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by Johann Gottlieb Fichte (Author)
Its inhabitants are a frugal H and industrious people, and preserve, even to the present day, the simple and unaffected manners of their forefathers. Amid this community, withdrawn alike from the refinements and the corruptions of more polished society, the descendents of the Swedish soldier bore an honourable reputation for those manly virtues of our nature which find in poverty a rugged but congenial soil. Firmness of purpose, sterling honesty in their dealings, and immovable uprightness of conduct, became t, heir family characteristics. From this wortlly stock the subject of our memoir took his descent. The grandfather of the philosopher, who alone out of a numerous family remained resident in his native place, inherited from his predecessor, along with the little patrimonial property, a small trade in ribbons, the product of his own loom, which he disposed of to the inhabitants of the village and its vicinity. Desirous that his eldest son, Christian Fichte, should extend this business beyond the limited sphere in which he practised it himself, he sent him as apprentice to Johann Schurich, a manufacturer of linen and ribbons in the neighbouring town of Pulsnitz, in order that he might there learn his trade more perfectly than he could do at home. The son conducted himself well during his apprenticeship, rose high in the esteem of his master, and was at last received into the house as an inmate. He there succeeded in gaining the affections of Schurichs daughter. This attachment was for some time kept secret, in deference to the pride of the maidens father but his prejudices having been overcome, young Fichte brought home his bride to his native village, and with her do vryh e built a louse there, in which some of his descendents still follow the paternal occupation. wa s their first child, and was born on the 19th May 1762. At his baptism, an aged relative of the mother, who had come from n distance to be present at the ceremony, and who was revered by all men for his wisdom and piety, foretold the future - eminence of the child and as death soon afterwards set his seal upon the HIS EARLY EDUCATION...
