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Every intimate and insightful book contains some autobiographical aspect. Even if it doesn't tell us something that actually happened to the author in a real circumstance, it reveals his idea of what would have happened under specific conditions. If this is true, then how can one man produce, not fifty men, like Browning claims to have done, but hundreds of actual people behaving in the ways they do because of the character of the author? To make this possibility a reality is as amazing and confounding as pondering the Milky Way. Does it mean that all things are possible for all people? Well, anyway, Wolfgang Goethe admits that he imagines himself in almost everything he writes. One fault, moral instability, is written about for us to learn from in his book 'Wilhelm Meister.'
It might not be very helpful to compare this hero with another hero from an intimate journal, our old favorite friend Arthur Pendennis. We don't need to bother asking how much of 'Pendennis' is consciously autobiographical because Thackeray never bothers to tell
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us. But Goethe, on the other hand, makes the greatest effort to trace the influences that resulted in who he became, not only in his autobiography, Dichtung und Wahrheit, but also in Werther, Wilhelm Meister, and Faust. He makes it a point to tell us again and again that everything he wrote is a record of himself. He writes about the astrological influences he was born under, the events surrounding his birth, he takes extreme care analyzing his own nature, tracing one trait to his father, another to his mother, and others to his great-grandparents. he tells us that he got his tall, strong frame and his earnestness in living from his father, who was a man who adhered to 'laws' and also had a taste for art. He married a woman half his age who was closer in age and tastes to their son than to him. As she wrote, 'My Wolfgang and I are both young.'
Catherine Goethe was a distinct person who wrote to many educated women who belonged to the Kultur Kampf as she did. She seems to have been a delightful woman, cheerful, emotional and creative. She wrote, 'Joyousness is the highest of all virtues. When we're content and cheerful, we want everyone else to be satisfied and happy, and we do everything we can to make that happen.' And she wrote, 'By God's grace, nobody ever went away from me dissatisfied. I love people, and both children and adults can sense that.' She says that she never tried to change or reform anyone. She saw the good in people and left the bad to God Who created them, and 'this is how I'm able to be content and happy.' All of this sounds very well, but in actuality, it meant that she was eclectic and only chose to experience what she wanted in life. For example, she would never tolerate anything that might bother her--
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and her son shared this attitude. We're told that, when she hired a new servant, she would tell them, 'You must never tell me anything terrifying, unsettling or unpleasant, whether it happens in my home, the neighborhood, or the town. I refuse to know anything about it. If it's something that concerns me, I'll find out about it soon enough. If it doesn't concern me, then it's none of my business. Even if a fire breaks out on the street where I live, I don't want to find out about it any sooner than I have to.' It wasn't that she was an unfeeling person, but she chose not to feel certain things. When her son was gravely ill in 1805, she wouldn't allow anyone to tell her what was going on. When he was finally recovered, she said, 'I knew it all along . . . now I can talk about him without feeling a stab in my heart every time I hear his name.' That's her excuse--she didn't want to feel a stab in her heart. She refused to 'dree her weird,' refused to experience her share of unpleasant feelings.
The limitations that concern Goethe's admirers were a result of her influence and example. He's such a great man, and it 'stabs the heart' to find that his greatness doesn't include love and care for his country and his kind. If only he had let himself care, when his country was experiencing one urgent crisis after another! If only he had helped when people turned to him, in his wisdom, for help. But his mother removed that care from him. And she's a lesson to future mothers. The concept of self-improvement and personal culture is fascinating, and seems so deceptively pseudo-virtuous, that many noble-minded women can be deceived. They believe that improving their minds and conserving their emotions is
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the best thing they can do for themselves and for society because, as they reason, if every person looks to himself, and takes care of cleaning the street in front of his own house, then the whole street will be clean. They bring up their children with the same attitude. Their children work and seek after their own personal improvement, but are aloof from the lives of other people. We need to be perfectly clear about this issue and recognize once and for all that personal improvement isn't a legitimate goal. It's fine to seek knowledge for the sake of knowledge, and to improve our mind and body so we're better prepared to serve others. When we recognize this, then our own self takes on an objective aspect rather than a self-centered one. We'll look at pictures and read books because the pictures and books deserve to be experienced, not just for our own gratification. Our children will carry on this wider perspective of life. They'll feel, think and work without holding back when the occasion demands it, and they won't be confined in an inlet of personal improvement.
We read about little Wolfgang's horror of ugliness when he was as young as three years old, crying, 'Take the dark child away! I can't bear it!' and this gives a key to a lot of what happened later in his life. He never learned to endure things as a child because his mother, who should have taught him, understood and shared his sensitivity. Therefore, endurance, which allows people to manfully and cheerfully accept the inevitable, never became part of his make-up. A person who can't endure things will be forced to avoid them, and we find Wilhelm Meister evading obligations with a determination that would have been better spent on some worthier cause. We hesitate to be critical about such a poetic soul, in fact, one of the world's few great poets. One time I heard a distinguished man who had had the honor of knowing Goethe giving a lecture about him. He fervently praised him, and why not? But he couldn't bring himself to blame Goethe for any failure. At the
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end of the lecture, he said to a friend, 'Haven't I done a good job of whitewashing him?' Goethe was too great to have needed whitewashing. He has offered himself as a beacon light to mankind. He not only tells us where to find safety, but warns us where the dangerous rocks are. We don't want to dishonor such a great genius by speculating about why, in some ways, he was less than other men, and how he could have been a greater person all around. [Or . . . perhaps the limiting influences in his childhood were allowed by God to bring out his other strengths for specific purposes in ways that we can't know? LNL]
His grandmother's huge bedroom upstairs was a favorite place to play for Wolfgang and his dearly cherished little sister, Cornelia. One Christmas Eve, this grandmother introduced a game that gave direction to the rest of his life after that. It was the now famous puppet show. He gives full details of the event in Wilhelm Meister. Wilhelm's mother says, 'How often I've been rebuked about that miserable puppet show that I unfortunately provided for you at Christmas twelve years ago! That's what put these plays into your head.' 'Oh, Mother, don't blame the poor puppets! Don't be sorry for your love and maternal care! It was the only hour I ever enjoyed in that empty, new house. I'll never forget that hour. I can still see it, I remember how surprised I was when, after we had opened all our usual Christmas presents, you made us sit in front of the door that leads to the other room. The door opened, but not so we could walk through and go in--instead, the entrance was blocked by an unexpected show! A porch rose up within that doorway, hidden by a mysterious curtain. We were all standing some distance away. Our excited anticipation to see what might be glittering or jiggling behind that half transparent veil mounted higher and higher, and you had to tell us to sit down and wait patiently. Finally, we were all
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seated and quiet. There was a signaling whistle, the curtain rolled upwards, and we saw the interior of the Temple in Jerusalem, painted in deep red colors. The high priest Samuel appeared with Jonathan, and their strange alternating voices sounded to me like the most striking things I had ever heard. Soon Saul came out, utterly confused at the impertinent giant of a warrior who had defied him and his people. I was so glad when the handsome little son of Jesse's came hopping forth with his crook and shepherd's pouch and sling and said, 'My strong king and noble lord, don't let anyone be disheartened because of this. If your Majesty will let me, I'll go out to battle this blustering giant!' The first act ended, leaving the audience even more curious to see what was going to happen next. We prayed that the intermission music would end soon. Finally, the curtain rose again. David dedicated the giant's body to the birds of the air and the beasts of the field. The Philistine giant mocked and bullied him, stamped his feet mightily, and finally fell like a lump of clay--a splendid end to the battle. Then the young women sang, 'Saul has slain his thousands, but David has slain ten thousands!' The giant's head was carried to the little champion, and he was given the king's beautiful daughter as a wife. (This is from Carlyle's translation of Goethe's book.) This gives us the first indication of Goethe's career, the moment that a vocation came to the poet as a child. It comes in this way to many other children--casually and without warning. From here on, he spent his time dramatizing situations that he lived or heard about, and conceiving of other situations worthy of being dramatized. This helps us to understand how, for the rest of his life, directing
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the princely theater at Weimar was something he enjoyed and did well at. There are lots of details in Wilhelm Meister that show how young Wolfgang became more and more obsessed with the one single idea. We read how he pried around in the way that children often do, and found the puppets that had given him such pleasure set aside in the storage room. He begged his mother to let him have them, and created different costumes for them so they could play different parts. Then he wrote plays for them, and spoke all their parts with such sincere expression and proper enunciation that his father, who was more stern and had been unsure about his son's new interest, decided that it was a good educational activity.
Most parents don't imagine that their children are budding poets and are a little puzzled at their interest in any kind of acting, anything from comic puppets to real drama, and they wonder how much they should encourage an activity that might interfere with more serious interests. But all children are born poets, and they naturally dramatize all of the life they see around them as if it's all an endless play. Why not use this natural gift to further their education? In fact, I'll go a step further and declare that any child who doesn't dramatize his lessons, who doesn't play at King Richard and Saladin, or voyage with Captain Cook and excavate in Egypt with Flinders Petrie--isn't really learning. Any information that's simply memorized and not role played isn't assimilated and doesn't become a part of who he is.
That's why it's so important for children to have narration as an outlet. It provides a way for them to tell the things they know in full detail, and, if they're so inclined, to 'play' the different characters and role play the scenes
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that catch their interest from their reading. At the same time, there's always the risk that their imaginative play-acting might become more real to them than the event as it actually happened, or that a visual interpretation of a thing [such as a movie about an event] might occupy their whole minds. This might be a good reason not to indulge children by letting them see anything staged, or with the properties of a play--not even so much as a puppet show [or TV show or movie?] Children will find everything they need with things as simple as a chair for a throne, a sofa as a ship, a stick to be a sword, gun or scepter, whichever is needed. In fact, children's preoccupation with flashy, trivial things can be avoided if they're left alone. Their own imaginations will furnish them with plenty of props and fun scenes at the merest suggestion of reality. Bottom the weaver [from a Midsummer Night's Dream] and his crew provide a model for children's plays:
'This lantern can represent the moon,'
and there's a hint of Shakespeare's sincerity in this joke, because he presents the same idea on a larger scale in the prologue to Henry V. [by asking the audience to use their imaginations and pretend that the stage represents the battle fields of France].
