In teaching, Nicholas Chopin's chief aim was to form his pupils into useful, patriotic citizens; nothing was farther from his mind than the desire or unconscious tendency to turn them into Frenchmen.

And now approaches the time when the principal personage makes his appearance on the stage.
Frederick Chopin, the only son and the third of the four children of Nicholas and Justina Chopin, was born on February 22, 1810, [FOOTNOTE: See Preface, p.xii.In the earlier editions the date given was March 1,1809, as in the biography by Karasowski, with whom agree the earlier J.Fontana (Preface to Chopin's posthumous works .-- 1855), C.Sowinski (Les musiciens polonais et slaves .-- 1857), and the writer of the Chopin article in Mendel's Musikalisches Conversations-Lexikon (1872).

According to M.A.Szulc (Fryderyk Chopin .-- 1873) and the inscription on the memorial (erected in 1880) in the Holy Cross Church at Warsaw, the composer was born on March 2, 1809.

The monument in Pere Lachaise, at Paris, bears the date of Chopin's death, but not that of his birth.

Felis, in his Biographie universelle des musiciens, differs widely from these authorities.