blished at the
Reformation, and which was maintained at the expense of the Duke of
Wirtemberg, as a preparatory seminary for the University of Tubingen.
After remaining a year at the upper classes, the scholars presented
themselves for examination at the College for the degree of Bachelor;
and having received this, they returned to the school with the title of
Veterans. Here they completed the usual course of study; and being
admitted as resident students at Tubingen, they took their degree of
Master. In prosecuting this course of study, Kepler was sadly
interrupted, not only by periodical returns of his former complaints,
but by family quarrels of the most serious import. These dissensions,
arising greatly from the perverseness of his mother, drove his father to
a foreign land, where he soon died; and his mother having quarrelled
with all her relations, the affairs of the family were involved in
inextricable disorder. Notwithstanding these calamities, Kepler took his
degree of Bachelor on the 15th September 1588, and his degree of Master
in August 1591, on which occasion he held the second place at the annual
examination.

In his early studies, Kepler devoted himself with intense pleasure to
philosophy in general, but he entertained no peculiar affection for
astronomy. Being well grounded in arithmetic and geometry, he had no
difficulty in making himself master of the geometrical and astronomical
theorems which occurred in the course of his studies. While attending
the lectures of Moestlin, professor of mathematics, who had
distinguished himself by an oration in favour of the Copernican system,
Kepler not only became a convert to the opinions of his master, but
defended them in the physical disputations of the students, and even
wrote an essay on the primary motion, in order to prove that it was
produced by the daily rotation of the earth.

In 1594, the astronomical chair at Gratz, in Styria, fell vacant by the
death of George Stadt, and, according to Kepler's own statement, he was
forced to accept this situation by the authority of his professional
tutors, who recommended him to the nobles of Styria. Though Kepler had
little knowledge of the science, and no passion for it whatever, yet the
nature of his office forced him to attend to astronomy; and, in the year
1595, when he enjoyed some leisure from his lectures, he directed the
whole energy of his mind to the three important topics of the number,
the size, and the