issolute and
tyrannical Duke of Wuertemberg, and was subsequently appointed governor
of the palace of Solitude. He was a struggling man, and often felt the
pinch of poverty. Nine books composed his library, among them
"Erkenntniss Sein Selbst" and a Wuertemberg "Hymnal." During the
performance of his duties in Solitude he wrote a treatise on the
cultivation of trees, which was very favorably received. Young
Schiller's poetic instinct displayed itself on his tenth New-Year,
when he greeted his father in German verse, to which he attached a
translation in Latin. His taste for the stage also found early vent in
the construction of a mimic theatre and cardboard characters, with
which he used to play till he was fourteen, when the important
question of his future education was discussed in family council. His
mother wished him to be placed in a private school at Tuebingen, and
his father was not averse; but the question was decided by the
despotic Duke Carl, who insisted that the lad should be educated in
the military academy he had established upon his estate, a few miles
from Ludwigsburg, and which, two or three years afterward, was
transferred to Stuttgart. Thither, therefore, Schiller was sent to
study and prepare himself for the battle of life, and it was there he
imbibed that contempt for servile obedience to military authority
which, in "The Robbers," gave so extraordinary an impetus to
revolutionary ideas in his native country, especially in the minds of
the young. Slavish discipline was the law in the academy; the scholars
wore a military uniform; they were soldiers, and were taught to obey
the word of command; the sword and the drum were the symbols of
authority; there were stated minutes and hours not only for important
duties, but for the smallest observances and pleasures. The drum
heralded the pupils to church, summoned them to their meals, announced
when they were to begin to play and when to leave off, dismissed them
to bed, commanded them to rise.

Schiller writhed under this discipline, which, to those who yielded
patiently and uncomplainingly, might have been a death-blow to
personal independence. In one of his letters to a young friend he
wrote, "Do not imagine that I shall bow to the yoke of this absurd and
revolting routine. So long as my spirit can assert its freedom it will
not submit to fetters. To the free man the sight of slavery is
abhorrent; to calmly survey the chains by which he is bound is no