ertain way of freeing human life from contradiction, or, as I then
spake out my thought in words, some means of restoring to man, himself,
at peace internally; and that to seek out this way should be the
vocation of my life. And yet my life, to all appearance, my studies and
my desires, belonged to my purely external vocation,[91] and to its
external citizenlike relations; and by no means to mankind at large,
either regarded in itself or in its educational needs. Therefore this
idea of mine was in such violent contrast with my actual life that it
utterly surprised me. In fact, and perhaps greatly because of this
contrast, the idea would undoubtedly have been quite forgotten, had not
other circumstances occurred to revive it. On myself and on my life at
the time it seemed to have not the slightest effect, and it soon passed
from my memory. But later on in this same journey,[92] as I climbed down
from the Wartburg, and turned round to look at the castle, there rushed
upon me once more this thought of a higher educational vocation as my
proper life-work; and again, being so far removed from my actual
external life, it only flashed upon me with a momentary effulgence an
instant, and then sank. This, unconsciously to me, and therefore quite
disregarded by me, was the real position of my inner life when I arrived
at the goal of my journey, Frankfurt, from whence my life was so soon to
develop so largely. My energies at the moment were devoted towards
attaining some definite professional position for myself.[93] But in
proportion as I began to examine my profession more closely in its
practical aspect, so did it begin to prove insufficient of itself to
satisfy me as the occupation of my life. Then there came to me the
definite purpose of living and working at my profession rather to use it
as a means to win some high benefit for mankind.[94]

The restlessness of youth, nay, that chance, rather, which has always
lovingly guided me, threw me unexpectedly into relations with a man
whose knowledge of mankind, and whose penetrating glance into my inner
being turned me at our very first interview from the profession of an
architect to that of a teacher and an educator, two spheres of work
which had, never previously occurred to me, still less had appeared to
me as the future objects of my life.[95] But the very first time I found
myself before thirty or forty boys from nine to eleven years old, for
that was the class allotted to me t