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Johann Heinrich Friedrich Karl Witte (born July 1st, 1800 in Lochau (now part of Schkopau); died March 6th, 1883 in Halle) was a German jurist and Dante Alighieri scholar. He was the son of a pastor Karl Heinrich Gottfried Witte who encouraged a fairly intense program of learning. When Karl was nine, he spoke five languages and at the age of 12 became a doctor of philosophy at the University of Giessen in Germany. The book focuses on the treatment Karl received from each of his parents as a child, which focused on a combination of teaching by curiosity, intrigue, humor and sarcasm also incorporating fun learning games into everyday activities. It helped that Karl sr. was an influential and highly-regarded scholar himself in both Austria and Germany, thus, from a young age, Karl jr. was able to mingle with the sons and daughters of accomplished men & women, and, Karl sr. was able to take Karl jr. to many on-location places such as factories, mines and newspaper printing presses, which may be off limits to people of more modest means and backgrounds.