My energies at the moment were devoted towards
attaining some definite professional position for myself.[93] But in
proportion as I began to examine my profession more closely in its
practical aspect, so did it begin to prove insufficient of itself to
satisfy me as the occupation of my life. Then there came to me the
definite purpose of living and working at my profession rather to use it
as a means to win some high benefit for mankind.[94]
The restlessness of youth, nay, that chance, rather, which has always
lovingly guided me, threw me unexpectedly into relations with a man
whose knowledge of mankind, and whose penetrating glance into my inner
being turned me at our very first interview from the profession of an
architect to that of a teacher and an educator, two spheres of work
which had, never previously occurred to me, still less had appeared to
me as the future objects of my life.[95] But the very first time I found
myself before thirty or forty boys from nine to eleven years old, for
that was the class allotted to me to teach, I felt thoroughly at home.
In fact, I perceived that I had at last found my long-missed life
element; and as I wrote to my brother at the time, I was as well pleased
as the fish in the water, I was inexpressibly happy.
Pages:
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201