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FROEBEL 
 
 
"glxc i^xmt gducatovs 
 
 Edited bt NICHOLAS MURRAY BUTLER 
 
 FROEBEL 
 
 EDUCATION THROUGH SELF-ACTIVITY 
 
 BY 
 
 H. COURTHOPE BOWEN, M.A. 
 
 FORMSRKT HbADMABTER OF THE GhOCERS* COMPANY'S SCHOOLS, 
 
 Hackney Downs; lately University Lecturer at 
 Cambridge on the Theory or Education 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1893 
 
^^-^ 
 
 COPYRIGHT, 1892, BY 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 For many years I have been a student of Froebel's 
 principles and methods, not only in books, — FroebeVs 
 own and those written by others, — but also in actual 
 practice in the kindergarten. My attention was first 
 called to his system when, as headmaster of a large 
 Ijondon school many years ago, I had occasion to 
 notice the extra brightness and teachableness of some 
 little boys who had been, at least partly, trained on 
 FroebePs plan. Some years after this, when under 
 the direction of a small band of public-spirited educa- 
 tional reformers, I endeavored to establish a train- 
 ing college for schoolmasters in secondary schools, my 
 attention naturally was drawn with redoubled force 
 to Froel)el. The attempt failed ; partly through lack 
 of funds (one of FroebePs constant troubles), and 
 partly through lack of support in the schools. But 
 my four years' labor taught me many things ; and 
 amongst others it taught me to sympathize keenly 
 with those who, in furtherance of new ideas, struggle 
 to found educational institutions. What is more to 
 the present purpose, however, is that during that 
 period I learned to see clearly that FroebePs system 
 is the only system in which the details of actual 
 practice are the real outcome of sound psychological 
 
vi PREFACE 
 
 principles, and in their application are continuously 
 governed by those principles. As our knowledge of 
 psychology grows, the principles will certainly require 
 some modification; and in consequence the practice 
 will have to be slightly changed here and there. But 
 if ever the practice ceases to be the distinct expres- 
 sion of the psychology, the plan will cease to be 
 . FroebePs. 
 
 Ever since the period I have mentioned I have been 
 a frequent observer of kindergartens and of the chil- 
 dren in them ; and of late years I have had much to 
 do with the examining of students who are trained 
 to be kindergarten teachers. Naturally enough I 
 have often been led to speak and lecture on Froebel's 
 principles and methods, in London, at Cambridge, and 
 elsewhere ; and through the courtesy of the editor of 
 the (London) Journal of Education some of my lec- 
 tures have from time to time appeared in his pages. 
 And now, again through his courtesy, I am allowed to 
 freely use such parts of those printed lectures as seem 
 to me useful for my present purpose. They were in- 
 deed written with the idea of their some day forming 
 part of a book; but, as they stand in the following 
 pages, they are much altered, added to, and abridged. 
 The chapters of which they form parts are chaps, iii, 
 iv, vi, and viii. 
 
 The plan which I have adopted for expounding my 
 subject, will, no doubt, reveal almost at once a certain 
 amount of repetition. This I am quite aware of; 
 though I may say that the amount of repetition is 
 not great. I have chosen this mode of treatment 
 because I have learnt from long experience that it is 
 
PREPACK vU 
 
 the one best suited to students. After giving a brief 
 life of Froebel in chaps, i and ii, I plunge at once 
 into The Education of Man in chap, iii, — but only to 
 deal with such of its leading principles and views as 
 are fundamental and at the same time are likely to 
 offer difficulties to beginners. In chap, iv I enter 
 more into the details of the Mutter- %ind KoseAieder, 
 and restate some of the principles already spoken of, 
 but now in connection with the games and songs 
 which the book sets forth. It is not until I come to 
 chap V that I attempt any complete statement of 
 Froebel's principles and methods, as far as they refer 
 to physical and intellectual training, — leaving the 
 ethical training for chap. vi. 
 
 When through a long period of time one has been a 
 constant student of some particular subject, it becomes 
 extremely difficult to attribute to their right sources 
 all the ideas concerning it in possession of which one 
 happens to find oneself, — and quite out of the ques- 
 tion if the possible sources are numerous. Besides, in 
 common politeness to oneself one must consider some 
 of the ideas home-grown, even though they resemble 
 ideas to be found elsewhere. I have, however, done 
 my best to acknowledge all conscious borrowings ; and 
 if it is to be my unhappy fate to have others brought 
 to my consciousness later on, I apologize beforehand, 
 and will make due reparation in other editions. 
 
 I have added- two appendices at the end of the book ; 
 one giving a chronological list of FroebePs writings, 
 and the other giving the names of such books on Froe- 
 bel and his system as I myself have found valuable. 
 To have given a complete bibliography of Froebel- 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 literature would have doubled the size of this volume. 
 I am conscious that there must be many American 
 books on Froebel which I have not mentioned. But 
 though several of these are known to me by name, 
 I have been unfortunate enough never to have seen 
 them. 
 
 While the pages of this book were passing through 
 the press they had the very great advantage of being 
 read by Madame Michaelis ; and the Index at the end 
 is due to the chivalrous help of my friend Mr. G. F. 
 Bridge. To both I offer my sincerest thanks. The 
 book will always be associated in my mind with the 
 memory of their kindness. 
 
 H. COURTHOPE BOWEN. 
 
 3 York Street, Portman Square, 
 London, W. 
 
 September 15, 1892. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAF. PAOB 
 
 I. Introduction — Early Days — Education at 
 
 School and University. 1782-1816. 1 
 
 II. Froebbl*s Experiknce as a Teacher and Edu- 
 cational Reformer. 1816-1852 . . 22 
 
 III. The ** Education of Man " — Some of Froebel^s 
 
 Leading Principles 43 
 
 IV. The Mutter- i'nd Kose-lieder — Infant Games 
 
 AVD Songs, their Meaning and Educational 
 
 Value 63 
 
 V. Froebel^s Theory of Education .90 
 
 VI. Froebkl^s Views on Character, Conduct, and 
 
 Religion 108 
 
 VII. The Kindergarten — The General Nature op 
 
 ITS Processes — Gifts and Occupations. . 124 
 VIII. Transition Clas8f« — Tiikir Aim avd Methods 
 
 — Nature-study 152 
 
 IX. The Bearing of Fk<»kbki/.s Principles on the 
 School and on Technical Instruction — Man- 
 ual Training — Froebel and Pestalozzi — 
 
 Conclusion 178 
 
 APPENDIX A — Fkoebei/s Writings . . . .197 
 APPENDIX B — Some Books on Froebel Likely to 
 
 be of Use to th e S tudents 202 
 
 ix 
 
 (tjkive; 
 
FROEBEL 
 
 EDUCATION THROUGH SELF-ACTIVITY 
 
 CHAPTER I 
 
 INTRODUCTION -EARLY DAYS - EDUCATION AT 
 SCHOOL AND UNIVERSITY 
 
 1782-1816 
 
 Some writers on education, like Locke and Kous- 
 seau, direct their attention mainly to the rearing of 
 individuals of a particular class, or at any rate indi- 
 viduals separated from other individuals ; others, like 
 Milton and Rabelais, dwell most on the results of 
 education; others again, like Mulcaster, Hoole, and 
 Brinsley, are chiefly busied with the work of a school ; 
 others, like Comenius and Pestalozzi, taking a wider 
 view, bring forward the question of popular instruc- 
 tion, and endeavor to found a philosophy and a sci- 
 ence of education — though Pestalozzi remains to the 
 end more of a philanthropist than a philosopher. Of 
 all these Froebel most resembles Pestalozzi. Indeed, 
 in more senses than one Froebel is the disciple of 
 Pestalozzi. Not only did he receive his first impulse 
 as a teacher from a study of the writings of the great 
 Swiss philanthropist, but for two years he attached 
 himself to the institute at Yverdon in order to acquire 
 
 1 
 
2 FROEBEL 
 
 a personal knowledge of Pestalozzi and his work and 
 methods. Moreover, apart from this, and from his 
 often expressed admiration, his able and enthusiastic 
 exposition of The Book for Mothers in his letter 
 to the Princess Regent of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt 
 would alone suffice to show that, in his earlier years 
 at least, Froebel looked upon Pestalozzi as his master. 
 But Froebel is more than a disciple. He is himself 
 an original thinker and an original worker; and in 
 one department of education — and that by no means 
 the least important — he stands by himself, without a 
 rival. 
 
 The old, unsound and narrow traditions of the 
 Renascence lingered on in the latter half of the eigh- 
 teenth century — as indeed they linger still here and 
 there both in England and America. Except to fond, 
 and not always wise, mothers the child remained 
 supremely uninteresting until he could be put to his 
 book ; and when he was old enough for this, " putting 
 him to his book " was all that education meant in fact 
 as well as word. 
 
 There had been some improvement in the curriculum 
 of schools used by the less rich classes of the com- 
 munity, an example of which will be found in the 
 school to which Froebel was sent as a boy ; but beyond 
 this by no means general reform of the curriculum 
 things had changed but little anywhere. 
 
 With all his enthusiasm for education and his 
 desire to found it on a scientific basis, Comenius had 
 had but little scientific knowledge of child-nature, 
 and troubled himself not at all to acquire it. He 
 constantly insisted, it is true, upon the exercise of 
 
INTRODUCTION 3 
 
 the senses, and an education in accordance with nature ; 
 but his exercise of the senses soon reduced itself in 
 the main to tlie use of pictures with a view to a readier 
 and more intelligent acquirement of language, and 
 even in his ergastula literaria, or literary workshops, 
 the manual and other work introduced was intended 
 to aid poor children in partly getting their own living 
 while at school, rather than to exercise faculty ; 
 while his " nature " was as quaint and conventional 
 as that in a pre-raphaelite picture. None the less, 
 however, Comenius was the true founder of educa- 
 tional method. Locke's psychology was based on a 
 knowledge of adult mind, not child mind. He knew 
 little about children under the age of ten or eleven. 
 He wrote about education in a common-sense, man-of- 
 the-world manner rather than as a man of science; 
 and so his book, though highly suggestive and stimu- 
 lating, does not always help us, and is at times un- 
 sound. Rousseau was the first to show us where and 
 why we were all blundering, when in his brilliant, 
 incisive way he declared that we did not understand 
 <hildren; that knowledge of child-nature and child- 
 mind was the prime requisite for every teacher ; that 
 we made far too much of books, and introduced them 
 far too soon ; and that we were in such a hurry to 
 force children out of childhood and into manhood or 
 womanhood that we ran great risk of hurrying them 
 into their graves. " Let childhood ripen in children " 
 is the keynote of the new gospel. But when he 
 turned to sketch a practical plan, Rousseau's love of 
 paradox, the disgust he felt for the artificialities of 
 society, the tendency which was in the air to separate 
 
4 FROEBEL 
 
 the individual from the general mass and to proclaim 
 his rights, and probably also the example of Locke — 
 all this led him to propound a scheme as fantastic 
 and impossible as ever entered the wayward mind of 
 a madman — to separate the child from his fellows, 
 and set him in a wilderness. 
 
 But Rousseau inspired Pestalozzi — to such an ex- 
 tent, indeed, that Pestalozzi actually tried to carry 
 out the plan with his own son. The folly and danger 
 of the attempt, however, soon became apparent, and 
 it was dropped and never resumed. The best of 
 Rousseau's doctrines, nevertheless, were not aban- 
 doned ; and it was through Rousseau's admirable and 
 convincing exposition that Pestalozzi was persuaded 
 ^ to base everything in his own system on intuition, f 
 that is, on the effect produced in the mind by direct 
 intelligent perception of real things, — to which Pes- 
 talozzi himself added a simultaneous training in lan- 
 guage as the means to express the mental activity 
 produced by intuitive exercises. Tliis was a service 
 of great importance to education ; and on it his repu- 
 tation as an originator will always chiefly rest. The 
 department of language-teaching benefited immensely 
 by the plan; but, unfortunately, the study of com- 
 mon objects suffered in proportion, for only too fre- 
 quently the object itself was not in any true sense 
 observed or made to produce an intuitive exercise, but 
 was simply employed as something about which more 
 and more elaborate statements might gradually be 
 built up. Still, this was not always so, and the 
 applications of the principle of intuition to the studies 
 of form and of number by Pestalozzi's colleagues 
 
INTRODUCTION 5 
 
 under his auspices, have been the prime cause of 
 most of the improvements in method which have 
 since found their way into our schools, — the prime 
 cause, but needing much modification in the mode 
 of procedure. But what Pestalozzi failed to see — at 
 least to see very distinctly — was that before intuition 
 there is a period consisting mainly of sensation and 
 confused emotions, commencing in the very hour of 
 birth, during which the consciousness of the child is 
 endeavoring to work its way towards clearness and 
 precision. He does not ignore the period, as his Book 
 for Mothers shows. But he fails to grasp its facts 
 and to arrive at any clear practicable method for its 
 treatment. He provides his mothers, as Professor 
 J. H. Von Fichte points out in his Problem of Popu- 
 lar EduccUioriy with an ABC of intuitions, whereas I 
 what they require is an A B C of sensations and eino-j 
 tions. It is precisely in this period that the genius/ 
 of Froebel is most at home and most original. Froe- 
 bel was ix)ssessed of large and generous views on 
 education as a whole, and on its methods and results 
 as wholes ; but it is the work which he did for the 
 education of infants between the ages of three aud| 
 seven that chietly demands our gratitude, so far as I 
 his aims have been realized up to the present ; in the 
 future, unless I am seriously mistaken, his greatest 
 service will lie in the reforms which his principles 
 and methods will have forced on our schools and col- 
 leges. What those principles and methods are it is 
 the purpose of this book to make clear. But before 
 entering on my exposition, it will be best, I think, to 
 briefly relate the events of FroebePs life and educa- 
 
6 FROEBEL 
 
 tion and to give a short account of his experience as 
 a teacher and educational reformer, in order that my 
 readers may form some conception of the kind of man 
 he was, and forever put from their minds the idea 
 that ho was an enthusiastic but ignorant peasant who 
 was fond of children — an idea which not infre- 
 quently seems to haunt the obscurer recesses of the 
 minds of those who even now are bold enough to scoff 
 at kindergartens and their means and methods, and is 
 only too liable to be confirmed by the mere sentimen- 
 talities about little children which at times still 
 masquerade as Froebelian doctrine. 
 
 Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel was born on 
 April 21, 1782, at Oberweissbach, a village in the 
 Thuringian Forest, in the principality of Schwarz- 
 burg-Kudolstadt. His father, Johann Jacob Froebel, 
 belonged to the old Lutheran Church, and was the 
 chief pastor of the district.^ His mother died before 
 he was a year old, so that he could not even remem- 
 ber her. Johann Froebel's parish was a large and 
 scattered one, and gave him far too much to do to 
 leave any great amount of time for the proper ordering 
 of his home, or at least for that constant attention 
 which young children need. The consequence was, 
 
 1 1 draw my facts in this chapter mainly from Froebel's Auto- 
 biography, contained in a letter to the Duke of Meiningen written 
 in 1827, and from a somewhat similar letter to Krause in 1828, and 
 in part also from Dr. Wichard Lange's Reminiscences of Froebel, 
 and Hanschmann's well-known Life of Froebel, together with 
 articles in various encyclopaedias. The Autobiography, though 
 of very great value, was not written till Froebel was forty-five 
 years of age, and some allowance must be made for this when we 
 are considering what he says about his earliest years. 
 
EARLY DAYS 7 
 
 that the child was left very much to the care of the 
 servants, who knew how to take advantage of their 
 master's absorption in his work, and in their turn 
 handed the little boy over to the care of his brothers, 
 who were somewhat older than himself.* Throughout 
 the whole of his life, he tells us, he was practically a 
 stranger to his father, whose severe religious views 
 hung heavily on the^ little boy and who never suc- 
 ceeded in understanding the troublesome, dreamy, 
 neglected child. When he was four years old, his 
 father married again, and for awhile the new mother 
 was loving and careful of her stepson. But as soon 
 as she rejoiced in a son of her own, the motherless 
 boy was left once more mainly to the care of his brothers 
 and the servants. That he should become mischiev- 
 ous and unruly, as he tells us he did, was only natural ; 
 for of education he seems for some time to have had 
 none but that which his playfellows, and woods, and 
 flowers, and birds, of which he was always passion- 
 ately fond, unconsciously afforded. When he could 
 get leave — and probably sometimes without waiting 
 to ask for it — he would wander with the others in the 
 forest on the slopes of the Kirchberger Hill, — which 
 rose from the very churchyard in the front of his 
 
 1 These were as follows: (1) August, who died young. (2) Chris- 
 toph, who became the clergyman of Griesheim after having studied 
 at the University of Jena, and died in 1813. He was the father of 
 Julius, Karl, and Theodor, to educate whom their uncle, Friedrich, 
 settled in Griesheim in 1816. (3) Christian Ludwig, first a manu- 
 facturer at Osterode, and afterwards (from 1820) associated with 
 Friedrich, —born 1770, died 1851. (4) Traugott, who studied medi- 
 cine at Jena, became a medical man, and was burgomaster of 
 Stadt-Ilm. There were no sisters. 
 
S FROEBEL 
 
 home, — listening to the wind amidst the branches, and 
 watching the movements of the wild animals ; or at 
 times he would work among the plants and flowers 
 of his father's garden. His father taught him to 
 read, but only with great difficulty; and felt too 
 discouraged to attempt anything more; while very 
 unfortunately, the pastor had some difference with the 
 headmaster of the boys^ school, and could not send 
 Friedrich there. So, till his tenth year, the boy re- 
 ceived no direct regular education of any kind except 
 what he could pick up in the girls' school of the 
 village, where the work consisted chiefly in learning 
 Bible-texts and hymns by heart. 
 
