In Germany, on the other hand, there was a surge of industrial activity that attracted some very able men to the problems of how machines ought to be built. Among the first of these was Ferdinand Redtenbacher (1809-1863), professor of mechanical engineering in the polytechnic school in Karlsruhe, not far from Heidelberg. Redtenbacher, although he despaired of the possibility of finding a "true system on which to base the study of mechanisms," was nevertheless a factor in the development of such a system. He had young Franz Reuleaux in his classes for two years, from 1850. During that time the older man's commanding presence, his ability as a lecturer, and his infectious impatience with the existing order influenced Reuleaux to follow the scholar's trail that led him to eminence as an authority of the first rank.[75] [Footnote 75: See Carl Weihe, "Franz Reuleaux und die Grundlagen seiner Kinematik," Deutsches Museum, Munich, _Abhandlung und Berichte_, 1942, p. 2; Friedrich Klemm, _Technik: Eine Geschichte ihrer Probleme_, Freiburg and Munich, Verlag Karl Alber, 1954, translated by Dorothea W. Singer as _A History of Western Technology_, New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1959, p. 317.] Before he was 25 years old Franz Reuleaux published, in collaboration with a classmate, a textbook whose translated title would be _Constructive Lessons for the Machine Shop_.[76] His several years in the workshop, before and after coming under Redtenbacher's influence, gave his works a practical flavor, simple and direct. According to one observer, Reuleaux's book exhibited "a recognition of the claims of practice such as Englishmen do not generally associate with the writings of a German scientific professor."[77] [Footnote 76: See Weihe, _op. cit._ (footnote 75), p. 3; Hans Zopke, "Professor Franz Reuleaux," _Cassier's Magazine_, December 1896, vol. 11, pp. 133-139; _Transactions of the American Society of Mechanical Engineers_, 1904-1905, vol. 26, pp. 813-817.] [Footnote 77: _Engineering_, London, September 8, 1876, vol. 22, p. 197.] Reuleaux's original ideas on kinematics, which are responsible for the way in which we look at mechanisms today, were sufficiently formed in 1864 for him to lecture upon them.[78] Starting in 1871, he published his findings serially in the publication of the Verein zur Beförderung des Gewerbefleisses in Preussen (Society for the Advancement of Industry in Prussia), of which he was editor. In 1875 these articles were brought together in the book that established his fame--_Theoretische Kinematik...._[79] [Footnote 78: A. E. Richard de Jonge, "What is Wrong with Kinematics and Mechanisms?" _Mechanical Engineering_, April 1942, vol. 64, pp. 273-278 (comments on this paper are in _Mechanical Engineering_, October 1942, vol. 64, pp. 744-751); Zopke, _op. cit._ (footnote 76), p. 135.]