His father owned a resort hotel in Ober-Salzbrunn (now Szczawno Zdrój) frequented by the well-to-do bourgeoisie and members of the German, Polish, and Russian nobility. His school years at home and in Breslau (now Wroclaw) proved to be a traumatic experience and ended with Hauptmann leaving school prematurely on account of financial difficulties that had befallen his father's business. In 1878-1879 Hauptmann was an agricultural trainee at the estates of his uncle in Lohnig and Lederose, where he was exposed to the pietistic faith of the Herrnhut sect and fell in love for the first time. In 1880 he was admitted to the Royal Art and Trade School in Breslau. There he encountered difficulties and failure but discovered the power of writing to compensate for disappointments in the everyday world. In 1882, through the good offices of the sculptor Robert Haertel, he was allowed to enter the University of Jena, where he studied unsystematically for a year.
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