Struensee exhibited remarkable abilities at an early age; he matriculated at the university of Halle in his fourteenth year, and he had not completed his twentieth when he received the degree of doctor. Notwithstanding these academic distinctions, he was unable at first to earn money, and his means were so limited that he was forced to remain, an unwilling dweller, in the house of his parents. Even at that early age his enterprising and restless mind and his unbridled ambition began to make themselves manifest; his academic successes he considered merely as steps towards further greatness. His father used to warn him against worldly ambition and intellectual pride, but his exhortations fell on deaf ears. In 1757, when Struensee was twenty years old, his father received "a call" to become chief preacher of the principal church of Altona, a city situated on the northern bank of the Elbe, within the kingdom of Denmark. This change in the family fortunes was destined to exercise a material influence on Struensee's future. The young doctor accompanied his father to Altona, and in a few months was appointed town physician, and country physician of the adjacent lordship of Pinneberg and the county of Rantzau. The elder Struensee did not remain long at Altona, for the fervour of his eloquence soon brought him preferment, and he was appointed by the Danish Government superintendent-general of the clergy of the duchy of Holstein, an office equivalent, in influence and importance, to that of bishop. Left to himself, the young doctor bought a house in Altona, and set up his own establishment. He entertained freely some of the principal people in Altona. Struensee was a pleasant host and clever conversationalist, and early gave evidence of those social qualities which afterwards proved useful to him. But his polish was superficial, and concealed his natural roughness and lack of refinement. He would do anything to gain notoriety, and to this end affected the bizarre; for instance, he had two skeletons with candles in their hands placed one on either side of his bed, and by the light of these weird candelabra he read himself to sleep.