edrich had gone through the Latin school at
Ludwigsburg, which was in 1772, he was, according to the standing
regulation, to enter one of the four Lower Cloister-schools; and go
through the farther curriculum for a Wuertemberg clergyman. But now
there came suddenly from the Duke to Captain Schiller an offer to take
his Son, who had been represented to him as a clever boy, into the new
Military Training-School, founded by his Highness at Solituede, in
1771; where he would be brought up, and taken charge of, free of cost.

'In the Schiller Family this offer caused great consternation and
painful embarrassment. The Father was grieved to be obliged to
sacrifice a long-cherished paternal plan to the whim of an arbitrary
ruler; and the Son felt himself cruelly hurt to be torn away so rudely
from his hope and inclination. Accordingly, how dangerous soever for
the position of the Family a declining of the Ducal grace might seem,
the straightforward Father ventured nevertheless to lay open to the
Duke, in a clear and distinct statement, how his purpose had always
been to devote his Son, in respect both of his inclination and his
hitherto studies, to the Clerical Profession; for which in the new
Training-School he could not be prepared. The Duke showed no anger at
this step of the elder Schiller's; but was just as little of intention
to let a capable and hopeful scholar, who was also the Son of one of
his Officers and Dependents, escape him. He simply, with brevity,
repeated his wish, and required the choice of another study, in which
the Boy would have a better career and outlook than in the Theological
Department. Nill they, will they, there was nothing for the Parents
but compliance with the so plainly intimated will of this Duke, on
whom their Family's welfare so much depended.

'Accordingly, 17th January 1773, Friedrich Schiller, then in his
fourteenth year, stept over to the Military Training-School at
Solituede.

'In September of the following year, Schiller's Parents had,
conformably to a fundamental law of the Institution, to acknowledge
and engage by a written Bond, "That their Son, in virtue of his
entrance into this Ducal Institution, did wholly devote himself to the
service of the Wuertemberg Ducal House; that he, without special Ducal
permission, was not empowered to go out of it; and that he had, with
his best care, to observe not only this, but all other regulations of
the Institute." By this time, indeed direc