 At the end of 1792, when Friedrich was ten years 
 of age, his mother's brother. Superintendent Hoffman, 
 who had long since lost both wife and child, expressed 
 a desire to have the youngest son of the sister he had 
 loved dearly to live with him for the purpose of edu- 
 cation. The wish was granted; and for four years 
 the boy had a free and happy life. Hoffman, who 
 held a position of some dignity in the church at Stadt- 
 Ilm, a little city not far off, was as humane as he was 
 distinguished, and as gentle as he was earnest and 
 decided. He sent the boy at once to the town school, 
 where he found plenty of companionship, though 
 through his general backwardness and lack of strength 
 and agility, it was some time before he could take his 
 proper share in the games. But the boy felt that in 
 his uncle's hame he was loved and trusted, and was 
 perfectly happy. Looking back at the Stadt-Ilm 
 school some thirty years later, he tells us in his Auto- 
 biography that the subjects best taught were reading, 
 
EARLY DAYS 9 
 
 writing, arithmetic, and religion. " Latin was miser- 
 ably taught, and still worse learnt. Here, as in so 
 many similar schools, the teaching entirely lacked the 
 foundation of first principles.'^ In arithmetic he made 
 some progress. But in physical geography, he says : 
 " We repeated our tasks parrot-wise, speaking much 
 and knowing nothing ; for the teaching on the subject 
 had not the very least connection with real life, nor 
 had it any actuality for us, though at the same time 
 we could rightly name our little specks and patches of 
 color on the map. I received private tuition, also, 
 in this subject. My teacher wished to advance fur- 
 ther with me; and so took me to the geography 
 of England. I could find no connection between 
 that country and the place and country in which I 
 myself dwelt, so that of this instruction also I re- 
 tained but little. As for actual instruction in Ger- 
 man, it was not to be thought of; but we received 
 directions in letter-writing and in spelling. I do not 
 remember with what subject the teaching of spelling 
 was connected ; I think it was not connected with 
 any ; it hung loosely in the air. I had, besides, les- 
 sons in singing and pianoforte playing, but without 
 result." Not a bad list of subjects, certainly, had 
 they only been properly taught ; but unfortunately of 
 the two schoolmasters from whom he received in- 
 struction, " one was pedantic and rigid ; the other 
 was large-hearted and free. The first never had any 
 influence over his class ; the second could do (or have 
 done) whatever he pleased with us '' ; but somehow 
 it did not occur to him to make much use of his op- 
 portunity. The consequence was that when Froebel 
 
10 FROEBEL 
 
 returned to his father's house at the age of fourteen, 
 he had not learned nearly as much as might have 
 been expected; at best, he thinks, he had acquired 
 some elementary notions of mathematics, a subject of 
 which he afterwards grew to be fond and in which he 
 eventually gained considerable proficiency. This, how- 
 ever, is probably , in part an exaggeration. It is ex- 
 tremely difficult to describe accurately in middle life 
 the precise origins of the various influences which 
 moulded our early childhood ; and still more difficult 
 is it to assess the precise amount of each influence, 
 j'roebel, however; was a dreamy, restless child, who 
 cared little for books; and still less for dry, formal 
 instruction, and so no doubt got less from his school, 
 even such as it was, than he might have done. But 
 he had learnt to love and reverence his uncle — a 
 lesson he hever forgot, and his delighted observation 
 of plants and animals had made considerable progress. 
 The time had now come for Froebel to choose a 
 calling and earn his bread. Two of his brothers, 
 Christoph and Traugott, had already devoted them- 
 selves to study, and his father's means would not al- 
 low of another son at the university. The result was 
 that, with his own cordial consent, he became, on Mid- 
 summer Day in 1797, a two-years' apprentice to a 
 forester in Thuringia, who had also a good reputation 
 as a surveyor and valuer. His object was to learn 
 forestry, valuing, geometry, and land-surveying, so 
 that, by the addition of farming later on, he might 
 become a thorough agriculturist — a calling from 
 which, on the continent, much was expected just at 
 this period. The experiment did not prove wholly a 
 
EARLY DAYS 11 
 
 success. The forester was too busy to devote much 
 time to his apprentice, and though he gave plentiful 
 evidence of many-sided knowledge, he did not under- 
 stand the art of conveying it to others, "especially," 
 adds Froebel, " because he had acquired what he knew 
 only by dint of actual experience " ; in other words, 
 his knowledge was empirical and not scientific. Froe- 
 bel's life for two years in the forest had four aspects, 
 lie tells us : the homelier and more practical life ; the 
 life spent with nature, esi)ecially forest-nature; the 
 life of study, devoted to mathematics and languages, 
 tor 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. Botany became a 
 passion with him — so much so that he says, "My 
 religious life now changed to a religious communion 
 with nature, and in the last half-year I lived entirely 
 amongst and with my plants, which drew me towards 
 them and fascinated me." He spent some time in 
 constructing a map of the neighborhood, but a great 
 deal was given to solitary reflection. Slowly but 
 surely an idea of the oneness, the continuity, which 
 underlies all nature began to dawn upon him, but not 
 yet in its entirety. Here too, and afterwards at Jena, 
 he reflected on his previous education, and came to 
 the conclusion that the ordinary school methods, which 
 had failed to reach what he felt was within him, were 
 of little value. Some strolling actors came into the 
 neighborhood, and he was enchanted with them, 
 and afterwards suffered a severe reproof from his 
 father for the wickedness of play-going. But the two 
 
12 FROEBEL 
 
 years came to an end, and at midsummer, 1799, he re- 
 turned home, though the forester would gladly have 
 retained his services. His desire for knowledge — 
 especially for knowledge of mathematics and natural 
 
 ) science — had become so great that nothing could 
 turn him aside from pursuing it. He only remained 
 at home a few weeks, and then started for the Uni- 
 versity of Jena to convey some money to his brother 
 Traugott who was studying medicine there. Through 
 his brother's intercession he was allowed to stay on 
 and finish the term, and then an arrangement was 
 made by which he realized some property left him by 
 his mother, and formally entered the university. He 
 gives a formidable list of the subjects, lectures on 
 which he attended: applied mathematics, arithmetic, 
 algebra, geometry, mineralogy, botany, natural his- 
 tory, physics, chemistry, accounts, cultivation of forest 
 trees and management of forests, architecture, house- 
 building and land-surveying. He also continued his 
 topographical drawing. " I heard nothing purely theo- 
 retical except mathematics," he says, and grumbles 
 at the absence of philosophy. He was dissatisfied. 
 The order of progress in the various courses of study 
 was arbitrary, he tells us, and showed little or no 
 inner connection. He felt this in pure mathematics, 
 still more in applied mathematics, and most of all in 
 experimental physics. The same criticism has been 
 made on other universities outside Germany, and in 
 later times than Froebers. But the reason for his 
 failing to get all the good he had hoped from his 
 
 / studies lay partly in the fact, which he himself con- 
 fesses in the case of mineralogy, that " in consequence 
 
EDUCATION AT UNIVERSITY 13 
 
 of his defective preparation he found insuperable diflB.- 
 culties in his way, and perceived thereby that neglect 
 is neither quickly nor lightly to be repaired." More- 
 over, his mind was too speculative for the definite 
 routine of university work. Instead of studying hard 
 at a few things, he was thinking about unity and 
 diversity, the relation of the whole of nature to its 
 parts, and of the parts to the whole. His life at 
 Jena, though necessarily frugal and retired, was 
 desultor}', and after a year and a half the failure of 
 means brought it to a close. For nine weeks he was 
 detained in the university "career" for debt, but 
 this being at length, after much wrangling, discharged, 
 he returned home, not in the best of spirits. 
 
 His stay at home was short ; but during it he found 
 time to begin his acquaintance with German literature ; 
 and as he puts it, he began to know the names of Schiller, 
 Goethe, and Wieland. Winckelmann's Letters on Art 
 he already knew. Soon he went off to Hildburghausen 
 to study farming with some relatives on his father's 
 side. Here he became distressed — not for the first 
 time — at his relations with his hard, but hard-working 
 father, who was now an old man. He recognized in 
 him " a firm, strong will, and that, at the same time, 
 he was filled with noble, self-sacrificing endeavor. 
 He never shirked skirmish nor battle in the cause of 
 what he deemed the better part; he carried his pen 
 into action as a soldier carries his sword, for the true, 
 the good, and the right." While pondering over the 
 letter he meant to write in order to reveal himself 
 fully to the stern old man, he received (November, 
 1801) a letter summoning him home. His father 
 
14 FROEBEL 
 
 was ill and almost bedridden, and wanted his lielp. 
 It is pleasant to know that what was to have been 
 attempted by letter became possible by word of 
 mouth. Father and son were completely reconciled 
 before the former died in February, 1802. 
 
 At Easter in this year Froebel undertook the post 
 of actuary clerk in the Forestry Department of the 
 Episcopal State of Bamberg; and again spent much 
 time out of doors in the companionship of Nature and 
 of educated people. In the early spring of 1803, the 
 Episcopal State having been transferred to Bavaria, 
 Froebel gave up his situation and went to the town of 
 Bamberg, knowing that a general survey was in con- 
 templation, and hoping to get an abundance of work. 
 In this hope he was not deceived ; but no permanent 
 employment resulted. In 1804 he held the post of 
 secretary and accountant of a large country estate 
 belonging to Herr von Voldersdorf in Baireuth ; but 
 only for a short time, as he had already arranged to 
 go in the same capacity to the estate of Herr von De- 
 witz in Gross Milchow, Mecklenburg. He seems to 
 have had an agreeable time in both posts, and to have 
 been particularly pleased with his experience in the 
 orderly management of large affairs. In 1805 his 
 uncle Hoffmann died, leaving him a small inheritance ; 
 and after consulting with his brother Christoph, Froe- 
 bel determined to throw his energies into architecture, 
 and to go to Frankfurt-on-Main to study there. In 
 April he set out; and after visiting his brother at 
 Griesheim on the way, reached his destination in the 
 middle of the year. Soon after his arrival the friend 
 he had come to join introduced him to Dr. Gruner, 
 
EDUCATION AT UNIVERSITY 16 
 
 the headmaster of the Frankfurt Model School. It 
 was not long before Dr. Griiner, a disciple of Pesta- 
 lozzi's, became convinced that Froebel was a born 
 schoolmaster. " Give up architecture," he said j " it 
 is not your vocation at all. Become a teacher. We 
 want a teacher in our school. Say you agree, and the 
 place shall be yours." For a while Froebel hesitated ; 
 but hearing that his testimonials, which had been 
 sent to some one to read, had somehow been lost, he 
 accepted this as a sign that providence had broken 
 down the bridge behind him, and so frankly and 
 gladly accepted the offer. 
 
 Dr. Gruner was right. Work began at once. " The 
 subjects of instruction," Froebel says, " which fell to 
 my share were arithmetic, drawing, physical geogra- 
 phy, and German. I generally taught the middle 
 classes. In a letter to my brother I spoke of the 
 impression made upon me by my first lesson to a class 
 of thirty or forty boys ranging from nine to eleven 
 years of age ; 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 thCj air." But after a while this ecstasy sub- 
 sided, and self-searching, now a settled habit with Froe- 
 bel, began. In a calmer mood he questioned himself 
 strictly as to the means by which he was to satisfy 
 the demands of his new position. He did not seem 
 to himself to have the kind of knowledge required nor 
 the requisite training. "He perceived very soon," 
 says Dr. Lange, " that the method of instruction must 
 be directed by the laws of development of the human 
 
16 FROEBEL 
 
 mind as well as by those of the subjects to be taught; 
 
 (and that the essence of the method is the art of adapt- 
 ing to the mom entary stage of de velopment in the 
 s chola r the corresponding one of the subject. TKis 
 law of development he carefully sought ; this art he 
 endeavored to make his own. Dr. Gruner perceived 
 the restless striving of his young friend, and gave him 
 for his theoretic outline in pedagogy the writings of 
 Pestalozzi." Naturally these created in Froebel a 
 great desire to know the great teacher and reformer 
 who proclaimed an education in accordance with na- 
 ture. As soon as the holidays permitted, at the end 
 of August, he started off on foot for Yverdon, and 
 spent a fortnight in the famous Institute. The ac- 
 count he gives of his visit is very interesting ; but we 
 have no space for it here.^ He saw much that delighted 
 him, much that puzzled him, and some things that defi- 
 nitely dissatisfied him. He was deeply impressed by 
 the loveableness and enthusiasm of Pestalozzi, but 
 got little direct help from him. " That Pestalozzi 
 himself," he says, "was carried away and bewildered 
 by this great intellectual machine of his, appears from 
 the fact that he could never give any definite account 
 of his idea, his plan, his intention. He always said, 
 * Go and see for yourself ; it works splendidly ' — very 
 good for him who knew how to look, how to hear, how 
 to perceive." Froebel determined to study and re- 
 flect; and then to return later. 
 
 All his thoughts and endeavors were now directed 
 to the subject of the culture and education of man. 
 
 1 See Autobiography , translation by E. Michaelis and H. Keatley 
 Moore, pp. 53-57. 
 
EDUCATION AT UNIVERSITY 17 
 
 In October he resumed his work at Frankfurt; and 
 not long afterwards a public examination of the school 
 was held. FroebePs pupils did extremely well; and 
 Dr. Gruner's opinion was justified. But little by 
 little the desire grew in him to give up the Model 
 School, so as to have time to prepare himself thor- 
 oughly for the work of teaching, happy though his 
 life at the school was. When two years came to an 
 end he found an efficient substitute and retired. Im- 
 mediately after this he was eai-nestly entreated by the 
 parents of three boys, to whom he had been giving 
 private lessons in arithmetic and language, to take 
 complete charge of them. The boys were deteriorat- 
 ing rapidly through bad management, and the mother 
 — Frau von Holzhausen — believed that Froebel could 
 save them. Somewhat against his will he accepted 
 the charge, on condition that the boys should be com- 
 pletely handed over to him and live in isolation with 
 him — Rousseau's idea — in the country. His new 
 work began in July, 1807. Very interesting is the 
 account he gives of his observations and reflections at 
 this period with his pupils always under his eyes ; of 
 his experiment in giving them gardens and the moral 
 effects to be produced by the cultivation of plants and 
 flowers ; and of his studies in pedagogy. Ere long, 
 however, he became convinced that isolation was a 
 mistake as a permanency ; that the resulting life was 
 narrow and one-sided; and that he himself required 
 companionship and training. He requested, therefore, 
 and obtained permission to be allowed to take his boys 
 with him to Yverdon. In the later part of 1808 they 
 reached their destination ; and for two years lived not 
 
18 ' FROEBEL 
 
 in the Institute, but in close connection with it. The 
 best record of what he saw and learnt there is con- 
 tained in his letter to the Princess Eegent of Schwarz- 
 burg-Eudolstadt (April 27, 1809), which includes his 
 well-known criticism on Pestalozzi's Book for Mothers. 
 Again, and still more strongly than before, he felt 
 the inspiration of Pestalozzi's presence: "He set 
 one's soul on fire for a higher and nobler life, though 
 he had not made clear or sure the exact road towards 
 it, nor indicated the means whereby to attain it." 
 Though the power and many-sidedness of the Insti- 
 tute made up for many defects, Froebel, neverthe- 
 less, felt keenly the lack of unity in the work as a 
 whole and in many of its departments, and the ab- 
 sence of clear insight into the nature of the means 
 and methods employed. Still his stay at Yverdon 
 was of immense value to him, and he speaks of his 
 two years there as " a glorious time." 
 
 We may note two other points of interest. "I 
 studied the boys' play," Froebel says, "the whole 
 series of games in the open air, and learned to recog- 
 nize their mighty power to awaken and to strengthen 
 the intelligence and the soul as well as the body." 
 The walks, too, — especially when conducted by Pes- 
 talozzi, — struck him as admirable, both as bringing 
 boys into cheerful contact with nature and as afford- 
 ing delightful and valuable lessons in practical physi- 
 ography. • 
 
 In 1810 Froebel returned with his pupils to Frank- 
 furt ; and as soon as his work with them was finished, 
 proceeded (in July, 1811) to the University of Gottin- 
 gen — resolutely determined to fit himself to the ut- 
 
EDUCATION AT UNIVERSITY 19 
 
 most for the task of educational reform to which his 
 life was henceforth devoted. He felt that his greatest 
 deficiency lay in languages ; and at these he worked 
 with a will — adding, later, physics, chemistry, min- 
 eralogy (always a hobby of his), and natural history 
 in general. It is not necessary to enter into the 
 views on life and education which were now taking 
 definite form in his mind; they will be fully ex- 
 plained hereafter. It is only necessary to point out 
 that all his work now and for the future was under- 
 taken solely for its bearing on the science and means 
 of education. The lectures of Professor Weiss on 
 natural history and mineralogy at Berlin were at 
 this time attracting great attention ; and in order to 
 profit by them Froebel left Gottingen and entered the 
 University of Berlin in October, 1812. The lectures 
 quite realized his hoj^es; and more and more there 
 ripened in hiln the conviction, says Dr. Lange, "that 
 all life, that is; detrelopment into a whole, was founded 
 upon one law, and that this unity must be the basis 
 of all principles of development, its beginning and 
 end. This conviction was the result of a profound 
 study of nature in its law of development, and the 
 most careful contemplation of the child." His study 
 of child-nature was continued — and we may add, his i 
 livelihood in large measure gained — while at Berlin 
 by his giving lessons in Plamann's Pestalozzian school/ 
 for boys. 
 
 While Froebel was so occupied the disasters of the 
 French in Russia inspired Prussia and other German 
 States with the hope of deliverance from the yoke of 
 Napoleon. In February, 1813, Prussia proclaimed a 
 
20 FROEBEL 
 
 general call to arms in behalf of the common cause. 
 It was received with great enthusiasm, and probably 
 for the first time a consciousness was felt of there 
 being a German nation and a German fatherland. 
 Froebel felt it as strongly as any one, and hurrying 
 off to Dresden enlisted in the infantry division of 
 Liitzow's famous corps at Easter, 1813, and marched 
 on with it to Havelberg. Of actual fighting his regi- 
 ment saw nothing, but he enjoyed the life and was 
 delighted with the idea of German unity. But what 
 is more interesting to know is that two Berlin students, 
 much younger than himself, William Middendorff and 
 Henry Langethal, became his comrades. They soon 
 grew keenly interested in him, and in his views and 
 projects, and in the end became his most intimate and 
 devoted friends and fellow-workers. At the end of 
 May, 1814, came peace. In July, FroebePs regi- 
 ment was disbanded, and by August he was back again 
 in Berlin, and in possession of the post of assistant to 
 Professor Weiss in the Royal Museum of Mineralogy 
 — an appointment which had been promised him 
 when he enlisted. Here he could study his beloved 
 minerals, attend his university lectures, and have 
 plenty of leisure for working out his educational 
 plans. Before very long his comrades, Middendorff 
 and Langethal, found him out, and their intimacy was 
 continued and increased. Things continued so for a 
 while. Then in 1815, he was offered a valuable post as 
 mineralogist at Stockholm, but declined it as out of 
 keeping with his educational purpose. To fulfil this 
 purpose he determined, in 1816, to resign his post; 
 and after many applications for discharge, and many 
 
EDUCATION AT UNIVERSITY 21 
 
 friendly and urgent remonstrances from Professor 
 Weiss, his discharge was granted. In October he 
 quitted Berlin without confiding to any of his friends 
 exactly what he intended to do. He had, however, de- 
 clared his ideas to his manufacturing brother. Chris- 
 tian, who lived at Osterode in the Harz district; and 
 Christian had consented to give him his two sons, Fer- 
 dinand and William, to educate. They were his only 
 sons, though not his only children, and were aged six 
 and eight years respectively. The plan was to edu- 
 cate these boys with the three orphan sons of Chris- 
 toph, who had died in 1813. Christoph, it will be 
 remembered, had been the pastor of Griesheim, and 
 his widow and orphan children still lived there. To 
 Griesheim, therefore, Froebel made his way, with 
 funds in his pocket not much beyond the few crowns 
 he had received for a collection of minerals. And so 
 in a peasant's cottage, on November 13, 1816, was 
 opened tlie well-known " Universal German Educa- 
 tional Institute." 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 FROEBEL'S EXPERIENCE AS A TEACHER AND EDUCA- 
 TIONAL REFORMER 
 
 1816-1862 
 
 The period of learning is now over for Froebel, 
 and the period of teaching and creating begins. Not 
 but that a true teacher must always continue to be in 
 some sense a learner ; and Froebel was a true teacher 
 to the end of his life. But he will have no more time 
 for the acquirement of general knowledge or for gen- 
 eral study ; henceforth all his powers will be concen- 
 trated on the study of child-nature, the elaboration of 
 methods for rightly dealing with children, and the 
 putting of these into actual practice. And here I may 
 mention in passing — without laying any stress lipoii 
 it — a trait in FroebePs character to which reference 
 is often niade. To a man who, after long and patient 
 study, is so entirely convinced as he was, contradic- 
 tion and opposition, especially from those who prefer 
 the light of nature to scientific investigation, must 
 always be hard to bear ; and, truth to tell, he bore it 
 but ill. Even with those who were learned, discus- 
 sion of his plans, in any true sense, was hardly possi- 
 ble for him; though he looked upon himself as 
 perfectly tolerant. Nor was he particularly skilful in 
 expounding his views to the public. This trait made 
 22 
 
TEACHER AND EDUCATIONAL REFORMER 23 
 
 living and working with him at times very difficult; 
 and it is only fair to his loyal fellow-workers to men- 
 tion it. But geniuses are proverbially difficult as 
 companions, and Proebel was no exception to the 
 rule. And after all, it is only through the concentra- 
 tion and stubborn courage of such men that the world 
 gets forced to consider their message. While, on the 
 other hand, it must be remembered that the love and 
 self-sacrificing loyalty with which he inspired those 
 constantly around him are the best proof that there 
 was much in him to love as well as to respect. 
 
