“My son must be impressed with love and fear of God, as the foundation of our temporal and eternal welfare. No false religions or sects of Atheist, Arian, Socinian, or whatever name the poisonous things have, which can easily corrupt a young mind, are to be even named in his hearing. He is to be taught a proper abhorrence of Papistry, and to be shown its baselessness and nonsensicality. Impress on him the true religion, which consists essentially in this: that Christ died for all men. He is to learn no Latin, but French and German, so as to speak and write with brevity and propriety. Let him learn arithmetic, mathematics, artillery, economy, to the very bottom; history in particular; ancient history only slightly, but the history of the last one hundred and fifty years to the exactest pitch. He must be completely master of geography, as also of whatever is remarkable in each country. With increasing years you will more and more, to an especial degree, go upon fortification, the formation of a camp, and other war sciences, that the prince may from youth upward be trained to act as officer and general, and to seek all his glory in the soldier profession.” Frederick William took little Fritz with him from early childhood on all his military reviews, and in going from garrison to garrison the king employed a common vehicle called a sausage-car. This consisted of a mere stuffed pole, some ten or twelve feet long, upon which they sat astride. It rested upon wheels, and the riders, ten or a dozen, were rattled along over the rough roads through dust and rain, in winter’s cold and summer’s heat. This iron king robbed his child even of sleep, saying, “Too much sleep stupefies a fellow.” Sitting astride of this log carriage, the tender and delicate Fritz, whose love was for music, poetry, and books, was forced to endure all kinds of hardship and fatigue. When Fritz was ten years of age, his exacting father made out a set of rules which covered all the hours of this poor boy’s life. Not even Saturday or Sunday was left untrammelled by his stern requirements. Fritz was a remarkably handsome boy, with a fine figure, small and delicate hands and feet, and flowing blonde hair. His father, despising all the etiquette and social manners of life and dress, ordered his beautiful hair to be cut off, and denied him every luxury of the toilet and adornment. Frederick William early displayed an aversion for his handsome son, which soon amounted to actual hatred. As Wilhelmina and the mother of Fritz both took his part against the angry and brutal king, the wrath of that almost inhuman monster was also meted out to them.