Wholly unlike these, genuinely and solely a product of Keilhau, was
the great battle-game which we called Bergwacht, one of my brightest
memories of those years.
Long preparations were needed, and these, too, were delightful.
On the wooded plain at the summit of the Kolm, a mountain which belonged
mainly to the institute, war was waged during the summer every Saturday
evening until far into the night, whenever the weather was fine, which
does not happen too often in Thuringia.
The whole body of pupils was divided into three, afterwards into four
sections, each of which had its own citadel. After two had declared
war against two others, the battle raged until one party captured the
strongholds of the other. This was done as soon as a combatant had set
foot on the hearth of a hostile fortress.
The battle itself was fought with stakes blunted at the tops. Every one
touched by the weapon of an enemy must declare himself a prisoner. To
admit this, whenever it happened, was a point of honour.
In order to keep all the combatants in action, a fourth division was
added soon after our arrival, and of course it was necessary to build a
strong hold like the others. This consisted of a hut with a stone roof,
in which fifteen or twenty boys could easily find room and rest, a
strong wall which protected us up to our foreheads, and surrounded the
front of the citadel in a semicircle, as well as a large altar-like
hearth which rose in the midst of the semicircular space surrounded by
the wall.
We built this fortress ourselves, except that our teacher of
handicrafts, the sapper Sabum, sometimes gave us a hint. The first thing
was to mark out the plan, then with the aid of levers pry the rocks out
of the fields, and by means of a two-wheeled cart convey them to the
site chosen, fit them neatly together, stuff the interstices with moss,
and finally put on a roof made of pine logs which we felled ourselves,
earth, moss, and branches.
How quickly we learned to use the plummet, take levels, hew the stone,
wield the axes! And what a delight it was when the work was finished
and we saw our own building! Perhaps we might not have accomplished it
without the sapper, but every boy believed that if he were cast, like
Robinson Crusoe, on a desert island, he could build a hut of his own.
As soon as this citadel was completed, preparations for the impending
battle were made. The walls and encircling walls of all were prepared,
and we were drilled in the use of the poles. This, too, afforded us the
utmost pleasure. Touching the head of an enemy was strictly prohibited;
yet many a slight wound was given while fighting in the gloom of the
woods.
Each of the four Bergwachts had its leader. The captain of the first
was director of the whole game, and instead of a lance wore a rapier. I
considered it a great honour when this dignity was conferred on me. One
of its consequences was that my portrait was sketched by “Old Unger” in
the so-called “Bergwacht Book,” which contained the likenesses of all my
predecessors.
During the summer months all eyes, even as early as Thursday, were
watching the weather. When Saturday evening proved pleasant and Barop
had given his consent, there was great rejoicing in the institute, and
the morning hours must have yielded the teachers little satisfaction.
Directly after dinner everybody seized his pole and the other
“Bergwacht” equipments. The alliances were formed under the captain’s
guidance. We will say that the contest was to begin with the first and
third Bergwacht pitted against the second and fourth, and be followed by
another, with the first and second against the third and fourth.
We assembled in the court-yard just before sunset. Barop made a little
speech, exhorting us to fight steadily, and especially to observe
all the rules and yield ourselves captives as soon as an enemy’s pole
touched us. He never neglected on these occasions to admonish us that,
should our native land ever need the armed aid of her sons, we should
march to battle as joyously as we now did to the Bergwacht, which was to
train us to skill in her defence.
Then the procession set off in good order, four or six pupils harnessing
themselves voluntarily to the cart in which the kegs of beer were
dragged up the Kolm. Off we went, singing merrily, and at the top the
women were waiting for us with a lunch. Then the warriors scattered, the
fire was lighted on every hearth, the plan of battle was discussed, some
were sent out to reconnoitre, others kept to defend the citadel.
At last the conflict began. Could I ever forget the scenes in the
forest! No Indian tribe on the war-path ever strained every sense more
keenly to watch, surround, and surprise the foe. And the hand-to-hand
fray! What delight it was to burst from the shelter of the thicket and
touch with our poles two, three, or four of the surprised enemies ere
they thought of defence! And what self-denial it required when--spite
of the most skilful parry--we felt the touch of the pole, to confess it,
and be led off as a prisoner!
Voices and shouts echoed through the woods, and the glare of five fires
pierced the darkness--five--for flames were also blazing where the women
were cooking the supper. But the light was brightest, the shouts of the
combatants were loudest, in the vicinity of the forts. The effort of the
besiegers was to spy out unguarded places, and occupy the attention of
the garrison so that a comrade might leap over the wall and set his foot
on the hearth. The object of the garrison was to prevent this.