 From Osterode, before coming to Griesheim, Froe- 
 bel had written to MiddendorfE at Berlin, inviting him 
 and Langethal to help him in working out the new 
 system of education. In April, 1817, Middendorff 
 came, bringing with him a brother of Langethal, aged 
 eleven; and Langethal himself followed in Septem- 
 ber.^ In June, however, Christoph's widow had 
 moved to a little peasant property she had bought at 
 the village of Keilhau in the Schalathal not far from 
 Rudolstadt ; and the institute moved with her. Froe- 
 bel and Middendorff for some time occupied a wretched 
 little hut, with neither door, flooring, nor stove. In 
 November a frame-house was set up in the farm-yard. 
 In June, 1818, the widow made over her little farm 
 
 1 Langethars brother Christian was afterwards professor in the 
 University of Jena. The autobiographic letter breaks off with 
 181G; that to Krause is continued to about 1823. After that we 
 have to depend largely on Froebel's own Letters, the Reminiscences 
 of Friedrich Froebel, by Dr. Laiige, Barop's Critical Moments in 
 the Froehel Community^ and for quite the end to the Reminis- 
 cences of Friedrich Froehel, by the Baroness von Marenholtz-Biilow. 
 Of course, also, there is Hanschmann's Life, 
 
24 FROEBEL 
 
 to Froebel, and went to live at Volkstadt. By that 
 time the school numbered twelve pupils. In Septem- 
 ber of this year Froebel married Henrietta Wilhelmine 
 Hoffmeister, who was two years his senior, and whom 
 he describes as "a lady with a like love of nature and 
 of childhood as my own, and a like high and earnest 
 conception of education.'' She was a pupil of Schleier- 
 macher and Fichte, and from all we learn must have 
 been an admirable, self-sacriiicing, and highly cultured 
 woman. She and Froebel had met in the museum at 
 Berlin. She brought with her an adopted daughter, 
 Ernestine Chrispine, who afterwards married Lange- 
 thal. Frau Froebel's father, who was a war-counsellor 
 of Prussia, would give her no dowry; and a hard 
 struggle for existence followed till early in 1820, 
 when Christian Froebel joined the community with 
 his wife, his three daughters,^ and all his possessions, 
 in order to advance the good cause — just as, a little 
 before, Middendorff, on the death of his father, had 
 devoted the whole of his inheritance to the institute. 
 By 1822 such buildings as were absolutely necessary 
 were built, and better days began. The number of 
 pupils increased, till in 1826 there were fifty-six ; but 
 as a matter of fact as long as the administration of 
 affairs was in Froebel's hands the institute never 
 really prospered as it should have done. In 1823 
 Johannes Arnold Barop joined the Keilhau circle, of 
 which he eventually became the head. On Ascension 
 
 1 These were Albertine, aged eighteen, who married Middendorff ; 
 Emilie, aged fifteen, wlio married Barop ; and Elise, aged six, who 
 eventually married Dr. Siegfried Schaffner, later on one of the 
 Keilhau circle. 
 
TEACHER AND EDUCATIONAL REFORMER 25 
 
 Day, in 1826, both Middendorff and Langethal were 
 married amidst great rejoicings. For the preceding 
 six years Froebel had constantly tried, by means of 
 pamphlets, to attract attention to his institute and 
 get a hearing for his views. And now, in 1826, he 
 brought out the famous Menschen Erziehung, or The 
 Education of Man, and founded the weekly Family 
 Journal of Education.^ Unfortunately Froebel had 
 the unbusiness-like idea of publishing these works 
 privately at Keilhau, with the natural result, — they 
 reached few persons who did not already know him, 
 and were a heavy drain on his finances. 
 
 But we must retrace our steps somewhat in order to 
 obtain a public outside view of the school or institute 
 which Froebel and his colleagues had created. Ever 
 since the emancipation of the German states from 
 Napoleonic rule there had been trouble in Germany. 
 Amongst the patriots who had fought, and especially 
 amongst university students, there was much enthusi- 
 asm for German unity and liberty, and here and there 
 not a little wild socialistic talk. The students of Jena 
 banded themselves into a Burschenschaft, or Students' 
 Club, under the protection of the liberal-minded Duke 
 of Saxe-Weimar; and their example was followed in 
 many other places. The excitement culminated in the 
 murder of Kotzebue, an agent of the Prussian govern- 
 ment in Thuringia and South Germany, at Mannheim 
 in 1819, by a divinity student. After this Metternich, 
 the prime minister of Austria, found little difficulty 
 in persuading Frederick William III of Prussia that 
 
 1 A list of Froebcl's pu])lications with dates, wherever possible, 
 will be found in the Appendix. 
 
26 FROEBEL 
 
 strong measures must be taken. Blow after blow was 
 struck from Vienna and Berlin. Many patriotic profes- 
 sors were summarily dismissed, the Burschenschaften 
 and other societies were suppressed, and a large num- 
 ber of students were sent to prison. In these circum- 
 stances it is not wonderful that such a community as 
 that at Keilhau — which indeed was revolutionary, but 
 only in educational matters, never in politics — should 
 have become suspected ; especially as they had adopted 
 the old German dress and let their hair grow long. 
 Pressure from Berlin was brought to bear on the 
 Prince of Schwarzburg-Eudolstadt to break up the 
 institute. This he met by appointing Superintendent 
 Zeh, in September, 1824, to inspect and report upon 
 Keilhau and its doings. The inspection took place on 
 November 23 ; but, finding that this was not enough, 
 the superintendent returned on March 1, 1825, and 
 spent another whole day in the institute. His report 
 was sent in at the beginning of the following May. 
 It has been preserved and will be found in vol. i of 
 Dr. Lange's Collected Writings of F. Froebel. So inter- 
 esting and important is this document that I cannot 
 refrain from quoting a few of its statements. I 
 abridge, but make no other change. "Both the days," 
 says Superintendent Zeh, " which I passed at the in- 
 stitute in the closest intimacy were in every way 
 agreeable to me, highly interesting and instructive, 
 and have raised and strengthened my respect for the 
 institute as a whole, as well as for its director who 
 carried it on and upheld it amid stress of want and 
 care with rare persistence and with the purest and the 
 most unselfish zeal. It Avas very delightful to feel the 
 
TEACHER AND EDUCATIONAL REFORMER 27 
 
 influence which proceeds from the fresh, vigorous, free, 
 and yet orderly spirit which pervades this institution 
 both in and out of lesson time. I found here what is 
 never and nowhere shown in practical life, a truly and 
 closely united family of some sixty members, living 
 in quiet harmony, all showing that they gladly per- 
 form the duties of their various positions ; a family in 
 which, because it is held together by the strong bond 
 of mutual confidence, and because every member seeks 
 the good of the whole, everything, as if of itself, 
 thrives in happiness and love. With great respect 
 and hearty affection all turn to the principal; the 
 little five-year-old children cling to his knees, while 
 his friends and colleagues hear and honor his advice 
 with the confidence which his insight and experience, 
 and his indefatigable zeal for the good of the whole, 
 deserve ; while he has bound himself in brotherliness 
 and friendship to his fellow-workers, as the supports 
 and pillars of his life-work, which to him is truly 
 a holy work. That this union, this brotherhood, so 
 to speak, among the teachers must have the most sal- 
 utary influence on the instruction and training, and 
 on the pupils themselves, is self-evident. The love 
 and respect in which the latter hold all their teach- 
 ers find expression in an attention and an obedience 
 which render unnecessary almost all disciplinary se- 
 verity. In the merriest liveliness with which after 
 lessons they seek the fresh air and jump and frolic 
 together, I saw no real ill-breeding, no rough, unman- 
 nerly conduct, and not the least immoral behavior. 
 Perfectly free and equal among themselves, reminded 
 of their privileges of rank and birth neither by their 
 
28 FROEBEL 
 
 dress nor by their names — for each pupil is called 
 only by his Christian name or some name bestowed on 
 him — the pupils, great and small, live in happiness 
 and serenity, intermingling freely, as if each obeyed 
 only a law of his own, like brothers of one family ; 
 and while all seem unrestrained and use their powers 
 and carry on their games in freedom, they are under 
 the constant supervision of their teachers, now this 
 teacher, now that, looking after the games and sports, 
 and some almost always taking part in them, equally 
 subject with the boys to the laws of the game." The 
 report then speaks of the excellent effect all this must 
 have on the teachers themselves ; and then returning 
 to the pupils, continues : " No slumbering power re- 
 mains unawakened, each finds the stimulus it needs in 
 so large and closely united a family, and also the place, 
 small though it may be, where it can express itself ; 
 every inclination shows itself freely and finds an 
 equal or similar inclination which already has found 
 a clearer expression, and by which it can strengthen 
 itself. ... In this way the boys guide, reprove, 
 punish, educate, and cultivate one another uncon- 
 sciously by the most varied incitements to activity 
 and by mutual restriction. . . . The agreeable im- 
 pression which the institution as a whole makes upon 
 a visitor is increased by the domestic order which 
 everyw^iere is visible, which alone can give coherence 
 to so large a family, by a punctuality free from all 
 pedantry, and by a cleanliness which is rarely to be 
 met with in educational institutions. To this vigor- 
 ous and free, yet well-ordered, outer life corresponds 
 perfectly the inner life of mind and heart, which is 
 
TEACHER AND EDUCATIONAL REFORMER 29 
 
 here awakened and fostered. . . . Instruction be-^ 
 gins in the fifth year of the chikl's life by leading him I 
 simply to find himself (get the command of his J 
 senses), to distinguish himself from external things ( 
 and these from one another, to know clearly what he 4 
 sees in his nearest surroundings, and at the same time; 
 to designate it by the right word, to enjoy his first 
 knowledge as the first contribution towards his future 
 intellectual treasure. Se lf-activity of mind is the fir st 
 law of this instruction ; therefore the kind of instruc- 
 tion given here does not make the young mind a 
 strong-box into which, as early as possible, all kinds 
 of coins of the most different values and coinage, such 
 as are now current in the world, are stuffed ; but 
 slowly, continuously, gratlually, and always inwardly, 
 that is, according to a connection founded on the 
 nature of the human mind, the instruction steadily 
 goes on without any tricks . . . from the simple 
 to the complex, from the concrete to the abstract, so 
 well adapted to the child and his needs that he goes 
 as readily to his learning as to his play ; indeed, I 
 was a witness of how the little ones, whose lesson 
 had been somewhat delayed by my arrival, came in 
 tears to the principal of the institute and asked 
 * whether to-day they were always to play and never 
 to learn, and whether the big boys only were to have 
 lessons ? ' " 
 
 The report next speaks of the classical work, which 
 had only been begun in 1820, and how in the preced- 
 ing half-year the highest form had read Horace, Plato, 
 Phoedrus, and Demosthenes, and translated Cornelius 
 Nepos into Greek. "I could not but be astonished 
 
30 FROEBEL 
 
 at the progress which had been made and its thorough 
 t accuracy . . . and I was as thoroughly gratified with 
 
 the instruction as I had been with the educational train- 
 1 ing. . . . The aim (of the institution) is by no means 
 
 (knowledge and science merely, but free, s elf-active 
 development of jhejnind f rom withij i ; wherefore noth- 
 ing is added to the pupil from without which does not 
 enlighten the mind itself, strengthen the pupil's power, 
 and add to his joy byenhancing his consciousness of 
 growing power. . . . The aim is to develop the whole 
 man, whose inner being rests between the two poles 
 of true enlightenment and genuine religion. . . . Sci- 
 ence is held of no worth at Keilhau except as it 
 becomes a more universal means of awakening the 
 mind, of strengthening the individual and guiding 
 him to his highest destiny.^ . . . What the pupils 
 know is not a formless mass, but has shape and life, 
 and is, if at all possible, immediately applied to life ; 
 each one is, so to speak, at home within himself ; there 
 is not a jrace of thoughtless repetition of the words 
 of_others, nor vague knowledge in the pupils great 
 or small. What they give expression to they have 
 inwardly seen, and the expression is given as from 
 inner necessity with decision and discrimination. . . . 
 Everything which they take up they must be able to 
 think ; and therefore what they cannot think they do 
 not take up. Even dead grammar with its host of 
 rules becomes living before them, inasmuch as they 
 are taught to study every language with reference to 
 the history, habits, and character of the people to 
 whom it belongs." 
 
 iThis is an exaggeration; though, no doubt, science was chiefly 
 valued for its educative power. 
 
TEACHER AND EDUCATIONAL REFORMER 31 
 
 The extracts have been rather long ; but I think they 
 will be found valuable. In the whole report there is 
 not one word of fault-finding. Of course after such 
 a statement from a man of good official standing, the 
 Duke could do little or nothing, even had he wished 
 to interfere. But the pressure from Berlin was con- 
 tinued; so he bade the community dress like other 
 people and cut their hair — a very Solomon's judgment, 
 for really there was nothing else the matter with them. 
 
 Unfortunately opposition and detraction did not 
 cease; and what was worse, one of FroebePs col- 
 leagues, a Swiss named Herzog, set himself in stub- 
 born opposition to the principal, and drew FroebePs 
 widowed sister-in-law and her sons to liis party. The 
 three nephews quarrelled with tlieir uncle, and left 
 in 1824; and Herzog followed, and industriously 
 libelled the institute for some time to come. The con- 
 sequence was that the number of pupils began to fall 
 off ; the gentry were frightened ; financial troubles 
 returned ; and by 1829 Keilhau had only five pupils. 
 
 Meanwhile an event, not without some significance, 
 had occurred. In the autumn holidays of 1828, Froe- 
 bel and Middendorff went to Gottingen, chiefly for 
 the purpose of making the personal acquaintance of 
 the philosopher Krause. They were well received; 
 and Krause, who was well read in the works o f Come- // 
 nius, drew FroebePs attention to the noble old bishop's ( 
 treatise on the earliest education of children, Schola 
 Materni Oremii ; and thus probably aided in turning 
 FroebePs mind to the field in which he was to win 
 his greatest triumphs. Nor may we doubt that the 
 visit to one so sympathetic and so learned added con- 
 
\ 
 
 32 FEOEBEL 
 
 siderably to Froebers interest in Krause's works and 
 the views they set forth. 
 
 " When our distress was at its greatest/' says Barop, 
 writing of this period, " a new and unexpected pros- 
 pect suddenly revealed itself to us. Several very 
 influential friends of ours spoke to the Duke of Mein- 
 ingen of our work. He summoned Froebel to him 
 and made inquiries as to his plans for the future. 
 Froebel laid before him a plan for an educational 
 institute (Volkserziehiings-Anstalt) fully worked out 
 and drawn up by us all in common, in which not only 
 the ordinary learned subjects, but also work in the 
 concrete, such as carpentering, weaving, bookbinding, 
 tilling the ground, etc., were used as means of educa- 
 tion." The plan was dated March, 1829.^ One of 
 Froebel's fundamental ideas was that a c hild sh ould 
 noj ^e treated as o nly receptiv e, but alsoj and m^re^ 
 particularly, as a c reative^ productive being . He was 
 always seeking to find the means for exciting in the 
 child a true feeling of the need for explanations, and 
 to foster his desire for practical usefulness. Manual 
 work in the concrete he believed would do both. But 
 lack of means and lack of teachers had cramped his 
 efforts at Keilhau. Here seemed a golden oppor- 
 tunity, and he threw himself into the scheme with all 
 his energy and enthusiasm. At first the Duke seemed 
 interested and pleased, and things even went so far 
 as an agreement that the institute should be put up 
 on the estate of Helba near Meiningen. But others 
 around the Duke began to grow jealous of Froebel's 
 
 1 It is printed in full in Lange's Reminiscences of Friedrich 
 Froebel, vol. i. 
 
TEACHER AND EDUCATIONAL REFORMER 33 
 
 increasing influence. The old charges were revived 
 and circulated. The Duke wavered, and began to 
 withdraw; till Froebel, finding that he was viewed 
 with distrust, broke off all negotiations, and went off 
 to Frankfurt to discuss educational principles and 
 ways and means with his old friends there (May, 
 1831). We may notice in passing that in a letter to 
 Harop, written while tlie Helba plan still seemed pos- 
 sible (February 18, 1829), Froebel says: "For a long 
 time the education and management of little children 
 from the third to the seventh year of age has occupied 
 my thoughts." Many reasons, he adds, had made him 
 decide "to erect in Helba in connection with the 
 People's Educational Institute, an institution for the 
 care and development of children of both sexes from 
 three to seven years of age. ... I do not call this 
 by the name usually given to similar institutions, that 
 is. Infant Schools j because it is not to be a school, for 
 the children in it will n ot be schooled^ hutJreelxA^YSi^' 
 oped." Here we have distinctly the first foreshadow- 
 ing of FroebePs great invention, the kindergarten. 
 
 After so many troubles Froebel had almost begun 
 to lose faith in himself ; and he needed the counsel 
 and encouragement of his Frankfurt friends to help 
 him to go on. It was while with them that he met 
 the well-known musical composer and naturalist 
 Schnyder. So interested did the latter grow in 
 FroebePs views and projects that he shortly pro- 
 posed that Froebel should set up an institute in his 
 (Schnyder's) castle at Wartensee in Lucerne. Froe- 
 bel started off forthwith for Wartensee with his 
 nephew Ferdina nd an d Schnyder himself, got the 
 
34 FROEBEL 
 
 necessary authority of the Lucerne government, and 
 in August issued the prospectus of his new establish- 
 ment. It was scarcely open before clerical opposition 
 commenced ; and so strong was this, that, in spite 
 of the support of such men as P^re Girard and the 
 Pfyffers, no pupils entered. Froebel then started a 
 school in the castle, to which a few peasants sent 
 their children. But soon after the arrival of Barop, 
 the situation was found to be untenable. The castle 
 was not well adapted to school purposes, and the situ- 
 ation was inconvenient. So the proposal that they 
 should migrate to Willisau, a small town not very far 
 off, was accepted, and as soon as the preliminaries 
 had been settled, Proebel returned in November to 
 Keilhau. In the spring of the next year (1833) he 
 and his wife rejoined Barop and Ferdinand Froebel ; 
 and on the second of May the institute was opened in 
 Willisau with thirty-six pupils. Opposition continued 
 here ; but in spite of it the institute was successful. 
 In the autumn of the year, the Bernese government 
 sent five pupil-teachers to learn the new methods at 
 Willisau, and requested Froebel to consider a plan 
 for the founding of an orphanage at Burgdorf, and to 
 come to that town to deliver a course of lectures to 
 young teachers. The lectures were delivered early in 
 1834, and were a great success. But before this 
 Froebel had accepted the task of founding the or- 
 phanage on the condition (which was accepted) that 
 others besides orphans should be admitted to the 
 instruction. 
 
 Feeling that Jiis mission in Switzerland was finished, 
 and anxious to return to his young wife, Barop went 
 
TEACHER AND EDUCATIONAL REFORMER 35 
 
 back to Keilhau at the end of 1832. His place at Wil- 
 lisaii was taken by Langethal ; who was soon followed, 
 early in 1835, by Middendorff and Elise Froebel. 
 So Barop became, and henceforth remained, sole 
 director of Keilhau ; and by his skill and good man- 
 agement contrived in a few years to bring back pros- 
 l^erity to the parent establishment, to pay off all debts, 
 and to give assistance to the other branches of the 
 community. 
 
