Truths. Prodosh Aich
did not carry a date. But we know by now that he was fifteen and half years old when he should have left the household of Professor Carus to join the school at Zerbst. How could it be “next year” that “I shall have you both with me”, unless we assume that his mother joined him at Zerbst in Prussia? There are more questions.
Why was it necessary for Max Müller to conceal this important information that Friedrich Maximilian was not merited enough to obtain his “Abiturienten-Examen” from the “Nicolai Schule” at Leipzig? Why did he pack his lack of “excellent merit” so slyly, very casually only?
“It was rather hard on me that I had to pass my examinations for admission to the University (Abiturienten-Examen) not at my school, but at Zerbst in Anhalt. This was necessary in order to enable me to obtain a scholarship from the Anhalt Government”.
The second sentence is more deceptive. It diverts attention to the need getting a scholarship. We have already dealt with this aspect. It comes even worse. He continues in the same paragraph with schools systems in Anhalt-Dessau and in Prussia and then returns to music. He informs that Friedrich Maximilian has just resisted the lure of music encountering in the household of Professor Carus. Quite a few pages have then been bestowed to music. Professors in those days were topping the list of all professions in terms of accorded social prestige. Musicians were glad being invited by professors in their social gatherings. There is no doubt that Friedrich Maximilian was exposed to music in the household of Professor Carus. Did Max Müller want us to assume that the real reason for Friedrich Maximilian’s leaving Leipzig was his exposure to music in the household of Professor Carus?
Well! The next issue is more important. Friedrich Maximilian comes back to Leipzig in 1841 and takes admission at Leipzig University. Why does he not get back to the household of Professor Carus? Why didn’t he stay with his friend Victor in the household of Professor Carus while both of them were admitted at Leipzig University? We could not get to the bottom to find an explanation. We are puzzled by another contradiction.
The fact is that mother Adelheide shifted to Leipzig with her daughter before Friedrich Maximilian got his school-final certificate at Zerbst in 1841. Therefore, the question did not arise that Friedrich Maximilian eventually stayed in the affluent household of Professor Carus and studied together with his friend Victor at Leipzig University. But why did she shift to Leipzig and robbed Friedrich Maximilian the chance to study at Leipzig University not in poverty again? No questions, no answers.
Instead we read on page 112 in the “My Autobiography” what Max Müller wanted us to believe: “In order to enable me to go to the University, my mother and sister moved to Leipzig and kept house for me during all the time I was there – that is two years a half”. This is another example of the wrapping-technique used by him that conceals facts, distorts facts. And the hard fact remains for our judgement of the situation: Friedrich Maximilian falls back to poverty.
We must refer back to the casual remark by Max Müller on pages 103-104 to comprehend his wrapping technique:
“It was rather hard on me that I had to pass my examinations for admission to the University (Abiturienten-Examen) not at my school, but at Zerbst in Anhalt. This was necessary in order to enable me to obtain a scholarship from the Anhalt Government.”
In the first sentence, he reports that Friedrich Maximilian had to pass his examinations for “admission to the University not at my school, but at Zerbst in Anhalt”. As if passing “Abiturienten-Examen” from his Nicolai School would have excluded him from “admission to the University”, which is absurd. For “admission to the LeipzigUniversity or to any other University” he by no means needed to go to Zerbst.
Now we look into the second sentence: “This was necessary in order to enable me to obtain a scholarship from the Anhalt Government.” We all know that Friedrich Maximilian is poor. University studies are a privilege of well-to-do people only. We all sympathetically note that passing his examinations at Zerbst enabled him “to obtain a scholarship from the Anhalt Government.” What should be wrong in this bypass? Who will care to know or will know that Zerbst had nothing to do with the “Anhalt Government”? And who will care to raise the simple question as we did? Was it “a scholarship” on merit? It was not on merit, as already mentioned.
Before we get into Friedrich Maximilian’s studies at the Leipzig University we must recall another obvious issue. On the pages 45 to 111 “The Rt. Hon. Professor F. Max Müller, K.M.” wanted us inform how the life of Friedrich Maximilian had been during the “schooldays at Dessau” as well as during the “schooldays in Leipzig”. We have put together all scattered information to get an adequate picture regarding the school life of Friedrich Maximilian. These are rather meagre.
What did Max Müller want us to believe? We are inclined to conclude that Max Müller wanted us to believe in the extraordinary brilliance of Friedrich Maximilian manifested already during his schooldays. That is why Max Müller has imported in these two chapters a lot of “scholarly” lectures of his own. On topics which were totally off the way for a boy as Friedrich Maximilian was up to 1841. Thus, Max Müller escaped his duty in an autobiography to deal with the schooldays of Friedrich Maximilian. An evaluation of his schooldays by Max Müller was not the purpose in those two chapters: “Childhood at Dessau” and “School-days at Leipzig”.
We are also inclined to conclude that the schooldays of Friedrich Maximilian had been extremely uneventful, dull and morbid. When he took his admission at Leipzig University, he was at best an average beginner of university studies. This is the hard fact that was to be veiled by those scattered facts in two chapters. Who will feel a need to recall the following deliberations by Max Müller scattered in the chapter: “Childhood at Dessau”:
“The more I think about that distant, now very distant past, the more I feel how, without being aware of it, my whole character was formed by it.”
“... but for many years my mother never went into society, and our society consisted of members of our own family only. All I remember of my mother at that time was that she took her two children day after day to the beautiful Gottesacker (God’s Acre), where she stood for hours at our father’s grave, and sobbed and cried. ... At home the atmosphere was certainly depressing to a boy. I heard and thought more about death than about life, though I knew little of course of what life or death meant. I had but few pleasures, and my chief happiness was to be with my mother, I shared her grief without understanding much about it. She was passionately devoted to her children and I was passionately fond of her. What there was left of life to her, she gave it to us, she lived for us only, and tried very hard not to deprive our childhood of all brightness.”
“As far back as I can remember I was a martyr to headaches. No doctor could help me, no one seemed to know the cause. It was a migraine, and though I watched carefully I could not trace it to any fault of mine. The idea that it came from overwork was certainly untrue. It came and went, and if it was one day on the right side it was always the next time on the left, even though I was free from it sometimes for a week or a fortnight, or even longer. It was strange also that it seldom lasted beyond one day, and that I always felt particularly strong and well the day after I had been prostrate. For prostrate I was, and generally quite unable to do anything. I had to lie down and try to sleep. After a good sleep I was well, but when the pain had been very bad I found that sometimes the very skin of my forehead had peeled off. In this way I often lost two or three days in a week and as my work had to be done somehow,