The Economic Times

Meet Karl Witte, the 13-year-old German prodigy who followed a 1,000-page education philosophy and earned a PhD at 13

Karl Witte was a German child prodigy whose remarkable academic journey began under an intensive home-schooling approach developed by his father, Karl Heinrich Gottfried Witte. Born in 1800, Witte received his doctorate from the University of Giessen on 10 April 1814, when he was 13 years and 283 days old. His doctorate came during a period when modern PhD standards were still developing. Before turning 17, he completed another doctorate in law and became a professor of jurisprudence at the University of Berlin by 23. Witte later built a distinguished career as a legal academic and literary scholar, writing influential books about Dante Alighieri.