 In the summer of 1835 Froebel, accompanied by his 
 wife and by Langethal, removed to Burgdorf; and 
 shortly afterwards was appointed by the government 
 as the director of the orphanage, and in that capacity 
 had to give an annual course of lectures to teachers. 
 And so at last, in the town where thirty years before 
 Pestalozzi had labored with such success, Froebel found 
 himself publicly recognized and respected, and his 
 system publicly employed. It was here, amidst his 
 little orphans, as Barop points out, that the conviction 
 grew stronger than ever in Froebel's mind that " all 
 school education was yet without a proper initial foun- 
 dation, and that therefore until the education of the 
 nursery was reformed nothing solid and worthy could 
 be attained. The necessity for training gifted, capable 
 mothers occupied his mind, and the importance of the 
 education of childhood's earliest years became more 
 evident to him than ever before." It is in this period 
 that his idea of a mission to women may be said to 
 have definitely taken shape and significance. At this 
 time, too, though only for a short while, Froebel enter- 
 tained a project of going to the United States so as to 
 be able to establish his system in a new country ; but 
 
36 FROEBEL 
 
 he was persuaded to give it up ; and the brothers of 
 his friend Adolph Frankenberg emigrated without him. 
 But, as if rest was never to be his, he found ere long 
 that it was impossible for him to remain at Burgdorf. 
 His wife's health had completely broken down, and 
 she was longing to return to Germany. The doctors 
 also urged her going. So Langethal and Ferdinand 
 Froebel were appointed directors of the orphanage ; ^ 
 and in June, 1836, Froebel and his wife bid Switzer- 
 land, a final farewell and went to Berlin. 
 
 When Froebel came back from Berlin to Keilhau in 
 1837, the idea of an institution for the education of 
 little children had fully taken shape in his mind. 
 Barop took rooms for him in the neighboring small 
 town of Blankenburg. And here he forthwith put 
 his new scheme into practice, establishing what he 
 called " Anstalt f ur Kleinkinderpflege," or an institu- 
 tion for the fostering of little children. It soon 
 began to attract attention. The dowager Princess of 
 Schwarzburg-Eudolstadt came to see his experiment. 
 Barop and Frankenburg won the adherence of several 
 people both at Dresden and Leipzig. In January, 
 1839, Froebel himself gave an address at Dresden at 
 which the Queen of Saxony was present ; and a month 
 later he gave another at Leipzig. But in the midst 
 
 1 In 1841 Langethal left the community and accepted the direc- 
 tion of a girls' school in Bern — a step which Froebel never forgave. 
 After Froebel's death he returned to Keilhau and spent his last 
 years there. Ferdinand Froebel continued to be director of the or- 
 phanage till his death at a somewhat early age, when in recognition 
 of his services a public funeral was granted him. Willisau was 
 given up as a Froebelian institute when the Jesuits came into 
 power in 1839. 
 
TEACHER AND EDUCATIONAL REFORMER 37 
 
 of all this a great sorrow fell upon him and for a 
 while completely paralyzed him. His wife, who had 
 been out of health for some time, but who neverthe- 
 less had been of the very greatest help to him at 
 Blankenburg, died in May. Her loss seemed irre- 
 parable ; but soon, to win if not consolation at least 
 temporary forgetfulness, Froebel plunged more eagerly 
 into work than ever. Already several young teachers 
 had been sent to him to learn his system ; and now 
 he organized a set of training lectures to meet the 
 demand. By the end of 1839 two infant schools were 
 opened at Frankfurt under masters whom he had 
 trained ; while before that Middendorff, the staunch 
 and self-sacrificing, had returned to be FroebePs other 
 and more eloquent self, after an absence from wife and 
 child of four years. Froebel had long racked his 
 brains for a really suitable distinguishing name for 
 his new institution ; but hitherto without result. 
 " Middendorff and I," says Barop, " were one day 
 (about this time) walking to Blankenburg with him 
 over the Steiger Pass. He kept on repeating, ' Oh, if 
 I could only think of a good name for my youngest 
 born ! ' Blankenburg lay at our feet and he walked 
 moodily towards 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 ! ' " 
 
 Froebel now determined to make a great effort to 
 put the whole establishment at Blankenburg on a sat- 
 isfactory footing, and to include in it a training col- 
 lege in which women teachers should be shown how 
 
38 FROEBEL 
 
 to deal with little children up to the age of seven. 
 On May 1, 1840, an appeal for subscriptions was 
 issued ; and meanwhile he took advantage of the four 
 hundredth anniversary of the invention of printing 
 (June 28), to make his scheme well known to Blank- 
 enburg and the neighborhood. He succeeded so far 
 as to get the municipality to grant him the free use 
 of a place to work in ; but very few of the shares of 
 his joint-stock company were taken up either then or 
 afterwards. As of old, insufficient means and bad 
 management made life a hard struggle. In 1844, 
 Blankenburg had to be given up ; and Froebel deter- 
 mined to travel about Germany and expound his 
 views, taking with him his faithful and eloquent 
 friend Middendorff. Just before leaving Blanken- 
 burg, however, in 1843, he published a book which 
 was destined to become the most popular of all his 
 works, the charming song and picture book for mothers 
 and little children, Mutter- und Kose-Ueder, with which 
 I shall presently deal very fully. In the summer of 
 1844, Froebel and Middendorff started on their travels ; 
 and visited in succession Frankfurt, Heidelberg, Darm- 
 stadt, Cologne, Carlsruhe, and Stuttgart. Next year 
 they visited Saxony, and had the pleasure of seeing 
 at Dresden the kindergarten which had been estab- 
 lished there by Adolph Frankenberg, and which was 
 directed by his young wife. But the results of this 
 journey were few and unsatisfactory ; nor were those 
 of the journey of 1846 any better. Discouraged by 
 the reception he met with from men, and from pro- 
 fessional teachers in general, Froebel henceforth more 
 than ever addressed himself to women, — mothers and 
 
TEACHER AND EDUCATIONAL REFORMER 39 
 
 teachers, — and during the winters 1846-47 and 1847-48 
 gave courses of lectures specially for them at Keil- 
 hau. The number of those who attended was not 
 large ; but among them we may mention Middendorff 's 
 daughter Alwine, who afterwards married Dr. Wichard 
 Lange, and Luise Levin, who was destined to become 
 FroebeVs second wife. His constant association with 
 women, as M. Guillaume has remarked, is very dis- 
 tinctly traceable in the choice of occupations which 
 Froebel made for the kindergarten. A congress of 
 teachers, called by Froebel, met at Rudolstadt in 1848 ; 
 but he made little impression on them, and indeed 
 met with considerable opposition ; and in the autumn 
 he went off to Dresden to deliver a triple course of 
 lectures, theoretical and practical — this time with 
 decided success. In the spring of 1849 Froebel re- 
 turned to Keilhau ; and then settled at Liebenstein in 
 the Duchy of Saxe-Meiningen, intending to train kin- 
 dergarten teachers there with Luise Levin as his as- 
 sistant. Here it was that he met the ablest and most 
 public-spirited of his disciples, the Baroness Bertha 
 von Marenholtz-Biilow, to whom as an individual the 
 kindergarten movement has owed more than to any 
 one else except Froebel himself; and here he won the 
 at least partial adherence of the great Diesterweg, 
 who sent him his own daughter as a pupil. Towards 
 the close of 1849, at the request of the "Women's 
 Union,'' Froebel went to Hamburg to lecture on 
 women's education ; and though at first his audience 
 showed that they missed the easy, clear eloquence of 
 Middendorff, who had had a great success there earlier 
 in the year, in the end he had every reason to be sat- 
 
40 FROEBEL 
 
 isfied. It was on this occasion that he made the per- 
 sonal acquaintance of Dr. Wichard Lange. Unfor- 
 tunately the ^^ Women's Union" had also asked Karl 
 Froebel to lecture. He had separated himself from 
 his uncle in 1824, and was now a professor at Zurich. 
 Karl Froebel was an advanced liberal, of the party of 
 " Young Germany." His talk was somewhat revolu- 
 tionary, and his theme the emancipation of women. 
 It was inevitable that in the official mind some con- 
 fusion should arise between the uncle and the nephew. 
 In the spring of 1850 Froebel was back at Lieben- 
 stein; and shortly afterwards was able to move to 
 Marienthal, a little country-seat in the neighborhood, 
 the use of which as a training college had been 
 obtained for him by the kind intervention of the 
 Baroness von Marenholtz-Biilow. The evening of his 
 life seemed likely at last to be calm and happy. In 
 August, 1850, he organized a very successful children's 
 festival at Altenstein hard by ; and in the same year 
 founded a new Weekly Journal of Education under 
 the editorship of Dr. Lange. In July, 1851, he mar- 
 ried Luise Levin, to give her a home and to have 
 some one whom he loved to look after him ; and both 
 were calmly and sincerely happy. Suddenly a blow 
 was struck at him from Berlin. On August 7 ap- 
 peared a decree, issued by the Prussian minister of 
 education and religion, von Eaumer, forbidding the 
 foundation of kindergartens in Prussian states. " It 
 is evident," said the minister, " from a tract entitled 
 High Schools for Girls and Kindergartens, by Karl 
 Froebel, that kindergartens form a part of the Froe- 
 belian socialistic system, the aim of which is to 
 
TEACHER AND EDUCATIONAL REFORMER 41 
 
 teach children atheism. Schools, therefore, which 
 are directed on Froebel's or on analogous principles 
 cannot be tolerated." The confusion between the 
 uncle and the nephew was manifest ; and at first 
 Froebel and his friends thought that it would be easy 
 to get the interdict removed. But all their efforts 
 were in vain. It was not for the first time that the 
 government had had its eye on Froebel. The min- 
 ister would not allow that he was mistaken; and the 
 interdict remained in force till 1860. 
 
 What hurt the old teacher most, who of all men 
 was most truly religious, Avas the accusation of athe- 
 ism. But in a little while he plucked up his courage 
 again. If Prussia was closed and the movement mis- 
 represented and checked, still the rest of Germany 
 was open. He threw himself with redoubled ardor 
 into his work at Marienthal. On April 21, 1852, — 
 his seventieth birthday, — a happy family gathering 
 to celebrate the event cheered him considerably. But 
 immediately afterwards the Hamburg papers began 
 discussing his orthodoxy ; and the old man was deeply 
 pained to find that some people considered him anti- 
 Christian. At Whitsuntide a general conference of 
 teachers was held at Goth a, and Froebel was asked to 
 attend. Diesterweg's public approbation, and the 
 sense of the injustice of the interdict, no doubt 
 strongly influenced those present; but something 
 more was meant when, on the old teacher's entrance, 
 the whole assembly rose to their feet. He spoke on 
 natural science teaching, and was listened to with 
 great respect and attention, and given three hearty 
 cheers. It was a triumph; but the end was near. 
 
X 
 
 42 FROEBEL ^^ 
 
 On his return to Marienthal his health gave way 
 (June 6), and he took to his bed. Middendorff was 
 summoned at once, and did not leave him again. 
 During those last days his mind was constantly oc- 
 cupied by thoughts of the religious aspect of his 
 work. He frequently spoke of this to the friends 
 who had gathered round him. He remained quiet 
 and happy, and, as of old, showed great delight in 
 flowers. But gradually day by day he grew weaker. 
 At last, on June 21, murmuring "God the Father, 
 the Son, and the Holy Ghost. Amen," the old friend 
 and benefactor of children fell asleep. 
 
 Froebel rests in Liebenstein ; and Middendorff, who 
 followed his old comrade eighteen months later, lies 
 in Keilhau at the foot of the Kirschberg. Christian 
 Froebel had died in January, 1851. In the latter part 
 of 1852 the Marienthal training college was moved to 
 Keilhau, and there carried on by Middendorff and 
 Friedrich Froebel's widow. After Middendorff's death 
 (November 27, 1853) Froebel's widow continued the 
 work for a while, and then gave it up to become di- 
 rector of the Public Free Kindergarten in Hamburg. 
 Dr. Wichard Lange lived and worked for the cause 
 till 1884. Barop lived for many years, came into 
 a rich inheritance, and enjoyed many honors. The 
 University of Jena bestowed on him a doctor's degree 
 at its jubilee, and the Prince of Eudolstadt appointed 
 him councillor of education. 
 
\ 
 
 CHAPTER III 
 
 THE 
 
 "EDUCATION OF MAN" — SOME OF FROEBEL'S 
 LEADING PRINCIPLES 
 
 The Education of Man was published at Keilhau in 
 the year 1826. It is a somewhat condeusecl, and 
 always very lucid, statement of what Froebel thou 
 
 lie and his 
 'nst^||y)f ] 
 neral^^M] 
 
 \\. in 
 >3fct 
 
 friends 
 
 Keilhau, 
 
 ption of 
 
 life therein ; 
 
 education should mean — of what 
 were trying to make it mean in the Ins^ 
 He begins by setting forth "his^eneraf 
 the universe, and of the meaning of ma; 
 h«Lproceeds next to expound, illustrate, 
 gralof his leading principles — occasionally! 
 ing to establish the truth of some of 
 sound psychological basis, and following the 
 being, more or less systematically, throisghchildhood, 
 boyhood, and youth. Lastly, he explains 
 would have us deal with the chief subjects o 
 instruction. But in this respecwrts,,^iews we 
 fully worked until much later. He assuft^s^lil 
 conception of the universe and his stateme^ 
 law of evolution will be readily understood andaccl 
 without proof. But inasmuch as these assu 
 are liable to unduly increase our difficultly at the ve" 
 outset, I will, before going any further, endeavor t( 
 make clearer to younger students the somewhat pan- 
 
 43 
 
44 / FROEBEL 
 
 theistic view of creation which FroeJ^l sets forth, and 
 state briefly what is here meant by evolution. 
 
 In a quaint old book, written more than two hun- 
 dred and sixty years ago, and called lleligio Medici^ Sir 
 Thomas Browne, amongst a multitude of other things, 
 discourses (in part i, sect. 18) on what men call for- 
 tune or chance. He tells us that in this world of ours, 
 according to his view, " there is no liberty for causes 
 to operate in a loose and straggling way, nor any effect 
 whatsoever, but hath its warrant from some universal or 
 superior cause." And then, after showing how much of 
 what we call chance can, by the help of a little more 
 jpiowledge, be readily seen to be not chance at all, and, 
 like Bacon in hij^ Essay on Atheism, insisting that 
 man's ignor^jj^ makes him rest in " second causes " 
 instead oftJRceeding^ to a higher primary cause, he 
 sums up his opinion in these words : " Though we 
 christen effects by their most sensible and nearest 
 causes^ yet is God the true and infallible cause of 
 all; whose concourse {i.e. concurrence, co-operation), 
 JiiGugh it be general, yet doth it subdivide itself into 
 the particular actions of everything, and is that spirit 
 by which each singular essence not only subsists, but 
 performs its operation." The Education of Man opens 
 with almost the very same words. In the De Imitatione 
 Christi (bk.i, chap. 3) we read : " The man to whom all 
 tilings are one, who refers all things to one and sees all 
 things in one, he can stand firm and be at peace in God." 
 So, a^n, Carlyle's views as described by Froude,^ are 
 strikingly like Froebel's : " God to him was the fact 
 of facts. He looked upon this whole system of vis- 
 1 Life of Carlyle, vol. ii, p. 6. 
 
THE ** EDUCATION OF MAN" 45 
 
 ible or spiritual phenomena as a manifestation of 
 the will of God in constant forces — forces not 
 mechanical but dynamic, interpenetrating and con- 
 trolling all existing things from the utmost bounds 
 of space to the smallest granule on earth's surface : 
 from the making of the world to the lightest action 
 of a man. God's law was everywhere; man's wel- 
 fare depended on the faithful reading of it. Society 
 was but a higher organism, no accidental agreement 
 of individual persons or families to live together on 
 conditions which they could arrange for themselves, 
 but a natural growth, the conditions of which were 
 already laid down. Human life was like a garden ' to 
 which the Will was gardener,' and the moral fruits 
 and flowers, or the immoral and poisonous weeds, grew 
 inevitably according as the rules already appointed 
 were discovered and obeyed, or slighted, overlooked, 
 or defied." The idea of God in nature was not 
 invented by Froebel, nor by Sir Thomas Browne, nor 
 by Carl vie. We can follow it back through hundreds 
 and hundreds of years. Wherever there has been 
 monotheism, or even a tendency to monotheism, there, 
 in one form or another, has the idea been present. 
 Men starting from the causes they could readily recog- 
 nize, and working back to other causes behind these, 
 and so back and back from cause to cause, from what- 
 ever part of knowledge they might set out, have always 
 seemed to be gradually drawing towards one central^ 
 fundamental cause of all. This central first cause 
 many have called God. If they hold that this first 
 cause has no existence apart from the universe in which 
 it works we call them pantheists. But numberless 
 
46 FROEBEL 
 
 others, like Browne and Wordsworth, for instance, 
 while recognizing, and even insisting upon, the con- 
 stant presence and operation of God in the universe, 
 hold that God has also a separate existence of his own. 
 , This was Froebel's view. It does not contradict Chris- 
 tianity. We may call Browne, and Wordsworth, and 
 Froebel pantheistic Christians. But here a warning 
 is needed. Since all things live and have their being 
 in and through God, and the divine principle that 
 works in each thing is the essence of the life of that 
 thing (sect, 1)/ all things are liable in Froebel's 
 mind to become symbols; not only to be adopted 
 as and made into symbols, but in their very essence 
 to he symbols, made for our learning, part of the in- 
 direct means used by God to reveal and express him- 
 self. So in sect. 69 of the Education of Man (and 
 still more in a treatise written 1811) the sphere 
 becomes the symbol of diversity in unity and unity in 
 diversity, and of other abstract ideas. In sects. 70-72 
 Froebel finds strange sermons in the faces and edges 
 of crystals ; and in sect. 73, the numbers 3 and 5 in 
 connection with plants atid flowers have as many 
 mystic meanings as abracadabra. Other instances 
 might be added ; but these will be enough to indicate 
 the presence here and there in the Education of Man 
 of a symbolism which has no real connection with its 
 fundamental principles or with the argument drawn 
 from them, and which is often very confusing. 
 
 Another difficulty has to do with the theory of 
 evolution, or, as it is often called, development. Like 
 
 1 The references throughout are to Haihnann's translation of the 
 Education of Man. 
 
THE "EDUCATION OF MAN" 47 
 
 all other great truths, the law of evolution has only 
 "part by part to man revealed the fulness of its 
 face.'' It existed in fragments and partial applica- 
 tions before Darwin, and Wallace, and Herbert Spen- 
 cer. They proved it and extended it ; but FroebePs 
 great claim to distinction will always rest on the fact 
 that he was the first to apply the theory soundly and 
 completely to education, and, having so applied it, to 
 translate it into practice. Even Spencer — whose 
 psychology Froebel's most nearly resembles, and 
 many pages of whose Essay on Education might have 
 been taken straight from the Education of Man — 
 stops short at general precepts, not always complete 
 nor always possible. Froebel alone translates psy- 
 chological principles into psychological practice. 
 
