Editing Oswald Spengler (section)

=== Education ===
When Oswald was ten years of age, his family moved to the university city of [[Halle, Saxony-Anhalt|Halle]]. Here he received a classical education at the local [[Gymnasium (school)|Gymnasium]] (academically oriented secondary school), studying Greek, Latin, mathematics and sciences. Here, too, he developed his propensity for the arts—especially poetry, drama, and music—and came under the influence of the ideas of [[Johann Wolfgang von Goethe]] and [[Friedrich Nietzsche]].{{Sfn|Hughes|1991|p=59}} At 17, he wrote a drama titled ''Montezuma''.{{Sfn|Engels|2019|p=4}}

After his father's death in 1901, Spengler attended several universities ([[University of Munich|Munich]], [[Humboldt University of Berlin|Berlin]], and [[University of Halle|Halle]]) as a private scholar, taking courses in a wide range of subjects. His studies were undirected. In 1903, he failed his [[doctoral thesis]] on [[Heraclitus]]—titled ''Der metaphysische Grundgedanke der heraklitischen Philosophie'' (''The Fundamental Metaphysical Thought of the Heraclitean Philosophy'') and conducted under the direction of [[Alois Riehl]]—because of insufficient references. He took the [[thesis defense|doctoral oral exam]] again and received his [[PhD]] from Halle on 6 April 1904. In December 1904, he began to write the secondary dissertation (''[[Staatsexamen]]sarbeit'') necessary to qualify as a high school teacher. This became ''The Development of the Organ of Sight in the Higher Realms of the Animal Kingdom'' (''Die Entwicklung des Sehorgans bei den Hauptstufen des Tierreiches''), a text now lost.<ref>Mark Sedgwick (ed.), ''Key Thinkers of the Radical Right: Behind the New Threat to Liberal Democracy'', Oxford University Press, 2019, p. 17.</ref> It was approved and he received his teaching certificate. In 1905, Spengler suffered a [[nervous breakdown]].