What was that? An exulting cry rang through the night air. A warrior had
succeeded in penetrating the hostile citadel untouched and setting his
foot on the hearth!
Two or three times we enjoyed the delight of battle; and when towards
midnight it closed, we threw ourselves-glowing from the strife and
blackened by the smoke of the hearth-fires-down on the greensward around
the women’s fire, where boiled eggs and other good things were served,
and meanwhile the mugs of foaming beer were passed around the circle.
One patriotic song after another was sung, and at last each Bergwacht
withdrew to its citadel and lay down on the moss to sleep under the
sheltering roof. Two sentinels marched up and down, relieved every half
hour until the early dawn of the summer Sunday brightened the eastern
sky.
Then “Huup!”--the Keilhau shout which summoned us back to the
institute-rang out, and a hymn, the march back, a bath in the pond, and
finally the most delicious rest, if good luck permitted, on the heaps
of hay which had not been gathered in. On the Sunday following the
Bergwacht we were not required to attend church, where we should merely
have gone to sleep. Barop, though usually very strict in the observance
of religious duties, never demanded anything for the sake of mere
appearances.
And the bed of my own planning! It consisted of wood and stones, and
was covered with a thick layer of moss, raised at the head in a slanting
direction. It looked like other beds, but the place where it stood
requires some description, for it was a Keilhau specialty, a favour
bestowed by our teachers on the pupils.
Midway up the slope of the Kolm where our citadels stood, on the side
facing the institute, each boy had a piece of ground where he might
build, dig, or plant, as he chose. They descended from one to another:
Ludo’s and mine had come down from Martin and another pupil who left
the school at the same time. But I was not satisfied with what my
predecessors had created. I spared the beautiful vine which twined
around a fir-tree, but in the place of a flower-bed and a bench which
I found there Ludo and I built a hearth, and for myself the bed already
mentioned, which my brother of course was permitted to occupy with me.
How many hours I have spent on its soft cushions, reading or dreaming or
imagining things! If I could only remember them as they hovered before
me, what epics and tales I could write!
No doubt we ought to be grateful to God for this as well as for so many
other blessings; but why are we permitted to be young only once in our
lives, only once to be borne aloft on the wings of a tireless power of
imagination, so easily satisfied with ourselves, so full of love, faith,
and hope, so open to every joy and so blind to every care and doubt, and
everything which threatens to cloud and extinguish the sunlight in the
soul?
Dear bed in my plot of ground at Keilhau, you ought, in accordance with
a remark of Barop, to cause me serious self-examination, for he said,
probably with no thought of my mossy couch, “From the way in which the
pupils use their plots of ground and the things they place in them, I
can form a very correct opinion of their dispositions and tastes.” But
you, beloved couch, should have the best place in my garden if you could
restore me but for one half hour the dreams which visited me on your
grey-green pillows, when I was a lad of fourteen or fifteen.
I have passed over the Rudolstadt Schutzenfest, its music, its
merry-go-round, and the capital sausages cooked in the open air, and
have intentionally omitted many other delightful things. I cannot help
wondering now where we found time for all these summer pleasures.
True, with the exception of a few days at Whitsuntide, we had no
vacation from Easter until the first of September. But even in August
one thought, one joyous anticipation, filled every heart. The annual
autumn excursion was coming!
After we were divided into travelling parties and had ascertained which
teacher was to accompany us--a matter that seemed very important--we
diligently practised the most beautiful songs; and on many an evening
Barop or Middendorf told us of the places through which we were to pass,
their history, and the legends which were associated with them. They
were aided in this by one of the sub-teachers, Bagge, a poetically
gifted young clergyman, who possessed great personal beauty and a heart
capable of entering into the intellectual life of the boys who were
entrusted to his care.
He instructed us in the German language and literature. Possibly because
he thought that he discovered in me a talent for poetic expression, he
showed me unusual favor, even read his own verses aloud to me, and set
me special tasks in verse-writing, which he criticised with me when
I had finished. The first long poem I wrote of my own impulse was a
description of the wonderful forms assumed by the stalactite formations
in the Sophie Cave in Switzerland, which we had visited. Unfortunately,
the book containing it is lost, but I remember the following lines,
referring to the industrious sprites which I imagined as the sculptors
of the wondrous shapes:
“Priestly robes and a high altar the sprites created here,
And in the rock-hewn cauldron poured the holy water clear,
Within whose depths reflected, by the torches’ flickering rays,
Beneath the surface glimmering my own face met my gaze;
And when I thus beheld it, so small it seemed to me,
That yonder stone-carved giant looked on with mocking glee.