 Let me try to state, as clearly as I can, this theory 
 of development as applied to education (sects. 8, 
 23). The first thing to note in the idea of devel- 
 opment is that it indicates, not an increase in bulk 
 or quantity (though it may include this), but an 
 increase in complexity of structure, an improvement 
 in power, skill, and variety in the performance of 
 natural functions. We say that a thing is fully devel- 
 oped when its internal organization is perfect in every 
 detail, and when it can perform all its natural actions 
 or functions perfectly. If we apply this distinction 
 to mind, an increase in bulk will be represented by 
 an increase in the amount of material retained in 
 the mind, in the memory ; development will be a per- 
 fecting of, so to speak, the structure of the mind 
 itself, an increase of insight into the connectedness of 
 knowledge, an increase of power and skill and variety 
 
48 FROEBEL 
 
 in dealing with knowledge, and in putting knowledge 
 to all its natural uses. The next thing to consider is 
 how this development is produced. How can we aid 
 in promoting this change from germ to complete 
 organism, from partially developed thing to more 
 highly developed thing? The answer comes from 
 every part of creation with ever-increasing clearness 
 and emphasis — development is produced by exercise 
 of function, use of faculty. Neglect or disuse of any 
 part of'aii organism leads to the dwindling, and some- 
 times even to the disappearance, of that part. And 
 this applies not only to individuals, but stretches also 
 from parent to child, from generation to generation, 
 constituting then what we call heredity, or what 
 Froebel calls the connectedness of humanity. Slowly 
 through successive generations a faculty or organ may 
 dwindle and decay, or may be brought to greater and 
 greater perfection. As Froebel puts it, humanity 
 past, present, and future is one continuous whole. 
 The amount of development, then, possible in any 
 particular case, plainly depends partly on the original 
 outfit, and partly (and as a rule in a greater measure) 
 on the opportunities there have been for exercise, and 
 the use made of those opportunities. If we wish to 
 develop the hand, we must exercise the hand. If we 
 wish to develop the body, we must exercise the body. 
 If we wish to develop the mind, we must exercise the 
 mind. If we wish to develop the whole human being, 
 we must exercise the whole human being. But will 
 any exercise suffice ? Again the answer is clear. 
 Only that exercise which is given at the right time, 
 which is always in harmony with the nature^of the 
 
THE "EDUCATION OF MAN" 49 
 
 thing, and which is always proportioned to the 
 strength of the thing, produces true development. 
 All other exercise is partially or wholly hurtful. And 
 another condition, evident in every case, becomes still 
 more evident when we apply these laws to the mind. 
 y^ To produce development most truly and effectively, 
 y the exercise must arise from and be sustained by the 
 f thing's own activity — its own natural powers, and all 
 I of them (as far as these are in any sense connected 
 with the activity proposed) should be awakened and 
 become naturally actii^e. If, for instance, we desire to 
 further the development of a plant, what we have 
 to do is to induce the plant (and the whole of it) to 
 become active in its own natural way, and to help it 
 to sustain that activity. We may abridge the time ; 
 we may modify the result ; but we must act through 
 and by the plant's own activity. This activity of 
 a thing's own self we call self-activity) {sect. 9). 
 The mind is generally considered in tlie light of its 
 three activities of knowing, feeling, and willing. The 
 exercise which aims at producing mental development 
 must be in harmony with the nature of knowing, 
 feeling, and willing, and continually in proportion to 
 their strength. And further, it is found that the 
 more the activity is that of the whole mind, the more 
 it is the mind's own activity — self-produced, and self- 
 maintained, and self-directed — the better is the 
 result. In other words, knowing, feeling, and willing 
 must all take their rightful share in the exercise ; and 
 in particular, feeling and willing — the mind's powers 
 of prompting and nourishing, of maintaining and 
 directing its own activities — must never be neglected. 
 
60 FROEBEL 
 
 These are some of the main principles of that uni- 
 versal law to which Froebel so often refers, and of 
 which his system is the most thoughtful and diligent 
 application. They must, therefore, be the perpetual 
 guide of every teacher. But Froebel carries the law 
 further. "To be wise," he says (sect. 4), "is the 
 highest aim of man." Now mankind as a whole, and 
 the individual man, just as all other created things, 
 are alike subject to this law of evolution. The tru- 
 est wisdom, the greatest happiness and peace, lie in 
 intelligent, willing, self-submission to, and in intelli- 
 gent, vigorous fulfilment of, the law of our being and 
 our life — in living by this law and acting the law we 
 live by without fear. Man must, therefore, be led to 
 a consciousness of, an intelligent insight into, this law 
 as the ruling life-principle in nature, in humanity, and 
 in himself. For so only will man attain to wisdom ; 
 so only will mankind and the whole creation move 
 forward to godlike completion and fulfilment, and 
 "burst at length into the perfect flower." It is Froe- 
 bePs ceaseless endeavor to show us how this conscious- 
 ness, and insight, and knowledge of the law of all life 
 may be awakened and made clear and kept effective. 
 This is another essential part of his system. But 
 though it is constantly a source of strength, it is also 
 at times a source of weakness in the views he sets 
 forth ; for in ceaselessly trying to make law and unity 
 apparent in everything, Froebel is occasionally drawn 
 into artificiality and mere fancy, as, for instance, in 
 some of the applications of his " reconciliation of 
 opposites," or " connection of contrasts," by which 
 he means the rendering evident of likeness and 
 
THE ** EDUCATION OF MAN'' 61 
 
 relationship underlying difference or apparent opposi- 
 tion.^ 
 
 I do not propose to rewrite the Education of Man, 
 but only to bring forward and make clear its main 
 principles, and to explain their application to prac- 
 tice. And since later on I shall deal very fully with 
 the ethical part of Froebel's method, I shall now 
 restrict myself almost entirely to what has reference 
 to intellectual and physical development^^ 
 
 I said just now that development depends on the 
 exercise being given when it is needed, at its being in 
 harmony with the nature of the thing, and in propor- 
 tion to the strength of the thing exercised. From 
 this we get at once the highly important principle that ^ 
 there must be continuity in education. As that which is ^ 
 exercised grows constantly capable of higher and more 
 varied activity, so must the exercise given grow con- 
 tinuously higher and more varied in character — keep- 
 ing pace with the development, never outrunning it 
 too eagerly, nor lagging lazily behind — every stage 
 growing naturally out of that which precedes. If we 
 now add the principle that we should aim at the 
 development, and therefore at the exercise of the 
 human being as a whole, we shall see that education 
 as a whole should be continuous — every part related 
 to every other part, every part helping and advancing 
 every other part. The interconnection of all the 
 parts of education, and of all the parts of knowledge 
 
 1 Thus, the opposites "rest" and "motion" are reconciled by 
 the idea of the composition of forces. In the former the forces ex- 
 actly neutralize one another; in the latter they do not. (See Edu- 
 cation of Martt sect. 25.) This principle will be returned to later. 
 
62 FROEBEL 
 
 used in education, is called by Froebel connectedness. 
 This view is considerably strengthened when we ob- 
 serve that, to the young child, as to primitive human- 
 ity, all knowledge does, as a matter of fact, come as 
 one whole, and that the subdivision into subjects and 
 departments is a very gradually evolved i)lan, for the 
 most part wholly artificial, and only adopted for the 
 sake of convenience. Moreover, the very nature of 
 knowledge itself teaches the necessity for connected- 
 ness. Facts in isolation, and unrelated to one another, 
 do not form knowledge. Facts have to be compared, 
 classified, organized, connected, before they become 
 what we call knowledge. Knowledge grows when 
 new facts are rightly connected with facts already 
 arranged and organized, and when the connections 
 perceived are made clearer and clearer, and are wi- 
 dened and deepened and multiplied. And so, since 
 education has largely to do ^with^iniiucing the right 
 acquirement of knowledge and the right use of knowl- 
 edge, the task of the educator must largely consist in 
 bringing out, and making clear, and maintaining the 
 
 , connectedness of facts and things. Education should 
 be one connected whole, and should advance with an 
 orderly and continuous growth — as orderly, continu- 
 ous, and natural as the growth of a plant (sects. 22, 
 46). 
 
 ^J^ Kow let us apply another part of the law of devel- 
 opment — that which requires self-activity. In dealing 
 with the material world around him, the child cannot 
 add to the quantity or variety of material ; but he can 
 observe it, search into it, and find what is not imme- 
 diately apparent to look or touch ; and he Can discover 
 
THE ** EDUCATION OF MAN'' 68 
 
 relations between the different parts of a thing, or of 
 one thing to other things. All this may be his own 
 work, may be produced by self-activity. But the 
 interest a child can take in observing is limited and 
 of short duration ; the search for what is not immedi- 
 ately apparent is often either beyond his powers or 
 only yields results as yet unintelligible to him ; the 
 discovery of relations deals too much with what is 
 more or less abstract to have much meaning or value 
 for him at first. Moreover all this, even when it is 
 produced by self-activity, does not satisfy other con- 
 ditions of development. In two respects it is dis- 
 tinctly one-sided: it has to do almost wholly with 
 mental activity, and that mainly knowing^ the physical 
 nature being given little or nothing to do ; and it is 
 restricted to taking in and to partial assimilating; 
 while development, as we have described it, or as a 
 moment's thought will show, consists in taking in/ 
 assimilating, and giving out. Moreover, knowledge is 
 to be given at the right time. Mind-growth is aided 
 by the mind being enabled to take in the kind of 
 knowledge it needs, just so much of it as it needs, 
 and just when it needs this knowledge ; by its being 
 enabled to work this knowledge up into its very 
 self, and to use it as a means of life. Therefore 
 observation and discovery are not enough for our 
 purpose — especially in the earlier years. Something 
 must be added to them — something which renders 
 more of the human being active, and which has to 
 do with giving out or expression. Now, though we 
 cannot add to the quantity or variety of material, We 
 can modify its form, and we can arrange it in new 
 
64 FROEBEL 
 
 combinations. This work, or doing, will call into 
 activity more of the mind; will require the co-opera- 
 tion of some of the physical powers; readily takes 
 the form of giving outward definite expression to 
 ideas and mental images ; and it is easily united to 
 observation and discovery, and is immensely improved 
 by being so united. This making of new forms and 
 combinations (rising from the merest imitation of 
 models up to the most original inventions), this giv- 
 ing of definite expression to ideas and mental images, 
 this "rendering of the inner outer," is the great 
 Froebelian doctrine of creativeness (see sects, 23, 94, 
 etc.) It is the practical application of the princi- 
 ple of self-activity^ and, together with the doctrines of 
 continuity and connectedness^ it forms the true heart 
 of Froebel's system. It gives their very life-blood to 
 all the songs and games ; and it is the living principle 
 in all the occupations, which without it are mere 
 sticks and stones, and bits of paper. We need not 
 be dismayed at the quaint religious views at times 
 mixed up with it (sect, 23). A religious form of 
 expression is as natural to Froebel as foliage to a tree. 
 The principle, taken as a clue to difficulties and a test 
 of method, will be found of great assistance. Year 
 by year the recognition of it steadily grows ; and it 
 may some day change the character of a great part of 
 our education. Meanwhile it is not wholly unfamiliar 
 to many of us in that somewhat limited application of 
 Froebel's precepts which we call Sloyd. 
 
 I might now go more deeply into the psychological 
 aspect of creativeness, and show how, in aiding the 
 child to express itself, we are aiding it in learning to 
 
 .^v 
 
THE "EDUCATION OF MAN" 56 
 
 discriminate between itself and the sensuous world 
 around it, — aiding it in the recognition of its own 
 identity, — a most important matter in the growth 
 of mind {sect. 44, etc.). But this would take me too 
 far into the region of psychology pure and simple, 
 and so I will turn to consider some of the most strik- 
 ing applications which Froebel makes of this doctrine 
 of expression. 
 
 It was natural enough that a disciple of Pestalozzi's 
 should have much to tell us about the educational 
 values of form, language, and number, and the neces- 
 sity for keeping these closely connected; and that 
 Froebel himself should constantly deal with them, not 
 as parts of knowledge, but as instruments of expres- 
 sion. It was natural, too, that a man with Froebel's 
 psychological cast of mind and earnest desire to get 
 at the inner meaning of things, should seek in all 
 of these for their primary components or elements. 
 Such an analysis must always be valuable as a train- 
 ing, and the resultant knowledge must itself, as a 
 guide, be very useful to a teacher. But mankind has 
 never begun with elements. Human knowledge and 
 the results of human activity have always been at first 
 confused, inexact, indefinite, containing much which 
 afterwards proved to be useless — though for a time, 
 like an alloy in metals, it made the material work 
 better. Progress in the race, and in the individual, 
 has always been an advance towards clearer percep- 
 tion, greater exactness, a more decided marking of 
 limits, and the discarding more and more of all that 
 is extraneous. A child's work, and a child's knowledge 
 must always begin in this way, and progress in this 
 
66 FROEBEL 
 
 way. It does not seem to me that Froebel always 
 keeps this fundamental principle sufficiently in view ; 
 or perhaps it would be fairer to say that when he 
 wrote the Education of Man^ Froebel had not yet 
 fully grasped the value and significance of this prin- 
 ciple. Rosmini saw it clearly enough, and suggests 
 more than one application of it. But Froebel seems 
 now and then to be premature in his insistence on 
 the use of elements. In particular his drawing for 
 older but still young children, in the Education ofMauy 
 except in sects. 36 and 37, mainly reduces itself to 
 work in checkers with straight and curved lines (which 
 he considers elements). He seems to think that chil- 
 dren see the outlines of things, and gives them the 
 elements of outline to work with. But children — and 
 a great many adults also — do not see outlines at all 
 at first, or only very dimly. Things appear to them 
 as masses of color, or of light and shade, with edges 
 not by any means sharply defined. We should begin 
 with masses of color and light and shade, and work 
 gradually towards improvement of outline — at least 
 so it seems to some of us. I fancy Froebel may have 
 at first thought that the drawing of forms of life was 
 too difficult and that in it there was too much imita- 
 tion and too little inventiveness. I readily allow the 
 inventiveness exercised by his plan, and I think the 
 
 1 Froebel lived twenty-six years after writing the Education of 
 Man (1826) , and during that time published many valuable articles 
 and essays. When shall we have these translated ? It should be borne 
 in mind that the system of Gifts and Occupations did not take its 
 first form till about 183() (Gifts 1 to 5), or its final form till about 
 1844. In this final form there is a marked advance on much that is 
 laid down in the Education of Man. 
 
THE "EDUCATION OF MAN'' 67 
 
 checker-work full of useful suggestions, and a valu- 
 able introduction to writing — though I think the 
 sticks and rings are much better. But I hold that the 
 inventiveness is far too little free, and very liable to 
 resolve itself into what is mainly mechanical. Checker- 
 work also affords but little help in exercising expres- 
 sion, for that to which it gives outward visible shape 
 corresponds but in a very limited way to what is 
 in the chiUVs mind. It rather suggests new things 
 to the child than expresses thoughts already his. On 
 the other hand, I would urge that we do not expect 
 children's drawings to be at first much more than 
 barely intelligible; the drawings should be expres- 
 sions of what the children think about and care 
 for, as Froebel himself says (sects. 36, 37); and by 
 modifying and rearranging details, or re-grouping 
 things as wholes, forms of life may be made to give 
 plenty of scope for invention. Nor should we forget 
 that if we are to keep education as one connected whole 
 all through, then children should draw the things which 
 they see and touch, which they count and read about and 
 are told of — just as they should be exercised in speak- 
 ing about the things they touch and see. This, in fact, 
 is the view which Froebel himself more fully adopts 
 in his later writings.^ In the Education of Man his 
 methods for little children are only partly worked out ; 
 and many of them require the modifications which 
 they afterwards received. In many of these the mis- 
 take, if I may call it one, consists in building up the 
 subject from its elements, instead of working upon 
 
 1 See the paper *' Des Kindes Zeicheulust " (The Child's Delight in 
 Drawing) in the volume of Froebel's essays entitled Die Pddarjrf/ik 
 des Kindergartens, 
 
58 FROEBEL 
 
 what the child knows, and developing that. It closely 
 resembles the mistake of beginning language with 
 grammar and grammar-exercises. But here it is 
 only the very initial stage which suffers to any ex- 
 tent, the higher stages in number and speech being 
 in many ways excellently handled; while the treat- 
 ment of the initial stage itself was much modified 
 when, after 1840, Froebel had had some experience 
 in actual kindergarten work. 
 
 The constant theme of the Education of Marty as 
 I have said, is the application of the law of evolu- 
 tion to education, an exposition of how the devel- 
 opment of the whole human being is to be produced 
 — not only in early childhood, but from birth con- 
 tinuously onward to full-grown manhood. It is 
 addressed not only to teachers, but also to parents, 
 especially mothers — in many parts mainly to moth- 
 ers ; and the Mutter- und Kose-Ueder is only a riper 
 statement and more detailed exemplification of a part 
 of its theories and methods — also chiefly for the 
 benefit of mothers. Indeed, there is nothing more 
 admirable in both these books than the enthusiastic 
 recognition of the high meaning of domestic duty and 
 the keen insight into, and the vivid description of the 
 educational value of household work. The way in 
 which we are made to feel the true dignity and edu- 
 cative power of all necessary human labor is some- 
 thing almost unique ; and compels us to recognize that 
 Froebel is the wisest guide for nursery, and kinder- 
 garten, and school, because he deals with their prob- 
 lems as one who has already attained to a true 
 philosophy of life. We do not only gain professional 
 
THE »' EDUCATION OF MAN" 59 
 
 knowledge as teachers through studying his books, 
 we also learn to live out our own lives more wisely, 
 more strenuously, and more fruitfully; and win in 
 every way a wider sense of human fellowship. Next 
 to this striking, this philosophic utilization of common 
 human work, not merely as a means for bread-getting, 
 but as a means of spiritual development, what will 
 most probably catch a student's attention is the utili- 
 zation in the same manner of children's play and their 
 love of stories. Many writers before Froebel recog- 
 nized the value of play in early childhood. Plato, 
 Quintilian, Luther, F^nelon, Locke, Richter, and 
 others, all noticed some of its beneficent effects. But 
 to Froebel alone belongs the credit of having seen its 
 true evolutionary meaning, and the part it should take 
 in education. This idea in its fulness did not come to 
 him at once. In the Education of Man its significance 
 is suggested rather than distinctly described ; and it 
 was not till many years later that its application to 
 kindergarten methods was completely worked out- 
 But that application — which shows such insight, 
 resource, and originality — marks an epoch in the 
 history of education. Very noticeable too is what is 
 said of stories {sect. 98), and how they exercise 
 the intellectual, aesthetic, and ethical sentiments — 
 though no moral, Froebel warns us, is to be tagged 
 on to them. But it is in the use to which Froebel 
 put them in later years that he is most original. 
 They serve to bring the whole of the work of the 
 kindergarten into close connectedness and to keep 
 it connected. They deal with the things whicli the 
 children have observed and handled and constructed ; 
 
60 FROEBEL 
 
 they use and improve the children's vocabulary and 
 mode of expression ; they are enlivened and dramati- 
 cally made intelligible by the songs and games ; and 
 they are pictured out and made sources of new interest 
 by drawings, paintings, and objects of various kinds, 
 some new to the children, and some their own work 
 freshly constructed for the particular story. The right 
 and full use of the story is the most difficult task a 
 kindergarten teacher can undertake. A charming 
 and fresh manner is much, but it is not everything — 
 careful thought is required, and with this a skill like 
 that of the conductor of an orchestra, to bring out in 
 right place and in right pitch all that every instru- 
 ment should contribute to the music of the whole. 
 But all this belongs to a later stage in the develop- 
 ment of Froebel's views. 
 
 / Two other points in this remarkable book must at 
 least be referred to here, though the full treatment of 
 them must be left for a later chapter : Nature-study and 
 the educational value of Art. The importance given 
 to nature-study (and with it, later on, gardening and 
 the keeping of pet animals) was no doubt originally 
 learnt from Pestalozzi. But, like all great artists 
 and thinkers, Froebel rarely borrows anything with- 
 out giving it a new significance and a wider applica- 
 tion. In nature-study the knowledge of external fact 
 is not the only thing, nor the chief thing, which he 
 seeks. Besides exercising faculty he desires that the 
 young should gradually and continuously come to feel 
 and to see that laws underlie all organic formation, 
 and that conformity with those laws is the funda- 
 mental, unvarying condition of all true every-sided 
 
THE ** EDUCATION OF MAN'' 61 
 
 development towards perfection — in other things 
 first, and then in themselves; while gardening and 
 the care of animals should, in addition to this, also 
 make labor a pleasure and a duty. So, again, when 
 using art as an instrument of his system {sects. 84, 
 85), he does not undertake to form artists, but seeks 
 to awaken the ideal side of human nature, and to 
 produce in the young a feeling and a perception that 
 in all beauty there is a perfection of the thing after 
 its own kind — another experience of the beneficent 
 results of law and harmony. 
 
