Karl was taken from his studies at the Blöchlinger Institute in the fall of 1823 and matriculated at the University of Vienna, where he pursued studies in philology from that time until the summer of 1825. Though his gifts were unquestioned and his attainments such as to make Beethoven eager to exploit them, he was not an industrious student. He seems to have experienced a desire to abandon the career which his uncle wished him to follow--that of a professor of languages, no doubt--before he had sat under the university lectures a year. His zeal for study soon evaporated, he spent much time in idle amusements, neglected to visit his uncle with the regularity expected from him, and soon broached the subject of a change in his intended pursuits. As early as 1824 he expressed a desire to enter the army. The thought was little short of appalling to Beethoven, who was obliged, however, at last to listen to arguments in favor of a mercantile career. Karl pointed out that a bookkeeper earned a great deal more money than a professor, that trade was honorable, and that he intended to keep on with his study of the languages, especially Greek, for his own pleasure and intellectual profit. Meanwhile he had continued his attendance on the lectures at the university, and it was not until towards the end of the Easter semester of 1825 that Beethoven consented to the change, entered him in the Polytechnic Institute, and arranged to have the vice-director of the Institute, Dr. Reisser, appointed co-guardian in place of Peters, with whom he took counsel as he also did, in great likelihood, with Stephan von Breuning. There were two great admirers of Beethoven’s music in the Institute, Reisser and Dr. Ignaz von Sonnleithner, one of the teachers, and after Karl had been placed under the supervision of a government official named Schlemmer, who lived in the Alleegasse adjacent to the Karlskirche, with whom the lad took lodgings, all seemed again to be well. He entered the Institute about Easter, 1825, and, if his own statements are to be accepted (Dr. Reisser, too, makes favorable reports of him), he made a good beginning in his new studies. His Sundays and holidays during the ensuing summer were spent with his uncle at Baden, where he was kept at work, too assiduously perhaps, writing Beethoven’s letters, and filling numerous other commissions. But his zeal did not endure. He became negligent in his studies; work became irksome and the pleasures of the city alluring. He was drawn willingly into the maelstrom of Viennese life. He grew fond of billiards, dancing and the theatre; he kept low company. Of all this there can be no doubt. Beethoven kept himself informed as to his conduct through Holz, through his brother, and sometimes went to Vienna himself to make inquiries. When Karl comes to Baden, Beethoven charges him with his shortcomings and there are unseemly scenes between the two. At first Karl seeks to be