ed.

As I was now engaged in studying the languages I easily learned to read
Italian, Spanish, and Dutch books.

In view of this experience, which is not wholly personal, I have
wondered whether the instruction of boys might not be shortened to
give them more outdoor exercise. In how brief a time the pupils, as men
studying for their own benefit, not the teacher's, would acquire many
things! Besides the languages, I studied, at first exclusively under
Lepsius's thoroughly admirable instruction, ancient history and
archeology.

Later I owed most to Gerhard, Droysen, Friederichs, and August Bockh.

A kind fate afterwards brought me into personal relations with the
latter, whose lectures on the Athenian financial system were the finest
and the most instructive I have ever heard. What clearness, what
depth of learning, what a subtle sense of humour this splendid old man
possessed! I attended his lectures in 1863, and how exquisite were the
allusions to the by no means satisfactory political conditions of the
times with which he spiced them. I also became sincerely attached to
Friederichs, and it made me happy to be able to requite him in some
small degree in Egypt for the kindness and unselfishness he had shown me
in Berlin.

Bopp's lectures, where I tried to increase my meagre knowledge of
Sanscrit, I attended, unfortunately, only a few hours.

The lectures of the African traveller Heinrich Earth supplied rich
sources of material, but whoever expected to hear bewitching narratives
from him would have been disappointed. Even in more intimate intercourse
he rarely warmed up sufficiently to let others share the rich treasure
of his knowledge and experience. It seemed as if, during his lonely life
in Africa, he had lost the necessity of exchanging thoughts with his
fellow-men. During this late period Heinrich Brugsch developed in the
linguistic department of Egyptology what I had gained from Lepsius and
by my own industry, and I gladly term myself his pupil.

I have cause to be grateful for the fresh and helpful way in which this
great and tireless investigator gave me a private lecture; but Lepsius
had opened the door of our science, and though he could carry me only
to a certain stage in the grammar of the ancient Egyptians, in other
departments I owe him more than any other of my intellectual guides.
I am most indebted to him for the direction to use historical and
archaeological authorities critically, and his corr