Early Life and Education
Reis was born in Gelnhausen, Germany. Reis's mother died while he was an infant, and he was raised by his paternal grandmother, a well-read, intelligent woman. At the age of six Reis was sent to the common school of his home town of Gelnhausen. Here his talents attracted the notice of his instructors, who advised his father to extend his education at a higher college. His father died before Reis was ten years old. His grandmother and guardians placed him at Garnier's Institute, in Friedrichsdorf, where he showed a taste for languages, and acquired both French and English, as well as a stock of miscellaneous information from the library.
At the end of his fourteenth year, Reis was accepted to a Hassel Institute, at Frankfurt am Main, where he learned Latin and Italian. A love of science became apparent, and his guardians were recommended to send him to the Polytechnic School of Karlsruhe. His uncle wished him to become a merchant, and on March 1, 1850, Reis was apprenticed as a paints dealer in the establishment of J. F. Beyerbach, of Frankfurt, against his will. He told his uncle that he would learn the business chosen for him, but would continue his preferred studies as he could.
By diligent service he won the esteem of Beyerbach, and devoted his leisure to self-improvement, taking private lessons in mathematics and physics and attending the lectures of Professor R. Bottger on mechanics at the Trade School. When his apprenticeship ended, Reis attended the Institute of Dr. Poppe, in Frankfurt. As neither history nor geography was taught there, several of the students agreed to instruct each other in these subjects. Reis undertook geography, and believed he had found his true vocation in the art of teaching. He also became a member of the Physical Society of Frankfurt.
In 1855, he completed his year of military service at Kassel, then returned to Frankfurt to qualify as a teacher of mathematics and science by means of private study and public lectures. His intention was to finish his training at the University of Heidelberg, but in the spring of 1858 he visited his old friend and master, Hofrath Garnier, who offered him a post in Garnier's Institute.
On 14 September 1859, Reis married, and shortly after he moved to Friedrichsdorf, to begin his new career as a teacher.
Read more about this topic: Johann Philipp Reis
Famous quotes containing the words early life, early, life and/or education:
“Many a woman shudders ... at the terrible eclipse of those intellectual powers which in early life seemed prophetic of usefulness and happiness, hence the army of martyrs among our married and unmarried women who, not having cultivated a taste for science, art or literature, form a corps of nervous patients who make fortunes for agreeable physicians ...”
—Sarah M. Grimke (1792–1873)
“In early times, before the floods swept across the world, there was life, albeit odd, as one can see from the fossils of mammoth bones, and there was the regime of Prince Metternich.”
—Franz Grillparzer (1791–1872)
“This soul, or life within us, by no means agrees with the life outside us. If one has the courage to ask her what she thinks, she is always saying the very opposite to what other people say.”
—Virginia Woolf (1882–1941)
“A President must call on many persons—some to man the ramparts and to watch the far away, distant posts; others to lead us in science, medicine, education and social progress here at home.”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)