In drawing I also taught the middle classes.  My method in this subject was to work at the thorough comprehension and the representation of planes and solids in outline, rising from the simplest forms to complex combinations.  I not only had the gratification of obtaining good results, which thoroughly satisfied those who tested them, but also of seeing my pupils work with pleasure, with ardour, and with individuality.  In the girls’ school I had to teach orthography[55] in one of the elementary classes.  This lesson, ordinarily standing by itself, disconnected with anything, I based upon correct pronunciation.[56] The teaching was imperfect, certainly; but it nevertheless gained an unmistakable charm for both teacher and pupils; and, finally, its results were very satisfactory.

In one of the other classes of the girls’ school I taught preparatory drawing.  I took this by combinations of single lines; but the method was wanting in a logically necessary connection, so that it did not satisfy me.  I cannot remember whether the results of this teaching were brought to the test or not.

Such was the outcome of my first attempts as a teacher.  The kind indulgence and approval granted to me, more because of my good intentions and the fire of my zeal than for my actual performance, spurred me on to plunge deeper into the inquiry as to the nature of true teaching.  But the whole system of a large school must have its settled form, with its previously-appointed teaching-course arranged as to times and subjects; and everything must fit in like a piece of clockwork.  My system, on the other hand, called only for ready senses and awakened intellect.  Set forms could only tolerate this view of education so far as it served to enliven and quicken them.  But I have unfortunately again and again observed during my career, that even the most active life, if its activity and its vitality be not properly understood and urged ever onward, easily stiffens into bony rigidity.  Enough, my mind, now fully awakened, could not suffer these set forms, necessary though they were; and I felt that I must seek out some position in which my nature could unfold itself freely according to the needs of the development of my life and of my mind.

This longing endeavour of life and mind, which could not submit to the fetters of external limitations, may have been the more exaggerated at the time by my becoming acquainted with Arndt’s “Fragments on Human Culture,"[57] which I had purchased.  This book satisfied at once my character, my resolves, and my aspirations; and what hitherto lay isolated within me was brought into ordered connection through its pages, while ideas which possessed me without my perceiving them took definite form and expression as the book brought them to light.  Indeed, I thought then that Arndt’s book was the bible of education.