The first President, George Washington, was a farmer. Abraham Lincoln was born in a log-cabin and taught himself to read and write in the early days of his hard boyhood. Woodrow Wilson was a schoolteacher. Rich men and poor men have risen to the presidency; men with the blood of many nations in their veins. The log-cabin or the castle birthplace has counted little; high posts of honor have been won by all.
Carl Schurz was born in a castle at Liblar, a small German town a few miles distant from the great city of Cologne, in the year 1829. But in spite of his castle birthplace, Carl was not of royal blood, but a poor boy. Like the fathers of so many other distinguished sons, the elder Schurz was a schoolmaster; but so small was his pay that he and his family came to live with his wife’s father, a tenant farmer, in the ancient castle at Liblar. And in this castle was born the boy Carl who, in the many years of his useful life, was destined to fill high places in the great Republic beyond the seas.
Life in the great castle was much the same in 1829 that it had been for hundreds of years, for changes came slowly in the peaceful, beautiful German country. At harvest-time the young and old, with a spirit of mutual helpfulness, gathered the harvest; and at other times they met for Rhineland festivals, with much happy visiting of relatives, with games and contests of strength and skill. In the big stone hall of the castle the “folk” assembled for their meals at long wooden tables, and ate their soup or porridge out of deep wooden bowls with wooden spoons. During the day the women spun flax at their spinning-wheels and the men worked in the shops, the stables, and the fields.
In the twilight hours the boy listened to stories of the “French Times,” when the great Napoleon passed through the land with his mighty army before the Russian campaign, and later returned, his army shattered and defeated. He heard of the Cossacks, uncouth, dirty, bearded men on shaggy ponies, who followed Napoleon’s retreating army, and how they stole and plundered and ate the tallow candles in people’s houses. And he heard, too, of the great men whose fame was not created by the sword—Schiller, Goethe Tasso, Shakespeare, Voltaire, Rousseau. Perhaps the stories of these famous men of history inspired the boy in later years to become himself a leader among men.
When he was still very young, Carl was sent to school; and twice a week he walked, each way, to a town four miles distant, to study music. It was during these early days that Carl first heard his family talk about the United States, “that young Republic where the people were free, without kings, without counts”; and it is probable that the impressions of this republican state of free citizens received in his early years had something to do with the directing of his ambitions in later life.
When Carl was nine years old his father, believing that the boy had outgrown the little school at Liblar, sent him to a school at Brühl, where he continued his various lessons and the study of music. The next year Carl was taken by his father to Cologne and entered the “gymnasium,” a school which bears some resemblance to the high school in the United States. Here he studied history, Latin, and German, and particularly the art of expressing himself in writing with clearness and ease—a study which perhaps contributed most to his success in coming years.
But now a new influence began to enter the life of the boy. During the first fifty years of the nineteenth century, that part of Germany which extends along the banks of the Rhine had seen three governments. First, it had been ruled by the Archbishop Electors; then it was conquered by the French and had felt French rule both under the French Republic and the Empire; and last of all, it had been taken from the French and annexed by Prussia. The Rhenish people perhaps liked the Prussian rule least of all; for the Prussians governed well, but with a stern discipline that could never be understood by the careless, pleasure-loving people of the Rhine.
Among the younger people, and particularly those of the better-educated class, among whom Carl found himself, there was a restless spirit and the feeling that great changes were necessary. Young men believed that the hard Prussian rule must be overthrown and give place to a new form of constitutional government, with free speech, free press, and free political institutions. How this was to be done, no one knew; but Carl and his companions talked much with each other of their dreams of liberty and unity for the Fatherland, and eagerly read every newspaper and pamphlet that fell into their hands, to keep themselves informed of the tendencies of the day.
It was the ambition of the elder Schurz that his son, after graduation from the gymnasium, should enter the famous university at Bonn. But only a year before Carl’s graduation the father met with financial disaster which swept away the small savings of years and left him practically penniless. Carl was seventeen years old and was entering his last year in the gymnasium; by this disaster all his hopes and ambitions seemed swept aside. His father, bankrupt, was in a debtor’s prison. Hurriedly, Carl took leave of his teachers and friends and returned home, where, by much hard effort, he succeeded in securing his father’s release.
The question now arose whether or not he must abandon his studies and take up a new course of life. Next to his family, his ambition for a literary career was the greatest factor in his life. By leaving the gymnasium his hopes seemed destroyed beyond remedy; for the examinations for the university were very difficult and practically required this final year of study and preparation. Fortunately, his father in a few months became able again to provide for himself, and Carl immediately undertook the difficult task of preparing to pass the graduation examinations at Cologne, which must be accomplished before he could enter the university. By hard work this was finally accomplished, and Carl entered the university at Bonn.