Ay, laugh, if that’s your pleasure, Goliath huge and old,
I soon shall fare forth singing, you still your place must hold.”
Another sub-teacher was also a favourite travelling-companion. His name
was Schaffner, and he, too, with his thick, black beard, was a handsome
man. To those pupils who, like my brother Ludo, were pursuing the study
of the sciences, he, the mathematician of the institute, must have been
an unusually clear and competent teacher. I was under his charge only a
short time, and his branch of knowledge was unfortunately my weak point.
Shortly before my departure he married a younger sister of Barop’s wife,
and established an educational institution very similar to Keilhau at
Gumperda, at Schwarza in Thuringia.
Herr Vodoz, our French teacher, a cheery, vigorous Swiss, with a perfect
forest of curls on his head, was also one of the most popular guides;
and so was Dr. Budstedt, who gave instruction in the classics. He was
not a handsome man, but he deserved the name of “anima candida.” He used
to storm at the slightest occasion, but he was quickly appeased again.
As a teacher I think he did his full duty, but I no longer remember
anything about his methods.
The travelling party which Barop accompanied were very proud of the
honour. Middendorf’s age permitted him to go only with the youngest
pupils, who made the shortest trips.
These excursions led the little boys into the Thuringian Forest, the
Hartz Mountains, Saxony and Bohemia, Nuremberg and Wurzburg, and the
older ones by way of Baireuth and Regensburg to Ulm. The large boys in
the first travelling party, which was usually headed by Barop himself,
extended their journey as far as Switzerland.
I visited in after-years nearly all the places to which we went at that
time, and some, with which important events in my life were associated,
I shall mention later. It would not be easy to reproduce from memory the
first impressions received without mingling with them more recent ones.
Thus, I well remember how Nuremberg affected me and how much it pleased
me. I express this in my description of the journey; but in the author
of Gred, who often sought this delightful city, and made himself
familiar with life there in the days of its mediaval prosperity, these
childish impressions became something wholly new. And yet they are
inseparable from the conception and contents of the Nuremberg novel.
My mother kept the old books containing the accounts of these
excursions, which occupied from two to three weeks, and they possessed
a certain interest for me, principally because they proved how skilfully
our teachers understood how to carry out Froebel’s principles on these
occasions. Our records of travel also explain in detail what this
educator meant by the words “unity with life”; for our attention was
directed not only to beautiful views or magnificent works of art
and architecture, but to noteworthy public institutions or great
manufactories. Our teachers took the utmost care that we should
understand what we saw.
The cultivation of the fields, the building of the peasants’ huts, the
national costumes, were all brought under our notice, thus making us
familiar with life outside of the school, and opening our eyes to things
concerning which the pupil of an ordinary model grammar-school rarely
inquires, yet which are of great importance to the world to which we
belong.
Our material life was sensibly arranged. During the rest at noon a
cold lunch was served, and an abundant hot meal was not enjoyed until
evening.
In the large cities we dined at good hotels at the table d’hote, and--as
in Dresden, Prague, and Coburg--were taken to the theatre.
But we often spent the night in the villages, and then chairs were
turned upside down, loose straw was spread on the backs and over the
floor, and, wrapped in the shawl which almost every boy carried buckled
to his knapsack, we slept, only half undressed, as comfortably as in the
softest bed.
While walking we usually sung songs, among them very nonsensical ones,
if only we could keep step well to their time. Often one of the teachers
told us a story. Schaffner and Bagge could do this best, but we often
met other pedestrians with whom we entered into conversation. How
delightful is the memory of these tramps! Progress on foot is slow, but
not only do we see ten times better than from a carriage or the window
of a car, but we hear and learn something while talking with the
mechanics, citizens, and peasants who are going the same way, or the
landlords, bar-maids, and table companions we meet in the taverns,
whose guests live according to the custom of the country instead of the
international pattern of our great hotels.
As a young married man, I always anticipated as the greatest future
happiness taking pedestrian tours with my sons like the Keilhau ones;
but Fate ordained otherwise.
On our return to the institute we were received with great rejoicing;
and how much the different parties, now united, had to tell one another!
Study recommenced on the first of October, and during the leisure days
before that time the village church festival was celebrated under the
village linden, with plenty of cakes, and a dance of the peasants, in
which we older ones took part. But we were obliged to devote several
hours of every day to describing our journey for our relatives at
home. Each one filled a large book, which was to be neatly written. The
exercise afforded better practice in describing personal experiences
than a dozen essays which had been previously read with the teacher.