14th January 2025
Today we are commemorating 150 years since the birth of Albert Schweitzer (1875-1965).
To celebrate, we have chosen excerpts from Schweitzer’s memoir ‘My Childhood and Youth’ to reflect on some of the experiences that shaped the man he became.
150 years later his influence lives on and his message to live with deep compassion and reverence for all life is still as important today.
My Childhood and Youth

‘I was born in the little town of Kaysersberg, in Upper Alsace, on January 14,1875, in the small house with the turret, which you see on the left as you leave the upper end of the town. My father lived there as pastor and teacher of the little evangelical congregation, for the majority of the inhabitants were Catholics…It was from Kaysersberg that a famous medieval preacher took his name, viz. Geiler von Kaysersberg (1445-1510), who used to preach in Strasburg Cathedral…when a boy I used to pride myself on having been born in a town where Geiler von Kaysersberg had lived, and in a famous wine year, for the season of 1875 was an extraordinarily good one for the vines.’ Schweitzer, My Childhood and Youth, Page 9.

‘I was a very sickly child when we moved to Günsbach. On the occasion of my father’s induction my mother had decked me out as finely as she could in a white frock with coloured ribbons, but not one of the pastors’ wives that had come to the ceremony ventured to compliment her on her thin and yellow-faced baby, and none of them went beyond embarrassed commonplaces. So, at last my mother- she has often told me about it- could restrain herself no longer: she fled with me in her arms to her bedroom, and there wept hot tears over me. On one occasion they actually thought I was dead, but the milk from neighbour Leopold’s cow, together with the excellent Günsbach air, worked wonders for me; from my second year onwards I improved marvellously, and became a strong and healthy boy.’ Schweitzer, My Childhood and Youth, Page 10.

‘While I was at the village school I witnessed the first introduction of the bicycle. We had several times heard how carters and waggon drivers were up in arms against people who rushed about on high wheels and frightened the horses. But one morning, while we were playing in the school yard during the break, the news came that one of these ‘racers’ had dismounted at the inn in our village street. School and everything else forgotten, we raced there, and stood gaping at the high wheel which was standing outside… In my penultimate year at the Gymnasium I obtained what I had been yearning for- a bicycle of my own…It was a second hand machine, and cost me 230 marks (£11 10s). At that time, it was not considered proper for a parsons’ son to ride a bicycle, but my father was fortunately above yielding to such a prejudice…Young people of today can hardly imagine what the introduction of the bicycle meant for us. It opened to us possibilities, undreamt of hitherto, of getting in touch with nature, and I used them freely and with delight.’ Schweitzer, My Childhood and Youth, Page 24-26.

‘A deep impression was made on me by something which happened during my seventh or eighth year. Henry Bräsch and I had with strips of india-rubber made ourselves catapults, with which we could shoot small stones. It was spring and the end of Lent, when one morning Henry said to me, “Come along, let’s go onto the Rebberg and shoot some birds”. This was a terrible proposal, but I did not venture to refuse for fear he should laugh at me. We got close to a tree which was still without any leaves, and on which the birds were singing beautifully to greet the morning, without showing the least fear of us. Then stooping like a… hunter, my companion put a bullet in the leather of his catapult and took aim. In obedience to his nod of command, I did the same, though with terrible twinges of conscience…At that very moment the church bells began to ring, mingling their music with the songs of the birds and the sunshine. It was the warning bell, which began half an hour before the regular peal ringing, and for me it was a voice from heaven. I shooed the birds away, so that they flew where they were safe from my companion’s catapult and then I fled home. And ever since then, when the passiontide bells ring out to the leafless trees and the sunshine, I reflect with a rush of grateful emotion how on that day their music drove deep into my heart the commandment: ‘Thou shalt not kill.’ Schweitzer, My Childhood and Youth, Page 38-39.

‘The thought that I had been granted such an especially happy youth was ever in my mind; I felt it even as something oppressive, and ever more clearly there presented itself to me the questions whether this happiness was a thing that I might accept as a matter of course. Here, then, was the second great experience of my life, viz. this question about the right to happiness. As an experience it joined itself to that other one which had accompanied me from childhood up; I mean my deep sympathy with the pain which prevails in the world around us. The two experiences slowly melted into one another, and thence came definiteness to my interpretation of life as a whole, and decision as to the future of my own life in particular. It became steadily clearer to me that I had not the inward right to take as a matter of course my happy youth, my good health, and my power of work. Out of the depths of my feeling of happiness there grew up gradually within me an understanding of the saying of Jesus that we must not treat our lives as being for ourselves alone. Whoever is spared personal pain must feel himself called to help in diminishing the pain of others.’ Schweitzer, My Childhood and Youth, Page 74-75.

‘I do not believe that we can put into anyone ideas which are not in him already. As a rule, there are in everyone all sorts of good ideas, ready like tinder. But much of this tinder catches fire only when it meets some flame or spark from the outside, ie. from some other person. Often, too, our own light goes out and is rekindled by some experience we go through with someone else. Thus, we have each of us cause to think with deep gratitude of those who have lighted flames within us…Similarly, not one of us knows what effect his life produces, and what he gives to others; that is hidden from us and must remain so, though we are often allowed to see some little fraction of it, so that we may not lose courage. The way in which power works is a mystery.’ Schweitzer, My Childhood and Youth, Page 83.
All excerpts from: Schweitzer, A. (1924). My Childhood and Youth. Translated by Campion, C.T. (1960). London: Unwin Books.
Illustrations copyright to Emilie Murray