 I have now, I trust, fairly opened out the essentials 
 of my subject, so that henceforward I may move more 
 freely, and not be obliged, whenever I refer to funda- 
 mental ideas and leading doctrines, to describe in each 
 case what these are and on what precisely they are 
 based. I have not attempted to explain, or even to 
 refer to, all that is expounded or suggested in the 
 Education of Man. It is not my desire to rewrite the 
 book, or to save students the trouble of reading it — 
 I should be no true friend to them if I did. My 
 endeavor has been to make as clear as in my power 
 lies certain matters which experience has shown me 
 must be first clearly understood — at any rate, in their 
 simpler forms — before any real comprehension and 
 appreciation of the rest is in any way easy or perhaps 
 possible. When I have examined FroebePs other 
 great book, the Mutter- imd Kose-lieder, I shall return 
 to the subject of principles and doctrines, and shall 
 endeavor to set these forth more fully and more con- 
 nectedly, both in their relations to intellectual and 
 physical education and in their relation to ethical 
 
62 FROEBEL 
 
 training and social well-being. Meanwhile it may 
 not be out of place here to warn the enthusiastic 
 student that FroebePs educational system — which he 
 went on modifying and improving to the very last 
 month of his life — was not looked on by him as a 
 stationary, completed thing, a stereotyped plan to be 
 handed from one to another, and to be reproduced 
 with mechanical, unchanging imitation ; nor as a light 
 and airy fancy which any gentle heart can build on a 
 summer's afternoon, — the sole prerequisites for which 
 are liveliness and a love of children. Education, in 
 FroebePs view, is the application of the law of evolu- 
 tion, of the laws of all life, to the training of human 
 beings. These human beings and these laws of life 
 have both to be studied and understood ; and, there- 
 fore, as long as our knowledge of life and of nature 
 increases, as long as our knowledge of mankind in- 
 creases, as long as our knowledge of children increases 
 — as long as all these become clearer, better defined, 
 and more accurate — so long must our ideas of educa- 
 tion grow and develop, and our methods of education 
 be changed and modified and improved. As well as 
 liveliness and a love of children, a kindergarten stu- 
 dent must possess a knowledge of psychology and a 
 mind capable of scientific modes of thought. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE BfUTTER- UND KOSE-LIEDER— INFANT GAMES AND 
 SONGS, THEIR MEANING AND EDUCATIONAL VALUE 
 
 A PERIOD of seventeen years separates the publica- 
 tion of the Mutter- uiid Kose-Ueder, or Songs for 
 Mother and for Nursei^^ from that of the Education 
 of Man — a period of constant school work, of careful 
 observation and experiment, and of much thoughtful- 
 ness. Just as the Education of Man was in the main 
 the outcome of FroebePs ten years* experience in his 
 own " Universal German Educational Institute " at 
 Keilhau, so the Mutter- und Kose-lieder was one of 
 the results of three years' experience in the kinder- 
 gartens of Blankenburg, Rudolstadt, and Gera — and 
 of course of the gathered and organized experience of 
 all the years which preceded these. In June of 1840 
 the first kindergarten was opened at Blankenburg, as 
 we have already related. In the next year a small, 
 collection of Koseliedchen was printed by Froebel. 
 And in 1843 this collection was expanded and devel- 
 oped into his famous Mutter- und Kose-lieder. Froe- 
 bel's letters ^ to his friends and fellow-workers during 
 the three years referred to, show very clearly the care 
 with which the songs were collected and submitted to 
 mothers for experiment and criticism. Writing to 
 
 1 Edited by Hermann Poesche, and translated into English by 
 Emilie Michaelis andHJKfi^lev Moore, B. A., B. Mus. 
 
64 FROEBEL 
 
 his cousin, Mrs. Schmidt, in 1841, for instance, and 
 referring to the earlier collection — the Koseliedchen 
 — Froebel says, "To help the child to use his own 
 body, his limbs, and his sensations, and to assist 
 mothers, and those who take the place of mothers, to 
 the consciousness of their duties towards the children 
 and to a lofty conception of those duties, I have care- 
 fully preserved several little songs and games as they 
 have occurred to me in the course of my life." He 
 asks for her severest criticism, and adds, " If you 
 could give the little songs to mothers who have quite 
 young children, so that they may test them thoroughly, 
 or if you are able yourself thus to try them, I should 
 be above all things delighted." That Froebel aimed 
 at producing something other than a mere everyday 
 baby book of rhymes and pictures is evident on even 
 the briefest examination. Besides we know that he 
 made the Mutter- und Kose-lieder the foundation of his 
 own lectures on theory to kindergarten teachers. " I 
 have here laid down," he repeatedly said, "the funda- 
 mental ideas of my educational principles. Whoever 
 has grasped the pivot idea of this book understands 
 what I am aiming at." "This book is the starting- 
 
 t point of a natural system of education for the first 
 years of life ; for it teaches the way in which the 
 germs of human dispositions should be nourished and 
 fostered, if they are to attain to complete and healthy 
 development." Let me give an example — a brief, 
 but a fairly representative one, TJie Weathercock. We 
 have a picture — a rough wood cut — of a country 
 scene. A group of children are in a meadow. The 
 wind is blowing. There is a weathercock on the 
 
THE MUTTER- UND KOSE-LIEDER 66 
 
 church steeple. One boy flies a kite ; another holds 
 up a flag; and a little girl lets her handkerchief 
 flutter in the wind. In the background the wind 
 blows about the clothes which are hung out on a line 
 to dry. More to the front it tosses the branches of 
 the trees ; and even ruflles up the feathers of the 
 cocks and hens. At the top of the picture is a hand, 
 held up so as to represent a weathercock. Beneath 
 it are a motto (addressed to the mother) and a little 
 song which the mother may sing to her baby. The 
 motto runs thus : * 
 
 If your child's to understand 
 
 Things that other people do, 
 You must let his tiny hand 
 Carry out the same things too. 
 This is the reason why, 
 Never still, 
 Baby will 
 Imitate whatever' s by. 
 
 The song is to this effect ; 
 
 As the cock up on the tower 
 Turns in wind and storm and shower, 
 Baby can bend his hand and leani 
 To get new joy at every turn. 
 
 Even in the original this song is a very poor produc- 
 tion, and decidedly below the general level of the rest. 
 But, to be quite frank, Froebel is not a good writer of 
 verse even for very little people. Later on we are 
 given a tune for the song, and Froebel's own explana- 
 tion of the picture and the use to be made of it. 
 Briefly stated, the subject of the picture is to attract 
 1 1 quote from the translation by Frances and Emily Lord. 
 
m FROEBEL 
 
 the child's attention to its own experiences both past 
 and to come, and to serve the mother as a subject to 
 talk about to the little one. Either while looking at 
 the picture or when looking at a weathercock, the 
 child may be given a useful little physical exercise. 
 It should be shown how to hold its forearm vertically, 
 spread out its fingers horizontally, keeping the thumb 
 erect, and then imitate the weathercock by moving 
 the hand slowly to and fro from the wrist, while the 
 mother sings the song which baby will also imitate. 
 We have thus a little lesson in observation, language, 
 physical exercise, and simple singing, fitted for a child 
 of about two years of age ; and it should be noticed 
 that it all springs from the picture, which speaks to a 
 little child much more intelligibly and forcibly than 
 any words can ever do. But this is not all. The child 
 can feel the wind and see its effects ; but it cannot see 
 the wind. Here then is a force — a something with 
 power to do — which can be distinctly perceived and 
 yet not seen. Of course we cannot, and we should not, 
 attempt to explain to the child what the wind is, 
 for it would not understand our explanation ; but as 
 Froebel points out, the child will get an inkling, a 
 hint, of an unseen power in nature — '^a being that is 
 in the clouds and air '' to use Wordsworth's phrase — 
 and though it is but a very small and dim experience 
 of the unseen and the spiritual, yet it will serve. It 
 is enough for so small a child, and should not be 
 tampered with by any intrusive adult. It is a very 
 minute matter, no doubt, but must not be overlooked 
 on that account. The whole book is an attempt 
 to deal with minute beginnings, fine points leading 
 
THE MUTTER- UND KOSE-LIEDER 67 
 
 to fine issues, which in the end are by no means 
 minute. 
 
 It must be borne in mind that the book is in the 
 first place addressed to mothers ; and what is set 
 forth is intended for home use. But, inasmuch as the 
 kindergarten is a continuation and expansion of 
 liome-life, the same spirit and purpose which should 
 inspire and direct the nursery should inspire and 
 direct the garden of children, its games and songs and 
 stories and occupations. To understand the Mutter- 
 tuid Kose-Ueder, therefore, we must study it, not as 
 merely containing something to be reproduced in the 
 kindergarten, but as containing practical and concrete 
 illustrations of principles and modes of action — which 
 illustrations will in practice require to be changed 
 and modified whenever the circumstances and sur- 
 roundings of the child are changed. 
 
 Before entering further into a description and dis- 
 cussion of the book, let me mention some of its draw- 
 backs, so that these may no further trouble us. I 
 have already pointed out that the verses are in gen- 
 eral distinctly poor. The pictures too are somewhat 
 rough and ill-drawn, but, on the whole, adequate. 
 Children do not show any decided preference for 
 highly finished and elaborate works of art — any more 
 than for extravagantly beautiful dolls and other toys. 
 In fact it is just as easy in pictures as in language 
 and other things to be much too artistic for little 
 people. It is, however, a serious defect to find that 
 there is no definite arrangement or sequence in the 
 book. In one song the baby is in arms ; in the next 
 he is some four or five years old ; and then back we 
 
68 FKOEBEL 
 
 come again to the age of two. Instead of addressing 
 the mother in the heading or motto only, and making 
 the songs the simple wording of the child's own 
 natural utterances, or a simple address of the mother 
 to her child, Froebel addresses the mother in the 
 songs themselves (as in The Little Boy and the 
 Moon, etc.). Or, again, here and there, a song and 
 game is introduced — as in The Garden Gate, or 
 The Little Gardener — not so much for the purpose 
 of actual use, as- for the sake of drawing the mother's 
 attention to what the child should do when out of 
 doors ; while in a few cases — as in Jjongways and 
 Crossways — the allegorical interpretations are much 
 too fanciful and far-fetched. Nevertheless, Froebel 
 is right in saying that the book, as a whole, will teach 
 us what he is aiming at ; and if we come to it with 
 some slight knowledge of his principles, we shall find 
 it of the greatest value as a guide to practice. With 
 all its imperfections — which after all are not many 
 when compared with its merits — it is absolutely in- 
 dispensable for a kindergarten teacher ; and to no one 
 can it fail to bring renewed assurance of the use and 
 entire feasibility of much that otherwise might be set 
 down as fancy or mere air-drawn theory. 
 
 According to Froebel, as I have already pointed out, 
 education is an all-sided continuous development. In 
 its broad outlines it is the same for the individual as 
 it has been for the race. Development is produced by 
 exercise — exercise of the limbs, of the senses, and of 
 the mental powers. The mind is reached through the 
 senses, and Froebel urges that from the very first 
 the senses should be as far as possible exercised as 
 
THE MUTTER- UND KOSE-LIEDER 69 
 
 organs of the mindy and not as the organs of mere sen- 
 suous pleasure or of mere desire, as in animals ; and 
 the activities generally, as far as may be, should be 
 made expressions of mind, or at least kept in close 
 association with ideas. ^ This is of the utmost impor- 
 tance for the growth of the higher or distinctly 
 human nature. It may be described as the very life 
 and soul of his method. What these ideas are we 
 learn partly from the study of infant-child nature and 
 partly from the study of the infancy of the race. We 
 shall have enough to say about them presently. The 
 limbs, the senses, the mind, the child's inner self, are 
 awakened into activity by what surrounds the child, 
 touches him, attracts his attention. This environ- 
 ment Froebel considers under three heads: Nature, 
 Man, and God. The first consists of all material 
 things, organic and inorganic. The inorganic are 
 treated of mainly in the well-known Gifts. The 
 organic — which we may divide into animate (birds, 
 beasts, etc.) and inanimate (trees, flowers, etc.) — are 
 dealt with mainly in the songs and games, and the 
 nature-study connected with these. The second head, 
 Man, explains itself; it consists first of the mother 
 and the nurse, then of the father, brothers, and sisters ; 
 and so on. It too forms a large part of the songs and 
 games. The third, God, is that living power, which 
 the child will learn to feel and perceive pervades all 
 things, and gives to all things their existence and 
 
 1 See Reminiscences J by Baroness von Marenholtz Biilow, chap, 
 xvii. So Wordsworth urges us to acquire the '* glorious habit," 
 By which sense is made 
 Subservient still to moral purposes, 
 Auxiliar to divine. 
 
70 FROEBEL 
 
 life ; ^ on which his own existence and life depend ; 
 and which will gradually become for him the creator 
 and loving father of humanity. I need scarcely re- 
 peat that the Mutter- und Kose-lieder is full of efforts 
 to lead the child step by step to a consciousness of 
 this. 
 
 When attracting the child's attention td physical 
 nature, Froebel insists that we should never lose sight 
 of the abstract or spiritual side of things ; they 
 should suggest or reveal ideas to the child, or be 
 associated with ideas. In this way only shall we help 
 the child to free itself from the world of material 
 and of the senses, and rise into the world of mind 
 and spirit. To prepare the child for what is abstract 
 he calls its attention to what it can feel and hear, but 
 not see, — as the wind in The Weathercock, — to what 
 it can see, but not hold or touch — as the light in the 
 Light-Bird, and so on. But, perhaps, what he insists 
 
 1 In Wordsworthian language : — 
 
 A motion aud a spirit that impels 
 All thinking things, all objects of all thought, 
 And rolls through all things. 
 
 Here, and frequently again later, I illustrate Froebel's doctrines 
 by quotations from Wordsworth, partly to show how much alike 
 were the views of these two great prophets of nature ; and partly 
 to lessen that sense of singularity in Froebel's ideas which seems to 
 daunt young students. In many cases one cannot say an idea was 
 Froebel's, or this man's, or that man's. It was but one of the 
 many ideas, new or newly revived, which at the time were stirring 
 through all Europe, and which were part of that general ferment and 
 outburst which we call the "French Revolution." In many cases 
 also the ideas were undoubtedly of Froebel's originating ; and in- 
 deed all those which he used may in a sense be called his from the 
 way in which he organized them and applied them to education. 
 
THE MUTTER- UND KOSE-LIEDER 71 
 
 on most, especially when dealing with organic nature, 
 is our leading the child to feel and perceive the pres- 
 ence of all-pervading law and orderliness, and the 
 connectedness of things. Plants and flowers and 
 animals help us most to accomplish the former ; and 
 the songs and games about them are numerous.^ Con- 
 nectedness is introduced on almost every occasion, 
 but is brought out most clearly in what relates to 
 liuman occupation. So in Pat-a<nke the cake suggests 
 flour and the miller; these suggest corn and the 
 farmer ; the corn, the field where it grows so wonder- 
 fully ; its growth, an unseen energizing and fostering 
 [)Ower. The same point is dwelt upon in Mowing 
 GrasSj and elsewhere. How things thrive best in 
 their proper places is brought out in The Fish. And 
 here I must mention another principle. The child — 
 as indeed most grown-up people — finds it hard to real- 
 ize and understand what is wholly or even partly 
 subjective; what is objective is far more noticeable 
 and intelligible. The child's inner self is in a man- 
 ner made objective (or " outer," as Froebel would 
 say) by his own actions and creations, and by notic- 
 ing the actions and creations of other children ; and 
 just so far as these go does that self become conscious 
 and intelligible to the child. And this is one of the 
 chief reasons why Froebel makes so much of creative- 
 ness or originating self-directed action. In such songs 
 and games as T7ie Nest and The Chickens he presents 
 
 1 So Wordsworth says, — 
 
 One impulse from a vernal wood 
 
 May teach you more of man, 
 Of moral evil and of good, 
 Tban all the sages can. 
 
72 FROEBEL 
 
 objectively to the child the watchful care and love of 
 a mother for her little ones, and so helps the child to 
 more consciously realize its own mother's care and 
 love, and its own feeling for its mother ; while the 
 exercises for hands and arms besides being physically 
 valuable, are first attempts at creativeness ; and 
 this, moreover, is fostered by the pictures and by 
 such a game as The Little Artist, I shall not attempt 
 to give all the points of the Mutter- xind Kose-Iieder; 
 but there is one other chief point under this head of 
 Nature, which must not by any means be omitted. 
 This is that, while tending his pet animals and plants 
 (as in The Little Gardener), the child will be awakened 
 to the fact that all living things require care and love ; 
 that love must show itself in action. He will also 
 in this way, gain first impressions of duty and respon- 
 sibility; and he will learn to love labor and to use 
 labor for the pleasure and help of others (as in the 
 song and game of The Basket). While if we bear in 
 mind the fact that it is generally the sight of animals 
 that first awakens in children a desire for knowledge, 
 we shall realize more clearly the value of bringing 
 children among them and them among children. 
 
 Let me say here in passing that the Taste Song 
 and the Smell Song seem to me both unwise and far- 
 fetched; in some respects even untrue. The senses 
 of taste and smell are of very little value as knowl- 
 edge-getters, or as instruments of discrimination, 
 though they help the memory in matters of associa- 
 tion; and hence, if at an early period we specially 
 call attention to them and specially exercise them, 
 and still remain simple, natural, and true, it is inevi- 
 
THE MUTTER- UND KOSE-LIEDER 73 
 
 table that they shoukl be awakened as " the organs of 
 mere sensuous pleasure " ; and this we have already- 
 agreed with Froebel himself to be very far from de- 
 sirable. The ordinary events of everyday life exercise 
 these senses quite sufficiently. 
 
 The child's first relations with mankind begin in the 
 family. The first union is between the child and the 
 mother, or whoever is allowed to take her place. It 
 begins in the complete physical dependence of the 
 child. But as the months go by, and the child grows 
 less and less physically dependent, the need for 
 fostering and developing the union in mind and heart 
 grows greater and greater. Here again we have to 
 spiritualize and link with ideas what is physical or 
 material, if we desire to cultivate the child's human 
 love and feeling of community. We must present 
 the matter as far as possible objectively, as has 
 already been pointed out ; and we may employ another 
 Froebelian means, viz., the making of a thing clear ' 
 by the help of its opposite; though this last is 
 dangerous wherever the feelings are prominently con- 
 cerned, and should only be used with the greatest 
 care. It is this last which Froebel uses in Hide and 
 Seek and Bo-peep, endeavoring to make the temporary 
 or momentary separation attract attention to, and 
 call out and exercise delight in reunion. The danger, 
 in the former at any rate, is very evident, as Froebel 
 himself acknowledges. Mothers are rather liable to 
 indulge in such pleasing inaccuracies as "I can't tell 
 where baby is!" — and these, and the fun itself of 
 concealment, are very likely to induce a habit of lying 
 and concealing for fun's sake. This idea of fun, as 
 
74 FROEBEL 
 
 we all know, is a very common cause — commoner 
 than fear — of a child's untruths, when these are 
 efforts at hiding facts. Again, in the songs and 
 games of The Windows, in which the contrast between 
 light and darkness (the happiness of the former, the 
 unhappiness of the latter) is made ver}^ prominent, 
 there is no small danger of increasing the child's 
 dread of darkness rather than his love of light, in 
 the simple, direct physical sense. Besides, darkness 
 is a perfectly natural normal phenomenon, and should 
 therefore be at least not hated. In Buwp, see how my 
 Baby^s Falling! and Hide, Baby! we have a simpler 
 presentation of the mother's protecting love and of 
 the value she herself sets on her child. In the former 
 the child's nervousness at the exercise is only wak- 
 ened to be completely reassured : in the latter, the 
 mother will on no account let her little one be carried 
 off by any person whatever. The ideas of brotherly 
 and home union, and the feeling of community are 
 brought out with considerable success in The Family 
 and Happy Brothers and Sisters, — though the com- 
 mentary of the former contains a most eccentric dis- 
 quisition on the marvellous number five. The family 
 life, as Froebel says, is the medium best fitted to 
 promote the growth and expression of the good, pure 
 heart and the thoughtful, pure mind ; the true home 
 — and after it and with it the kindergarten — will 
 provide ample opportunity for the practice and illus- 
 tration, in their earliest forms, of all those many- 
 sided virtues which St. Paul binds together under the 
 one beautiful name of human charity. But from the 
 home as centre the child's human kindliness and de- 
 
THE MUTTER- UND KOSE-LIEDER 76 
 
 sire to help are to spread in ever-widening circles 
 outward till they embrace, for the full-grown man or 
 woman, all nations of men whom God hath made for 
 to dwell on all the face of the earth — reaching at 
 length, and mingling with and becoming one with, 
 the love of our Father which is m heaven.^ Froebel 
 endeavors to supply exercises for the first stages 
 of this outward growth in Tlie Riders and the Good 
 Child — " good'' in the nursery sense — and TJie Riders 
 and the Cross Child ; and his leading idea is that men 
 are attracted to, and drawn together by, what is good 
 and bright and cheery, and repulsed and disunited by 
 what is ill-tempered and sulky. By keeping this 
 aspect prominent he hopes to avert the danger of con- 
 ceit and self-righteousness : — 
 
 Five Riders come riding with all their speed! 
 And in our court-yard each stops his steed. 
 "And what do you wish, you Riders bold? " 
 **To see your child. He's good, we're told. 
 For gentle as little pigeons gray, 
 And frisky as lambs he is, men say." 
 
