road. But unfortunately the dry forms of grammar had, quite against my
own will, stuck like scales over my eyes, dimming my perceptions; I
could find no means to rid myself of them, and they wrought fatally upon
me now and long afterwards. The more thoroughly I knew them the more
they stiffened and crushed me.

My departure from the school was now arranged, and I could let my mind
pursue its development free and unshackled. As heretofore, so now also,
my kindly fate came lovingly to my help: I can never speak of it with
sufficient thankfulness. The three lads to whom I had hitherto given
private instruction in arithmetic and language now needed a tutor, as
their former tutor was leaving them. The confidential charge was laid
upon me, because I of all men best knew their nature and its needs, of
seeking out some fit teacher and educator for them from amongst my
acquaintance. As for myself this tutor business lay far from my own
thoughts, and I therefore looked round me in every direction, and with
all earnestness, for some one else. Amongst others I applied to my
eldest brother, telling him my views as to the necessary requirements of
a true educator.

My brother wrote back very decidedly and simply, that he could not
propose any one to me as a teacher and educator who would fulfil the
requirements I had set forth, and further, he did not think I should
ever be able to find such a person; for if one should be found
possessing ample knowledge and experience of life in its external
aspects, he would be deficient in a vigorous inner life of his own, and
in the power to recognise and foster it in himself and his pupils; and,
on the other hand, another man who might have this power would be
deficient in the first-named (practical) qualities. I reported the
result of my labours. It caused much disappointment, indeed it could not