Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/76

 Not dreaming that a slate was incompatible with the dignity of a ten-year-old pupil at the gymnasium, I carried mine under my arm into the class-room and thus unwittingly exposed myself to the scoffs and giggles of the boys, not one of whom I knew. There was a loud burst of laughter when one boy shouted: “Look at that fellow; he has got a slate!” I should have liked to reply to this remark with my fists, but just at that moment the instructor entered, and all was respectful silence.

My scale of living at Cologne was, of necessity, extremely modest. Board and lodging had been provided for me by my parents at the house of a locksmith. I slept in the same bed with the locksmith's son, who was also a mechanic, and took my meals at the family table with the journeymen and apprentices. Severe decorum was exacted of all; the master led the conversation, and only the foreman occasionally took part in it. I had no social intercourse whatever with persons of good education outside of school; but within school many helpful influences surrounded me.

At the present day the question “What should be the course of study in an educational institution of the rank of a gymnasium?” is being much discussed. This I shall return to later. But the question what the course of study should be seems to me by no means the only important, nor even the most important, one. What we learn in school is naturally but little, only a small portion of that which we have to learn for fruitful activity in after life. It is therefore of especial consequence that the things learned in school, whatever they may be, should be taught in such a manner as to awaken and encourage in the pupil the desire and enjoyment of learning more, and to enable him to seek and find for himself the means of further instruction, and to use them to the greatest possible