“ His father owned a small brewery in the village of Heydekrug, and Sudermann received his early education at the Realschule in Elbing, but, his parents having been reduced in circumstances, he was apprenticed to a chemist at the age of fourteen. He was, however, enabled to enter the Realgymnasium in Tilsit, and to study philosophy and history at Königsberg University. In order to complete his studies Sudermann went to Berlin, where he was tutor in several families. ”