Hayek displayed an intellectual and academic bent from a very young age. He read fluently and frequently before going to school. However, despite his intelligence and inquisitiveness, he did quite poorly at school, due to lack of interest and problems with teachers, which also forced him to change schools. He was at the bottom of his class in most subjects, and once received three failing grades, in Latin, Greek and mathematics. He was very interested in theater, even attempting to write some tragedies, and biology, regularly helping his father with his botanical work. At his father's suggestion, as a teenager he read the genetic and evolutionary works of Hugo de Vries and August Weismann and the philosophical works of Ludwig Feuerbach. He noted Goethe as the greatest early intellectual influence. In school, Hayek was much taken by one instructor's lectures on Aristotle's ethics. In his unpublished autobiographical notes, Hayek recalled a division between him and his younger brothers who were only a few years younger than him, but he believed that they were somehow of a different generation. He preferred to associate with adults.