"Visitors also, as was formerly the case in almost every nursery, related stories of spirits and ghosts, which we were never tired of hearing. Yet, although many who related them believed in them, at no time did my brother and I give a moment's credence to these tales. Never did we believe in the supernatural; even as boys of fifteen, we struggled against superstition. We have to thank our half-sister Jettchen for this: a maiden of rare gifts of mind. She pointed out to us in simple words the laughable side of these tales. But the awful had not the less great power over us, and we were often in fear when we were obliged to wander in the dark through the long passage to the front drawing-room. "At the age of three years and a half old, I received my first instruction. My brother could already almost read, and I soon advanced enough to keep pace with him. "I cannot say that we were fond of M. Kretzschmar, our first teacher, for he was in some degree bizarre, and punched our heads abundantly. It is scarcely credible but I can affirm that at five years old I only read mechanically, thinking all the time of something else; for example, of the flowers in our garden, or our little dog, &c. My own words sounded strange in my ears. Therefore I was often dreaming when I was asked a question; then followed the usual thump; but then I thought of that. Why was it so? It was indisputably for this reason, that our teacher did not know how to attract young minds to the subject. My brother was a very rare exception of quiet earnestness; and yet who knows how often even he may have been equally distracted? "At five years old we began to learn Latin. Jettchen translated glibly Cornelius and Phaedrus, and also the French New Testament. We boys learnt assiduously from Langen's and Raussendorf's grammar, and I had long written what we called 'small exercises,' before I clearly knew what I was about. I remember distinctly that it was as if scales fell from my eyes when, at six years old, I discovered that we were learning the language of the ancient Romans." (Thus was instruction almost universally carried on at that time!)