Mendel lived at an exciting time, scientifically that is. As I have attempted to describe in this story, scientists such as Karl Friedrich Burdach, Gottfreid Treviranus and Jean-Baptist Lamarck were trying to define a whole new field of science that was distinct and different from the older fields of anthropology and morphology. They used a new word, biology, to try and separate themselves and what they were trying to do from the 18th century's preoccupation with cataloguing and classification. This new 'biology' was an upstart, young, vigorous science that concerned itself with the deeper understanding of the phenomena called life. It went past the superficial and tried to understand how organisms functioned, how they worked, what were the fundamental principles; what, in Lamarck's words were the "terrestrial physics" of living things.
Mendel, who had studied with Unger at the University of Vienna, would have been at the forefront of this new science. He owned and read many of the books from which I quote in this story, and he would have followed the many debates about the nature and purpose of these new 'cells'. Standard school and college textbooks frequently oversimplify the discovery of cells and make it sound as if it were obvious from the time of Hooke, that all scientists immediately understood what cells were and the fundamental roles they played in the structure of organisms. Mendel would not have been so sure. I am convinced that he would have talked to his classes many times about cells, but not, perhaps, in quite the concentrated way given in this story. He would have tried to explain some of the competing theories of 'cytoblastema' and 'protoplasm' and would have tried to explain how certain eminent authors defined the role of the nucleus.
Before his classes, Mendel was apparently a very effective teacher. Unfortunately most of his pupils were old men before anyone got around to interviewing them. By then, the name of Mendel was already becoming famous and their recollections may be biased by the rose-colored glasses of time and history. But when you read these reports, Mendel comes across as one of those 'naturals' who can stand facing 60 students (yes, his classes were frequently this size and larger) and somehow not only teach but also inspire them. He used the trick I describe in this story of calculating a number, picking on the student who was so ranked in his class and then asking him a question. The rest of the details of what his classes were like I have taken from historical accounts written about this time. Compulsory education was introduced in the German Empire as part of a Kulturkampf - a cultural struggle - and even girls were educated (but in separate schools and not at the university level). Discipline was paramount, and obedience to authority the highest educational virtue. Mendel's more relaxed and natural methods of teaching must have made him one of the favorite teachers to students normally taught in this rigid atmosphere.
By a quirk of fate I was once educated for a short time in a school almost exactly like the one described here. No, I am not that old, but I can remember to this day the wooden desks, the ink wells, the pens and the habit of standing up to answer questions. Mendel would have been completely at home in that classroom. Strangely I did not hate it, and even more strangely I think I learned something. Every morning we were given 'mental arithmetic' problems to solve. The teacher would read out a question and the students had to solve the problem in their heads without writing anything down on paper, except the answer. At first this was crushingly difficult, but repeated practice made it easier and easier and the facility to work out a problem in my head has stayed with me ever since. I picture Mendel's pupils gaining the same skills.
Since beginning this series of historical and semi-fictional stories one of the most popular questions is, "Will this be on the final exam?". But the second question is always, "How much of the story is real?"
In this chapter much is real. Mozart did indeed visit Brno for three days as a boy and played for the Schrattenbachs, almost exactly as I describe. As far as I know the Schrattenbachs do not have an original score written in the young Wolfgang's hand, but, curiously his father, Leopold, lists three compositions from about that time that have never been found. Perhaps ...
Monsignor Josef Schrattenbach is completely fictional.
Yes, more stories are planned. In the next chapter Mendel the scientist meets a Saint and a sinner, and solves a problem for Gustav Druer. It's all a bit of a miracle.