Childhood and Early Youth 31have been unusual for small tradesmen of the period, and it would be wrong
to say that the Kants were poor — at least as long as the mother was alive.
Johann Georg and Anna Regina Kant were good parents. They cared for
their children as well as they could. In fact, if we know one thing about
Kant's youth, it is that he led a protected life. One of his closest colleagues
reported later:
Kant told me that when he more closely observed the education in the household of
a count not far from Königsberg ... he often thought of the incomparably more noble
education that he had received in the house of his parents. He was grateful to them,
saying that he had never heard or seen anything indecent at home.^19This testimony is supported by Borowski, who wrote:
How often have I heard him say: "Never, not even once, was I allowed to hear anything
indecent from my parents, or to see something dishonorable." He himself admitted
that there are perhaps only a few children - especially in our age - who can look back
to their childhood with such gratification as he always could and still does.^20
Indeed, Kant had only good things to say about his parents. Thus he wrote
in a letter late in life "my two parents (from the class of tradesmen) were
perfectly honest, morally decent, and orderly. They did not leave me a for¬
tune (but neither did they leave me any debts). Moreover, they gave me an
education that could not have been better when considered from the moral
point of view. Every time I think of this I am touched by feelings of the
highest gratitude."^21
When Johann Georg died in 1746, Emanuel, the oldest son — then al¬
most twenty-two years of age — wrote in the family Bible: "On the 24th of
March my dear father was taken away by a happy death.... May God, who
did not grant him many joys in this life, permit him to share in the eternal
joy."^22 We may assume that Kant respected and loved his father: much of
his stern moral outlook can probably be traced back to this hard-working
man who eked out a living for his family under circumstances that were not
always easy. His mother may have meant even more to him. But he spoke
of her in more sentimental terms. Thus he is reported to have said: "I will
never forget my mother, for she implanted and nurtured in me the first germ
of goodness; she opened my heart to the impressions of nature; she awak¬
ened and furthered my concepts, and her doctrines have had a continual
and beneficial influence in my life."^23 She was "a woman of great and nat¬
ural understanding ... who had a noble heart, and possessed a genuine re¬
ligiosity that was not in the least enthusiastic."^24 Kant believed not only
that he had inherited his physical looks from his mother, but also that she