"Nitimur in vetitum semper cupimusque negata,"-- [The forbidden charms, and the unexpected lures us.]--is an excellent saying of Ovid, whose truth, when he tested it in person, was the cause of his exile.

It sometimes brought us into conflict with the owners of the trees, and it was only natural that "Froebel's youngsters" often excited the peasants' ire.
Gellert, it is true, has sung: "Enjoy what the Lord has granted, Grieve not for aught withheld." but the popular saying is, "Forbidden fruit tastes sweetest," and the proverb was right in regard to us Keilhau boys.
Whatever fruit is meant in the story related in Genesis of the fall of man, none could make it clearer to German children than the apple.

The Keilhau ones were kept in a cellar, and through the opening we thrust a pole to which the blade of a rapier was fastened.

This sometimes brought us up four or five apples at once, which hung on the blade like the flock of ducks that Baron Munchausen's musket pierced with the ramrod.
We were all honest boys, yet not one, not even the sons of the heads of the institute, ever thought of blaming or checking the zest for this appropriation of other people's property.
The apple and morality must stand in a very peculiar relation to each other.
Scarcely was the last fruit gathered, when other pleasures greeted us.
The 18th of October, the anniversary of the battle of Leipsic, was celebrated in Thuringia by kindling bonfires on the highest mountains, but ours was always the largest and brightest far and wide.

While the flames soared heavenward, we enthusiastically sang patriotic songs.