In this manner I lived, up to my confirmation; all but a few weeks, that is, which I spent at my parents' house during the long holidays. Here, too, everything seemed to take a gentler turn, and the domestic, thrifty activity which filled the place, and always struck me anew in my periodical visits home, wrought upon me with most beneficial effect. The copper-plate engravings in my father's library were the first things I sought out, especially those representing scenes in the history of the world. A table showing our (German) alphabet in its relations with many others made a surprising impression upon me. It enabled me to recognise the connection and the derivation of our letters from the old Phoenician characters. This gave me a dim conception of the inner connection of all those languages of which, as my brother had studied and was still studying them, I often heard, and saw in print. Especially the Greek language lost much of its strangeness in my eyes, now that I could recognise its characters in the German alphabet. All this, however, had no immediate consequence in my life; these things, as echoes from my youth, produced their effect upon me at a later time. At this time, too, I read all sorts of boys' books. The story of Samuel Lawill impressed me most vividly; I, too, longed for such a ring, which by its warning pressure on my finger could hinder my hand from effecting unworthy purposes, and I was very angry with the youthful owner of the ring in the story, who threw it away in irritation because it pressed him right hard at a moment when he wished to commit a passionate deed.[16] My confirmation, and the preparation for it, all conducted by my uncle, was over. I had received from it the most impressive and the most far-reaching influence in my whole life, and all my life-threads found in it their point of union and repose. I had now to be prepared for some business calling, and the question was raised, for which? That I should not study at the university had already been decided long before by the express determination of my step-mother. For since two of my brothers[17] had devoted themselves to study, she feared that the further additional expense would be too heavy a burden upon my father's means. It may be that this intention had already influenced and limited my whole course of instruction; and probably only the little narrow circle of future business aims had been considered; the eye had not looked upon the boy as a future man. Possibly from this cause I was kept so little to Latin; it was enough if I learnt, as our mode of expression ran, to "state a _Casus_" (that is, to decline a noun). From my own experience it was thus shown to me how eminently injurious it is in education and in instruction to consider only a certain circle of future activities or a certain rank in life. The wearisome old-fashioned education _ad hoc_ (that is, for some one special purpose) has always left many a noble power of man's nature unawakened.