e acquainted with what each one of the principal
professions offers and requires from its members. The principal of the
institution should also aid by his counsel the choice of the young
men with whose talents and tastes long intercourse had rendered him
familiar.

[It should never contain more than seventy pupils. Barop, when I
met him after I attained my maturity, named sixty as the largest
number which permitted the teacher to know and treat individually
the boys confided to his care. He would never receive more at
Keilhau.]

Of course I imagine this man not only a teacher but an educator,
familiar not alone with the school exercises, but with the mental
and physical characteristics of those who are to graduate from the
university.

Had not the heads of the Keilhau Institute lost their pupils so young,
they would undoubtedly have succeeded in guiding the majority to the
right profession.

CHAPTER XXI. AT THE UNIVERSITY.

The weeks following my graduation were as ill suited as possible to the
decision of any serious question.

After a gay journey through Bohemia which ended in venerable Prague,
I divided my time between Hosterwitz, Blasewitz, and Dresden. In the
latter city I met among other persons, principally old friends, the son
of my uncle Brandenstein, an Austrian lieutenant on leave of absence. I
spent many a pleasant evening with him and his comrades, who were also
on leave. These young gentlemen considered the Italians, against whom
they fought, as rebels, while a cousin of my uncle, then Colonel von
Brandenstein, but afterwards promoted in the Franco-Austrian war in 1859
and 1866 to the rank of master of ordnance, held a totally different
opinion. This clever, warmhearted soldier understood the Italians and
their struggle for unity and freedom, and judged them so justly and
therefore favorably, that he often aroused the courteous opposition of
his younger comrades. I did not neglect old friends, however, and when I
did not go to the theatre in the evening I ended the day with my aunt
at Blasewitz. But, on my mother's account, I was never long absent
from Hosterwitz. I enjoyed being with her so much. We drove and walked
together, and discussed everything the past had brought and the future
promised.

Yet I longed for academic freedom, and especially to sit at the feet of
an Ernst Curtius, and be initiated by Waitz into the methodical study of
history.

The evening before my de