As a schoolboy attending the &lt;a href="Latin%20school"&gt;Latin school (classical/grammaer school)&lt;/a&gt; in his home town Kerner, who was physically small and weak, suffered both from his father's severity and from bullying by schoolmates. His contrarian spirit remained unbroken, however, even after his father secured his admission in 1779 to the élite Karlsschule (military and general academy) in Stuttgart, described by one source as "the duke's prestigious institute intended to supply loyal government officials, half boarding school, half university". Other pupils included Friedrich Schiller. Despite the military academy, Kerner never conformed intellectually to what was expected of him. In a speech on the Name day of the academy's founder, Württemberg's aging ruler, Duke Karl Eugen, Kerner called for the establishment of a system of state run welfare for the poor. Schiller quit the academy in favour of a career in theatre in 1782, but Kerner was still a student in 1789. He established a political club within the academy devoted to support for the French revolution. Other members included Christian Heinrich Pfaff, and Joseph Anton Koch. On 14 July 1790 they held a secret celebration to mark the first anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille. These and similar actions on the part of Kerner and his friends provoked an adverse reaction in conservative Württemberg among the citizens and the aristocratic French emigrants whom they took to their hearts. With help from friends Kerner produced a dissertation that concluded his studies and earned him his qualification, in Easter 1791, as a physician. Now, accompanied by the first serious love of his life, he moved to Strasbourg under the pretext of wishing to improve his medical knowledge at the university.