After that, he did quite well in math, and overall he did well enough to enter the University of Vienna. However, he was able to solve the problem. Everyone in the room, including the instructor, laughed out loud at him. When the instructor and the best student in class failed to solve a problem, Adler raised his hand. His worst subject was math, until he finally had a breakthrough one day. Adler attended every opera and play that was running, and even by the age of 4 years old could sing entire operettas (Bottome, 1957 Manaster, et al., 1977 Sperber, 1974).Īlthough Adler spent a great deal of time reading, he was not a particularly good student. Adler’s parents encouraged the musical interests of their children, and took advantage of the marvelous musical culture available in Vienna at the time. He was often encouraged to set aside his interest in science and pursue a career as an opera singer. Despite the throat problems Adler had in early childhood, he developed a beautiful tenor voice. One of his brothers played and taught the violin, and one of his sisters was an excellent pianist. On the lighter side, most of the family was musically gifted. Adler was stricken with terror, and when he recovered he resolved to become a doctor so that he might have a better defense against death (Bottome, 1957 Manaster, et al., 1977 Sperber, 1974). After he had been examined by the doctor, Adler heard the doctor tell his father that there was no point in caring for Adler any more, as there was no hope for his survival. And when Adler was 5, he came down with a serious case of pneumonia. One of his younger brothers, however, had died suddenly when Adler was 4, an event that deeply affected him. Despite the fact that there were very few vehicles at the time, and those that were there moved very slowly, Adler was run over twice! Fortunately, he was not injured seriously. As he recovered, he joined his brother and the other local children in playing in a large field. He was often forced to sit on a bench while watching his older brother run and jump. As for the illness and death, he suffered from rickets (a vitamin D deficiency) and spasms of his vocal cords, both of which made physical activity very difficult during his early childhood years. As for his younger brothers, however, one felt the same sort of jealousy of Adler himself, whereas the youngest brother adored Adler. Even late in life, Adler told Phyllis Bottome with a sigh “My eldest brother…he was always ahead of me…he is still ahead of me!” (pg. His older brother seemed to be an ideal child, and Adler felt he could never match his brother’s accomplishments. The two main reasons for this were his sibling rivalry with his older brother and the unfortunate fact that he seemed to be surrounded by illness and death (Bottome, 1957 Manaster, et al., 1977 Sperber, 1974). Adler was particularly fond of flowers when he was a toddler, and the move out of Vienna had the consequence of protecting him from his bad habit of stealing flowers from the garden of the Palace of Schonbrunn, which belonged to the Kaiser! Despite the seemingly idyllic setting, and the family’s financial comfort, Adler did not have a happy childhood. While Adler while still quite young the family moved out into the country, where they kept cows, horses, chickens, goats, rabbits, and they had a very large garden. His father was a corn-merchant, and did well in his business. The second of six children, the family was fairly typical of the middle-class. \)Īlfred Adler was born on February 7, 1870, on the outskirts of Vienna.
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