Ferdinand Tönnies (1855-1936), German sociologist, spent his childhood on a prosperous farm in Schleswig-Holstein and, after his father’s retirement, in the town of Husum. In 1872 Tonnies enrolled with patriotic enthusiasm at the University of Strassburg, but making use of the German student’s freedom to move, he transferred successively to the universities of Jena, Bonn, Leipzig, and Tubingen, where he finally received his doctorate in classical philology in 1877. Even then his interests had shifted to political philosophy and social problems