Because the completion of labour service was a precondition for permission to study at the university, I was able to begin my studies of Germanistics and Classical Philology during the summer term of 1939.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
After attending the gymnasium between my eighth and seventeenth years, I studied classical philology at Berlin University for two years under Boeckh and Lachmann, and with the friendly support of Emanuel Geibel and Franz Kugler, I dabbled in all sorts of poetry.
More particularly, having a largely German-oriented education has made me very responsive to 19th-century German literature.
The Communist Party said that I must finish my studies because after the revolution in Germany people would be required with technical knowledge to take part in the building of the Communist Germany.
In Bonn, where I studied for a year, I changed from classical to Romance philology, taught there by its great founder, F. Diez, and at the beginning of 1852, I received the doctorate for a dissertation on the refrain in Provencal poetry.
For my Oxford degree, I had to translate French and German philosophy (as it turned out, Descartes and Kant) at sight without a dictionary. That meant Germany for my first summer vacation, to learn the thorny language on my own.
My schooling was disrupted by the shortage of labor during World War I. It meant foregoing high school. Then, late in 1921, I entered upon a short course in agriculture at South Dakota State College. I managed to enter college in 1924, and I was permitted to complete my college work in three years.
I was educated at Bradfield College and Oxford, where I graduated in 1939.
I went to study at Oxford University in the 1980s on an imperial scholarship instituted by Cecil Rhodes.
My graduate study was interrupted, like that of many others, by World War II.
At my father's request I took up the study of law at the University of Zurich In 1863.