Re: Parental Influence

Bruderhof News wrote:

> Bruderhof wrote:
> 
>> It is hard to decide which of Eberhard’s parents most influenced him
>> since the two relationships differed considerably. His father devoted
>> himself first and foremost to his own studies. During Eberhard’s
>> boyhood years Carl Franklin Arnold was chiefly occupied with the
>> history of the Gallic Church under Caesar the Arelate II. Later he
>> studied the Salzburg Protestants and their expulsion by Archbishop
>> Firmian in the eighteenth century. He habitually withdrew to his
>> study, only emerging at mealtimes. When he invited company it was
>> almost always other university professors or senior students, with
>> whom he would have heated discussions. 
>> 
>> 
> 
> Each morning the family gathered and Carl Franklin Arnold read from
> the Moravian Brethren’s daily texts. In the evening he treated his
> children, some of whom had not even reached school age, to “The
> Sorcerer’s Apprentice” and other poetic works of Goethe, whom he
> greatly admired. Neither the daily texts nor Goethe’s poetry seem to
> have made any lasting impression on the children; presumably for the
> little ones it all simply passed over their heads. But as they grew
> older, their father expected them to participate in intellectual
> discussions on topics ranging from the cultural history of the
> eighteenth century and the German idealism of Fichte, Schelling, and
> Schleiermacher to the intellectual prowess of Carlyle and Macaulay.
> Carl Franklin Arnold’s enthusiasm for the German philosophers was
> summed up in his harsh censure of those closing years of the
> nineteenth century: “Our era is extremely boring as far as any higher 
> thought is concerned. Since Bismarck’s day our policies have been 
> thoroughly stupid, if not fundamentally flawed.”
> 

Eberhard’s father rarely relaxed or enjoyed himself. He could be 
cheerful, even happy, but for the most part reserved these emotions for 
family celebrations. Surprisingly, he raised no objections to the 
children’s absorption in the wildly fanciful adventure stories of Karl 
May. Eberhard crafted the fine art of smuggling these books – full of 
Arabian mystique or Native-American suspense – into the Sunday church 
service. But his father had little understanding for children’s nonsense. 
“You are intellectually dead,” he once informed his offspring when he 
caught them in trivial conversation.