Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/75

 CHAPTER III WAS ten years old when my father took me to the gymnasium at Cologne, usually called the “Jesuit Gymnasium,” although it had no connection with that religious order. In those days Cologne had about ninety thousand inhabitants, and was, as I supposed, one of the finest cities in the world. My grandfather had taken me there several years before on a visit, and well do I remember the two things that then interested me most: the cathedral tower with the huge crane on top, and the convict chain-gangs sweeping the streets—sinister-visaged fellows in clothes striped dark gray and yellow, with heavy iron chains on their feet that rattled and clanked dismally on the pavement stones, one or more soldiers standing guard close by, gun in hand. I remember also how my grandfather reproved me for taking off my cap to everybody whom we met in the streets, as was the custom in our little village at home; for he said there were so many people in Cologne that were one to attempt to bow to them all there would be no time left for anything else; that one could never become acquainted with all those persons, and many of them were not worth knowing; and finally, that such deference on my part would mark me at once as a country boy and make me appear ridiculous.

This “making myself ridiculous” was something I greatly dreaded, and I would have taken any pains to avoid it; yet it happened that my first appearance at the gymnasium was an occasion of amusement to others and of mortification to myself. In the schools at Liblar and Brühl we had been in the habit of using slates for our arithmetic and dictation