and mother receded from the bargain, and refused to part with their
son. George thought he was badly treated. However, he took no
violent steps until a year later, when a brother was born to Tycho.
The uncle then felt no scruple in asserting what he believed to be
his rights by the simple process of stealing the first-born nephew,
which the original bargain had promised him. After a little time it
would seem that the parents acquiesced in the loss, and thus it was
in Uncle George's home that the future astronomer passed his
childhood.

When we read that Tycho was no more than thirteen years old at the
time he entered the University of Copenhagen, it might be at first
supposed that even in his boyish years he must have exhibited some of
those remarkable talents with which he was afterwards to astonish the
world. Such an inference should not, however, be drawn. The fact is
that in those days it was customary for students to enter the
universities at a much earlier age than is now the case. Not,
indeed, that the boys of thirteen knew more then than the boys of
thirteen know now. But the education imparted in the universities at
that time was of a much more rudimentary kind than that which we
understand by university education at present. In illustration of
this Dr. Dreyer tells us how, in the University of Wittenberg, one of
the professors, in his opening address, was accustomed to point out
that even the processes of multiplication and division in arithmetic
might be learned by any student who possessed the necessary
diligence.

It was the wish and the intention of his uncle that Tycho's education
should be specially directed to those branches of rhetoric and
philosophy which were then supposed to be a necessary preparation for