,’ ‘don quixote,’ miss edgeworth’s ‘popular tales,’ and a book of some reputation in its day, brooke’s ‘fool of quality.’”
in one respect, it must be conceded, mill’s early education was deficient—it depended altogether too much on the knowledge to be gained from books, and not enough on direct study of the laws and beauties of nature. but against this stands the unquestionable fact that it did establish in him lifelong habits of industry and thoroughness, and an abiding joy in intellectual achievement; and, more important, it had the happy result of habituating him to regard himself as consecrated to a life of labour for the public good. as to the “wrong” done to mill by “robbing him of the joys of childhood,” one of his biographers, professor william minto, justly observes:
“much pity has been expressed over the dreary, cheerless existence that the child must have led, cut off from all boyish amusements and companionship,132 working day after day on his father’s treadmill; but a childhood and boyhood spent in the enlargement of knowledge, with the continual satisfaction of difficulties conquered, buoyed up by day-dreams of emulating the greatest of human benefactors, need not have been an unhappy childhood, and mill expressly says that his was not unhappy. it seems unhappy only when we compare it with the desires of childhood left more to itself, and when we decline to imagine its peculiar enjoyments and aspirations. mill complains that his father often required more than could be reasonably expected of him, but his tasks were not so severe as to prevent him from growing up a healthy, hardy, and high-spirited boy, though he was not constitutionally robust, and his tastes and pursuits were so different from those of other boys of the same age.”
mill was never a college student, and was for the most part self-educated after his sixteenth year. but had he been sent to college at an early age, as his home training amply warranted, there is every rea133son to think he would have acquitted himself as brilliantly as did the thomson boys, and as did karl witte, another noteworthy example of the possibilities open to all parents. indeed, witte’s case is in some respects the most interesting and instructive on record. for one thing his father has left a minutely detailed account of the methods employed in his education; and there is ground to suspect that at the outset of life karl witte was below rather than above the average in mentality.
born in july, 1800, in the german village of lochau, near halle, he was the son of a country clergyman, likewise named karl witte, who had long been regarded as somewhat “eccentric.” in especial the elder witte was known to hold “peculiar” views on education. it was his firm belief, just as it was the belief of james thomson and james mill, that only by beginning the educational process in infancy could one make sure of developing children into really rational men and women. looking at the world about him, and noting the extent to which134 people wasted their lives in hopeless inefficiency and reckless dissipation, he said to himself, in effect:
“these poor people do not reason, do not use their god-given intellects. if they did they would conduct themselves altogether differently. the trouble must be that they have not been educated aright. they have not been taught how to think, and what to think about. they have been started wrong in life. the schools and universities are to blame, but far more their parents are to blame. if love of the good, the beautiful, and the true had been implanted in them in youth, if they had been trained from the first in the proper use of their minds, they would not now be living so foolishly.”
holding these views, pastor witte promised himself that if god blessed him with children he would make their education his special care. his first child, however, died in early infancy. then came karl, at birth so unprepossessing and “stupid” in appearance that his father wondered in what way he had offended god that he should be afflicted with a wit135less child. the neighbours, sympathising, held out what hopes they could, but secretly agreed that pastor witte’s boy was undoubtedly an idiot.
thus matters stood until one day the father fancied that he detected in the child signs of intelligence. there and then he set about “making a man of him,” as he expressed it. he began, even before karl could speak, by naming to him different parts of the human body, objects in his bedroom, etc. later, as soon as the child was old enough to toddle about, he gradually broadened the horizon of his knowledge, taking him for walks through the streets and fields of lochau, and calling his attention to all sorts of interesting things. encouraging him to ask questions he went in his replies as fully as possible into the essential details of the subject under discussion. above all, he avoided giving superficial answers, for it was his great aim to impress on karl the importance of reasoning closely, of appreciating relationships and dissimilarities. if the child asked him something to which he could not respond intelligently, he frankly136 confessed his ignorance, but suggested that by working together they might obtain a satisfactory answer.
also, in his daily walks and conversations with his son, “baby talk” had no place. it was part of pastor witte’s theory, as it is part of doctor berle’s to-day, that this mode of addressing children, however it may appeal to the sentimental side of fathers and mothers, is intellectually enervating to their little ones. the child who would think correctly, he argued, must be taught to speak correctly.
