His father, Johann Georg, had learned the craft of harness making from his father and grandfather. His mother, the former Anna Regina Reuter, the daughter of a saddler, was born in Nuremberg. The future philosopher grew up in a blue-collar district on the edge of town among workers, craftsmen, and shopkeepers whose values revolved about hard work and religious piety.
Fortunately for the young Kant the family pastor, Franz Albert Schultz, was struck by his precocity and convinced the family to send him to school at the Collegium Fredericianum, of which Schultz was the principal. There Kant spent eight years--six days a week from seven in the morning until four in the afternoon--studying Latin, Greek, Hebrew, French, mathematics, and theology. After graduating second in his class, the sixteen-year-old Kant enrolled at the University of Königsberg, where his interest in philosophy and science was kindled by the talented professor Martin Knutzen. Kant spent seven years at the university but did not graduate, owing to financial hardship: his mother had died in 1737 and his father died in 1746.
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