My chief ambition was to become one of them as soon as possible.  This, however, could only be accomplished by being again entered at a grammar school.  St. Thomas’s, whose headmaster was a feeble old man, was the place where my wishes could be most speedily attained.

I joined the school in the autumn of 1830 simply with the intention of qualifying myself for the Leaving Examination by merely nominal attendance there.  The chief thing in connection with it was that I and friends of the same bent succeeded in establishing a sham students’ association called the Freshman’s Club.  It was formed with all possible pedantry, the institution of the ‘Comment’ was introduced, fencing-practice and sword-bouts were held, and an inaugural meeting to which several prominent students were invited, and at which I presided as ‘Vice’ in white buckskin trousers and great jack-boots, gave me a foretaste of the delights awaiting me as a full-blown son of the Muses.

The masters of St. Thomas’s, however, were not quite so ready to fall in with my aspirations to studentship; at the end of the half-year they were of the opinion that I had not given a thought to their institution, and nothing could persuade them that I had earned a title to academic citizenship by any acquisition of knowledge.  Some sort of decision was necessary, so I accordingly informed my family that I had made up my mind not to study for a profession at the University, but to become a musician.  There was nothing to prevent me matriculating as ‘Studiosus Musicae,’ and, without therefore troubling myself about the pedantries of the authorities at St. Thomas’s, I defiantly quitted that seat of learning from which I had derived small profit, and presented myself forthwith to the rector of the University, whose acquaintance I had made on the evening of the riot, to be enrolled as a student of music.  This was accordingly done without further ado, on the payment of the usual fees.

I was in a great hurry about it, for in a week the Easter vacation would begin, and the ‘men’ would go down from Leipzig, when it would be impossible to be elected member of a club until the vacation was over, and to stay all those weeks at home in Leipzig without having the right to wear the coveted colours seemed to me unendurable torture.  Straight from the rector’s presence I ran like a wounded animal to the fencing school, to present myself for admission to the Saxon Club, showing my card of matriculation.  I attained my object, I could wear the colours of the Saxonia, which was in the fashion at that time, and in great request because it numbered so many delightful members in its ranks.