Much thought and care were devoted by the elder Goethe to the education of his children. He himself took the work in hand, but for special subjects he called in the aid of private tutors, from whom Goethe and his sister received lessons in association with the children of some neighbouring families. Goethe’s father and tutors were astonished at the ease and rapidity with which he mastered the most difficult tasks. Nothing seemed to be too hard for him. It was often, however, in childhood, a relief to escape from his father’s rigid discipline, and to enjoy a little talk with his mother, who was always ready to feed his imagination with tales of adventure in fairyland. He contrived, too, to read a good many books--among others, German translations of “Robinson Crusoe,” and Lord Anson’s “Voyage Round the World.” Among his father’s books were the works of Fleming, Canitz, Haller, Hagedorn, Gellert, and other German poets, and he found much in them to awaken and foster his love of poetry. Klopstock’s “Messiah,” the first three cantos of which had been published the year before Goethe’s birth, was not thought to be good enough for a place in a select library, for Goethe’s father, like many another critic of the eighteenth century, held that rhyme was essential to poetry. Goethe and his sister were delighted to receive secretly the loan of a copy from an old friend of the family who regularly read it, as a pious exercise, once a year in Passion Week. They learned by heart some of the most striking passages, which they often recited to one another. One Saturday evening, when their father was being shaved, they sat behind the stove, and repeated in whispers a wild dialogue between Satan and Adramelech. Cornelia became more and more excited as the dialogue went on, and at last, forgetting her father’s presence, she uttered in a loud voice the words, “How am I crushed!” The barber was so startled that the contents of the lather-basin were dashed on the Herr Rath’s breast. Strict inquiry was made, and Klopstock’s epic was at once ignominiously banished from the house. Of greater influence on Goethe than any of the more formal works he read at this early stage, were the badly-printed folk-books, which he bought in great numbers. They suggested to him many a strange and romantic tale, and it may have been one of them that introduced him for the first time to the story of Faust.