Page:The Reminiscences of Carl Schurz (Volume One).djvu/89

 Alexander the Great and draw a map thereof on the blackboard, I felt myself able to undertake the task, and accomplished it satisfactorily.

Soon after I had become his pupil Professor Pütz drew me nearer to him, and something like relations of confidential friendship grew up between us. He had traveled much during his long vacations, had seen many foreign countries and made acquaintance with many remarkable personalities. Thus he had widened his mental horizon beyond the limits of that of the ordinary teacher of the gymnasium. There was something cosmopolitan in his conceptions, and in regard to theological, as well as political things, he passed for a man of advanced ideas.

In addition to history, he also taught us German composition, and as in my writings he discovered something akin to his own views, he treated me almost like a young comrade, whom he permitted in his presence to forget the schoolboy for the moment. He liked to tell me about his travels and about the social and political institutions and affairs of the world; and when our conversation turned upon church and state, he talked not seldom with a certain touch of irony, which was to make me understand that in his opinion many things ought to be different from what they were. He also encouraged expressions of opinion on my part, and it gave him pleasure to see that I had thought of this and that which was not just within the circle of a schoolboy's ideas; and when, so encouraged, I gave expression to my boyish criticisms of existing conditions, he would sometimes listen with an approving smile, at the same time remarking that we might talk unreservedly between ourselves, but that it would be advisable for us to be more circumspect in conversation with others.

In other ways also he enlarged my horizon. From his