study I gained by no means a corresponding result; but I did learn a good deal, much more even than I then knew how to turn to account.  My teacher cast on one side all the usual grammatical difficulties of French study, he aimed at imparting the language as a living thing.  But I with my ignorance of language could not completely follow this free method of teaching; and yet, nevertheless, I felt that the teacher had fully grasped the meaning and the method of his work, and I always enjoyed the lessons on this account.  He was especially successful in accustoming my ear to the French pronunciation, always separating and reducing it to its simple sounds and tones, and never merely saying “this is pronounced like the German p, or b, or ae, or oe,” etc.  The best thing resulting from this course of study was the complete exposure of my ignorance of German grammar.  I must do myself the justice to say that I had given myself extraordinary trouble over the works of the most celebrated German grammarians, trying to bring life and interconnection or even a logical consequence into German grammar; but I only confused myself the worse thereby.  One man said one thing, another quite the reverse; and not one of all of them, as far as I could see, had educed his theories from the life and nature of the speech itself.  I turned away a second time, quite disheartened, from the German grammarians, and once more took my own road.  But unfortunately the dry forms of grammar had, quite against my own will, stuck like scales over my eyes, dimming my perceptions; I could find no means to rid myself of them, and they wrought fatally upon me now and long afterwards.  The more thoroughly I knew them the more they stiffened and crushed me.

My departure from the school was now arranged, and I could let my mind pursue its development free and unshackled.  As heretofore, so now also, my kindly fate came lovingly to my help:  I can never speak of it with sufficient thankfulness.  The three lads to whom I had hitherto given private instruction in arithmetic and language now needed a tutor, as their former tutor was leaving them.  The confidential charge was laid upon me, because I of all men best knew their nature and its needs, of seeking out some fit teacher and educator for them from amongst my acquaintance.  As for myself this tutor business lay far from my own thoughts, and I therefore looked round me in every direction, and with all earnestness, for some one else.  Amongst others I applied to my eldest brother, telling him my views as to the necessary requirements of a true educator.