mostly Protestant Edict-of-Nantes French-women;
he was of extraordinary vivacity,
occasionally delicate in health, and easily was
influenced by tlieir ways of thought, while he
was learning from them not only to speak
French, but to think it;— spell it, he never
did. Then, on the other side, there was his
Orson of a father, causing him to be trained
up with Spartan rigour, mainly on beer soup,
and bread; there were his father's
companions, rugged German men of war, and
active talk of his father's one war— the
Stralsund expedition when he was three
years old. At about that time he was caught
playing on a drum in military style, and his
proud father had his picture taken, with his
favourite sister, playfellow, and friend,
Wilhelmina, who was three years older, looking
on. When Fritz was five years old, Czar
Peter visited the Prussian Court, a rougher
bear than Friedrich Wilhelm; and the suite—
"was there ever seen such a travelling tag-
raggery of a sovereign court before?"

In his seventh year young Frederick was
taken out of the hands of the women; and
had tutors and sub-tutors of masculine
gender. Duhan de Jandun, a scholar found
fighting in the trenches before Stralsund,
was the practical tutor. Lieutenant-General
Graf Fink von Finkensteiu, and
Lieutenant-Colonel von Kalkstein, they are head-tutor
and sub-tutor; military men both, who had
been in many wars besides Stralsund. By
these three he was assiduously educated,
subordinate schoolmasters working under
them when needful, in such branches as the
paternal judgment would admit; the paternal
object and theirs being to infuse useful
knowledge, reject useless, and wind up the whole
into a military finish. Duhan was turned of
thirty, Finkenstein's age was sixty,
Kalkstein's twenty-eight. Young Fred or Fritz
formed an abiding friendship for them all.
They were rigorous and honest men, with
some little sunshine of affection to help in
dealing with what seed, or chaff, or hail they
poured upon his mind. The royal father
drew up exact papers of instructions that
were to be obeyed in the boy's education.
In brief: Let him fear God, abhor popery,
and never even hear of anything like
infidelity. Let him learn no dead Latin, but
brevity and propriety in use of French and
German. Teach him arithmetic,
mathematics, artillery— economics to the very
bottom. Geography, History in particular,
ancient history only slightly, but with
running interpretations and considerations; the
history of the last hundred and fifty years to
the exactest pitch, especially that of the
House of Brandenburg and histories allied
to that of Prussia. The law of nature and of
nations he must master, and as he grows
especially must work at fortification, and the
other sciences of war; that the Prince may,
from youth upwards, be trained to act as
officer and general, and to seek all his glory
in the soldier profession. Stamp into him a
true love for soldier's work, and impress on
him that, as there is nothing in the world
which can bring a Prince renown and honour
like the sword, so he would be a despised
creature before all men, if he did not love it,
and seek his sole glory therein.

A miniature soldier company, above a
hundred strong, which grew to be yet stronger
as the Company of Crown-Prince's Cadets,
was formed especially for little Fritz, who
went at once, aged less than ten, into a tight
blue bit of coat and cocked hat, and worked
his way up to the command of his small
corps. Also there was set up for him a little
arsenal in the Orange Hall of the Palace,
and he was taught how to mount batteries
and fire exceedingly small brass ordnance.
In October, seventeen hundred and twenty-three,
it is on record, when George the First
came to visit his son-in-law and daughter at
Berlin, his Britannic Majesty, looking from
his new quarters on the morrow, saw Fritzchen
drilling his cadet company, a very pretty
little phenomenon drilling with clear voice,
military sharpness, and the precision of clockwork,
on the esplanade there; and doubtless
the Britannic Majesty gave some grunt of
acquiescence, perhaps even a smile, rare on
that square heavy-laden countenance of his.

Take for granted riding, fencing, swimming,
dancing, music masters. Fritz travelled
across Prussia with his father on his annual
reviews, which were real comprehensive
scrutinies extending over the military state of
his whole kingdom. He was taken when
they were at Wusterhausen to the stag hunts,
boar hunts, partridge shooting, fox and wolf
hunts. But he could not take to them at all.
"In later years he has been known to retire
into some glade of the thickets, and hold a
flute-hautbois concert with his musical
comrades while the sows were getting baited.
Or he would converse with mamma and her
ladies, if her Majesty chanced to be there, in
a day for open-driving. Which things by no
means increase his favour with papa, a sworn
hater of 'effeminate practices.' " He was
nourished on beer soup, and began with
eighteenpence a month for pocket-money.

In the splendid palaces of Berlin and
Potsdam, where his father, for hatred of the
dust that gathered into woven stuff and wool,
sat only on plain wooden chairs, the discipline
of course was not relaxed. At Wusterhausen,
Fritz being ten years old, thus his
father and guide mapped out his time for
him, and there was to be no shirking.
Sunday: Up at seven; stand by, somebody,
and see that he does not turn in the bed after
he is called, but rise at once; up at seven,
slippers on, kneel, pray, so that all in the
room may hear, a given prayer, then
rapidly and vigorously wash, dress, powder and comb,
breakfasting meanwhile. "Prayer, with
washing, breakfast and the rest, to be done
pointedly within fifteen minutes." Then, it