s father, a busy lawyer, had threatened him with disinheritance if he
did not relinquish his intention of accepting the by no means brilliant
position of a teacher at Keilhau; but he remained loyal to his choice,
though his father executed his threat and cast him off. After the old
gentleman's death his brothers and sisters voluntarily restored his
portion of the property, but, as he himself told me long after, the
quarrel with one so dear to him saddened his life for years. For the sake
of the "fidelity to one's self" which he required from others he had lost
his father's love, but he had obeyed a resistless inner voice, and the
genuineness of his vocation was to be brilliantly proved.

Success followed his efforts, though he assumed the management of the
Keilhau Institute under the most difficult circumstances.

Beneath its roof he had found in the niece of Friedrich Froebel a beloved
wife, peculiarly suited both to him and to her future position. She was
as little as he was big, but what energy, what tireless activity this
dainty, delicate woman possessed! To each one of us she showed a mother's
sympathy, managed the whole great household down to the smallest details,
and certainly neglected nothing in the care of her own sons and
daughters.

A third master, the archdeacon Langethal, was one of the founders of the
institution, but had left it several years before.

As I mention him with the same warmth that I speak of Middendorf and
Barop, many readers will suspect that this portion of my reminiscences
contains a receipt for favours, and that reverence and gratitude, nay,
perhaps the fear of injuring an institution still existing, induces me to
show only the lights and cover the shadows with the mantle of love.

I will not deny that a boy from eleven to fifteen years readily overlooks
in those who occupy an almost paternal relation to him faults which would
be immediately noted by the unclouded eyes of a critical observer; but I
consider myself justified in describing what I saw in my youth exactly as
it impressed itself on my memory. I have never perceived the smallest
flaw or even a trait or act worthy of censure in either Barop,
Middendorf, or Langethal. Finally, I may say that, after having learned
in later years from abundant data willingly placed at my disposal by
Johannes Barop, our teacher's son and the present master of the
institute, the most minute details concerning their character and work,
none of t