o, with his thick, black beard, was a handsome
man. To those pupils who, like my brother Ludo, were pursuing the study
of the sciences, he, the mathematician of the institute, must have been
an unusually clear and competent teacher. I was under his charge only a
short time, and his branch of knowledge was unfortunately my weak point.
Shortly before my departure he married a younger sister of Barop's wife,
and established an educational institution very similar to Keilhau at
Gumperda, at Schwarza in Thuringia.

Herr Vodoz, our French teacher, a cheery, vigorous Swiss, with a perfect
forest of curls on his head, was also one of the most popular guides; and
so was Dr. Budstedt, who gave instruction in the classics. He was not a
handsome man, but he deserved the name of "anima candida." He used to
storm at the slightest occasion, but he was quickly appeased again. As a
teacher I think he did his full duty, but I no longer remember anything
about his methods.

The travelling party which Barop accompanied were very proud of the
honour. Middendorf's age permitted him to go only with the youngest
pupils, who made the shortest trips.

These excursions led the little boys into the Thuringian Forest, the
Hartz Mountains, Saxony and Bohemia, Nuremberg and Wurzburg, and the
older ones by way of Baireuth and Regensburg to Ulm. The large boys in
the first travelling party, which was usually headed by Barop himself,
extended their journey as far as Switzerland.

I visited in after-years nearly all the places to which we went at that
time, and some, with which important events in my life were associated, I
shall mention later. It would not be easy to reproduce from memory the
first impressions received without mingling with them more recent ones.

Thus, I well remember how Nuremberg affected me and how much it pleased
me. I express this in my description of the journey; but in the author of
Gred, who often sought this delightful city, and made himself familiar
with life there in the days of its mediaval prosperity, these childish
impressions became something wholly new. And yet they are inseparable
from the conception and contents of the Nuremberg novel.

My mother kept the old books containing the accounts of these excursions,
which occupied from two to three weeks, and they possessed a certain
interest for me, principally because they proved how skilfully our
teachers understood how to carry out Froebel's principles on these
occ