032 ANNUAL REPORT SMITHSONIAN INSTITUTION, 1958 
did not increase his affection for them. In fact, he came to share 
some of his father’s own antipathy toward them and toward his 
mother. He explicitly states in his autobiography that his father 
kept him apart from other boys. “He was earnestly bent upon my 
escaping not only the ordinary corrupting influence which boys exer- 
cise over boys, but the contagion of vulgar modes of thought and 
feeling; and for this he was willing that I should pay the price of in- 
feriority in the accomplishments which schoolboys in all countries 
chiefly cultivate” [21, p.24f]. And again: “As I had no boy compan- 
ions, and the animal need of physical activity was satisfied by walk- 
ing, my amusements, which were mostly solitary, were in general of a 
quiet, if not a bookish turn, and gave little stimulus to any other kind 
even of mental activity than that which was already called forth by 
my studies” (p. 25). 
Leibniz, his mother’s only child, lost his father, a prominent uni- 
versity professor, when he was 6. He retained two vivid memories of 
him, both of them expressive of the high esteem in which his father 
held him. His mother, who died when he was 18, devoted the re- 
mainder of her life to caring for him. He lived at home, free from 
“the doubtful liberties, the numerous temptations, the barbarous fol- 
lies of student life” [18, p. 12]. Before he was 10 his father’s care- 
fully guarded library was opened to him, and he plunged into its 
treasures eagerly. It was conceivably no small thing to Leibniz that 
his father had regarded his christening as marked by a symbolic 
movement which seemed to promise that his son, as he wrote in his 
domestic chronicle, would continue in a spiritual and burning love 
for God all his life and do wonderful deeds in honor of the Highest 
Dias eB omee AE . 
Grotius was close to his father. He signed his early poems Hugei- 
anus, thus joining his own name Hugo with his father’s name Janus 
or Joannes. At 8 he reacted to the death of a brother by writing his 
father consolatory Latin verses. He had competent teachers at home, 
and entered the University of Leiden at 11; there he dwelt with a 
devoutly religious man who impressed him deeply. He was famous 
in the literary world very early, and received high praise from dis- 
tinguished men. He sought his father’s advice when he chose a wife. 
One would infer from the limited evidence that his association from 
early childhood was primarily with adults. 
Goethe throughout his childhood was carefully and energetically 
supervised in his varied studies by his father. He associated fre- 
quently with numerous skilled and learned and eminent men in Frank- 
fort, among whom was his grandfather Textor. He enjoyed consider- 
able freedom of movement through the city, in the intervals of his 
studies, and struck up several acquaintances outside the home among 
boys and girls; but these were certainly far outweighed by his adult 