Young Goethe's father loved teaching, and taught his children himself. There are still some exercises on paper that young Wolfgang did preserved in the Frankfort library in German, Latin, Greek, and French, written between the time he was 8-10 years old. These papers show that his lessons were unplanned and interesting. The father dictated something that had interested him, some item of current news, or a story about 'Old Fritz,' or the boy would choose something himself. It doesn't appear that he ever went to school except on one occasion,
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when the family's house was being rebuilt and the children were sent to school to be out of the way. Their experience at school seems to have offended the two children, who were very particular. They weren't used to the chaotic life of a school. It's possible that this first experience with children his own age was the beginning of Goethe's indifference to the public good that stayed with him all his life. But it can be all too easy to criticize this flaw in the great poet's character. After all, it's possible that his mind was philosophical to the point of analyzing what kinds of help he was capable of giving to mankind, and he realized that nothing he could do differently would be more help than what he was already giving.
It might have been during the short time he was in school that he learned to hate grammar, and, interestingly, for the same reasons that educationalist Herbert Spencer didn't like it--he couldn't tolerate arbitrary rules. Both of these great thinkers might have been better off by going through a few grammar lessons. At any rate, they both took their education into their own hands, and both are recognized as geniuses in their own areas.
Analyzing language frustrated Goethe, but analyzing human nature fascinated him from a young age. He writes about an interesting incident where he seems to be a normal child, in a natural attitude of curious interest before making any final judgments. He and some of his little friends entered a poetry contest. 'And then something happened that bothered me for a long time. I naturally felt, justifiably or not, that my own poems were the best ones. But I noticed that my friends, whose poems weren't very good, were just like me, and thought their poems were the best. What seemed even
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more odd was that one boy, who was decent enough but fairly useless as far as work goes, got his tutor to write his poems. He not only considered them better than our poems, but he was fully convinced that he had written them himself, and told me so in complete sincerity!'
At 9 or 10 years old, he had already observed one of the most baffling complexities of human nature--that our attempts to seem different than we really are is an intellectual fault, not a moral one, and that a hypocrite is often a person who has used his faulty intellectual habits to deceive his own self. This memory of Goethe's reminds us that a child can see things clearly because he hasn't been blinded by conventional habits, and such children are always watching us, taking note curiously and wonderingly, of all our hypocritical opinions and actions, although they don't realize they're doing it.
It's reassuring to see that young Wolfgang loved the same books that all children love. He says that Telemachus had 'a sweet, positive influence on him,' and, in his eyes, Anson's Voyage Round the World combined 'dignified truth with adventurous fiction.' He also loved Robinson Crusoe, folk tales and fairy tales.
It seems appropriate that Goethe's home was in an ancient city that was rich in history and traditions, and he loved all of it. It meant a lot to him to stand in the very hall that emperors had been crowned in, and on the same spot where one of Charlemagne's castles stood! As he looked up at the vault of Rathus, he loved to think about all of the leaders of the city who had made decisions there long ages past. And there were the charming houses of the Romer-Platz, and, last but
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not least, the stately old building with its projecting gables that the Goethes themselves lived in. He goes into detail about these things in his autobiographical Dichtung and Walirheit, writing about his early childhood impressions. There was also Frankfort, with both its history and its bustling modern life, which was 'a suitable care-giver for me, as a poetic child.'
The first impressions that a child gets of his native home are so precious and special that it will be good for us to see what it was like for Goethe seeking whatever ideas his Vaterstadt [Vaterstadt means hometown] could offer him.
'It was about this time that I became aware of my Vaterstadt, as I wandered up and down, more freely and more uncontrolled, sometimes alone, sometimes with my friends. How can I explain the impression that these solemn and revered surroundings made on me? I'll start with the impression I had of my birthplace as I finally became aware of its many aspects. I especially loved to walk on the Mainz bridge. Its length, strength and beauty made it a noticeable structure, but it was also an important memorial that the world owes to the burghers, who built it long ago.
'The beautiful river drew my gaze up and down as it traveled up and down stream, and I had a wonderful thrill when the golden rooster on the cross on the bridge glittered in the sunshine. Then we usually went through Sachsenhausen and paid a kreuzer for the ferry to take us across. When we got to the other side, we strolled along to the wine market and watched the cranes unloading goods. But our favorite thing to see was the arrival of the market boats, and the strange people coming off of them. Then we'd go into the
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city. We never went into the city without paying our respects to the 'Saalhof' which was on the very spot where the castle of Charles and his successors is supposed to have been. We lost ourselves in the old trading section, and were glad to be among the throng of people gathered around the church of St. Bartholomew on market days.
'I also remember the horror I felt as I fled past the crowded, narrow, hideous meat stalls. The Romerberg was a fun place to walk in. But what attracted my attention the most were the little towns within the city, like fortresses within a fortress. The walled cloisters that had been built long ago and the ruins like castles had been transformed into homes and warehouses.'
At that time, Frankfort didn't have any important modern architecture, but everywhere there were remnants of 'old, unhappy, far-off times, and battles fought long ago.' Forts, towers, fortified walls, and moats enclosed the new town of Frankfort, and everyone was talking about the need to provide a place for the public to go for safety in case of troubled times. 'I became interested in old, antique things. This interest was nourished and encouraged with old chronicles and woodcuts, such as those by Grave depicting the siege of Frankfort. I began observing all of the complexity of the routine circumstances of life with no regard to how interesting or beautiful they were. One of our favorite walks was around the city walls. We tried to do that several times each year. Gardens, patios, and out-buildings stretch to the Livinger, and we could see thousands of people in their natural, domestic, narrow, isolated lives. From the
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fabulous gardens of the rich, to the orchards of the burgher growing his family's daily food, from the factories, grounds where fabric was bleached, and similar workplaces, to the churchyard that was like its own little world within the town's border, we wandered on past a varied, wonderful, constantly changing scene, and our childhood curiosity never got tired of it.
'Inside the Romer, we loved everything connected with the electing and crowning of emperors. We knew how to get around the keepers so that we could get permission to go up the colorful imperial staircase, which was shut off by an iron gate. The Hall of Election, with purple hangings and gold fringes, inspired us with awe. The door hangings had pictures of little children or genies dressed in royal colors and bearing the royal insignia. We looked at them with great attention, and longed to see a real coronation with our own eyes.
'They had a hard time getting us out of the imperial hall once we had managed to slip in. We were grateful to anyone who could tell us the deeds of the emperors whose paintings adorned the walls all around. We heard lots of stories about Charlemagne, but we got really interested in history when we heard about Rudolf of Hapsburg, whose courage put an end to so much strife. Charles the Fourth also attracted our interest. We heard Maximilian praised as the friend of men and burghers. It was prophesied that he would be the last of his family to be emperor, and, unfortunately, that actually was the case. After he died, the only options for a successor were Charles V,
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the King of Spain, and Francis I, the King of France.'
It appears that all of this familiarity with his native town came before he was eight years old, or maybe a little bit later, during the time when his house was being rebuilt and he and his sister were spending more time with friends--during this time, they seem to have been left more on their own than usual.
His knowledge of the Vaterstadt seems to have been absorbed casually, from children like himself who had heard it from people like curators and workers. Any time there's an enthusiasm for any kind of knowledge, it comes from random, chance sources. It's too bad that English children don't seek this kind of knowledge. Every English county and almost every town has a wonderful, rich history and fascinating people associated with it. There must be some reason why we lack the patriotism that most other European countries manage to instill in their children. I once heard a German man in the Hartz valley tell his five-year-old little boy that this was the scene of Johann Tilly's famous march against Magdeburg, and, naturally, the child could envision the valley filled with armed soldiers, and pawing horses with waving plumes. He would never forget that association. A very young child on the streets in Bruges, Belgium could tell you where a specific painting by Hans Memling can be found. At the Hague in the Netherlands, you might find a working-class father taking his children around to the art galleries. You can't tell what he's explaining to them, but they certainly seem interested. But this kind of interest doesn't seem to exist for probably eighty percent of our children born in England. There seems to be two or three reasons for this. First of all,
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we've been raised to only approve of whatever is 'useful' in education and has utilitarian, practical value. We decide that reading, writing and balancing a checkbook are worthwhile because they help us to earn a living. Playing the piano, singing, and conversational French can help us in social settings. Classical Greek literature and math skills might earn a scholarship. But what good is it to know what happened in the past, or to even know what happened down the street? What's the practical value of having an imagination filled with beautiful pictures of various things and scenes that enrich life and provide a nobler existence?
It's the same old story. That's why I say that a strictly utilitarian education is extremely immoral. It cheats a child out of the relationships and associations that should provide an intellectual atmosphere for him.
Another notion that prevents any real appreciation of the past is the idea that 'We're the only people who matter!' We're so arrogantly sure that we know everything that needs to be known, and that we do everything that's worth doing. So we regard the traditions and memorabilia from the past with a superior smirk. We have the notion that, even if history writers didn't make up the things they write about, those feats are no big deal: 'I know a guy who could do just as much, and more!' There's nothing more unpleasant than the superior attitude and cheap sneers that both well-dressed 'cultured' people, as well as lower class people, express whenever they're in the presence of any historical monument they visit on their vacation. Sadly, we've lost the habit of reverence.
There's a third reason that's less repugnant. It's strongly instilled in us that bragging is wrong. We determine not to make a fuss about our private possessions,
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and that attitude unconsciously carries over to anything that we as a people might magnify of our past. But we need to remember that this kind of intimate knowledge of our past and historical associations is the right of every child, no matter what class of society he's in. Once we recognize this flaw in the education we provide for our children, we'll surely find ways to remedy it.
Goethe describes another fragment of his early education. The entire thing needs to be quoted to show how strong the impression was that it made in his mind:
'In my house, my eyes were most attracted to a row of pictures of Roman scenes that my father had decorated the ante-room with. Every day, I saw the Piazza del Popolo, the Colosseum, the Piazza of St. Peter's, the inside and outside of St. Peter's, the Castle of St. Angelo, and lots of other things. These pictures made a deep impression on me. My father, who generally didn't say much, was usually happy to give me descriptions of what these pictures showed. He was very outspoken about his love for the Italian language, and everything having to do with Italy. He showed us a small collection of marble and other natural objects he had gotten there, and he spent a lot of his time writing a journal of his travels.'
This gives us an idea of what we can do for a child by the pictures we surround him with. This row of pictures and his father's descriptions of them practically provided Goethe with a second fatherland. The
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language of Italy, the sunshine of Italy, the history of Italy, became a familiar home for his thoughts. We know how much his long stay in Italy later in his life affected his style as a poet, for better or worse. [Goethe wrote a book about his own travels in Italy in his late 30's, called Italian Journey: 1786-1788.]