 Then, finding the report to be true, after a while 
 they ride away singing, "The child is good! The 
 child is good ! " In the other case, without any song, 
 they pass on to seek a happy good child elsewhere. 
 So again in The Church Door and Window the 
 
 iHow thoroughly FroebeliaD is the idea expressed in Words- 
 worth's well-known lines : — 
 
 Love had he found in huts where poor men lie; 
 His daily teachers had been woods and rills, 
 The silence that is in the starry sky, 
 The sleep that is among the lonely hilla. 
 
76 FROEBEL 
 
 coming together of men and women to church is used 
 to exercise the feeling of community, of oneness. 
 With this idea of human fellowship is naturally- 
 united that of general connectedness and mutual de- 
 pendence in working, which I have already mentioned 
 as being introduced into almost all the Games and 
 Songs relating to human occupations : Moioing 
 Grass, Pat-a-cake, The Charcoal Burner^ The Car- 
 penter, TJie Wheelivright, The Joinerj The Shop- 
 man. To the children whom Froebel contem- 
 plated these occupations were all familiar. He kept 
 in touch with the children's own everyday lives all 
 through. English and American kindergarten teachers 
 must remember this when making their selections — 
 in every part of the songs and games, but most 
 especially in this part — and not choose what is merely 
 picturesque and romantic. For what is the great les- 
 son — besides those already mentioned — which Froe- 
 bel desires to teach here ? It is the dignity of work 
 — the high value and religious worth of all into which 
 man puts his whole skill and love and strength, 
 whether it be the building of a cathedral or the clean- 
 ing of a chimney : not the equal outer value of result, 
 it is true, but the equal inner value of honest labor 
 honestly achieved. Carlyle himself — who held so 
 many of the views which Froebel also held — did not 
 see into the religious nature of all true work more 
 clearly than Froebel did. "Labor is life; from the 
 inmost heart of the worker rises his God-given force, 
 the sacred celestial life-essence breathed into him by 
 Almighty God ; from his inmost heart awakens him 
 to all nobleness, to all knowledge — self-knowledge 
 
THE MUTTER- UND KOSE-LIEDER 77 
 
 — and much else, so soon as work fitly begins." The 
 words might have been a quotation from the Edu- 
 cation of Man or the book we are now considering. 
 
 This point is of such crucial importance, and is so 
 often lost sight of when games and songs are being 
 chosen for the kindergarten, that it is almost impossi- 
 ble to over-emphasize it. The Mutter- und Kose-Ueder 
 were collected and composed and organized some fifty 
 years ago for little German children — mainly those 
 who were surrounded with country sights and sounds 
 and occupations. A very small amount of considera- 
 tion will show that for little English or American 
 children — especially when they live in cities — some- 
 thing different will be required, if a similar effect 
 is to be produced.^ We shall require what is Eng- 
 lish or American, or what has become such. All of 
 physical nature, of the country, that we can actually 
 bring into the cities, that we can place and keep within 
 the sight and touch of children, we should of course 
 use freely. For the rest, we must draw upon the chil- 
 dren's homes, and upon the actual life by which they 
 are surrounded. To do otherwise is to break at once 
 with Froebel. For these little city children we should 
 not tell of The Fish in the Brook but of The Sparrow 
 in the Street; not of the Nest with its birdlings, but of 
 
 1 Writing to his cousin, Frau Schmidt, in 1840, Froebel says: 
 *' My second remark is tliat it is of no consequence that precisely 
 these songs and these tunes shall be sung which have been suggested 
 by myself. They have been merely put forward l)y way of example, 
 seas to show in a general way the spirit as well as the form and com- 
 plexion of the whole scheme ; others may, perhaps, find much prettier, 
 more suitable songs, although I have of course taken pains to 
 8ele3t the best I could find — best in form and feeling, as well as 
 having the clearest words and the prettiest tunes." 
 
78 FROEBEL 
 
 The Cat and her Kittens; not of "^le Charcoal-BiLmer, 
 but of The Costermonger, The Cabman, Tlie Newspaper 
 Boy, The Watercress Woman; not of The Wolf and the 
 Boar, but of The Dog; and even instead of playing at 
 " mowing the grass " it would be better for these little 
 city children to play at "sweeping the room." 
 
 Actual life and actual nature around them — or which 
 can be placed close to them — are the Froebelian means 
 of education. Because The Charcoal-Burner is more 
 picturesque, more romantic, than The Cabman, that 
 does not make him more, it makes him less effective for 
 our purpose. It is with cabmen, not charcoal-burners, 
 that so many little city children have to do. What 
 Froebel bids us is to make the life and doings of the 
 cabman interesting — yes, and even beautiful in their 
 way -^ for the little ones who come in contact with 
 them ; and so with all the physical world that comes 
 within touch of the children ; till the very stones in 
 the dingy pavement become wonderful, full of sugges- 
 tion, part of the golden chain that links the world to 
 God. For children in a higher station we must of 
 course treat more prominently of the workers and the 
 things which come nearer to them ; but even for them 
 we shall never omit anything simply because it is too 
 lowly or too ordinary. Our test should always be the 
 prominence and closeness of the thing or worker as 
 far as the child's own life is concerned ; and gradually 
 we should lead the child out into sympathy with a 
 wider and wider circle of life, and work, and nature. 
 
 Was immer mit dem Kinde Du auch treibest, 
 Mach' dass in Lebens ein' gung Du verbleibest. 
 
 — Mowing Grass. 
 
THE MUTTER- UND KOSE-LIEDER 79 
 
 Always, whatever with a child you do, 
 Remain in touch with its own life all through. 
 
 As Froebel tells us. And again lie says : — 
 
 Doch theuer Dir dabei 
 Des Kindes Reinheit sei. 
 
 — The Wolf and the Boar, 
 
 Yet therein dear to you should be 
 The child's young spirit's purity. 
 
 I am afraid we are not, even in the kindergarten, 
 careful enough with regard to the delicate spirit 
 purity of which Froebel speaks. There are kinder- 
 gartens in which The Cat and the Mouse is a favorite 
 game. I have seen the little people in another acting 
 and illustrating Who Killed Cock Robin? To our 
 somewhat blunted adult feelings this story may and 
 does appear simply droll and picturesque ; but if ex- 
 amined more closely, with a view to its use as a 
 means of education, it will be seen to be a story of 
 violence and a grotesque funeral. At best it is only 
 calculated to amuse, and is therefore not Froebelian. 
 At worst it is likely to exercise feelings not of the 
 tenderest and most reverent kind, and therefore, again, 
 most certainly not Froebelian. Let any one contrast 
 it for a moment with Blake's Dream, so full of delicate 
 sweet sympathy with the tiny emmet, and he will see 
 at once what I mean — or rather what Froebel means. 
 I do not propose to abolish such rhymes, and other 
 kindred fairy and folk stories — which do very well 
 for adults — but only to exclude them, when essentially 
 coarse in grain, from the kindergarten. Fairy stories 
 and folk tales, when essentially beautiful, and when 
 
80 FROEBEL 
 
 sound and sweet in their ways of looking at things, 
 have their place always in our gardens of children, — 
 and a most important place it is, — but not in the con- 
 nection of which I am speaking. Here it is the real 
 living life and the personal observation of it with 
 which we have to deal. Children, of course, do not 
 and cannot understand the theory, the philosophy, of 
 the songs and games. That is a matter for the mother 
 and the kindergarten teacher. But the pictures, the 
 songs, and the games produce on them impressions 
 which awaken and stimulate them to renewed obser- 
 vations of what is around them, and to consciousness 
 of certain feelings. Children must always be receiv- 
 ing impres^oiis. of some sort. It_is_the_business of 
 e duca tion to select, make prominent, andTi iguIate 
 those which may best contribute to healt hy and 
 natuxal. development. 
 
 It is part of our common knowledge how the maker 
 and what he makes rouse the curiosity of children, 
 and rivet their attention — leading them at times to 
 try experiments which w^e, their seniors, must per- 
 force turn grim at and deplore. Here again stands 
 enchantingly open to us one of the doors of knowl- 
 edge, which Froebel did not fail to see. From the 
 very first he would accustom the child to consecutive 
 action and productive occupation — creativeness, as he 
 more frequently calls it; and in these games, and 
 later in the kindergarten, he has provided ample op- 
 portunity for what he aims at. Eictuc^s^here, are of 
 great value in their suggestiveness, and as aids to the 
 imagination ; and Froebel uses them freely. They are 
 indeed, as we all know, the natural written language 
 
THE MUTTER- UND KOSE-LIEDER 81 
 
 of children from the earliest years; and even we, 
 grown up men and women, often find that they 
 express for us clearly and memorably what words can 
 only hint at. Speaking of the pictures in the Mutter- 
 und Kose-liedeVy Froebel begs us not to be too harshly 
 critical on their style and art. " The book is the first 
 attempt of the kind [to express teaching by pictures 
 for little children] . . . made with such an aim 
 and in such a spirit; it was sure to be imperfect." 
 Imperfect they are, no doubt, these pictures; but 
 nevertheless of very decided value, as has been al- 
 ready stated. Besides as Browning makes Fra Lippo 
 
 Lippi say : — 
 
 We're made so that we love, 
 First when we see them painted, things we have passed 
 Perhaps a hundred times nor cared to see. 
 
 And as Mr. Thring once said to me, in many of our 
 schoolbooks pictures would often be mucli more help- 
 ful to the young than the most learned and elaborate 
 annotations.^ 
 
 The relations of man to God are usually classed 
 under the head of religion. Now religion, according 
 to Froebel, consists in fulfilling the will of God by 
 actively, and in every way effectively, living out the 
 life which God has given us. To be able to do this, all 
 our faculties of body, mind, and soul must be fully 
 and harmoniously developed; we must gain a clear 
 knowledge of ou r own natures and of the laws of life ; 
 and we must desire, of own free-will, to submit to and 
 fulfil those laws. I have already given some idea of 
 how that development is to be produced, how the 
 1 See the note given later on p. 129 of chap. vii. 
 
82 FROEBEL 
 
 knowledge of the inner self and of life is to be 
 gained, and how the desire to fulfil God's purpose in 
 humanity is to be fostered and increased. I must now 
 enter more into detail. The model for the adult life is 
 the life of Jesus. Froebel's aim is to produce the 
 power, by the time manhood comes, of living such a life 
 as far as may be. The difficulty is what to do to effect 
 this, and how to begin. Holding that the develop- 
 ment of the individual corresponds in large outlines 
 to the development of the race (Education of Man, 
 sect. 16), Froebel looked back to the early days of 
 humanity to find out how religion began, and in what 
 it consisted. He used what he found as a guide for 
 the earliest years of the child. He did not, of course, 
 find any catechisms and dogmas. It seemed to him 
 that the beginnings of all true and ever progressive 
 religion lay in the feeling of community, in love and 
 wonder, — the religion of fear having on the whole 
 steadily dwindled and lost ground.^ He begins, then, 
 with love in the family, which is to be gradually 
 widened more and more, as I have already described. 
 "The child's worship," he said, "is the feeling and 
 practice of love." The book we are considering is full 
 of this from end to end. I have also pointed out how 
 in Fat-a-cake, etc., Froebel delights in leading the 
 child back step by step till he is face to face with some 
 wonder or mystery of nature or life. Who makes 
 the corn grow ? Who taught the bird to build its nest ? 
 
 1 Wordsworth's view is very like this : — 
 
 We live by admiration, hope, and love; 
 And even as these are well and wiaely fused, 
 The dignity of being we ascend. 
 
THE MUTTER- UND KOSE-LIEDER 83 
 
 Who causes the wind to blow ? But besides these he 
 gives us songs and games in which the child is shown, 
 and led to delight in, some of the most striking and 
 beautiful natural phenomena — The Child and the 
 Moon^ The Little Boy and the Moon, The Little Girl and 
 the Stars; while in the songs called Tfie Little Window 
 and The WiJidoic a feeling of joy in, and thankfulness 
 for, light and sunshine is drawn out and exercised. I 
 cannot say that I approve of the songs of The Wolf 
 and The Boar. In the introduction to them Froebel 
 bids us, above all things, be careful to guard the 
 purity of the child's young spirit, and on this very 
 ground I object. The hunting and shooting — which 
 are still less defensible in the case of The Hare — are 
 little calculated to foster and induce the practice of 
 love for living things; while I fail to see why the 
 wolf and the boar, who simply live out the laws of 
 their nature, are to be held up as evil. They are not, 
 moreover, particularly degraded examples of obedience 
 to the lower appetites ; and the dangerous savage side 
 of them is not unlikely to alienate a little child from 
 the Creator of such enemies to man. The whole mat- 
 ter belongs to the question of the nature and destiny of 
 evil, the consideration of which, even in its microscopic 
 beginnings, does not belong to the kindergarten period. 
 There is much in TJie Bridge which is fanciful and 
 far-fetched, but on the whole the game and song are 
 both satisfactory. The idea on which they are based, 
 of producing in a child a habit of connecting things, 
 — concretely first and then later on abstractly — is a 
 good one, and is helpful in leading him more and 
 more to seek for that connectedness and unity in the 
 
84 FROEBEL 
 
 world and in life, which Froebel hopes will lead him 
 up to the conception of unity in the great Cause and 
 Creator of all things.^ Froebel constantly endeavors 
 to bring this feeling and perception of connectedness, 
 of continuity, into the child's own life, as well as 
 making it noticeable in what surrounds him. To do 
 this the child must ever and anon recall his own little 
 past, connect it with the present, and, when occasion 
 offers, reach forward from them both, though but a 
 span's length, into the future. Froebel tells us that 
 he intends the pictures and the songs and games (but 
 especially the pictures) of the Mutter- und Kose-Ueder 
 to be used with this object as the simple, everyday 
 history of little lives.^ 
 
 General morality, according to Froebel, is to be pro- 
 duced by awakening the ideas of the child from the 
 very first, by exercising the senses as organs of 
 the mind. In this way he seeks to counterbalance 
 the sensual desires, and to delay as long as possible the 
 awakening of the lower appetites. The development 
 of the sense of beauty, — especially beauty in nature, — 
 while the reflective powers are still sleeping in the 
 child's soul, offers the best means, he thinks, for this.^ 
 
 1 If we view objects **in disconnection, dead and spiritless," 
 says Wordsworth, we wage 
 
 An impious warfare with the very life 
 Of our own souls. 
 
 * The child is father of the man, 
 And I could wish my days to be 
 Bound each to each by natural piety.— Wordsworth. 
 
 8 See Reminiscences, chap. viii. So Wordsworth tells us, when 
 speaking of the ** beauteous forms of nature," — 
 
 I have owed to them, 
 In hours of weariness, sensations sweet, 
 
THE MUTTER- UND KOSE-LIEDER 85 
 
 In the very earliest years, the chilcVs eyes are to be 
 opened to forms, colors, etc., his ear to music and 
 song, and his weak childish powers are to be pre- 
 pared and used in the formation of beautiful things — 
 for it is by making beautiful things that we most 
 readily become interested in them and learn to see 
 their beauty. The beginnings of this are shown in 
 The Finger Piano and The Little Artist, but most in 
 the constant use throughout his book of both song and 
 music. He looked upon the formation of beautiful 
 objects as the best means for making the soul sus- 
 ceptible to the ideal on every side, and the cultivation 
 of the creative powers as most important in overcom- 
 ing coarseness and immorality, or rather in prevent- 
 ing their development, — and what he thought of work 
 has been already told. In the pictures of the Mutter- 
 und Kose-liecler, tlie little people are nearly always 
 busily doing something ; and those who look at the 
 pictures are to be busy and doing too. 
 
 Felt in the blood, and felt along the heart; 
 And passing even into my purer mind, 
 With tranquil restoration; feelings too. 
 Of unreracmbered pleasure: such, perhaps, 
 As have no slight or trivial influence 
 On that best portion of a good man's life, 
 His little, nameless, unremembered acts 
 Of kindness and of love. 
 
 And a little further on he speaks of the " blessed mood," when 
 
 With an eye made quiet by the power 
 Of harmony, and the deep power of joy, 
 We see into the life of things. 
 
 I need not quote the passage which comes later in the same 
 poem, and tells of the impressive and elevating power of beauty 
 Ui nature. 
 
86 FROEBEL 
 
 Froebel discards catechisms and dogmatic teaching 
 for the very young; but it must not be supposed 
 therefore that he. avoids all allusion to church mat- 
 ters and to what is distinctively Christian. On the 
 contrary, he prepares the child for these just as he aids 
 him in other developments. Pictures of the child 
 Jesus and the story of his early life are constantly 
 brought into prominent notice, especially at Christmas 
 time, and in connection with the Christmas tree and 
 Christmas games ; while The Church Door and Window, 
 in the Mutter- und Kose-Ueder is especially designed to 
 call his attention to the flocking together of men and 
 women to the church for praise and prayer. The 
 mother, with her little one, some two or three years 
 old, on her lap, sits at the window on a Sunday morn- 
 ing, watching the folk gather, and enter the church 
 opposite. She brings before him the idea of human 
 fellowship and union — of surrender of self to some- 
 thing higher than self ; she makes him represent with 
 arms and hands the door and the window of the 
 church; and she sings him a song about it all, and 
 imitates the sound of the organ and the glad pealing 
 of the bells. The very watching of a crowd moving 
 quietly together for one purpose, is an education in it- 
 self, and irresistibly draws out the child's sympathy 
 — draws him out of the narrow world of self. And 
 love of parents and of neighbors is for the child the 
 beginning of the love of God. As of old, by the Sea 
 of Galilee, so now also the simple-minded are best 
 taught by parables. 
 
