ABSTRACT
The academic fashion of the time both for students and for professors was general studies, and Marie-Madeleine Oberlin's diaries and letters amply show that he kept up a lively interest throughout his fourscore and six years in just about all of the diverse subjects to which he devoted his first three years at the university. The importance of school and university studies in the forming of John Frederic Oberlin's character and attitudes is matched, if not outweighed, by that of the religious influences that dominated his childhood and youth. The connection between Oberlin and the Ziegenhagen family proved profitable for both parties, though it had in the beginning seemed destined not to come about at all because of the maladroitness of a friend whom Ziegenhagen had commissioned to recruit the young candidate in his behalf. Certain specifications laid down by the intermediary are recorded by Ehrenfried Stoeber. Some of them are of interest because of Oberlin's responses.
