A CHILD OF WAR 5in the account of his life which he gave before a trial court in
Zurich, he testified that he had never been abused or even punished
by his parents.
The lad's formal schooling was limited to the elementary school
of Magdeburg {die mittlere Bürgerschule). He read books from
the local library, mostly novels and adventure tales which inspired
the games of robber and "Robin Hood" he played with his young
schoolmates. The boy seems always to have been quite sensitive,
and it is reported that he was especially fond of dogs and could
not bear to see them mistreated. Once he broke into a fury of tears
when his schoolmaster accused him of petty dishonesty.
The young Weitling learned to write a beautiful Gothic script.
As he grew older, he read much history and apparently absorbed
an amazing amount and variety of information about the signifi
cant characters of the past, from antiquity, through the Thirty
Years' War, to Napoleon. But most of what he learned was the
result of unorganized, desultory reading. He never had the ad
vantage of expert guidance in mastering any period of human his
tory, nor the mental discipline that comes from exploring thor
oughly some one field of knowledge. His religious training was
rather systematic until he reached the age of twelve. It was strictly
in the Catholic tradition and apparently made a deep and lasting
impression which affected his views and influenced his conduct
throughout his life. He read the Bible many times and knew it so
thoroughly that few theologians could have matched his ability to
quote from the Scriptures. For some reason, he was especially fond
of reading the Books of the Maccabees.
Weitling never saw the inside of a German Gymnasium, much
less a university, but he managed to absorb much information in
many fields, as his writings clearly show. Perhaps because of his
origin and environment, it was fairly easy for him to become
bilingual in French and German, but he also learned to use English
quite well and in due time mastered at least the rudiments of Latin
and Italian. As a gifted, restless, eager, and romantic youth, Weit
ling was handicapped at every step in his development by grinding