for this reason he not only drilled karl in the correct pronunciation and use of words, but insisted that all who talked with the child should be careful how they spoke to him. besides which, with an intuitive appreciation of the formative value of even the seemingly most trivial details of the home environment, he arranged the household furnishings so that they too, by the subtle influence of suggestion, should contribute powerfully to karl’s development. as he137 tells us in his own account, of which an abridged translation into english has recently been made by professor leo wiener, of harvard university:1
“i tolerated as far as possible nothing in my house, yard, garden, etc., that was not tasteful, especially nothing that did not harmonise with its surroundings. if anything was not harmonious, i was uneasy about it until it was removed. all my rooms were papered with wall-paper of one colour, the fields being surrounded by pleasing borders. in every room there was but little furniture, but such as there was, was carefully selected. on all the walls hung paintings or etchings, but none of these was tastelessly glaring in colours, or represented an unpleasant subject. our yard and garden were in bloom from earliest spring to very late in the fall. snowbells and crocuses started the procession, and winter asters were crushed only by the snow or a severe frost. we ourselves were always dressed cleanly but simply.”
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at first, it must be said, karl’s mother had scant sympathy with her husband’s enthusiasm. she felt that he was mistaken, that the child was “too stupid” to be educated, and that nothing would come of the pains taken with him. this was the general belief of the neighbourhood, but it gave place to a feeling of astonished incredulity upon the discovery that in reality the youngster was making extraordinary progress, and was displaying not only intelligence but a love of knowledge rarely seen in boys of any age. before he was six all who talked with him were amazed at the proofs he gave of the great extent to which he had profited from his early training.
most impressive was the accuracy and fulness of the information he even then possessed regarding a variety of subjects, and his linguistic proficiency. his study of foreign languages began with french, while he still was very young, and was conducted in a novel way, his father giving him french translations of books with which he was already familiar in german, and telling him to read them for a certain139 time each day. no attempt was made to teach him the grammar of the language as it is commonly taught in the schools, his father’s belief being that the boy could best pick up the grammar for himself in the course of his reading, and that he would be able to master the french translations with comparatively little trouble by reason of his previous training in the art of observation, analysis, and synthesis. this expectation was realised so fully that, according to his father’s statement, karl within a year was reading french with ease.
meantime he had begun the study of italian, and from italian passed to latin. chance played some part in introducing him to this language. his father had taken him to a concert in leipzig, and during an intermission handed him the libretto. he looked at it casually, then with some intentness, and exclaimed:
“why, father, this is not french, nor is it italian. it must be latin!”
“let it be what it may,” said witte, “if only you can make out what it means. try at least.”
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the boy, already grounded in two languages derived from latin, puzzled out the meaning with considerable success, and declared enthusiastically:
“father, if latin is such an easy language as this, i should like to learn it.”
english came next, and then the study of greek, a language regarding which the boy’s curiosity was whetted by tales from homer and xenophon told to him by his father. again the process was chiefly one of self-education, the father answering—when he could—the questions put to him by karl, but always insisting to the latter that the proper way to learn anything is to overcome its difficulties for oneself. he was now studying and reading french, italian, latin, english, and greek, in all of which he made such progress that, we are told, by the time he was nine he had read homer, plutarch, virgil, cicero, fénelon, florian, and metastasio in the original, besides schiller and other classical german writers.
naturally the fame of the boy spread abroad, and with its spreading his father came in for some sharp141 criticism. formerly he had been laughed at as a man who was essaying the impossible in striving to impart intelligence to a mentally subnormal child. now that he had succeeded so well in his undertaking people asserted that he was fanatically endeavouring to convert the child into a weird thinking machine, and endangering his health and sanity. precisely the same objections, in short, were raised to his educational experiment that were later raised in the case of the thomson boys and john stuart mill, and that have recently been raised against the educational methods of the fathers of the three youths now in harvard.
all kinds of absurd stories were circulated regarding karl. he was pictured quite generally as a pale, an?mic, puny, goggle-eyed “freak,” who had missed the delights of childhood and was vastly to be pitied. in reality, he was a happy, joyous youngster, who got as much “fun” out of life as any boy could. this is the unanimous testimony of those who “investigated” the lad for themselves. thus142 the arch?ologist heyne, in a statement to his friend the famous philosopher and poet wieland, frankly admitted:
“i allowed myself to be persuaded to examine young witte, in order to be able to form my own opinion of him. i found the boy in body and mind happy and hale to a greater degree than i had expected. i found, in testing him with homer and virgil, that he had sufficient knowledge of words and things to translate readily and strike the right meaning, and that, without exact grammatical and lingual knowledge, he was able to guess correctly the meaning of a passage from its context. what was most remarkable to me was that he read with understanding, feeling, and effect.
