What indications, if any, the child had given of remarkable musical genius, we do not know,—­not one of the many anecdotes bearing upon this point having any trustworthy foundation in fact.  Probably the father discovered in him that which awakened the hope of some time rivalling the then recent career of Leopold Mozart with little Wolfgang, or at least saw reason to expect as much success with his son as had rewarded the efforts of his neighbor Ries with his Franz; at all events, we have the testimony of Beethoven himself, that “already in his fourth year music became his principal employment,”—­and this it continued to be to the end.  Yet, as he grew older, his education in other respects was not neglected.  He passed through the usual course of boys of his time, not destined for the universities, in the public schools of the city, even to the acquiring of some knowledge of Latin.  The French language was, as it still is, a necessity to every person of the Rhine provinces above the rank of peasant; and Beethoven became able to converse in it with reasonable fluency, even after years of disuse and almost total loss of hearing.  It has also been stated that he knew enough of English to read it; but this is more than doubtful.  In fact, as a schoolboy, he made the usual progress,—­no more, no less.

In music it was otherwise.  The child Mozart seems alone to have equalled or surpassed the child Beethoven.  Ludwig soon exhausted his father’s musical resources, and became the pupil of Pfeiffer, chorist in the Electoral Orchestra, a genial and kind-hearted man, and so good a musician as afterward to be appointed band-master to a Bavarian regiment.  Beethoven always held him in grateful and affectionate remembrance, and in the days of his prosperity in Vienna sent him pecuniary aid.  His next teacher was Van der Eder, court organist,—­a proof that the boy’s progress was very rapid, as this must have been the highest school that Bonn could offer.  With this master he studied the organ.  When Van der Eder retired from office, his successor, Christian Gottlob Neefe, succeeded him also as instructor of his remarkable pupil.

Wegeler and Schindler, writing several years after the great composer’s death, state, that, of these three instructors, he considered himself most indebted to Pfeiffer, declaring that he had profited little or nothing by his studies with Neefe, of whose severe criticisms upon his boyish efforts in composition he complained.  These statements have hitherto been unquestioned.  Without doubting the veracity of the two authors, it may well be asked, whether the great master may not have relied too much upon the impressions received in childhood, and thus unwittingly have done injustice to Neefe.  The appointment of that musician as organist to the Electoral Court bears date February 15, 1781, when Ludwig had but just completed his tenth year, and the sixth year of his musical studies.  These six years had been divided between three different instructors,—­his