Our first idea is that all we can do for children is to instill a proper feeling for art in them. For example, we can surround them with the open spaces and simple, enduring figures that we get in Millet's pictures. We can't do any better than that--but that's not all we can do. We can do more. Some of our pictures should be like windows that show our children a landscape beyond, ones like the Umbrian masters [such as Tiberio d'Assisi] loved to depict. That's exactly what children need--an outlook. Every souvenir of travel, such as a postcard or photograph, will almost certainly make a child think about the distant places his parents have seen and known, and will just as certainly result in the child seeking out these same places when he grows up--not simply because his parents have been there, but because his own imagination has been there, and because that place has provided a home for his thoughts.
Public events cause all people to reflect, and they had their share of influence in Goethe's education. One of the more notable events in Goethe's childhood was the unusual disaster that deeply troubled his peace of mind for the first time in his life. It was an earthquake that shook Lisbon on November 1, 1755. The news fell on the peaceful world like a terrible shock. The earth shook, opened, and a large, beautiful
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city, with all of its houses, towers, walls, churches, palaces, and 60,000 of its people, was swallowed up in the chasm, leaving nothing but smoke and flames around the ruins.
'Goethe [who turned 6 in August, 1755] heard everyone talking about this, and it greatly troubled him. God was supposedly the Creator and Preserver of heaven and earth--that's what the first article of the Creed so wisely and mercifully says. Yet this wasn't the way a father should act, bringing destruction on both the good and the bad. His young spirit tried to free itself from all impressions, but in vain, especially since wise men and scholars couldn't agree about what to make of this kind of phenomenon.'
Then he tells about another event the following summer that made him more acquainted with the angry God of the Old Testament. A violent hailstorm broke the windows out of the new house, flooded the rooms, and compelled the maids to shriek and beg God on their knees to have mercy on them. His faith was doubly shaken. He doubted the fatherhood of God, and the trust of men [who couldn't explain God's ways]. That attitude bore fruit in his later life.
Unexpected natural disasters that we can't prevent will naturally stir profound thoughts in the minds of thoughtful children. They think more about these things than adults, not less, because they're so new and unfamiliar to them. A child's faith can be devastated by the news of a major catastrophe and the casual way people discuss it, and he'll never say a word about it. But such disasters should be opportunities, not hindrances. Every day of our lives we're face to face with providential and unaccountable events. We can't reconcile one idea with the
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other. These contradictions are what the 'mystery of godliness' is for us. It might not be a bad idea to bring a child face to face with the existence of that mystery the first time his mind is troubled with some disaster, whether public or personal. We don't know everything; we're not meant to. God has made us limited beings. If we understood everything, then there'd be no place for faith in our lives. We'd only believe in whatever we could see and understand. But consider this: the sudden loss of all of those precious lives just might mean that life and death aren't as devastating and final to God as they seem to us. One thing we're sure of is that people who die go on existing. We don't know how, we have to trust God for that. After all, He's our Father--and theirs, too. These kinds of opportunities to exercise our faith should strengthen our confidence in God, not weaken it.
Later we read an interesting account of how young Goethe was dissatisfied with the religious training he had received, so he determined to create his own religion. Like many other children, he made himself an altar out of his father's lacquered music stand and offered natural objects with a constant fire to symbolize the way man's heart rises in desire for his Maker. He made the flame by burning incense cones, which he lit with a magnifying glass heated in the sun. But the second time he did one of these sacrifices, the altar caught fire, and that was the end of the poetic child's attempt to invent his own religion.
He writes that, through hard work, he finally learned the things that his father and the teachers that his father hired wanted him to learn. But he wasn't grounded with a solid foundation in anything. We've already seen that he disliked grammar, although he tolerated Latin grammar because
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the rhymes helped his memory. The children had a geography book in verse, too, and that helped them to remember facts and names of places. But using their finger on the globe to trace George Anson's voyages and their father's travels is probably what gave them their real knowledge of geography.
Goethe's father was proud of his son's gift for language and rhetoric, and he made lots of plans for the future based on these gifts. For example, his son should go to two universities--Leipsic first, and then he could choose the second one himself,--and then he should travel in Italy. And, at that, the father would start talking about Naples, which was much more interesting to the children than whatever might happen in the distant future.
They learned the basic facts of history from the great folio Bible, Comenius' Orbis Pictus, and Gottfried's Chronicle illustrated with woodcuts. Goethe was also nourished with fables, mythology and Ovid's Metamorphoses, which was the first book he made an effort to study.
In October 1756, when he was seven, a public event caught Goethe's interest. A war [the Seven Years' War] started that was to influence his life for the next seven years. Frederick the Great [Frederick II], the king of Prussia, attacked Saxony with 60,000 men, and instead of leaving the war to account for itself, he had issued a manifesto explaining why he had invaded Saxony. This clever move polarized people into two groups, and the Goethe family was divided just like everyone else. The grandfather had assisted at Francis I's coronation and received a gold chain from the Empress, so he and some of the family sided with Austria. [Austria, under von Browne, aided Saxony.]
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The father had been loyal to the unfortunate Charles VII, and he sided with Prussia. The family which had been united before erupted into endless feuds, because every subject brought to mind their passionate opinions that the war had stirred up. Goethe says, 'I was also Prussian--or, to be more exact, I was Fritzisch. That's what made us Prussians--the personality of the great king that had worked on all of our minds. I rejoiced over our victories with my father, gladly wrote some songs of triumph, and, even more gladly, wrote songs that taunted the enemy, although the rhymes were pretty bad.
'I was the oldest grandson and godson, and I had dined with my grandparents on Sundays during my entire childhood. The times I spent with them were the happiest hours of my week. But now even their food disgusted me, because I had to listen to them slander my hero. There was a different opinion here, another kind of talk than I heard at home. My affection and even my respect for my grandparents decreased. I couldn't tell any of this to my parents--my own instinct, as well as warnings from my mother, told me that I couldn't repeat any of it. So, I had to rely on myself. At this time, just like when I was seven after the earthquake in Lisbon, and I became a bit doubtful about God's goodness, now, because of the events surrounding Frederick the Second, I began to doubt whether public opinion could be counted on to be fair. I tended to be reverent by nature, and it took a lot of shaking to make my faith waver in areas regarding reverence.'
This makes us wonder how much children should be allowed to share the opinionated spirit and controversy about religion and politics that impassion their parents. I think everyone agrees that young
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children should be excluded from this kind of turmoil. We like to keep the youngest children sheltered in the innocence of heaven, and political animosity and bitterness certainly have no place there. But there's another reason why we should reserve our opinions about these urgent issues in front of our children. It's only natural for us to want them to share our opinion, but if we put too much pressure on them to embrace our perspective, then they'll be more likely to adopt the opposite view when they're older. Where they were biased and dogmatic allies at first, they can become indifferent or even hostile. This might be why we sometimes hear of children raised by Unitarian parents becoming Roman Catholics, or a liberal father having a conservative son, and things like that. For all of these reasons, we need to restrain ourselves in front of our children. In fact, moderating ourselves because of their influence might be good for us. But, eventually, a child will have to choose one side or the other, and decide for himself, whether he's right or wrong. Making up his own mind is part of his initiation into adulthood.
It's surprising that young Goethe, with his poetic sensitivity, didn't side with Maria Theresa, the good, kind empress, who was obviously entitled to his chivalric loyalty. But this is another case where we can read between the lines. He didn't take Frederick's side just because his father did--he also took his side because the clever king had stated his case, and, by its very nature, the stated case is convincing to a logical mind like Goethe's. We tend to miss that in dealing with matters of religion and the philosophy of life. We let those who disagree state the case, but it's a fact that the first statement almost always carries conviction. Maybe this is why atheistic teaching spreads so rapidly among
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intelligent creative types. For the first time, they've heard a logical statement that doesn't insult their intellect. Evidence can be found to back almost any statement, and the novice student whose mind constructs the reasonable argument to prove the idea is stirred with sudden joy at his own logic. 'I have thought!' he thinks to himself, for perhaps the first time in his life. His reason enjoys the satisfaction of demonstrating logic. That's why it's so difficult to shake such opinions--in this case, they're primal convictions. It's especially difficult to reach such a person through emotional sentiment. There's nothing wrong with pride of intellect. The mistake we make is in failing to use our intellect to justify right thinking and right living. We rarely bother to offer youths the intellectual logic for any opinions we offer them. Everything is done casually. And then we're distressed when youths show themselves to be wiser than we are and make an appeal to the mind to justify opinions that repulse us because they're so wrong.
Another thing to notice is the bold self-confidence of young people. All youths are confident about their opinions--not because they're foolish and arrogant, but because they haven't yet realized that equally reasonable, intelligent people have opposite opinions about any given subject. In this area, like so many others, I sense that a rational foundation of sensible education is lacking--in other words, a methodical study of human nature [like that presented in CM's 4th volume, 'Ourselves.']
We can learn a lot from some of Goethe's comments: 'Reflecting carefully on the matter, I can see now where there was a seed of indifference in me, even contempt, of the public that influenced a portion of my life. It wasn't until recently that I was able to control it
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through greater insight and cultivation. The awareness of injustice in my preferred political party was unsettling for me even then--in fact, it hurt me because it got me used to having a barrier between me and those I loved and valued.
'The endlessly rapid succession of battles and events left both sides without much rest or peace. We took mean-spirited pleasure in rehashing every imagined evil and magnifying every trick of the opposite side. We went on tormenting each other for a few years, until the French took over Frankfort--and then we found out what real discomfort was.'
The adults in the house kept the younger ones at home more often, maybe because they were afraid of what zealous young sympathizers might do in a town that was divided on both sides. In an effort to keep them off the streets, they came up with all kinds of ideas to amuse them and keep them busy. The grandmother's puppet show was brought out and used again, and plays on an even larger scale were produced. One boy after another was invited in to see the show, and, in that way, Goethe made lots of friends. But boys are restless, and the young actors had to start showing their plays to younger children who had parents to keep them in order. Goethe gives a detailed account of this time of his life in Wilhelm Meister. He writes about the plays he wrote, his friends' wonder, the frustration he had because his plays never seemed to come to a point, the elaborate staging, and lots of other things.
