Tell the steward to write me most minutely about the farming, the harvest, the horses and their illness. Tell the schoolmaster to write about the school: how many pupils come, and whether they learn well. I shall certainly return in autumn and intend to occupy myself more than ever with the school, so I do not wish its reputation to be lost while I am away, and I want as many pupils as possible from different parts. While in Kissingen he read Bacon and Luther and Riehl, and made the acquaintance of Julius Froebel, author of _The System of Social Politics_ and nephew of Froebel, the founder of the Kindergarten system. Julius Froebel was himself much interested in educational matters, and was a particularly suitable person to explain his uncle's ideas to Tolstoy. The latter astonished his new acquaintance, with whom he used to go for walks, by the uncompromising rigidity of his views, which showed a considerable tinge of Slavophilism. Progress in Russia, declared Tolstoy, must be based on popular education, which would give better results in Russia than in Germany, because the Russian people were still unperverted, whereas the Germans were like children who had for years been subjected to a bad education. Popular education should not be compulsory. If it is a blessing, the demand for it should come naturally, as the demand for food comes from hunger. Tolstoy visited the country round Kissingen, and travelling northward through a part of Germany rich both in scenery and in historic interest, reached Eisenach and visited the Wartburg, where Luther was confined after the Diet of Worms. The personality of the great Protestant reformer interested Tolstoy greatly, and after seeing the room in which Luther commenced his translation of the Bible, he noted in his Diary: 'Luther was great'! Twenty years later Tolstoy himself attempted to free the minds of men from the yoke of an established Church, and he too shaped his chief weapon against the Church by translating, not, it is true, like Luther, the whole Bible, but the Gospels. Meanwhile Nicholas Tolstoy's health had been growing worse rather than better. Sergius, having been unlucky at roulette, decided to return to Russia, and visiting Leo at Kissingen _en route_, told him of his fears for Nicholas. On 9th August Sergius left Kissingen and Nicholas himself arrived there to visit Leo, but soon returned to Soden. Leo then spent a fortnight in the Harz Mountain district, enjoying nature and reading a great deal. On 26th August he rejoined Nicholas, his sister and her children, at Soden. The doctors had decided that Nicholas must winter in a warmer climate, and the place decided on was Hyères near Toulon, on the shores of the Mediterranean. The first stage of the journey undertaken by the family party was to Frankfurt-on-Main, where their aunt, the Countess A. A. Tolstoy, was staying. She tells the following story of Leo's visit to her on this occasion: