FROEBEL (1782-1852)

Literature.—Lange, Collected Writings of F. Froebel; Kriege, Friedrich Froebel; Bowen, Froebel and Education by Self-activity; Herford, The Student's Froebel; Froebel, Education of Man; Quick, Educational Reformers; Munroe, Educational Ideal; Williams, History of Modern Education; Marenholtz-BÜlow, Reminiscences of F. Froebel; Rein, EncyklopÄdisches Handbuch der PÄdagogik.

Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel was born at Oberweisbach, a village in the beautiful ThÜringian Forest of Germany. The first ten years of his life were spent at home under the instruction of his father, who was a Lutheran clergyman and had six villages under his pastorate. The many cares of his office prevented the pastor from giving his son much attention, and as the stepmother neither understood the boy, nor took much interest in him, he spent most of his time in the woods, with birds and flowers as his companions, and received far less rudimentary training than most boys of his age. But at the age of ten an important change took place in his life. He went to live with his mother's brother, who sent him to school for four years. Here he was taught the elementary branches and a little Latin. He tells us of the profound impression made upon him the first day of school by the text of Scripture that the children repeated. It was, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God." He says, "The verse made an impression on me like nothing before or since. Indeed, this impression was so lively and deep, that to-day every word lives fresh in my memory with the peculiar accent with which it was spoken; and yet since that time nearly forty years have elapsed." His progress in the school does not seem to have been very great.

At fourteen he returned to his father's home, and soon thereafter was apprenticed to a forester. Here he was entirely in his element, and he tells of four aspects of this life: "The homelier and more practical life; the life spent with nature, especially forest nature; the life of study, devoted to mathematics and languages, for which he found a good supply of books ready to hand; and the time spent in gaining a knowledge of plants, in which he was much helped by books on botany lent him by a neighboring doctor."[149] But he obtained little help from the forester, so at the end of three years Froebel withdrew, and soon thereafter entered the university of Jena. He seems to have studied hard during the year and a half he spent at Jena, but to have accomplished little. He became involved in debt, and was imprisoned for nine weeks in the university "Carcer."[150] After his liberation, he left the university.

As Teacher.—Meeting with little success in various enterprises in which he engaged, he at last drifted to Frankfurt-am-Main, where he made the acquaintance of Dr. Gruner, head master of the Model School. Dr. Gruner quickly discovered Froebel's talent, and urged him to accept a position under him as teacher. Froebel reluctantly consented, but in speaking later of his first experience in the schoolroom, he says, "It seemed as if I had found something I had never known, but always longed for, always missed; as if my life had at last discovered its native element. I felt as happy as the fish in the water, the bird in the air."

Although Froebel succeeded at once in his new profession, thereby justifying Dr. Gruner's opinion of him, he felt that he needed special preparation for the work of teaching. Accordingly, in 1808, after two years' experience in teaching, having in the meantime visited Pestalozzi at Yverdon, and having read his works, he gave up his position and joined the institute at Yverdon.

He took with him three of his pupils to tutor, and "it thus happened," he tells us, "that I was there both as teacher and scholar, educator and pupil." Froebel spent two years at Yverdon, and his testimony concerning Pestalozzi is interesting. He says, "He set one's soul on fire for a higher and nobler life, though he had not made clear or sure the exact road toward it, nor indicated the means whereby to attain it." This sums up in a word the secret and extent of Pestalozzi's power. Dittes thinks that "the origin of the kindergarten is due to the pedagogical revival of Pestalozzi." Froebel himself, speaking of his experience at Yverdon, says, "I studied the boys' play, the whole series of games in the open air, and learned to recognize their mighty power to awaken and to strengthen the intelligence and the soul as well as the body." Here we find the first suggestion of the kindergarten, which has made Froebel famous.

