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.

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.