oebel met the carpist and answered him reason for reason, just as
Copernicus, Bruno and Galileo told the reason the earth revolved. The
professional teacher who can do nothing but teach--the college professor
who is a college professor and nothing else--hates the Natural Method
man about as ardently as the person who wears a paste diamond hates the
lapidary.

* * * * *

Heinrich Campe was the tutor of the Humboldts for two years, when he
entered the employ of the King as Commissioner of Education.

After this, however, he continued to spend one day a week at Tegel for
some time. He loved the boys as his own, and his hope for their future
never relaxed. Possibly his interest was not wholly disinterested--with
the help of these lads he was working out and proving his pedagogic
theories.

When Campe resigned his immediate tutorship he was allowed to select his
successor, and he chose a young man by the name of Christian Knuth.

The mother was a member of this little university of four persons;
Knuth, of course, was a member, for he always considered himself more of
a student than a teacher.

When Campe resigned in favor of Knuth his action was in degree prompted
by his love and consideration for the boys. Knuth was only a little past
twenty, and was able to enter into the out-of-door sports and work of
the youngsters better than the older man. Knuth was their hero--together
they rode horseback, climbed mountains, excavated tunnels, mined for
ore, built miniature houses. "Knuth made every good thing in Berlin
available to us," wrote William years afterward; "we visited stores,
factories, barracks and schools, and became familiar with a thousand
commonplace things never taught in schools and colleges."

When Alexander was twelve years old, the father died. This would have
been a severe blow to the boys were it not for Knuth, who seemed to
stand to them more as the real parent than did Major von Humboldt.

Knuth was a businessman of no mean ability. The Baroness now trusted him
with all her financial affairs. He called on the boys to help him in the
details of business, so the keeping of accounts and the economical
handling of money were lessons they learned early in life.

When Alexander was seventeen and William nineteen, the mother and Knuth
decided that the boys should have the advantages of university life.
Accordingly they were duly entered at the University of Frankfort as
"spec