ABSTRACT
Immanuel Kant was forced to spend no less than seven long years as a private tutor, before he was finally able to embark on his academic career. He hoped that this position would not only enable him to earn a living and amass some small savings, but that it would also leave him enough spare time to prepare for his future teaching post and carry on his scientific work. At that period there were few public secondary schools in East Prussia, so that the landed gentry and occasionally even well-to-do country clergy had to turn to a private tutor for the upbringing and education of their sons. In summer 1747 the twenty-three-years-old Kant entered the household of Pastor Andertsch in the Lithuanian village of Judtschen, which lies between Insterburg and Gumbinnen. This minister was of Silesian origin and officiated in the local Reformed Church community, who had settled there after Lithuania had been decimated by the plague.
