1802 – 1819 A boy who taught himself to readChlapec, ktorý sa naučil čítať sám

What we know of his childhood here comes from notes his son Vojtech wrote down later. His father showed him the alphabet once, when he was seven; he worked the rest out by himself, and then sat on top of the warm stove all day with a book. By eight he had read the whole Bible twice and liked to preach it to his brothers and sister. A local pismák — a self-taught lay reader, probably the schoolmaster Tomáš Novák — lent him Czech books, and the rest of his education was the village itself: its songs, its tales and its stories about outlaws. He went to school in Rožňava, then to Dobšiná because his sister lived there and it was cheaper, and because Dobšiná spoke German. At fifteen he had used up everything the region could teach him and left for the lyceum at Kežmarok. He came home for a few weeks in 1819 to say goodbye before taking a post in Novi Sad, and never saw Kobeliarovo again.To, čo o jeho detstve tu vieme, pochádza zo zápiskov, ktoré neskôr spísal jeho syn Vojtech. Otec mu v siedmom roku raz ukázal celú abecedu; zvyšok si domyslel sám a potom presedel celé dni na teplej peci s knihou. Do ôsmich rokov prečítal dva razy celú Bibliu a rád ju kázal bratom a sestre. Miestny pismák — samouk, ktorý čítaval nábožné knihy, pravdepodobne učiteľ Tomáš Novák — mu požičiaval české knižky a zvyšok jeho vzdelania bola sama dedina: jej piesne, rozprávky a zbojnícke povesti. Chodil do školy v Rožňave, potom v Dobšinej, lebo tam bývala jeho sestra a bolo to lacnejšie — a lebo v Dobšinej sa hovorilo po nemecky. V pätnástich vyčerpal všetko, čo ho kraj mohol naučiť, a odišiel na lýceum do Kežmarku. Domov sa vrátil ešte na pár týždňov v roku 1819, aby sa rozlúčil pred odchodom do Nového Sadu — a Kobeliarovo už nikdy neuvidel.