'I surrendered myself to my imagination. I rehearsed and prepared all the time. I imagined all kinds of colossal plans without ever realizing that, at the same time, I was undermining the foundation of my schemes.' He was the one who made the
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equipment and props the boy actors needed. He made the swords, gilded and decorated the scabbards, made plumes for helmets out of paper, made shields, and even coats of mail. 'We marched around the patios and backyards, and smote fiercely on each other's heads and shields. We had lots of arguments and disagreements, but none that ever lasted.' The other boys were happily satisfied with this battle play, but not Wilhelm/Goethe. 'Thinking about so many armed persons naturally stimulated ideas of chivalry. Ever since I'd started reading old adventurous stories, those romantic ideas filled my imagination.' He was particularly influenced by a version of Jerusalem Delivered that he came across, and he lived in the atmosphere of that poem for a long time. Here's what he says about Clorinda: 'Her womanhood with its aspect of masculine strength, the peaceful completeness of her being, had a great influence on my mind, which was just beginning to unfold. I repeated the story of the tragic duel between Tancred and Clorinda hundreds and hundreds of times.'
'No matter how much the Christian perspective appealed to my nature, I couldn't help wholeheartedly siding with the pagan heroine when she made plans to burn down the besiegers' great towers. And when Tancred met the supposed knight [Clorinda] in the darkness and they battled under the veil of doom, I could never say the words out loud:
without tears rushing to my eyes. And my tears rushed even more when the doomed lover plunged
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the sword into the knight's breast, opened the helmet of the dying warrior, recognized Clorinda, the lady of his heart, and, with a shudder, brought water to baptize her. My heart ran over when Tancred struck his sword into the tree in the enchanted wood, and blood gushed forth from the tree and a voice came to his ears saying that he was wounding Clorinda again. Destiny had fated him to unwittingly injure the one he loved most again and again. Those verses took such hold of my imagination that the part of the poem that I had read began to dimly join into a whole in my mind, and I was so taken with it that I had to represent it in some way. I determined to have Tancred and Clorinda acted in a play. Two coats of mail that I had already made seemed perfect. One was made of dark gray paper with scales, and would be suited for the solemn Tancred. The other one, made of gold and silver paper, could be for the magnificent Rinaldo. In the excitement of what I anticipated, I outlined the whole project to my friends. They loved the idea, but they couldn't understand how such a glorious thing could be done--and, even more, how it could be done by them.' [using Carlyle's translation of Wilhelm Meister.]
And so, for a second time, circumstances compelled the young poet along the lines of his career. We also hear about his success as a story-teller. The youth of Frankfort were in awe at his story of The New Paris.
At this time, Goethe seems to have had lessons with other boys, but that didn't go too well.
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The teacher was harsh and cruel, and Goethe, his best pupil, made use of his cruelty to practice bearing pain without wincing. He writes about how three of the worst boys in the class attacked him once and slashed his legs with rods. He put up with it until the clock struck time for lessons to end. Then he turned on them and conquered them all. But, on the whole, his public school experience was deemed a failure and he was kept at home more often. It sounds like he was friendly with his classmates, but his superior attitude undoubtedly exasperated his friends, who weren't as gifted as he was. Maybe if he had done some training at the gym in his native town, things would have gone better for him. He would have learned about the give and take of life, how far to bear with things, when not to put up with things, and, most of all, how to bear things with good humor. He would also have learned that other boys have brains, too, and he would have laid a foundation for sound academics. Then, in the end, he wouldn't have had to confess that he hadn't been well-grounded in anything.
At any rate, that would have been the case with an ordinary bright child, but we can't be sure about a poet. We do know that we wouldn't have had Milton if scholarship hadn't been added to his poetic gift. On the other hand, Byron and Shelley have said that their school experiences at Eton and Harrow had very little effect on the poets they became later. Maybe the point is that the more original the mind is, the less capable it is of conforming and working in grooves so that grammar and even math are tiresome. But we can't assume that what's good for a genius is the best thing for all people of ordinary intellectual
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ability. The fact is, a genius can't accept the academic discipline of school--not so much out of rebellion, but because the genius mind is always preoccupied with evolving its own mental discipline. In this sense, a genius is a law unto himself. He's not lawless, but has a narrow focus about education. The parents of a genius might harm him if they don't at least give him a chance to try out school training as a means to habits of clear thinking, making judgments properly and maintaining relationships with other children--an ability often missing in people who have been casually educated [presumably, children who have been left at home without any methodical plan of lessons.] A genius's parents don't need to be afraid that school will repress the gifts that they prize in their child. Geniuses have an amazing and irritating enough way of evading things that bother them, and someday they'll be grateful for any education that their teachers were able to get into them.
Goethe sheds all the light there may be on the subject of childhood evolving into manhood.
'Who is able to truly speak about the fullness of childhood? We delight and admire little children when we watch them play, for, indeed, the promise of childhood is usually greater than the realized fulfillment. It's as if Nature, among her other tricks, has designed special tricks to foil us here, too.
'But growth is more than mere development. All of the different physical systems that go into the making of a man spring from each other, follow each other, change into each other, crowd each other, even swallow each other up, until, after a certain time, there's hardly a trace left of many of the activities and indications of potential abilities that the child had. Even if, in general, a person's talents appear to
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be in a certain direction, it would be hard for even the greatest and most experienced philosopher to trace it with any certainty. Yet it's quite possible to detect the underlying indication of a tendency.'
The Frankfort burghers' restless temper during the seven years of the war was undoubtedly among the various circumstances that influenced Goethe. Even when his town wasn't directly affected, every family and even every individual took sides, as we've seen. Frankfort had already been divided by three religious factions, and this further division was very heated. At first, Goethe's father, even with his sympathies for Fritz, continued to live his quiet, cultured life, like the few friends around him. Goethe lists a whole row of beautifully-bound books written by poets whose names are obscure today, at least outside of Germany. The father read these constantly and knew them well, and so did Goethe. He could recite long passages to entertain the grown-ups.
But all of those grown-ups understood that poetry was an art in which form was at least as important as content, and Goethe's father insisted on this formal character of poetry with passionate intensity when a close friend who had been greatly influenced by Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock's Messias tried to gain his sympathy. But Goethe's father loved poetry that conformed to certain rules, and he couldn't accept Klopstock, whose poems didn't rhyme, and who was rather careless about metre. So the friend abandoned the argument and only read his Klopstock on Sundays. But he had gained three converts--the mother and children borrowed his book and memorized it during the weekdays [when he wasn't using it]. There's an amusing scene when these
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secret readings were going on. A barber was giving the father a shave, and the two children were sitting on stools out of sight [but within earshot] of the barber and reciting to each other in such strong language (one of the speakers was Satan!) that the barber lost his composure and spilled the bowl of lather all over the father!
The year 1759 was eventful for all of the families in Frankfort because the French occupation began and lasted for a couple of years. Goethe's father was especially affected. His newly rebuilt house wasn't even completed yet and he was expected to put up Count Thorane, the King's Lieutenant, and his staff. He couldn't reconcile himself to this invasion of his space. The first night when they were assigning rooms, the Lieutenant made an attempt at good-will. There was a random mention of decorating one of the reception rooms [and hanging art on its walls], and Count Thorane, who was interested in the arts, insisted on seeing the pictures immediately. He admired them, asked who the artists were, and did his best to be extremely careful with these household treasures. But in spite of this shared taste in art, Goethe's father couldn't accept this new living situation. He became more and more depressed. The difficulties were barely smoothed over by the head housekeeper, who tried to learn some French from a mutual friend. This mutual friend explained the challenge of the situation to Count Thorane.
But the children had a lot of fun. The Lieutenant had a kind of civil jurisdiction over the troops, and
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there were constantly officers and men coming and going. The children were always peering over the common stairway, and they got to know quite a bit about military matters and soldiers. Young Goethe made himself useful to the Count in a remarkable way. He was ten years old at this time and he knew where the local artists lived and hung out--the artists of the paintings his father had shown the Lieutenant. Even more than that, young Goethe was used to attending art auctions and had always been able to describe the subjects in the paintings that were being sold (maybe not always accurately?) He had written an essay suggesting twelve pictures that could be painted about the life of Joseph, and some of these had in fact been painted. In a word, young Goethe at ten years old seems to have been a connoisseur. Count Thorane not only took him around with him, but he took his advice about choosing pictures for the chateau that he was arranging for his older brother.
A little studio was set up in the house, and various artists came to paint for the Count. The artists all seem to have enjoyed having the boy around. This story is interesting in the way it hints at how versatile Goethe was. He could have been a great scientist, or a great artist, if poetry hadn't become the passion of his life.
Apparently familiar discussion with a man like Count Thorane must have been an important factor in Goethe's education. Thorane seems to be the kind of French officer that history has made us familiar with. He had dignified and reserved manners, maintained friendly
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relationships with the soldiers under him, partly through his clever and sometimes abrasive wit. One particular circumstance seems to have made an impression on young Goethe. For a day, or sometimes even days, at a time, the usually accessible Count would disappear. Apparently he was subjects to periods of hypochondria and depression. During these periods, he wouldn't see anyone except his valet. That's an impressive example of self-control.
'But I think I should explain in more detail how, in spite of these circumstances, I picked up some French fairly easily, even though I never formally learned it. My inborn gifts helped me to easily grasp the sound and rhythm of a new language--its flow, accent, tone and other distinctives. Many words were already familiar to me because of my knowledge of Latin, and, even more so, Italian. In a very short amount of time, I heard quite a bit of French from servants, soldiers, guards and visitors. Soon, although I couldn't start a conversation, I was able to understand questions and answers.' But he says that the French theater was even more help to him. His grandfather gave him a free pass, and he went there every day, against his father's wishes, but with the support and help of his mother. At first, it was entertaining just to catch the accent and watch the gestures of the actors. Then he found a volume of Racine at home, and he got the idea to memorize long speeches and deliver them as best he could in the same way he had seen them at the theater, although he didn't really understand what they were saying.
And then he made friends with a French boy who had some kind of connection with the theater. The two of them became inseparable companions. Since there was no one else to befriend,
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the other boy managed to understand Goethe's French, and with the help of their casual communication, Goethe made so much progress that his friend was surprised. The two of them spent a lot of time at the theater and found the room that was used as the greenroom [actor's lounge]. There, Goethe, without understanding much, saw what he described in Wilhelm Meister as the goings on of a small company. He and his friend discussed lots of things, and he says, 'in four weeks I learned more than you could imagine. No one could figure out how I had suddenly picked up French as if by inspiration.'
It might be possible that, when two countries are politically allied and have friendly relations, children from both countries could take turns visiting each other's families [an exchange student program]. More French can be learned from a month's friendship with a nice French boy than the best teacher could teach in a year. The desire to communicate with each other will provide all the motivation that's needed.
