Memoirs of Childhood and Youth

A short memoir of Schweitzer's childhood in the Alsatian village of Günsbach, where his father was pastor, and of his schooling at Mulhouse, published by C. H. Beck in Munich in 1924; C. T. Campion's English translation appeared the same year in London and in 1925 in New York. It opens with his birth at Kaysersberg on 14 January 1875 and moves through episodes of his boyhood: the village church and its organ, school, his first music lessons and the experiences that shaped his sense of pity for animals and his reverence for life. The book ends with reflections on what a person owes to others and on keeping the idealism of youth. Its gentle, anecdotal tone makes it the easiest of his books.