in, there to enter upon the post[110] at
the University Museum, which I have already mentioned.

Soon after, quite unexpectedly, I ran against my friends again, who had
come back to Berlin to finish their studies. After being somewhat
separated by the nature of our work, they as eagerly studying theology
as I did natural science, our common need and inner aspiration brought
us once more together. They had taken some private teaching, and were
frequently driven to seek my counsel and instruction by the difficulties
of their new position. When the war broke out afresh in 1815,
Middendorff had been living for several months previously with me as
room companion. Thus had life thrown us closely together, so that I
could see each one exactly as he was, in all his individuality, with his
qualities and his deficiencies, with what he could contribute, and what
he would have to receive from others.

In October 1816 I left my post, and quitted Berlin, without as yet
confiding to any one exactly what outward aim I had in view, simply
saying that I would write and give some account of myself as soon as I
had found what I set out to seek. In November of the same year my dearly
loved brother,[111] the eldest now living, whom I made my confidant so
far as that was possible, and who was at that time a manufacturer at
Osterode in the Harz district, gave me his two sons to educate. They
were his only sons, though not his only children; two boys of six and
eight years old respectively. With these boys I set out for a village on
the Urn called Griesheim, and there I added to my little family, first
two, then a third, that is, altogether three other nephews, the orphan
sons of my late dearest brother,[112] he who had always best sympathised
with me through life. He had been minister at Griesheim, and his widow
still lived there. He had died of hospital fever in 1813, just after the
cessation of the war. I reckon, therefore, the duration of my present
educational work from November 16th, 1816.

Already I had written from Osterode to Middendorff at Berlin, inviting
him and Langethal to join me and help in working out a system of life
and education worthy of _man_. It was only possible for Middendorff to
reach me by April 1817, and Langethal could not arrive until even the
following September. The latter, however, sent me, by Middendorff, his
brother, a boy of eleven years old;[113] so that I now had six pupils.
In June of the same year (1817