Generally considered, we see that the course of his studies was such as in any circumstances he would himself have probably followed.

Under no conditions would Goethe have been content to restrict himself to a narrow field of study and to give the necessary application for its complete mastery.

As it was, the multiplicity of his studies supplied the foundation for the manifold productivity of his maturer years.

In no branch of knowledge was he ever a complete master; he devoted a large part of his life to the study of Greek and Roman antiquity, yet he never acquired a scholar's knowledge either of Greek or Roman literature.[10] If on these subjects he has contributed many valuable reflections, it was due to the insight of genius which apprehends what passes the range of ordinary vision.
[Footnote 9: It was doubtless due to the absence of strict drill in his youth that Goethe, as he himself tells us, never acquired the art of punctuating his own writings.] [Footnote 10: Goethe said of himself that he had no "grammatical vein."] A striking fact in Goethe's account of his early years is the emphasis he lays on the religious side of his education.

Judging from the length at which he treats the subject, indeed, we are bound to assume that in his own estimation religion was the most important element in his early training, and in the case of one who came eventually to be known as the "great Pagan" the fact is remarkable.