“Not at all,” was the embarrassed answer.
“Well, then, do you think the dog liked it? Now go out to the yard.”
“I sent him out,” Witte says, “not only as a punishment, but because I saw that some of my guests were about to open their lips to take his part and to blame me—in his presence!—for my treatment of him. But one of them, speaking suddenly, said:
“‘God bless you, dear friend. If Karl, as I believe he is certain to do, shall grow to be a good man, he will thank you heartily for this lesson. I wish to Heaven we thus and always handled our children. Then they would be sure to learn to treat animals kindly, and by so much the more to treat their fellow-men kindly!”
And Witte adds, dryly:
“After this, none of those present thought it well to say anything in criticism of me.”
He had, in fact, taken precisely the course best calculated to impress on Karl the vitally important principle of kindness to all living creatures. For he had brought this principle home to him in a way the child’s mind could readily grasp, and without unnecessary harshness and “nagging,” which, after all, only arouse those contrariant ideas that it should be the great aim of education to suppress. And it was thus that Witte and his wife always acted in the upbringing of their boy through the critical formative period of early childhood. The moment any undesirable characteristic made its appearance they hastened to awaken in him a sense of its extreme undesirability by words and conduct that appealed forcefully both to his understanding and to his emotions.
Particularly did they appeal—and here is a point deserving of special emphasis—to his sense of filial love. That they were able to make their appeal unfailingly successful, that the child always found in it a compelling motive for good behaviour, was due to the fact that their whole attitude toward him made him realise that he was an object of devoted, though not over-indulgent, love on their part. Never rebuked without a sufficient cause, and always more in sorrow than in anger; given a free hand in all things except those injurious or detrimental to him; made a companion and a playmate by both parents—he soon perceived, as any child would, that they had nothing more warmly at heart than his best interests and his happiness. Loved as he was, he gave out abundant love in return, and the great ambition of his childhood became a passionate desire to please his father and mother.
Hence it was that Witte, in carrying out his policy of early intellectual training, found no more potent spur to incite his boy to study the subjects given him than the simple statement, “You know, dear Karl, you must learn all you can, so that you will be able to care for your mother and me when we are old and feeble.” Hence, too, the child acquired habits of obedience, self-control, and truthfulness, largely because of his anxiety not to bring pain to his parents. They, however, it is to be noted, were careful to discipline him firmly if he did commit a fault, but always in a way that caused him to appreciate the reasonableness of the punishment inflicted on him.
Such was the manner of Karl Witte’s education up to the age of nine. By that time he had learned so much, and was so well trained in the use of his mental powers, that his father decided to send him to college. At nine and a half, to the amazement of all Germany, he entered the University of Leipzig. There, as at the universities of Göttingen, Giessen, and Heidelberg, where he also prosecuted his studies, his career was brilliant in the extreme. No subject—and he applied himself to many subjects—seemed beyond his powers. In 1814, before he had passed his fourteenth birthday, he was granted the degree of Ph.D. for a thesis on the “Conchoid of Nicomedes,” a curve of the fourth degree. Two years later he was made a Doctor of Laws, and appointed to the teaching staff of the University of Berlin.