 Humboldt’s father was of German middle class background whose family had been granted the status of nobility with the title of “Freiherr” (Baron) in 1738 whereas his mother (maiden name de Colomb) was of middle class, mainly French Huguenot and German-Scottish extraction. Neither Wilhelm nor his younger brother Alexander (1769–1859) ever attended a public primary or secondary school. Instead their father, and after his untimely death in 1779, their mother employed private tutors at the family estate in Tegel who were recruited from among the leading figures of the Berlin Enlightenment scene. Among them were Joachim Heinrich Campe, well-known educational writer, Ernst Ferdinand Klein and Christian von Dohm, two leading political thinkers who brought enlightenment orientation and ideas to the areas of constitutional law and public policy. Johann Jakob Engel, the renowned philosopher and writer, introduced the young Humboldt to modern and contemporary European philosophy in the areas of logic, aesthetics, metaphysics and language.