50 Kant: A Biographyto provide them with the skills necessary for reading any French author
tolerably well. We may therefore assume that Kant was able to read French
and comprehend it when it was spoken, even if he probably never became
very good at speaking it.^91 It is remarkable, however, that Kant did enroll
in French, as it had to be paid for separately.^92 English did not form any
part of the curriculum. Indeed, it was not taught as a special discipline
even at the University of Königsberg until long after Kant had begun to
teach there. Thus it is unlikely that Kant received any formal education in
English. Though he could probably decipher what a certain passage was
about, he could not really read it.
Arithmetic, too, was considered less important than Latin. There were
only three classes given, and they did not go beyond the very basics. Math-
esis, the more advanced mathematical discipline, was also optional (and thus
had also to be paid for separately). It was designed to introduce the students
to the basic principles of mathematics in arithmetic, geometry, and trig¬
onometry. The textbook used in this course was Wolff's Auszug aus den
Anfangsgründen aller mathematischen Wissenschaften (Extract from the Main
Parts of All Mathematical Sciences).^93 The students could not expect to be¬
come very proficient in this discipline either, because the teachers were
asked only to see to it that the students could understand, prove, and solve
"the most important" parts of this subject. The teacher was to give them a
"concept of the mathematical doctrine so that their understanding was
prepared and trained for the study of the other sciences."^94 Yet even this
level was probably far beyond anything that a student of theology could
reasonably be expected to do. Emanuel as a result of these classes may have
had a better education in mathematics than the average student in Prussia,
but his early education in this discipline was dismal by later standards.
The same was true of philosophy. Though it was a regular class and not
an option, it appears to have been taught only during one year. If the
school's library for teachers is any indication of how the class was taught,
then it was entirely Wolffian in outlook. Philosophy was one of the classes
in which the students were allowed to "dispute" one another. In any case,
Kant himself later remarked to one of his friends at the school (Cunde):
"These men (Herren) could not blow into a fire any spark that lay in us for
philosophy or mathematics," and his friend is said to have answered: "But
they were very good at blowing it out."^95
The educational spirit of the school is well summed up by director
Schiffert's claim that "repetition is the soul of studying: so that what once
has been learned is not forgotten again." There were weekly class hours