This page has been validated.
26
Balthasar Hübmaier
[1481-

of God, and we shall not go astray if we attribute this inclination of heart to the influence of a Christian mother. As to his education, it was no doubt begun, according to the customs of the time, in some local school, but at an early age the lad was sent to the Latin school of Augsburg, then a famous institution for the training of boys. Of the Augsburg of Hübmaier's days there remain few traces except the cathedral, parts of which are of the tenth century. The most diligent search has failed to discover even a tradition as to the location of the school that he attended. That he made unusual progress in his studies and was already singled out as a boy of exceptional promise, is all that we now know of this part of his career.

It is clear, however, either that he began his studies in preparation for the university somewhat later than was customary, or that they were frequently interrupted by poverty or illness. The former is the more probable, for there was little difficulty of a financial sort in the way of a bright boy's education in those days. Now there are scholarships and funds of various kinds to smooth the way of such; then, the Church was ever on the