Goethe calls the French boy Derones. He introduced young Goethe to his sister. She was a serious, solemn young lady who never forgot that she was much older than he was. If it hadn't been for that, she probably would have been his first romantic interest in a series of many. But he complains that young ladies tend to treat boys who are younger than they are as if they were their aunts. His gifts of fruit and flowers made no impression on her.
After a while, the two friends had to fight a duel. There was no conflict or disagreement between them, but that didn't matter. Derones called young Goethe out and they went to a lonely place and wielded their toy swords. The French boy satisfied
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his honor when he stuck his dagger into a strap of Goethe's equipment. Then the two boys went out for a snack and were even better friends than before.
During the French occupation of Frankfort, there were plenty of fun times for the children and youths. There were theaters, balls, parades and marches for the soldiers, and the children came from all over to see. The life of a soldier seemed delightful to them. Since the King's Lieutenant was staying in the Goethe's house, the Goethe children became well-known, at least by sight, to anyone who had any rank in the French army.
But things changed when the war began. 'The French camp, the fleeing, defending the town as a distraction to hide a retreat and to hold the bridge, bombarding, plundering--all of this was very exciting and brought sadness to people on both sides.' This happened during Easter week of 1759. A great stillness came before the storm. The Goethe children weren't allowed to go out of the house. After a few hours, wagon-loads of the wounded from both sides came into town, signifying that it was all over. In a little while the victorious Count Thorane returned on horseback. The Goethe children ran towards him and kissed his hands to show how their joy. This apparently pleased him, and he ordered some treats to celebrate the event. But their father behaved very differently. He greeted the victorious General with insults and hostility. Everyone in the household rebuked him, because it seemed certain that he, the head of the household, would go to jail for this. But a friend intervened and saved this bitter and rather eccentric man, and life returned to normal.
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The children were still very much interested in the theater, and they started putting on half-historical, half-mythological plays. Goethe got the idea of writing such a play himself. So he wrote out a rough draft, then copied it neatly and laid it in front of his friend Derones as if it was a play for the actors to put on. Derones read it with great attention, and, when Goethe asked, he said it would be possible to put it on, but the first thing to be done was to go over it carefully with the author. 'My friend was usually easy-going, but now he seemed to think that his time to be the leader had arrived. He sat down with me to correct a few trivial details, but by the time he was finished, the play was so changed that hardly one stone was left on another. He deleted a character, added another one, changed another one, and substituted someone else. In fact, he acted so much like a wild director that my hair stood on end. He seemed to begrudge me any authorship whatsoever. He had told me lots of times about the three unities of Aristotle, the harmony of the verse, and everything else, so that I had to acknowledge him as the creator and founder of my play. He criticized the English and despised the Germans--in fact, he brought the whole dramatic routine before me in a way that I was to hear constantly.'
Poor Goethe took the remnants of his play back and tried in vain to reconstruct it. When he had made a fairly close copy as it had been originally, he showed it to his father. This time his play had a
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better reception, and his father no longer grumbled when he came home from the theater.
His friend's opposition caused Goethe to think. He was determined not to have his work criticized over theories that he didn't understand, so he read Pierre Corneille's book about Aristotle's Unities. He read and was bewildered by the criticisms and counter-criticisms of The Cid, and discovered that even Corneille and Racine had to defend their opinions from the attacks of the critics. He tried hard to understand their point, and the famous law of the three unities became as distasteful to him as grammar rules were. Once again he was a law to himself and played by his own rules. He didn't reconsider this decision for many years.
After a while, Count Thorane was transferred to another post, and Chancellor Moritz replaced him in the Goethe home. It seemed that everything that happened to the Goethe's was fortunate for them. The Chancellor's brother was the Councilor of the Legation. He loved mathematics so much that it was his hobby. He helped young Goethe with his math education, and Goethe used that to help him with drawing lessons, which took an hour a day. His drawing instructor 'was a good man, but only half an artist. He had us make lines and place them together. Eyes, noses, lips, ears and finally entire faces and heads had to grow out of these lines, but there was no consideration for natural or artistic form. We were tormented with this substitution for the human figure for awhile, until he thought that we had made enough progress that he gave us Charles Le Brun's so-called 'passions' to copy [probably his physiognomy studies], but we didn't like these pictures. We moved on to landscapes and
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all those things that are taught with the usual system of instruction without any aim or method. Finally, we were able to reproduce close imitations and we started reproducing the exact lines without caring about the artistic value or worth of the original work we were copying.'
Thus, we find that then, just like in our own day, creating art was supposed to be helped along with mechanical devices. Then, just like now, children were taught to draw, not from natural, real objects, but from drawings of those objects. In other words, they were (and still are) taught to copy lines instead of receiving and recording actual impressions of real things. Goethe's father believed that there was nothing more motivating for children than having their elders learn right along with them, so he also worked hard at this unprofitable copying. Using an English pencil on fine Dutch paper, he copied not only the lines of the drawing, but even the engraver's text! The Emperor is reported to have said, 'Everybody must learn how to draw.' Goethe's father seized upon that quote like a blind man groping in the dark about the puzzling and challenging field of education.
Charlotte Bronte wrote about how Lucy Snowe practiced in the same laborious way, and imagined that she was learning to draw. Fictional Lucy's experience is probably an account of 'Currer Bell's' own efforts. We don't ever hear that Charlotte Bronte ever learned to draw, but we know that Goethe always wanted to draw. Even as an old man, he was still copying details of some picture, line by line, shade by shade. It seems like we're permanently handicapped by the flaws in our education, not just in a general way, but subject by subject, method by method. The only real progress we make is in whatever had a living beginning in our youth.
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It was always intended that the Goethe children would learn music, but it wasn't until young Goethe took matters into his own hands that the right man for the job appeared to teach them. Goethe happened to hear a friend who was taught by a music teacher who had a little joke for each finger, and silly names for each line and note. This appealed to even a gifted child like Goethe. But as soon as the man was hired, the jokes ended, and the music lessons were extremely dry and boring until his father, like a creative educationalist, hired a young man who had been his secretary to be a school teacher. The man could speak French well and teach it. The town hadn't been happy with their public school teaching, and this provided an opening for a private school. The young man worked so hard to learn music that he made amazing progress in just a few weeks. Not only that, but he became acquainted with a man who made first-rate instruments, and he introduced him to the Goethe's. This young teacher's enthusiasm was just the spark that the Goethe family had been waiting for regarding music.
'The more I was allowed to work in this way, the more I wanted to, and I even spent my free time on all kinds of wonderful activities. Ever since my earliest days, I had felt a strong interest in learning about natural objects.
'I remember as a child how I used to pick flowers apart to see how the petals were attached. I even plucked birds to see how the feathers were fastened to the wings. Children shouldn't be
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blamed for this. Even naturalists think they'll find out more by tearing apart and separating than by connecting and uniting, and learn more from studying dead things than living things.
'One day a magnetic lodestone carefully sewn into a red cloth experienced the result of my curiosity. Not only could it exercise power over a little iron bar attached to it, but it got stronger. Every day it could attract a heavier weight. This secret ability delighted me, and I spent a long time just wondering about this ability. Finally I decided that I could find out more by taking off the outer covering. So I removed the cloth, but I wasn't any wiser about its secret, because the uncovered iron didn't teach me anything more. So I removed the iron, too, and held the bare lodestone in my hands. I never got tired of experimenting with iron filings and needles. My mind didn't get any real benefit from these experiments other than one lesson learned the hard way. I couldn't figure out how to put the thing back together again. The parts got destroyed and I lost the secret phenomena as well as the object itself.'
A friend of his had an electric machine, and this was a source of interest to the children. It was one more way of awakening young Goethe's scientific imagination.
Two activities that their father made them do were hardships for them. One was taking care of silkworms. A room was arranged to raise the worms, but it was difficult to keep them healthy in such an artificial environment. Thousands of them died, and removing the dead ones and keeping the rest clean and in good condition became the children's responsibility. The other task they
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disliked related to the pictures of Rome that had brought so many early impressions. The engravings that had been displayed on the walls of the old house for so long were no longer in nice enough condition to decorate the new house. The children were given the job of keeping a sheet with a copperplate attached constantly moistened for a considerable amount of time, until it was soft enough to be removed from what it was mounted on. There were quite a few engravings, so it was a big job. Anyone reading Goethe's book feels glad that he had some dull tasks to do. He seems to have had very little work that he had to do; the meaning of must can only be learned by having to follow through on a duty that would be preferable to shirk.
'In order that we children wouldn't lack anything that life and learning had to offer, an English language teacher happened to offer his services. He would teach anyone with some experience in foreign languages how to speak English in four weeks--at least, enough English to continue studying it on his own. He required the same moderate fee no matter how many students signed up.
'My father resolved to make the attempt on the spot. He took lessons from this efficient teacher along with me and my sister.
'The teacher gave the lessons, and there was plenty of repetition. For four weeks, all of our other studies were laid aside. After the four weeks, the teacher left our house, satisfied with our progress, and we were satisfied, too. He stayed on in town and found plenty of other students, but he came to see us from time to time. He was thankful to us because we had been one of the first to trust him, and he liked showing us off as models to others.'
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It would be interesting to know if that unnamed English teacher anticipated the conversational methods of teaching foreign languages that we use today.
But having new skills means new responsibilities. Their father was anxious that their newly acquired English should be kept up as well as the other languages they had learned. Goethe was tired of so many grammars with their individual lists of exceptions. He came up with a plan. Although he didn't originate it, it might do us good to follow it.
'It occurred to me to settle the matter once and for all. I made up a story about six or seven brothers and sisters who were scattered over the world far from each other, and who exchanged news about their various living situations and experiences with each other.' The oldest brother told about the circumstances and his journeys in good German. The sister, in a feminine manner with full stops and short sentences, told him and then her other siblings about her domestic routine and love life. One brother studied Latin, and wrote very formal Latin, with an occasional postscript in Greek. Another brother was an agent in Hamburg, and had to manage the English correspondence. A younger brother in Marseilles had to communicate in French. As far as Italian, one brother was a musician writing his very first essay. The youngest had been cut off from all other languages and had to speak in Juden-Deutsch [a form of German spoken by the Jewish population], and his fearful phrases threw his siblings into despair. 'This idea made my parents laugh. They decided that this extraordinary plan needed some organization. So I studied the geography of the places where
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my characters lived, and created basic localities with all kinds of human interests--whatever related to the interests of my characters. In this way, I was learning more. My father was happier, and I absorbed quickly what I needed by revising and completing the stories.'
