Particularly did they appeal—and here is a point deserving of special emphasis—to his sense of filial love. That they were able to make their appeal unfailingly successful, that the child always found in it a compelling motive for good behaviour, was due to the fact that their whole attitude toward him made him realise that he was an object of devoted, though not over-indulgent, love on their part. Never rebuked without a sufficient cause, and always more in sorrow than in anger; given a free hand in all things except those injurious or detrimental to him; made a companion and a playmate by both parents—he soon perceived, as any child would, that they had nothing more warmly at heart than his best interests and his happiness. Loved as he was, he gave out abundant love in return, and the great ambition of his childhood became a passionate desire to please his father and mother. Hence it was that Witte, in carrying out his policy of early intellectual training, found no more potent spur to incite his boy to study the subjects given him than the simple statement, “You know, dear Karl, you must learn all you can, so that you will be able to care for your mother and me when we are old and feeble.” Hence, too, the child acquired habits of obedience, self-control, and truthfulness, largely because of his anxiety not to bring pain to his parents. They, however, it is to be noted, were careful to discipline him firmly if he did commit a fault, but always in a way that caused him to appreciate the reasonableness of the punishment inflicted on him. Such was the manner of Karl Witte’s education up to the age of nine. By that time he had learned so much, and was so well trained in the use of his mental powers, that his father decided to send him to college. At nine and a half, to the amazement of all Germany, he entered the University of Leipzig. There, as at the universities of Göttingen, Giessen, and Heidelberg, where he also prosecuted his studies, his career was brilliant in the extreme. No subject—and he applied himself to many subjects—seemed beyond his powers. In 1814, before he had passed his fourteenth birthday, he was granted the degree of Ph.D. for a thesis on the “Conchoid of Nicomedes,” a curve of the fourth degree. Two years later he was made a Doctor of Laws, and appointed to the teaching staff of the University of Berlin. Before beginning to teach, however, it was thought best for him to spend some time in foreign travel, which he was enabled to do, thanks to the generosity of no less a personage than the King of Prussia, who had been following his university career with lively interest. Abroad, therefore, Karl Witte went, chiefly to study law, the teaching of which he had definitely selected as his profession. But toward the close of 1818 an incident occurred which, while it did not turn him from law, opened up to him another field of intellectual activity, and the one in which he ultimately won his greatest fame.