CHAPTER 4 WHICH QUALIFICATIONS DOES

       FRIEDRICH MAXIMILIAN ACQUIRE AT

       LEIPZIG UNIVERSITY?

      We are reconstructing the life of Friedrich Maximilian Müller as it was. We have done our research - we mean re-search – getting into the primary sources. We have searched for facts and for the facts behind the facts. All existing secondary sources are fed by the writings of Max Müller and by his British wife Georgina Max Müller. We are crosschecking now the stories told by Max Müller on the biography of Friedrich Maximilian Müller. Thereby we stick to working out hard facts only.

      Friedrich Maximilian avails the privilege, when he is 12 years old, of staying in the affluent household of Professor Carus and of being taught in the famous Nikolai-Schule at Leipzig. We find absolutely no information on how Friedrich Maximilian fared in that famous school. We know from Max Müller that Friedrich Maximilian did not take his “Abiturienten-Examen” at the Nicolai school. He does not disclose the reason behind it. He simply states it was hard for him. What is behind this fact?

      With “Abiturienten-Examen” (high school certificate) one earns in Germany the right to enter universities for higher studies. This rule is valid since centuries. The lower the marks, the fewer are the choice of subjects. This was the rule then and this is the rule this day as well. There were and are, of course, high schools maintaining different standards. Teachers of the Nicolai-Schule at Leipzig were fair enough suggesting Friedrich Maximilian to try his “Abiturienten-Examen” at a school where the standard was not as high as it is in the Nicolai-Schule. As a rule, such suggestions are given after the 11th class, i.e. two years before the “Abiturienten-Examen”.

      This hard fact that Friedrich Maximilian was compelled to take refuge at a school having a lower standard and less reputation has not been noticed by any of his biographers or admirers yet. Max Müller packed it so elegantly and served so slyly in “My Autobiography” that the focus is shifted to the need of a “scholarship”. We recall the statement given by Max Müller on this issue two years before he expired:

      “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”.

      We apologise to look a little ahead. Friedrich Maximilian will get a scholarship from the “Anhalt Government”. It was not a scholarship on merits, nor was it any school-bound. He got a scholarship for poor students belonging to the Anhalt-Dessau-Duchy. He would have got this scholarship even if he could have passed his “Abiturienten-Examen” in any other European country. Not to talk of his getting “Abiturienten-Examen” from the famous Nicolai School. This hard fact does not fit into a school career of a brilliant brain, of a to-be demigod, isn’t it?

      We were also puzzled calculating the years exactly. Friedrich Maximilian had begun school in Dessau when he was six years old. He came under the guardianship of Professor Carus when he was 12 years old. At most, he could be admitted in the Nicolai School in the seventh of 13 classes needed for the “Abiturienten-Examen”. He would have stayed in the household of Professor Carus for seven years in the normal case. It is however mentioned that he stayed there for five years only. Where did he stay for two years of his school life? He must have stayed “at Zerbst in Anhalt” for two years to attend the school there. We pointed out in our last chapter that a “Zerbst in Anhalt” did never exist in the history. Zerbst was in Prussia.

      There is another puzzle calculating the years. 13 classes plus 6 makes 19. Friedrich Maximilian was born in December 1823. He was admitted in Leipzig University in April 1841. He was then 17 and half years old only. He must have skipped one class. Where and how? On what basis?

      Then, why did he not get back to his previous school at Dessau where his mother and all his relatives were residing? These questions remain unanswered. We wonder that Max Müller did not even mention the name of the school at Zerbst. None yet has wondered. Why? We think this aspect is important and we are reluctant to speculate. But our questions remain. There are more questions.

      We take liberty repeating a small part from the beginning of our last chapter to be accurate rather than narrating. We wrote:

      “The source Georgina Max Müller is inadequate. As referred in the last chapter she marries Friedrich Maximilian Müller 1859. She is then 24 years old. She belonged to a copper-smelter and merchant family in the British Kingdom. Her educational background is unknown. Both of her volumes include in the main letters written in German, translated into English. We are unable to ascertain whether she ever learnt German.

      She devotes in her book approximately 6 pages to this life period of Friedrich Maximilian under headings: “Nicolai School Leipzig”, “Dr. Carus”, “Music”, “Letters to his Mother” and “Examination at Zerbst”. She does not care for chronology. She quotes letters without referring to dates. Amongst them, there are also six letters of Friedrich Maximilian to his mother. These letters are translated into English from German original. We do not know by whom. We know only that the diction, the style in English, is almost that of an English scholar and not of a schoolboy.

      We take liberty to quote her only once. We refrain from our comments on Georgina Max Müller’s presentation, but presently parts are highlighted by us.

      “Before leaving the house of Dr. Carus, Max writes to his mother :— Translation.

       'When I remember the time that I first sent you my birthday greetings from Leipzig, and now see that this period of life is nearly over. I must gratefully acknowledge how good God has been to us in various ways, and has given us many compensations. But above all, how grateful we should be that God has preserved you, our dear mother, to us, to sweeten for us all that is bitter, to reward all effort. How I rejoice over next year, in which a new existence opens for me, a higher aim in life floats before me, and I shall have you both with me. I cannot tell you how I rejoice at the thought of this time, when I must take another step forwards, and shall again, at all events for a time, be with