16 Friedrich Wilhelm NietzscheNietzsche's early childhood is itself a story of writing, reading, illness and isolation.He was sent to the local school but then gained a place at the elite academy of Pforta in 1858.By 1862，we find the young Nietzsche already recording his doubts about the religious faith that dominated his home background.He was turning even then to ideas of evolution, and already had begun to speculate on the human condition: "...we scarcely even know whether humanity itself is only a step."Jaspers remarks that "Nietzsche philosophises as a boy."Nietzsche was certainly an intense boy, often lonely and absorbed by ideas.In 1863，we find him already struggling to convey the mass of his thoughts on paper: "I stare for a long time at the white paper in front of me, troubled by the confused crowd of themes."This sense of "abundance" is one of the experiences given to the character Zarathustra.In 1865, Nietzsche went to Leipzig as a student, where he shifted to the study of classical philology, the ancient languages and their origins.Already he saw his own future in learning and teaching: "My goal is to become a truly practical teacher..."Nietzsche was searching for fellow spirits and in 1865 he discovered in a bookshop the major work of Schopenhauer, The World as Will and Representation.