In our own times there's an unfortunate tendency to undervalue knowledge, yet knowledge is the main aspect of education. Bible knowledge in particular is disregarded for several reasons. A practical utilitarian person asks, 'What value is there in teaching a child the mythological stories of the earlier books, and the insignificant histories of the unimportant nation of Israel in the later books?' while religious parents tend to pick and choose only the portions of the Bible that they think will inspire religious sentiment in their children. In these days we also have the added issue of higher criticism and its attacks. We wonder how safe it is to offer Biblical knowledge to a child when we haven't heard the final result of critical challenges yet, and our child may later hear everything we've ever taught him refuted point by point. If only we could know how this kind of knowledge affects a child. If only we could know how a clever child's own critical intellect probes scripture all by itself, and if we could only know what's left for the child to hold onto after his own skepticism has toyed with the Biblical text.
Goethe tells us all these things in Aus
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Meinem Leben. ['From My Life,' i.e., his autobiography]. He gives us all of the most trivial details of his own Bible studies, tells us what his attitude was as he approached these studies, and how, little by little, his knowledge of the Bible became the most precious of all his intellectual treasures. Here's how it came about. When he was nine or ten, he was bewildered with the several languages that his father expected him to keep up with, so, as we've just read, he came up with the idea of starting a family journal with pretend siblings writing their portions in the language of the country they were supposedly living in. He had some knowledge of Juden-Deutsch [spoken by Jewish Germans, something like Yiddish], so one of the siblings was going to correspond in that language.
This clever idea, like all ideas, led to more ideas, producing after its own kind, so to speak. His analytical mind found the Juden-Deutsch language to be fragmentary and inadequate. So he had to add Hebrew to the list of languages he was learning. His father was able to get him lessons from Dr. Albrecht, the Rector [chaplain] of the classical preparatory school. This Rector seems to have had an original mind, playful and satirical. The people in the little town didn't understand him very well. Naturally, he got along well with the young genius he was going to teach.
The Hebrew lessons were undoubtedly a pleasure for both teacher and student. The impressions that the Hebrew Scriptures [Old Testament] made on Goethe are particularly interesting to us today, at a time when the issue of teaching Old Testament history is so often debated. Young Goethe was already able to read the Greek New Testament, and seems to have followed along at church from the New Testament in the original language as they were read aloud during services. But a boy with his brilliant mind, with its tendency towards both logic and science, found plenty of discrepancies in Scripture. 'I had already
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noticed the contradictions between tradition and actual and possible, and I had confounded all of my tutors with questions about the sun standing still for the Gibeonites, and the moon also standing still in the valley of Ajalon [both in Joshua 10], as well as other improbabilities and inconsistencies. All of these questions were stirred up again because, in learning Hebrew, I worked entirely from the Old Testament, not in Luther's translation, but using the interlinear version with Sebastian Schmid's translation printed under the text. My father had gotten it for me. Reading, translating, grammar, copying and repeating words usually took less than half an hour, and, with the time we had left, I'd immediately begin to attack the meaning of the passage I had just worked with as well as discrepancies that I remembered in later books, even though we were still working in Genesis. At first, the good old man tried to discourage me from asking these questions by coughing and laughing, but after a while, he started to find my questions amusing. His coughs seemed to hint that he just might submit to answering them, so I was persistent, although I was more interested in stating my doubts than in having them answered. I became even more lively and bolder, and his behavior seemed to be encouraging me. But I never could get anything out of him except an occasional laugh that shook him, and the comment, 'you foolish rascal!''
All the same, his teacher was aware of the difficulties that young Goethe was having, and was willing to help him in the best way there is. He referred him to a great English Commentary in his collection that tried to interpret difficult passages in a thoughtful, sensible way. The divine scholars who translated it into German
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had actually improved the original! They cited different opinions and interpretations and then adopted a view that preserved the dignity of the Bible, making the basis for Christianity evident, but making allowances for human understanding. From now on, when young Goethe brought up his doubts and questions at the end of the lessons, his teacher would refer him to the Commentary. Goethe would take one of the volumes of the book and read while the teacher read his own book of Lucian. When Goethe would ask any more questions, the teacher would just chuckle in his peculiar laugh. 'During the long summer days, he would let me sit as long as I could read, often alone. Later he started letting me take individual volumes home with me.'
It would be nice to know more about these Commentaries that satisfied such a keen young mind. At any rate, we can recommend and imitate Dr. Albrecht's wisdom. Of all the different ways of finding truth, discussion is probably the most futile because the person making the accusation is intent on justifying his own doubts, not on having them answered. Their individual will unconsciously adopts a combative attitude, and cherishes the doubt as a cause to be defended and fought for. As we know, Reason is ready to provide arguments to support any position that we take up. But if youths are given a good book dealing with the questions they've brought up, and given time to digest it at their own pace without discussion or comment from us, and according to their own level of sincerity and intelligence, then they'll be more open to conviction. The silence and chuckling of this wise teacher are worth remembering when we're shocked by the daring declarations of the young skeptics we know. Also, his wise passiveness put a solution into the hands of the young questioner without making any attempt to convince him.
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'People can go where they decide to go, they might do whatever they decide to do, but they'll always return to the path that Nature has prepared and planned for him to travel on. And that's just what happened to me at that time. My work with the Hebrew language from the text of the Bible created a vivid vision in my mind of that often praised land of Israel, and the countries on its borders, as well as the people and events that glorified that spot for thousands of years.'
Some parents who believe in God are apprehensive about familiarizing their children with the Old Testament because of the discrepancies in it, or the sin and immorality in some of the stories, or the multitude of questions about who really wrote them and whether they were really inspired. Those parents might find this portion of Goethe's education very instructive and interesting. Goethe was a boy who was prone to doubt, quick to criticize, whose eager mind tore the heart out of any subject he studied. He admits that he found pleasure in certain scientific problems that the Bible seemed to have. But what was the final result? It was this--Goethe's childhood memories are the most valuable defense of Bible teaching that I know of.
'This little spot of land, the Holy Land, would witness the growth of the entire human race. The first and only history we have of the beginnings of the world came from there. This setting was presented to my imagination, and changed and adapted to include many great wanderings and settlements. From this place, between four rivers whose names we know, was chosen out of
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the whole populated earth, a small but totally pleasant spot for the early epoch of man's existence. Here is where his activities would develop, and here is where he would meet the fate that was passed down to all of his descendants--the fate of losing his peace in exchange for striving after knowledge. Paradise was closed off to him forever. There were more and more people, and they grew more and more wicked. God wasn't yet used to the evil deeds of this race of humans. He got impatient and destroyed the race. Only a few people were saved from the devastating flood. As soon as those deadly flood-waters had gone down, those grateful saved souls saw the familiar ground of their homeland. Two of the four rivers, the Euphrates and the Tigris, were still flowing in their usual places. The Euphrates River is still there with the same name. The Tigris is inferred by the course of its path. One would hardly expect every detail of Paradise to remain exactly the same after that kind of violent catastrophe. Now the new human race began for the second time. The people found different ways of getting food and working. Mostly, they did this by gathering big herds of tame animals and traveling around with them. This way of life, and the amount of people as families increased, made it necessary for the people to divide and go different ways. The idea of relatives and friends leaving and never seeing them again didn't appeal to them, so they came up with the idea of building a high tower that would show them the way back from a distance. But this attempt failed, just like their first one had. They weren't going to be allowed to remain happy, wise, numerous and united. God sent confusion among them and their building project came to a halt. The people were scattered and the whole world became populated, but divided. But our focus and concern is for this particular region. At last the founder of a race of people went out from this region. This man was fortunate enough to have influenced and stamped a definite distinctive character on his
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descendents, and this character is what would be the means of uniting them for all time. They would become a great nation, inseparable through all the changes that would come.
'Under the influence of the divine guidance, Abraham wanders westward from the Euphrates River. The desert isn't too difficult for him to journey across. He reaches the Jordan River, crosses it, and wanders over the beautiful southern land of Palestine. Palestine already belonged to another people and was pretty well populated. This land had mountains. They weren't too high, but they were rocky and not too good for growing things. Many pleasant, well-watered valleys cut through them. Towns, camps, and single dwellings were scattered all over the plain along both sides of the great valley whose streams flow into the Jordan River. The land was inhabited and built up, the world was still spacious and people weren't careful about how they spaced themselves out, or active enough to take over adjoining countryside.
'Great, wide spaces lay between their properties, and grazing herds could easily pass up and down them. Abraham and his nephew Lot camped in these spaces, but they couldn't stay on these pastures for long. A land whose population fluctuates, and whose resources are never enough for its needs is susceptible to unexpected famine, and, when famines come, visitors suffer right along with the locals, whose own resources have to be shared with the visitor. So, Abraham and Lot, the two Chaldeans, went to Egypt. And, in this way, the stage is set for the most important events in the world that will unfold over the next few thousand years. From the Tigris to the Euphrates, and from the Euphrates to the Nile, we see people living and thriving, and in this populated area, a man who's known and loved by Heaven, and already honored by us, travels up with his flocks and material possessions. Before long,
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his wealth has increased abundantly. Abraham and Lot return, but realize that they'll have to separate. Both of them go on to Canaan in the south, but Abraham stays at Hebron near the plain of Mamre, while Lot goes to the valley of Siddim. If we can be bold enough to imagine an underground outlet from the Jordan so that the place where the Dead Sea is now could be dry land, then it would seem like a Paradise--even more so because the people who lived in and around the area were known for their softness, which would suggest that they led comfortable, cheerful lives. Lot lived among them, but he wasn't one of them. Meanwhile, Hebron and the plain of Mamre were the important places where God appeared to Abraham and spoke with him, promising to give him all the land as far as his eyes could see in all four directions.
'Now we need to turn our eyes away from these quiet dwellings and shepherd people who walk with angels, who treat them as guests, and have conversations with them. It's time to look towards the East again and consider the settlement of the neighboring tribes. It was probably a lot like Canaan. Families stuck together and united. The tribe's way of life was determined by the land they held or had taken. Among the mountains whose streams flow into the Tigris River, we find warlike people who remind us of the raiders and war-lords who would come in the future. Their campaign is astonishing for that period of time, a foretaste of wars to come. At this time, God renews his promise to give Abraham unending heirs, a prophecy whose scope continues to broaden. All of the land from the Euphrates to the Nile River in Egypt is promised to Abraham. But Abraham has no heir,
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so the fulfillment of this prophecy seems doubtful. Abraham is eighty years old and doesn't have a son. Sara has more trust in her husband than in the gods and becomes impatient. She wants to do according to Oriental custom and have a child by a maid. But almost as soon as Hagar is handed over to her master and the hope of a son is in sight, there's contention and stress in the household. The wife doesn't treat her pregnant substitute very well, and Hagar runs away to find a better position serving another tribe. But God's divine guidance leads her back, and Ishmael is born.
