Acoustics

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with the saved money, to go out into the wide world (perhaps by way of Holland to the East Indies or Suriname) in order to advance myself from the bottom up through my own efforts; with this intention, I had already begun to secretly study Kramer’s Dutch Grammar, which I found among my father's books.

In my fourteenth year, I was sent to the provincial school at Grimma and placed under the special supervision of the then-conrector and later rector Mücke. He was indeed a very upright man and possessed much knowledge of the ancient languages Latin and Greek and their literature; however, due to hypochondria and an anxious conscientiousness in everything he considered his duty, he was led to keep me, as well as his other charges, under the greatest possible restriction, and to punish every oversight, no matter how small, with excessive severity. While most people count their youth among the happiest years of their lives and can look back on them with pleasure, I cannot; yet I have no reason to reproach anyone for it, because everything happened, at the very least, with the best of intentions.

When I arrived at the university in Wittenberg, I would have liked to study medicine, but I allowed myself to be persuaded by my father's urgings to study jurisprudence The theory and philosophy of law. During my studies there, I was also far more restricted than others of my station, which eventually prompted me, through various representations, to finally obtain permission to study afterwards in Leipzig. There, I was left entirely to my own devices, but—as anyone who remembers me can testify—I in no way abused my freedom. After I received the highest marks Censur In this context, a formal grade or evaluation of academic standing following the usual examinations and had defended two dissertations I had written myself, I became a Doctor of Laws. Thereupon I went back to Wittenberg, where my destiny seemed to be to conduct legal business and perhaps eventually obtain a professorship in law or another office. Had I remained true to this destiny, I would likely now be a full professor of law and an assessor of the Faculty of Law with a good income.

Soon after my father's death, I left the legal career path because I found it too little suited to my inclination, and I devoted myself entirely to natural history Naturkunde A broad term then encompassing biology, geology, and other natural sciences, with which I had already occupied myself previously for my own pleasure. I gave various lectures, for example, on physical and mathematical geography and on geometry; I held with some [listeners]...