“otherwise i found in him no preponderating faculty. memory, imagination, reasoning, were about in equilibrium. in other matters besides those that had been inculcated by education, i found him a happy, lusty boy, not even averse from mischief, which was to me a quieting thing.”
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at the same time that he was thus instructing karl in languages and literature, witte sought to awaken in him a love of art and science. neither artist nor scientist himself, he none the less believed that if he could only interest his son sufficiently in artistic and scientific subjects, he would study them enthusiastically. to this end he adopted a plan which might well be imitated by all parents.
whenever he went to halle, leipzig, or any other german city, he took karl with him, and together they visited art galleries, natural history museums, zo?logical and botanical gardens, and manufacturing establishments. not for a moment, however, did he hint to the boy that he was doing this for educational purposes. when, for example, they visited a factory, he did not say, “i have brought you here to give you a lesson in mechanics.” he allowed the boy to think that he simply wished to entertain him; and in this way, without karl’s suspecting it, he was able to impart to him much elementary instruction in zo?logy, botany, physics, chemistry, etc.
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similarly he taught karl geography by the pleasing device of first taking him, on a clear day, to the top of a high tower that happened to be in lochau, and asking him to mark on a piece of paper, brought to the tower for that purpose, the position of the different villages visible in the surrounding country. this first trip was followed by others, in which the boy expanded and corrected the markings on his paper, putting in rivers, lakes, and forests. witte then bought for him a set of maps showing, in succession, the part of germany in which he lived, all germany, europe, and the other continents. these father and son studied together, not as a study, but as a game, in which the boy took part with the greatest enthusiasm.
“i never acted,” witte himself has declared, “as though he had to learn these things. he would have been surprised if told that he had been studying geography, physics, chemistry. i avoided the mention of such terms, so as not to frighten him, and in order not to make him vain.”
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not to make him vain! be sure, indeed, that pastor witte, while promoting his son’s mental development, would not forget to ground him in moral principles. he was not, let it be clearly understood, striving to make an intellectual “prodigy” of his son; he was aiming only to make him a man in the truest sense, strong physically and morally as well as mentally. if he believed that the boy’s reasoning powers could not be properly developed unless he were trained from infancy in the principles of sound reasoning, he was quite as firmly convinced that the process of moral education should likewise begin at the earliest possible moment. to this end, believing as he did in the importance of early environmental influences and of parental example, he endeavoured to secure for his son wholly ennobling surroundings.
he even laid down rules to be observed by the maid-of-all-work, a simple but good-hearted peasant girl, in her dealings with the child. the whole family life was regulated with a view to “suggesting” to the little karl ideas which, sinking into the subcon146scious region of his mind, would tend to affect favourably his moral outlook and exercise a lasting influence on his conduct. in their relations with all who visited their home—as with each other, with karl himself, and with the little serving-maid—both pastor witte and his wife were unfailingly courteous, considerate, and sympathetic. over and above all this, they set him a constant example in diligence, of that earnest activity which is itself a powerful factor in moral discipline.
important also is it to note that in their daily walks and talks together, karl’s father took good care to cultivate in him the gift of imagination, which means so much to the moral as well as the mental growth of man. when they went hand in hand across the fields of lochau, it was not only in rudiments of science that witte instructed his son; he deftly awakened in him an appreciation of the sublimity and beauty in the workings of nature. when he narrated to him stories from history, it was not merely to interest him in the study of history; the emphasis147 was on some moral trait exemplified by the particular story. in familiarising him with the life of lochau itself, in introducing him to its shops and cottage-homes, the effort was tactfully made to awaken and broaden his sympathies. always it was one of witte’s chief objects to keep his son as free as possible from anything that might make for harshness, narrowness, and intolerance in later years.