'Now Abraham is 99 years old. The promise of various kinds of prosperity is repeated again and again until both Abraham and his wife begin to wonder. Yet, the hoped-for blessing comes to Sara. She has a son and names him Isaac. The history of the human race happens with regulated growth. The most important world events can be traced back to the domestic life of the family, so who the father of a race marries is worth considering. It's as if God, who loves to guide man's fate, wanted to outline every aspect of marriage, as if drawing a picture. After living so long with a beautiful, desirable, but childless wife, Abraham finds himself the husband of two wives and the father of two sons at 100 years of age. And at that point, domestic peace disappears from his life. Two wives living together, and two sons whose mothers are opposed to each other, make matters impossible. One son, Ishmael, is less favored by the law, by bloodlines and by personality, and needs to step aside. Abraham has to let go of whatever feelings he has for Hagar and Ishmael. Both of them are forsaken, and Hagar, against her will this time, is forced to strike out again along the same road she took so long ago when she fled by choice. At first, it seems like she's heading for certain destruction for both
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herself and her son. But God's angel who made her return before, saves her a second time. This time she is saved so that Ishmael can be the ancestor of a great race of people, and so that the most unlikely of promises can be fulfilled more fully than ever dreamed. Now Abraham and Sara are an aged pair with one single late-born son. Surely they can spend the remainder of their years in peaceful family life and earthly happiness! But it isn't to be. God is preparing Abraham, the great patriarch, for the most difficult trial of all. But we can't begin to discuss this until we consider some things.
'If a universal religion was going to rise up, and if a specially revealed religion was going to develop from that, then this land that our imaginations have lingered in, the way of life, the very people themselves, were the best suited for it. In the whole world, we can't find any other circumstance better suited for such a development.
'If we assume that the natural religion developed earlier in the mind of man, then we have to admit that this race had an admirable clearness of perception, because their religion rests on the conviction that the Divine Being extends a universal providence to certain individuals, families, groups and races. Such a conviction couldn't have originated from the human spirit. It implies that there was a tradition handed down, and customs carried forward from the earliest times . . . The first men on the earth seem closely related to each other, but their different skills and jobs soon divided them. The hunters were the freest of all of them, and warriors and rulers evolved from them. Those who used plows and spent their lives tilling the soil built homes and barns to keep their possessions. They could think highly of themselves because their circumstances promised them permanence and safety. Shepherds watching their flocks seem to have the
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most narrow possessions, yet they enjoy unlimited possessions [in the fresh air surrounded by open land]. Their flocks increased tremendously, and the land they grazed on went on and on in all directions. It appears that those in these different professions looked down on each other with contempt and suspicion. Since townspeople hated shepherds, the shepherds stayed away from them. The hunters disappeared into the mountains, and the next time we hear about them, they've become pillagers. The fathers of the religions belonged to the social group of shepherds. Their way of life in the vast deserts and pastures helped their minds develop scope and freedom. The wide sky they lived under with its stars at night instilled a sense of awe and dependence in them. They, more than active, resourceful hunters or secure, cautious farmers on the homestead, needed an unshakable belief in a god who went with man, visited them, sided with them, guided them and saved them.
'There's one more thing to consider before we move on in the progress of history. No matter how human, beautiful or encouraging the religion of these fore-fathers seems, there are traces of cruelty and savagery that these races rise from, and sometimes sink back into again. It's not hard to imagine that hatred could be avenged with murder by killing defeated enemies, or that peace could be agreed on between rows of slain soldiers. It seems natural that men would think of confirming contracted covenants by slaughtering animals. And it doesn't seem so amazing that people would try to appease and win over the gods with sacrifices when gods were regarded as taking sides, either helping or opposing them.'
Following this is a very interesting discourse regarding the ideas that men expressed when they made sacrifices,
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in order to introduce the story of the supreme sacrifice that was demanded of Abraham as a final test of his faith.
'Without even a shudder, Abraham blindly determines to carry out the command. But as far as God is concerned, the will--being willing--is enough. Now Abraham's trials are over--what else is there to put him through? But Sarah dies, and her death provides a circumstance that necessitates possessing the land of Canaan. He needs a place to bury her, and, for the first time, he looks around for a piece of land to own. He may have already eyed a double cave in the direction of the fields of Mamre. He buys it along with the field next to it. The legal form that he observes regarding this purchase shows how important this possession is for him. It was probably even more important than he imagined, because he, his sons and his grandsons would be buried there. The claim to that land, and the increasing desire of his descendants to live there, had their foundation in the special way that Abraham acquired the land.
'From this time the many scenes of family life come and go. Abraham continues to stay isolated from the local inhabitants. Perhaps Ishmael, whose mother was Egyptian, has married one of the native women, but Isaac must marry someone within the extended family, and of equal birth.
'So Abraham sends his servant to Mesopotamia, where his family is. The wise servant Eleazer arrives unrecognized. In order to make sure that he brings the right girl back with him, he tests how serving the girl at the well is. He asks for water and, even though he hadn't asked, she waters his camels, too. He gives her a gift and asks for her father's permission to marry her to his master. Her father allows her to go. So Eleazer takes her to his master's home and she marries Isaac. They waited a long time for children.
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But Rebecca has years of trial before she has her twin sons, and her family experiences the same kind of division that Abraham's had because of his two wives. Her two sons have opposite personalities, and they start conflicting even before they're born. When they come out into the world, the older one is strapping and strong, while the younger one is delicate and wise. The older one is the father's favorite, and the younger is the mother's favorite. Their wrangling that began at birth to be the more favored one continues. Esau is unimpressed and indifferent about the birthright that fate blessed him with, but Jacob can never forget that Esau forced him back. He watches for any opportunity to get this desired advantage, and then makes a trade with his brother for his birthright and gets his father's blessing in an underhanded way. Esau is enraged and vows to kill his brother. Jacob flees and determines to make his way in the region where his ancestors live.
'Now, for the first time in such a noble family, a trait appears that almost doesn't justify dwelling on--the trait of using deceit and strategy to get what nature and circumstances have denied. There have been quite a few comments and discussions about how the Bible doesn't present our first ancestors who were favored by God as if they were role models of virtue. They're just people with various personalities and weaknesses and failures, but they have one special quality that men 'after God's own heart' must have. That quality is an unshakable belief that God hears them and cares for them and their loved ones.
'A universal, natural religion doesn't take any special belief. The conviction that a great governing, managing, ruling Personality is hidden behind Nature in order to make it possible for us to comprehend Him--that kind of conviction occurs to everyone. In fact, even
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if a person drops the guiding thread that leads him through life, he'll be able to pick it back up again at any time. But it's totally different with a religion that says that this Great Being is specifically interested in one person, one family, one nation, one country. That kind of religion is based on faith that has to be unshakable to keep the religion from being entirely destroyed. In this kind of religion, every doubt is fatal. A person can find his way back to conviction, but once he leaves faith, he can't go back to it again. That's the reason for the endless trials and long wait to see often-repeated promises fulfilled that brought the patriarchs' living faith into play.
'Jacob had his share of faith. His strategy and deception don't gain our respect, but his lasting, unbroken love for Rachel does. He wins her for himself, just like Eleazer won Rebecca for Isaac years earlier. The promise of an abundance of descendants is first fulfilled in Jacob's life. He saw many sons gathered around him, although he suffered much heartache because of them and their mothers.
'He served seven years without any impatience or hesitation in order to win the woman he loved. His uncle was as underhanded as he was, and had a similar opinion that 'the end justifies the means.' His uncle deceived him, treating him as badly as he had treated his own brother. Jacob wakes up the day after his wedding to find a woman that he doesn't love in his arms. Admittedly, Laban does give him the woman he loves in order to pacify him, but only on the condition that he serve for seven more years. Then comes one disappointment after another. The wife he doesn't love is fertile, but his favored love doesn't have any children. She decides to have a child via a maid just like Sara did. But Jacob's first wife even begrudges her this advantage. Thus, the father of the race ends up as the most
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tormented man in the world: he has four wives, children from three of those wives, and none from the wife he loves! But finally God blesses her and Joseph is born, a child born late in life out of a sad love story. Then there's conflict. Jacob flees with everything he owns, and Laban finds him, partly due to luck, but partly due to cunning. Rachel delivers another baby, but she dies during the delivery. The baby, Benjamin, born of sorrow, lives--but Jacob's trials aren't over yet. He suffers even more pain when Joseph disappears.
'You may wonder why I'm writing such a detailed account about this history that is universally known, often repeated, and studied many times. Maybe this will explain why: there's no other way I could show how, with all the distractions of my life and my irregular education, I was able to focus my mind and emotions in quiet activity regarding one issue. There's no other way to explain the peace that enveloped me, no matter how disturbed or odd my life's circumstances got. When an ever-active imagination, which the story of my whole life displays, led me in different directions, and when the combination of fable, history, mythology, and religion seemed like it would drive me to distraction, I would re-visit those ancient lands. I lost myself in the first books of Moses, and there, among the journeying shepherds, I would find the most restful solitude, and the best company.'
This is a very good and complete reason to make children intimately familiar with the Old Testament. Some might say that, in Goethe's case, that intimate familiarity never did lead to true religion. It's true, he was never religious in the traditional sense. Even at the time that he wrote the lengthy confession of faith that we just read, the faith that he got in his
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childhood remained mostly unaffected by events that happened later in his life--he had just spent a long time visiting Italy and reviving his youthful interest in classicism. Classical mythology became so strong in him that he practically stopped believing in God, at least in the way we understand such a belief. But there are two aspects of religion. There's our will's attitude towards God, which we understand to be Christianity. Goethe was never religious in this traditional sense, any more than he was moral in a conventional sense. Attempting to direct his will properly regarding life's relationships, both relationships with others, and relationships with God, was never a part of his multi-faceted life. But there's another aspect of religion: the concept of God that results from a gradual, slowly growing awareness of God's dealings with people. Goethe tells us that he got this peace of the soul that formed a refreshing background for his thoughts from studying the books of Moses. He says that he couldn't have gotten it in any other way, although he tried many different ways. In all the mistakes of his stubborn life, this inner peace seems to have never left him. Heine says, 'His eyes were as tranquil as a god's,' and we have here the secret of why he had such peace. Here Goethe lays out a principle of education that we should consider if we want our children to have a passive principle as well as an active principle of religion. It's probably the case that teaching the New Testament without grounding it on the Old Testament doesn't result in the wide, all-embracing, thoroughly permeating thought of God that people like David constantly expressed in the Psalms.
