Financing the Upbringing and Education of a Bourgeois Family (1860-1890)

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b) The expenses for raising and educating the three sons were as follows:

	1.	2.	3.	4.
	Support until Abitur-exam	Allowance during professional training	Accommodation in the parental home during professional training	Sum of 1-3: overall costs from birth to completion of professional training
	Marks	Marks	Marks	Marks
First son	13,713	10,076	9,877	33,666
Second son	18,580	16,762	2,784	38,126
Third son	26,277	11,786	10,746	48,809
				Sum 135,691

The total of all expenses during the 31 years of reporting was 415,321 marks; accordingly, 31.8 % of total expenses were required for the education and professional training of the three sons.

The level of the sons' standard of living during this entire period is illuminated by the detailed treatment of all expenses above. Initially accustomed to a simple lifestyle, during the last two thirds of the entire reported period they enjoyed the pleasures of a comfortable, in many ways even distinguished, bourgeois existence resembling that of patricians. However, their lives did not bear any touch of aristocracy or great capital whatsoever. As students they did not join any fraternities or any expensive cavalry regiments as one-year volunteers; they pursued no expensive sports, did not go on any great journeys. Their lives unfolded in a strictly delineated bourgeois sphere. Therefore, the table above allows for valid general conclusions about the cost of university studies. For the respective professions and time periods, the costs calculated above undoubtedly represent about the average expense a young man from a respected bourgeois family would require. However, in all of this the fact has to be considered that due to extraordinary achievement the school days of the eldest son were shortened by one year compared to the norm, while the younger jurist took two years longer due to unfavorable circumstances.