him only a few of the tamest passages, and can still see him smile in his peculiar way as he read them in my presence.  He said something about “decided talent,” and when preparations for the celebration of the birthday of King Frederick William IV were made he gave me the task of composing an original poem.  I gladly accepted it.  Writing was a great pleasure, and though my productions at school were far too irregular for me to call them good, I was certainly the best declaimer.

          Thenew head of the school.

Before passing on to other subjects, I must devote a few words to the remodelling of the school and its new head.

At the end of my first term in the first class we learned that we were to have a new teacher, and one who would rule with a rod of iron.  Terrible stories of his Draconian severity were in circulation, and his first address gave us reason to fear the worst, for the tall man of forty in the professor’s chair was very imposing in his appearance.  His smoothly shaven upper lip and brown whiskers, his erect bearing and energetic manner, reminded one of an English parliamentary leader, but his words sounded almost menacing.  He said that an entirely new house must be erected.  We and the teachers must help him.  To the obedient he would be a good friend; but to the refractory, no matter what might be their position, he would——­What followed made many of us nudge one another, and the young men who attended the school merely for the sake of the examination left it in a body.  Many a teacher even changed colour.

This reorganizer, Professor Tzschirner, had formerly been principal of the Magdalen Gymnasium at Breslau.  In energy and authoritative manner he resembled Barop, but he was also an eminent scholar and a thorough man of the world.  The authorities in Berlin made an excellent choice, and we members of the first class soon perceived that he not only meant kindly by us, but that we had obtained in him a teacher far superior to any we had possessed before.  He required a great deal, but he was a good friend to every one who did his duty.  His kindly intention and inspiring influence made themselves felt in our lives; for he invited to his house the members of the first class whom he desired to influence, and his charming, highly educated wife helped him entertain us, so that we preferred an evening there to almost any other amusements.  Study began to charm us, and I can only repeat that he seemed to recall Langethal’s method and awaken many things which the latter had given me, and which, as it were, had fallen asleep during the interval.  He again aroused in my soul the love for the ancients, and his interpretations of Horace or Sophocles were of great service to me in after-years.