After leaving Yverdon, Froebel spent about two years at the universities of GÖttingen and Berlin in furthering his preparation for educational reform, to which he had devoted himself. In 1813 war for German liberty broke out, and Froebel, with many other students, enlisted. It is not the purpose here to follow his fortunes as a soldier, but while in the army he made the acquaintance of two young men who afterward became associated with him in educational enterprise,—Wilhelm Middendorff and Heinrich Langethal.

His First School.—In 1816 Froebel opened his first school at Griesheim, under the high-sounding title of "Universal German Educational Institute." At first he had his five nephews as his only pupils. Soon after, the school was removed to Keilhau, near Rudolstadt, in the ThÜringian Forest. Here he was joined by his old friends Middendorff and Langethal. This institution continued for a number of years with some success, until 1833, when Froebel removed to Burgdorf, Switzerland. The Prussian government, far from giving encouragement to the institution at Keilhau, had regarded it with suspicion. A commission was sent by the government to examine the institution, and although the report was highly complimentary to Froebel's work,[151] the persecution did not cease. In 1851 the government prohibited kindergartens, as forming "a part of the Froebelian socialistic system, the aim of which is to teach children atheism"; and this decree was in force till 1860!

Indeed, to this day, Prussia does not regard the kindergarten as an educational institution, nor does she give aid to it as such. The kindergarten is officially recognized as a sort of day nursery, its teachers are not licensed,—hence have no official standing,—and "everything that pertains to the work of the elementary schools, every specific preparation for the work of the latter, must be strictly excluded, and these schools can in no way be allowed to take the character of institutions of learning. Especially can neither reading nor arithmetic be allowed a place in them."[152]

But Froebel received more encouragement in Switzerland. He admitted children from four to six years of age, and organized a teachers' class to study his theories. Although Froebel did not remain long in Switzerland, that land proved congenial to his ideas, and the kindergarten has flourished there from his time to the present. Great credit is due to this country, which extended its hospitality to the two great educational modern reformers, Pestalozzi and Froebel!

The Kindergarten.—Mr. Herford says of Froebel's institution at Burgdorf, that, "Here we recognize the rise of the kindergarten, not yet so named."[153] The name came to Froebel a few years later as an inspiration. He had returned to Keilhau and opened a school in the neighboring town of Blankenburg. For a long time he had been pondering over a suitable name for the new institution. "While taking a walk one day with Middendorff and Barof to Blankenburg over the Steiger Pass, Froebel kept repeating, 'Oh, if I could only think of a good name for my youngest born!' Blankenburg lay at our feet, and he walked moodily toward it. Suddenly he stood still as if riveted to the spot, and his eyes grew wonderfully bright. Then he shouted to the mountain so that it echoed to the four winds, 'Eureka! Kindergarten shall the institute be called!'"

But, like Pestalozzi, Froebel was wholly incapable of financial management, and the institution at Blankendorf had to be closed. He devoted the remainder of his life to lecturing upon his theories in different parts of Germany. He appealed to mothers, and endeavored to instruct them in the duty of training young children. He taught that the mother is the natural teacher of the child, and that it is her duty to fit herself for the sacred responsibility that God has placed upon her. Froebel's greatest discovery was that education comes only through self-activity, though he never clearly formulated his discovery. The Baroness Bertha von Marenholtz-BÜlow has published one of the best accounts of his life and work.[154]

The "Education of Man."—Froebel gives his philosophy of education in his "Education of Man," but his most popular work is "Songs for Mother and Nursery." His chief contribution to the work of educational reform is the kindergarten, an institution that has been ingrafted upon the school systems of many lands, and that is destined to become ever increasingly potent for good. In no country in the world has the kindergarten taken so strong a hold and made so great progress as in America. The purpose of the kindergarten, according to Froebel himself, is, "to take the oversight of children before they are ready for school life; to exert an influence over their whole being in correspondence with its nature; to strengthen their bodily powers; to exercise their senses; to employ the awakening mind; to make them thoughtfully acquainted with the world of nature and of man; to guide their heart and soul in the right direction, and to lead them to the Origin of all life, and to unison with Him."

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