even when karl was not more than three or four years old, his father did not deem it too early to attempt by rebuke and admonition to instil into him the idea that he ought to guard his tongue closely to avoid hurting the feelings of other people. all children, as is well known, are inclined to “speak out in meeting,” and frequently their “cute” comments, which many parents applaud as evidences of keen observational power, convey a sting to the person commented on. so soon as this universal trait of childhood appeared in little karl his father set about suppressing it, and at the same time sought to utilise it as an aid in his moral education. the occasion148 arose following a thoughtless remark by the child regarding some slight eccentricity in the behaviour of a certain herr n., a friend of the family. when father and son were alone, the former asked:
“why did you speak of herr n. as you did?”
“because what i said was true.”
“i grant that. it was true—it was, indeed, very true. but that is no reason you should have said it. it was neither good nor kind of you. did you not see how disturbed he became? he would say nothing back, perhaps because of the love he bears for us. but it pained him very much that a child should say anything so unpleasant to him. if he is unhappy to-day, the fault is yours.”
witte tells us that it was not long before karl acquired the excellent habit of “putting himself in the other fellow’s place” before uttering censorious judgments. similarly, and with equal success, his father endeavoured to broaden his sympathies so as to include the brute creation. it happened one day, when karl was about three years old, that there were149 at his home a number of guests, who made much of the child, naturally to his great delight. while they were talking to him the family dog came into the room, and karl, as any child might, playfully caught it by the tail and drew it to him. as he did so, his father, putting out his hand, caught karl himself by his long hair and pulled it exactly as he was pulling the tail of the dog. karl turned, saw his father’s indignant look, blushed crimson, and released the dog.
at once his father released him, and demanded:
“how did you like that?”
“not at all,” was the embarrassed answer.
“well, then, do you think the dog liked it? now go out to the yard.”
“i sent him out,” witte says, “not only as a punishment, but because i saw that some of my guests were about to open their lips to take his part and to blame me—in his presence!—for my treatment of him. but one of them, speaking suddenly, said:
“‘god bless you, dear friend. if karl, as i be150lieve he is certain to do, shall grow to be a good man, he will thank you heartily for this lesson. i wish to heaven we thus and always handled our children. then they would be sure to learn to treat animals kindly, and by so much the more to treat their fellow-men kindly!”
and witte adds, dryly:
“after this, none of those present thought it well to say anything in criticism of me.”
he had, in fact, taken precisely the course best calculated to impress on karl the vitally important principle of kindness to all living creatures. for he had brought this principle home to him in a way the child’s mind could readily grasp, and without unnecessary harshness and “nagging,” which, after all, only arouse those contrariant ideas that it should be the great aim of education to suppress. and it was thus that witte and his wife always acted in the upbringing of their boy through the critical formative period of early childhood. the moment any151 undesirable characteristic made its appearance they hastened to awaken in him a sense of its extreme undesirability by words and conduct that appealed forcefully both to his understanding and to his emotions.
particularly did they appeal—and here is a point deserving of special emphasis—to his sense of filial love. that they were able to make their appeal unfailingly successful, that the child always found in it a compelling motive for good behaviour, was due to the fact that their whole attitude toward him made him realise that he was an object of devoted, though not over-indulgent, love on their part. never rebuked without a sufficient cause, and always more in sorrow than in anger; given a free hand in all things except those injurious or detrimental to him; made a companion and a playmate by both parents—he soon perceived, as any child would, that they had nothing more warmly at heart than his best interests and his happiness. loved as he was, he gave out152 abundant love in return, and the great ambition of his childhood became a passionate desire to please his father and mother.
hence it was that witte, in carrying out his policy of early intellectual training, found no more potent spur to incite his boy to study the subjects given him than the simple statement, “you know, dear karl, you must learn all you can, so that you will be able to care for your mother and me when we are old and feeble.” hence, too, the child acquired habits of obedience, self-control, and truthfulness, largely because of his anxiety not to bring pain to his parents. they, however, it is to be noted, were careful to discipline him firmly if he did commit a fault, but always in a way that caused him to appreciate the reasonableness of the punishment inflicted on him.