Let's have the faith to give children such a full, gradual knowledge of Old Testament history that they unconsciously create for themselves a
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panoramic view of mankind's history as it's unfolded in the Bible, typified by the history of Jewish nation. We don't need to be intimidated from teaching the Old Testament because of the doubts and challenges that clever children will bring up. Let's do what good Dr. Albrecht did. Let's not try to diminish or evade their questions, or pretend to give them the exhaustive, definitive answer. Let's introduce them to a cautious commentator who weighs difficult questions with modest and extreme care (I'd love to know what that 'big English book' was that Dr. Albrecht referred young Goethe to!) If we do this, then difficult issues will assume their proper perspective. In other words, they'll be forgotten in the gradual unfolding of the great plan that educated the world.
My purpose here is to indicate how the education of a boy influenced the man he became, so it isn't necessary to pursue these enlightening records from Aus Meinem Leben any further. As far as I know, we don't have such a detailed, almost impersonal account anywhere else of all the influences that went into the making of a man. The fact that this particular man was a genius and a great poet isn't important to us from an educational perspective. The fact to note is that every single fragment of his education, nearly every book he read, every hobby he pursued, almost every subject in all of his numerous studies, directly and obviously influenced the man he became. But there's another side to this. With all of his intellect and mighty genius, he didn't possess anything in his adulthood that hadn't been sown in the course of his
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education. The examples of both of his parents and the ceaseless efforts of his father had a cultural emphasis [rather than an emphasis on building character], and he died exclaiming, 'More light!' The specific subjects that he studied as a child--these subjects, and no other subjects--are the subjects that inspired him and stimulated him until the end of his life. His English language lessons put him in touch with Shakespeare, who became a passion and force in his life. His scientific interests stayed with him all his life. In some respects, we can say that he was a precursor to Darwin: he was the one who discovered that all plant forms are modifications of the leaf, and came to the certain conclusion that there must have originally been one single plant from which all other plants came. In his days as a student, the cathedral of Strasburg led him to study Gothic architecture, and, in later life, to studying architecture in Italy. Towards the end of his life, we read about him saying that there were other poets living at the same time he was writing, and the world had seen greater poets than himself--but no other person had come up with his theory of color. He used the time he spent in Rome for drawing, learning perspective, teaching himself about architecture, practicing landscape composition, and modeling the human form, limb by limb. His drawing never amounted to anything more than a taste for the art of drawing, but he himself recognized that the value of his drawing practice was in learning to appreciate the work of others who were gifted at drawing. In the same way, his study of music was a painstaking endeavor. When he was 80 years old, he took daily music lessons from Felix Mendelssohn, and his approach is one that we'd benefit from imitating. He would go off into a dark corner for an hour and just listen to Mendelssohn play! He was intimidated by Beethoven, but Mendelssohn insisted on introducing him to that great composer anyway, although there was no noticeable result. But
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in his notes about art and music, just like we find throughout his autobiography, he repeats what we might consider a standard of art and music education. He says that the ability to appreciate art and music is more valuable to many people--probably to most of us--than the ability to produce it, and appreciation should be cultivated just as deliberately and regularly as lessons in skill.
As we've seen, the puppet show in Goethe's childhood developed into a driving affinity of his life, if not a passion. His directing the theatre at Weimar when he was a middle-aged man was bigger in scope, but the same kind of activity as managing his childhood puppet plays.
The huge amount of things he worked on, or various occupations of his childhood, continued until the end of his life. Even then, he was glad that he had learned to play cards as a boy in Frankfort, because 'a day is infinitely long, and you can only squeeze so much into it.' He considered card games as a way to make himself sociable when he was around people, just like the late Professor Jewett, whose last advice to a child he knew was, 'Be a good girl, my dear. Read the Waverley novels, and learn to play whist.' But it's still questionable whether knowledge of cards for the sake of being social might risk awakening the gambling instinct that's within all of us.
As a child, Goethe read the classics. The first volume of Ovid's Metamorphoses seems to have been the first book that he absorbed in an intellectual sense. Although he was strongly attracted by the romanticism of the age he lived in, he kept returning again and again to his old faith. When he went to the University of Leipsic, he traded his entire collection of books
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by modern authors with a fellow student for a few volumes of classics, and then he lived only on those for awhile. Later, he comes under the realm of Shakespeare and admires him as father and inspiration. His greatest work undoubtedly is from the time period when he discarded the confining rule of Aristotle's three 'Unities,' and let himself follow the guidance of Nature. But he got interested in that old theory again after his two-year trip to Italy, and the astonished country of Germany had to help completely overthrow old theories (?)
We've also seen how his Bible studies stayed with him and formed a fertile background for all of his thoughts. In other words, every single aspect of his early education produced fruit of the same kind throughout his life until he was very old.
On the other hand, if we look at the records of most famous English men, we find that what they studied in school passed into oblivion and were like things that didn't have any real effect on their later careers. The random reading they do on their own has a strong influence in their lives, but their school lessons don't seem to count at all. This is something worth serious reflection. We know that Goethe's education was casual and had gaps. We've heard him lament the fact that he wasn't solidly grounded in anything. Yet this imperfect education enriched him with seeds of thought that resulted in every kind of development in his adult life. Was it because he approached each of his studies as if it were a new spacious field for his intellect to roam and explore, in spite of the defective and inadequate teaching equipment? If that's the case, then we should include this kind of attitude, this outlook that the
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individual brings with him, with the other disciplinary tools of our planned school lessons.
Maybe every one of us should be able to trace the result that was produced from every seed sown in our childhood education, like Goethe was able to do. But, instead, we file away our school studies as if its only purpose was to discipline our minds, and that it would be pointless to look for any fruit from those seeds of knowledge that were sown in our early childhood. This is sad, and it's a reckless waste of everything gained intellectually in our school years.
Goethe's valuable record presents another lesson that's just as important. There's another side to the shield. Everything that had a start in his early education developed noticeably in his adulthood. But if anything was overlooked in his education, it never arrived later in his life. The lack of discipline from his childhood continued to be a flaw in his character for the rest of his life, and he never made up the lost ground from his university years. He didn't distinguish himself at Leipsic or at Strasburg. The local dialect and mannerisms that he picked up from his upbringing in a Frankfort burgher family were always a liability for him, and influenced how he acted. He always had the impression that only people from noble families could have the possibility of being completely cultured. He never lost that idea, even though he was close to the grand-duke's family at Weimar. Of course, he couldn't change the circumstances of his birth, but his perspective was dependent on his family's point of view. If he had been constantly exposed to some other concept of manhood other than being cultured, then these kinds of comparisons wouldn't have occurred to him,
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and he wouldn't have been upset or frustrated by a sense of inequality.
And this leads us to the major thing that was left out of this highly cultured boy's education. When it came to religious impressions that were presented to him with enough freshness and power to reach him, he got vivid concepts from the books of Moses, but, as far as he writes, nothing else. With his parents being so focused on the single idea of culture, he probably didn't get anything from his home atmosphere. Even his eager reading of Klopstock's Messias doesn't seem to have left anything more than a literary impression. Like most of us, his moral education seems to have been pretty much left to chance. We don't read that he received any instruction and not very many impressions about how to relate to other people he came in contact with, or his country, or his own kind, and what his obligations were towards them. He doesn't seem to have had any awareness that he had the ability to regulate his emotions, or that his moral life should be under the control of his will. Therefore, Goethe is disappointing as a man. He reminds one of a great city planned on a grand scale, but only half of it is built according to the plan. The rest of it is left overgrown, or taken over with miserable shanty houses. Goethe should have been a great man, not just a great poet. He had every possibility for greatness within him, moral as well as intellectual. We find him wasting himself on endless immature affections, temporary love affairs, changing friendships, self-focused goals, and small-minded thoughts about public issues unless they affected his art. He was a man of great intellect. He should have been a great example and a great teacher to others like him, but instead, he was hemmed in by narrow limitations and flawed by moral faults. We might tend to say, 'But a poetic soul shouldn't be judged
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by the same standards as other people; his emotional nature overwhelms him. We can't expect one person to be both a poet and a moral person, so let's accept the one aspect he had and be thankful for that.' This kind of reasoning, and the irresponsible living that it causes, comes from the notion that morals and religion are isolated and independent from the intellect, and are issues that don't really concern the mind. But when we recognize that a truly moral life depends on how wide the intellect's perspective is, and how hard the intellect works, then we'll understand that making an effort in the areas of morals and religion should be a concern that geniuses aren't excluded from.
There was probably never another genius who better supported the theory that genius itself is the ability and practice of exerting effort. Goethe had extraordinary patience and talent for detail. The fact that he didn't use these gifts to develop himself so that his moral aspect was as great as his poetic greatness, seems to be totally the fault of his defective education: it didn't present this kind of effort to him when he was an eager, enthusiastic child. Anything that his early education didn't initiate, was never accomplished in his adulthood.
There's another way that this educational study should be helpful to us. No matter how far back Goethe goes in his memories, he's never less than himself. At every age, he was always capable of an immense number of interests, and an immense number of studies at the same time, but never interfering with one another. At every age, he had aesthetic instinct, the ability to generalize, and to appreciate and enjoy the poetic form. In fact, everything that he was as a man, he was as a child--he didn't have the potential for it, but he actually was that, actively. This is where we make a mistake in the way we deal with children. We think of them as people who have immature, weak intellects, and so we deliberately
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deprive them of the range and activities that are appropriate for an active, capable mind. Not every child has the makings of a Goethe, but every child has some degree of ability to deal with the knowledge that will become a part of him and influence the adult he becomes. Inability isn't his limitation--ignorance and physical weakness are. That's why it's our responsibility to feed him daily with the knowledge that's appropriate for him. Granted, he needs small portions because he's a child, but he also needs mental food of the finest intellectual quality, because he's a person. Our job is to provide this daily knowledge, not to furnish him with tools for dealing with knowledge [he already has those; he was born with them], or even to make him an expert at using these fine tools. And, of all the knowledge that a child should get, knowledge about God is the most important, and the knowledge of himself as a human is next in importance. We don't need to send any child out into the world as a moral or intellectual vagabond.
