But considering the ampler means at his
command, and the greatly increased facilities for travelling, Neander's
neglect of locomotion is nearly as much to be wondered at as Kant's; I
doubt if he was ever beyond the boundaries of Germany.
He was born January 16th, 1789, in Goettingen, a city of some eleven
thousand inhabitants in the kingdom of Hanover, the seat of a famous
University, which, though now less prominent than formerly, has numbered
amongst its professors such men as Blumenbach, Eichhorn, and Michaelis.
His parents were of Jewish blood and the Jewish religion, and he inherited
from them, in a strong degree, both the peculiar physiognomy and the
distinguishing faith of that despised but most remarkable race. Nor was he
a Jew only outwardly; from the beginning he was marked as an Israelite
indeed, a true Nathanael soul.
At an early period in his life, his father having suffered reverses and
been reduced to poverty, he removed with his parents to Hamburg, a
commercial city on the Elbe, and one of the four free municipalities of
Germany. In the Hamburg gymnasium, corresponding in rank with our American
academies, though prescribing a wider range of studies, he received his
first public instruction.
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