such was the manner of karl witte’s education up to the age of nine. by that time he had learned so much, and was so well trained in the use of his mental powers, that his father decided to send him to college. at nine and a half, to the amazement of all153 germany, he entered the university of leipzig. there, as at the universities of g?ttingen, giessen, and heidelberg, where he also prosecuted his studies, his career was brilliant in the extreme. no subject—and he applied himself to many subjects—seemed beyond his powers. in 1814, before he had passed his fourteenth birthday, he was granted the degree of ph.d. for a thesis on the “conchoid of nicomedes,” a curve of the fourth degree. two years later he was made a doctor of laws, and appointed to the teaching staff of the university of berlin.
before beginning to teach, however, it was thought best for him to spend some time in foreign travel, which he was enabled to do, thanks to the generosity of no less a personage than the king of prussia, who had been following his university career with lively interest. abroad, therefore, karl witte went, chiefly to study law, the teaching of which he had definitely selected as his profession. but toward the close of 1818 an incident occurred which, while it did not turn him from law, opened up to him another154 field of intellectual activity, and the one in which he ultimately won his greatest fame.
while sojourning in florence he chanced to make the acquaintance of a talented woman who, discussing with him the masters of italian literature, half in jest and half in earnest warned him not to attempt to read dante, whom he could never hope to “understand.” naturally this roused his curiosity, and he promptly bought an elaborate edition of the “divine comedy.” reading this through, he then read what the commentators had to say about it, and was shocked at what he considered the inadequacy and positive error of their views. “some day,” said he to himself, “i will certainly make an effort to promote a better appreciation of dante.” this resolution he carried into effect five years later by the publication, in germany, of one of the most important literary essays of the nineteenth century. it was entitled “on misunderstanding dante,” and concerning it a modern authority on the study of dante, philip h. wicksteed, declares:
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“if the history of the revival of interest in dante which has characterised this century shall ever be written, karl witte will be the chief hero of the tale. he was little more than a boy when, in 1823, he entered the lists against existing dante scholars, all and sundry, demonstrated that there was not one of them that knew his trade, and announced his readiness to teach it to them. the amazing thing is that he fully accomplished his vaunt. his essay exercised a growing influence in germany, and then in europe; and after five-and-forty years of indefatigable and fruitful toil he was able to look back upon his youthful attempt as containing the germ of all his subsequent work on dante. but now, instead of the audacious young heretic and revolutionist, he was the acknowledged master of the most prominent dante scholars in germany, switzerland, italy, england, and america.”
in fact, from the time of the publication of this preliminary paper, almost to the time of his death, dante essays, translations, commentaries, came from156 the pen of karl witte, to delight an ever-widening circle of dante scholars, and incidentally to promote the study of italian history. to understand dante, witte iterated and reiterated, it is absolutely necessary to have a knowledge of medi?val italy. especially must one study the religious pre-occupation of the age, as seen in the rise of saint francis and saint dominic, the thomist reconstitution of theology and the contemporary consolidation of the hierarchy, and the attitude of the period toward the albigenses and other heretics. this knowledge one must gain if he would fully appreciate the true significance of the “divine comedy” as the portrayal of man given over to sin and prevented by his lusts from recovering the path to virtue, till the christian religion teaches him, by the light of understanding, to recognise sin and free himself from it, and then offers to his transported vision the divine revelation of the secret and bliss of heaven.
yet all the while the propagation of his views on dante and the fostering of a love for dante were but157 an avocation with karl witte. his vocation, his life-work, was the teaching of the principles of law, both in the class-room and by the pen. it was in 1821, soon after his return from italy, that he was established as lecturer on jurisprudence at the university of breslau, being appointed to a full professorship two years later, and transferred to halle in 1834. there he passed the remainder of his long and distinguished life, which did not terminate until march 6, 1883, when he passed away sincerely mourned as “a devout christian and elder of the church, a scholar overwhelmed with honours and distinctions, a tender husband and father.”
thus the “forcing” process to which his father had subjected him did not in the least hurt karl witte. it is one which any conscientious and intelligent parent may make use of for his own children if he so desires. and, to my way of thinking, children reared in this way will have a far better chance for success and happiness in after years than would otherwise be theirs.
