ally 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.

My brother wrote back very decidedly and simply, that he could not
propose any one to me as a teacher and educator who would fulfil the
requirements I had set forth, and further, he did not think I should
ever be able to find such a person; for if one should be found
possessing ample knowledge and experience of life in its external
aspects, he would be deficient in a vigorous inner life of hi