 I have but to mention the games of counting on the 
 fingers, and the list is complete. Further exposition 
 
THE MUTTER- UND KOSE-LIEDER 87 
 
 will come later. Here it will be best to conclude with 
 a caution, lest any one should misconceive FroebeVs 
 position, and imagine that he supposes none but good 
 qualities in little children. He is quite aware of the 
 law of heredity ; that there is an inheritance of evil 
 as well as of good. He knows how easily new evil 
 habits are acquired, and he detects as clearly as any 
 one the symptoms of degeneration in naturally right 
 instincts even at the earliest age. Nor is he blind to 
 the fact that there is a marked difference in the 
 mental and physical endowments of little children, 
 and in their impulses, inclinations, and will. He 
 co nstantly proves and insists that th^ hp.st p f|iif>;^t^^^ 
 
 cannot be all of one formal pattern. He seeks to pro- 
 duce well-developed, self-directing individuals; and 
 this cannot be done unless the endowment and condi- 
 tion of each is duly considered at every stage. What 
 teachers have to do is to distinguish carefully between 
 whatever in the original dispositions of the young is 
 broadly and universally human, and what is singular, 
 accidental, anti-social; and while taking the latter 
 properly into account as an existing fact, to seek by 
 every means in their power to develop the former — 
 remembering that what is exercised in due accordance 
 with its nature will grow and increase, and that what 
 is unexercised will surely dwindle out of use. Teachers 
 may at least hope to add to and improve mankind's 
 inheritance of good, and to lessen somewhat its inheri- 
 tance of what is evil ; and in very truth we could not 
 have a nobler hope. Each of us, like the tiny ants, 
 may add his little grain to the general store of good. 
 
88 FROEBEL 
 
 NOTE ON THE CHOICE OF SONGS AND GAMES 
 
 What help does the Mutter- iind Kose-lieder give us in selecting 
 and organizing songs and games for the kindergarten? What are 
 the points we must look for and decide upon ? Briefly they seem 
 to me to be these. We must first examine the means we shall have 
 to employ — pictures, words, action, idea, music, symbols, (a) Pic- 
 tures. — Are these simple and beautiful in form, color, and expres- 
 sion? Do they give the children something more than mere form 
 and color? If so, what? Are they in any way explanative or 
 symbolical? And if so, are they well fitted for their purpose? 
 (6) Words. — Are they simple, clear, expressive, melodious? Do 
 they form bare dead statements, or are they suggestive of some- 
 thing beyond ? Do they lend themselves in any way to pantomimic 
 expression? {c) Action. — Does the action really help to make 
 clear and intelligible the particular meaning and the general idea 
 of the song or story? If so, how? Is it a good physical gj'mnastic 
 for body, limbs, organs, voice ? Is the imagined action in the story 
 itself one that children should imitate ? (d) Idea. — Is the idea of 
 the story or song a narrow or accidental or anti-social one, or is it 
 broadly human — one that will grow more and more in meaning and 
 application as life advances ? Is it readily intelligible to children 
 in its simple direct form, or does it involve a long explanation, or 
 is it too sad for children ? Does it tend to produce action — right 
 action ? Is it beautiful in itself ? [The idea is the life and soul of 
 the game and song, and the satisfying of its chief requirements is 
 of paramount importance.] (e) Music. — Is it simple, beautiful, 
 within the child's range ? Does it, as Rosmini would say, afford a 
 simple, natural expression for a child's simple, natural feelings? 
 Does it aid and make clearer the meaning and feeling of the song, 
 or distract attention from these to itself (as most songs nowadays 
 do, perhaps advisedly) ? (/) Symbols. — Are these likely to be or to 
 become such to children ? What is their immediate direct effect on 
 children ? Are they likely to grow in meaning ? Do they interfere 
 with the clear, simple meaning of the picture or of the story? Are 
 they really symbolic, or is their symbolism too far-fetched and 
 merely fanciful ? 
 
 But even now our examination is not at an end. We employ these 
 means on which I have just dwelt, to produce certain emotions, and 
 to impart and lead up to certain knowledge. The emotions or sen- 
 
THE MUTTER- UND KOSE-LIEDER 89 
 
 timents are either ethical, i.e. moral, or aesthetic, or intellectual. 
 Under each of these heads we must make up our minds as to what 
 the effect is to be. The ethic result mjiy be either positive or nega- 
 tive, i.e. stimulative or deterrent. For my own part, I think that 
 the less deterrents are used during the kindergarten period the 
 better. It is always extremely difficult — and often impossible — 
 to be sure of all their effects ; they are fertile in misconceptions, 
 and are against the principle of letting sleeping faults lie as long as 
 possible while we develop the good qualities. And lastly, as Froe- 
 bel points out in the Education of Man, they are often the child's 
 first introduction to what is undesirable or wrong. As to the aes- 
 thetic and intellectual sentiments, it will be sufficient for the pres- 
 ent to point out that they must be considered, and that with great 
 care. The kinds of knowledge we seek to produce are knowledge of 
 things, knowledge of natural law, of life, of the child's own inner 
 self. The one all-embracing caution is to restrict ourselves to what 
 the children can really see and understand of themselves or when it 
 is pointed out to them; to be simple, direct, and, above all things, 
 true ; not forcing our point ; not dragging in anything prematurely, 
 or through mere fancy; not supposing that children must be able 
 to see a fact or a principle because it is before them, nor feeling our- 
 selves bound to call attention to fact and principle because they are 
 present. In any case and every rase the knowledge must be such 
 as the child can in some way put immediately to use — not such as 
 he must keep for years before it will materially influence anything 
 he does or thinks about. It must bear directly on development ; it 
 must prompt and be of service in exercise. 
 
 % 
 
CHAPTER V 
 
 FROEBEL'S THEORY OF EDUCATION 
 
 It is now time to give a more definite and connected 
 statement of Froebel's theory of education. The 
 way, it is hoped, has been sufficiently prepared for 
 this by the expositions which have been given of the 
 chief scientific doctrines and ideas from which his 
 theory springs, and by the illustrations which have 
 been added of some of the ways in which this theory 
 may be practically applied to the education of very 
 young children. By too formal a beginning I have 
 found that one often defeats his own end — in this 
 as in other attempts to produce knowledge. To 
 borrow an example from language-teaching, the formal 
 grammar may come too soon. In what follows, from 
 the very nature of the method I have adopted, there 
 must needs be, here and there, some amount of repe- 
 tition of what has been already stated ; but this will 
 not be great, and will, I trust, only serve to bring 
 more thoroughly home to the student the importance 
 of particular parts of the theory.^ 
 
 iLet me here state that in addition to Froebel's own writings on 
 the subject there are many others to which I am under obligations 
 here and there in this chapter. Chief amongst these I would mention : 
 The Child and Child-Nature, and Reminiscences of F. Froebel, by 
 the Baroness B. von Marenholtz-Biilow ; a tract on The Problem of 
 Popular Education, by Professor J. H. von Fichte ; and a Lecture on 
 90 
 
FROEBEL'S THEORY OF EDUCATION 91 
 
 First, let me recall what has been said about evolu- 
 tion or development : how it consists, not so much in 
 an increase of bulk or quantity, as in an increase in 
 complexity of structure, an improvement in power, 
 skill, and variety in the performance of natural 
 functions ; how it is produced by exercise, exercise of 
 the thing's own self, or what is called self-activity, 
 and how this exercise should be rightly timed, in 
 harmony with the nature of the thing, and continu- 
 ously in proportion to its strength. Both when quite 
 a young man, and still more when in later life, he 
 took up the study of science in good earnest, Froebel 
 seems to have been constantly struck by the fact that 
 in every part of organic nature, as each in succession 
 came under his notice,(life and growth appeared to be 
 a progressive development from lower to higher grades 
 of being; that development in the individuals of a 
 class was regular, and followed the same general order, 
 which order remarkably resembled that which the 
 class as a whole had gone through, as far as its history 
 was known; and that exercise of function produced 
 development, while loss of exercise checked or 
 destroyed it. Examining more closely what seemed 
 to be the laws of development in the different classes 
 of organisms, he was convinced of their general 
 similarity to one another, — of their "unity," as he 
 put it, — and that this unity of law indicated the 
 unity of the origin or source of law. Occupying him- 
 
 Froebel and the Kindergarten System, delivered by Professor Joseph 
 Payne at the College of Preceptors in 1874. The first and third of 
 these, and part of the fourth, are contained in Dr. Henry Barnard's 
 most valuable volume, The Kindergarten and Child-Culture. 
 
92 FROEBEL 
 
 self then more exclusively with human beings, 
 especially very young human beings (who are most 
 simple and natural, and least self-conscious in their 
 revelations), he became firmly convinced that human •J^ 
 nature, though liable to error, is in its elements as free 
 from evil and falsity — as completely what it should 
 be — as nature under every other aspect and in every 
 other manifestation. He concluded, therefore, that in 
 dealing with the young the only wise course to adopt, 
 at any rate in the earliest years, was to seek to 4. 
 develop human nature's inborn original capacities and 
 abilities by a carefully graduated and connected 
 progress in every direction in which progress was de- 
 manded, and to take as our general guide the progress \ 
 and development of the human race as a whole in the ^ 
 order indicated in history. The child's nature being 
 what its Creator intended it to be, that is, in its 
 essence good, — though liable to error inherited or 
 newly induced, — what we have to do at first is 
 merely to help its normal growth, by securing for 
 it a proper environment, and by supplying it with, 
 and enticing it to use, the fitting means for the 
 activities which its nature needs for development. 
 Nothing which does not spring directly from the 
 natural primary outfit of the child, — which is not a 
 natural outcome of it, — should be imported into the 
 child in the first stage, nor indeed in any stage to 
 which it does not naturally and rightfully belpng. 
 And, on the other hand, every prescribing, restricting, 
 encroaching kind of instruction or education, which 
 interferes with natural development, must necessarily, 
 if this view be allowed, be considered to operate hurt- 
 
FROEBEL'S THEORY OF EDUCATION 93 
 
 fully upon the normal child-nature, and should there- 
 fore be carefully kept from it. " God does not cram 
 in or ingraft," he says in the concluding section of the 
 Education of Man ; " he develops the smallest and 
 most imperfect thing in continuously ascending stages 
 and in accordance with eternal laws grounded in and 
 developing from the thing's own self." 
 
 But here a caution is needed. Froebel does not 
 propose to leave the child wholly to itself among 
 other children, nor does he endeavor to isolate it as 
 Rousseau advised; but he places it with other chil- -i^ 
 dren, amid favorable surroundings, and gives it the ' 
 companionship of persons whose knowledge and train- 
 ing fit them to guard, guide, and help it in its de- 
 velopment. He thus protects it from inherited evil 
 tendencies and new inducements to error, and from 
 the danger of becoming a law unto itself before it has 
 learnt the laws of its own nature and of humanity. 
 He seeks to fit it to become its own true guide, and 
 he holds that this cannot be done by making it wholly 
 subservient to arbitrary laws and prescriptions lying 
 altogether outside it, and which are not its own either 
 in meaning or effort.^ 
 
 Such is Froebel's fundamental idea, and he con- 
 
 1 Froebel, however, fully admits {Education of Man, sects. 8, 9) 
 that there are cases when, the original outfit having been seriously- 
 marred or partially paralyzed, directly mandatory education is 
 necessary, at any rate for a time. Hailmann quotes in his trans- 
 lation the following from Herbert Spencer's Education ; " A higher 
 knowledge tends continually to limit our interference with the pro- 
 cesses of life. As in medicine, etc., ... so in education, we are 
 finding that success is to be achieved only by rendering our measures 
 subservient to that spontaneous unfolding which all minds go 
 through in their progress to maturity," — precisely Froebel's idea. 
 
 / 
 
94 FROEBEL 
 
 stantly applies it in all its variations. This leads 
 to another and a deeper thought, which he sets forth 
 in the opening sections of the Education of Man, 
 and which may be paraphrased as follows ; In every- 
 thing there rules and operates an eternal law, which 
 always finds its expression with equal clearness out- 
 wardly in physical nature, and inwardly in the spirit, 
 and also in the life (which is the result of the active 
 union of physical nature and spirit). Beneath this 
 all-pervading, all-powerful law lies a single omnipo- 
 tent cause — God. The Spirit of God rests, lives, and 
 works in nature, expresses itself by nature (as an 
 artist expresses himself in a work of art), imparts 
 itself through nature, continues to shape itself in and 
 by nature; but nature is not the body of God (see 
 Education of Man, sect. 63). The all-pervading law 
 is like its ca#se, like God, Godlike. The condition on 
 which the existence and the development of things 
 depend, is their fundamental harmony with the laws 
 of their being, i.e. therefore, their Oodlikeness. In 
 other words, the Godlike or divine principle work- 
 ing in everything is the essential life of that thing or 
 what may be called its individuality. Thus, the 
 / destiny and vocation of everything is to develop and 
 I fitly exhibit the essential principle of its being, its 
 Godlikeness ; to manifest and reveal God outwardly 
 by activity and development, in the transitory, visible 
 world of things. The particular destiny, the particu- 
 lar vocation, of every perceiving and rational human 
 being is to develop his essence, his individuality — to 
 become himself ; to grow fully conscious of, to win a 
 vigorous and clear insight into, his divine nature, so 
 
 t 
 
FROEBEL'S THEORY OF EDUCATION 95 
 
 «as to develop it in practice in his own life, of his own 
 free will and desire ; to make it effectual in every 
 direction which his inner capacity allows.^ To awaken 
 a human being to a full sense of this ; to treat man as 
 a thinking, intelligent being who is becoming con- 
 scious of himself; to incite him to the pure, inviolate, 
 conscious practice and fulfilment of the inner divine 
 law of his being ; and to provide him in unbroken con- 
 tinuity with the ways and means for this — this is to 
 educate man. Education should lead man to clearness %/ 
 concerning himself and in himself, to peace with' 
 nature, and to union with God. It should lift him to 
 a knowledge of himself and of mankind, to a knowl- 
 edge of God and of nature, and to the pure and holy 
 life which such knowledge indicates and conditions. 
 All human education culminates, therefore, in religion, 
 — which is itself enlightened, vigorous, human en- 
 deavor. 
 
 The pantheistic idealism which this way of looking 
 at things already reveals, and which, as I have already 
 pointed out, is common to other writers of his period 
 and before it, is not, perhaps, very helpful to the 
 teacher ; and yet it cannot be omitted if a true idea is 
 to be given of Froebel's theory and his manner of think- 
 ing. It matters very little whether he learnt this 
 conception of the universe from Krause ^ or Schelling, 
 
 1 Substantially Plato's view of the Cosmos and of man's relation 
 to it. 
 
 2 Froebel made Krause's personal acquaintance at Gottingen in 
 1828, and was by him introduced to the works of Comenius. Five 
 years before Krause had criticised, in the Isis, Froebel's explanatory 
 essays on Keilhau, which had been written in 1822 and had appeared 
 in the same journal. 
 
96 FROEBEL 
 
 or from philosophers very much earlier than these. 
 To recognize that he made it his own and constantly 
 introduced it into his educational writings will be 
 sufficient for us here. The main question with us is 
 not how Froebel used the theory of evolution, his knowl- 
 edge of natural science, and his study of life, to explain 
 the unseen and the supernatural, but how he made 
 them apply to the education of human beings. That 
 the conception referred to intensified the religious 
 character of his views — or was itself partly a result 
 of their religious intensity — is at once apparent. No 
 doubt it largely helped to convince him that religious- 
 mindedness and religious-minded industry should be 
 the flower and fruit of all education. But this and 
 its other results will be dealt with in the next chapter 
 when I come to speak of Froebel's ethics. 
 
 As Professor J. H. von Fichte has pointed out, one 
 pedagogic principle of great value results at once from 
 the theory just set forth. Wherever education really 
 permits an unhindered, undisturbed development of 
 the original innate capacities, there we find that the 
 inherent diversity amongst individuals becomes at 
 once visible, — a diversity in consequence of which 
 each child, even in the earliest stages, is distinguish- 
 able from every other child. From this, then, it must 
 follow that, to be in accordance with nature, education 
 must not be of one uniform pattern, but must be suited 
 to the capacities of each individual; for the differ- 
 ences in individuals are fundamental, spring from dif- 
 ferences in original endowment and inheritance, are not 
 merely the result of an artificial culture, and hence must 
 be considered in an education that follows the laws of 
 
FROEBEL'S THEORY OF EDUCATION 97 
 
 nature. Moreover, as Froebel points out (Education 
 of Maiiy sect. 22), a_boy is a boy, not because he has 
 reached a certain age, but because he has lived through 
 his infancy faithfully to the requirements of Ms soul, 
 iiiinJ, and body; a youth is a youth, because with the 
 >aiii»' t'tiicieiit faithfulness he has lived through his 
 infancy and boyhood ; and just so a man is a man, not 
 because he has reached the age of manhood, but only 
 because the requirements of his infancy, his boyhood, 
 and his .youth have been faithfully fulfilled by him. 
 And these so-called stages are in no sense separate, 
 but together form one continuous, unbroken, harmoni- 
 ous development, each part of which vitally depends 
 on all that has gone before. I have already spoken 
 of "connectedness" as one of the main principles run- 
 ning through the whole of Froebel's teaching. Here 
 we have it as the connectedness of the different stages 
 of life and progress. I have also dealt with it in the 
 form of the logical succession and inter-relation of the 
 subjecteof knowledge, — every subject giving meaning 
 and value to all the others. But there is a still further 
 kind of connectedness, that, namely, which unites the 
 different kinds of mental activity — knowing, feeling, 
 and willing — with one another, enabling them to blend 
 as one harmonious whole and each to aid the others.^ 
 
 1 In a letter to Frau Doris Lutkens of Hamburg, written in 1851, 
 Froebel says that, if his plan were followed, " then would the soul 
 (whose sphere of action is feeling) acknowledge and esteem the intel- 
 lectual power, just as the intellect already recognizes the soul (feel- 
 ing) as that which gives true warmth to our lives ; and life (the sphere 
 of action of the will) as a whole would make manifest the soul, 
 which quickens existence and gives it a meaning, as well as the 
 , intellect which gives it precision and culture. Intellect, feeling, and 
 
98 FROEBEL 
 
 The former we may call the outevj the latter the 
 inner connection. And we may go beyond even this, 
 and insist with Froebel on the necessity of effecting 
 and maintaining a connection between the inner and 
 the outer. What the child already knows, and has 
 thus made inner, must be connected with what he is 
 learning which is still outer ; and his inner desire for 
 activity, his ideas, feelings, and will, must be con- 
 nected with what outwardly he does and makes — 
 
 r which Froebel calls "making the inner outer," or 
 
 L creativeness. 
 
 I But we must return to the main theory. From his 
 very first breath the child comes under the influence 
 of three powers : nature, animate and inanimate ; 
 humanity ; and the power which pervades and directs 
 these, rising to its highest temporal manifestation in 
 the latter, — the power we call God. The child's body 
 connects him with organic and inorganic, animate and 
 inanimate, nature ; liis heart and mind connect him with 
 and make him a part of the great whole — humanity, 
 past, present, and future; and his whole being and soul 
 depend on and are energized by God. If this be so, 
 the child, he thinks, should grow up under the influ- 
 ences of nature. There he should gradually, and as 
 far as may be in unbroken continuity, learn that laws 
 underlie all organic formation, and that conformity 
 with those laws is the fundamental, unvarying con- 
 
 will would then unite, a many-sided power, to build up and rightly 
 constitute our life ; ... we should then have the harmonious devel- 
 opment of every side of our nature alike, and should be able to build 
 up a life which should be everywhere in touch with God, with physi- 
 cal nature, and with humanity at large." 
 
FROEBEL'S THEORY OF EDUCATION 99 
 
 dition of all true progress towards perfection ; should 
 catch glimpses of laws applying to himself; should 
 come to see or surmise, gradually and of course only 
 very slowly, that all these laws in nature and in himself 
 are in reality but various modes and manifestations of 
 one law, and thus link together, or " reconcile," by a 
 wider conception, what seems separate or opposed; 
 should, through the loving care he bestows on animals 
 and plants, enlarge his heart and sympathies, and pre- 
 pare himself for the loving care he is to bestow on 
 human beings ; should, by studying and imitating the 
 conformity of God's works, find and love God as the 
 creator of nature, and as his own creator ; and should 
 breathe in the peace which rules in nature and in 
 occupations connected with nature, before the noise 
 of the world and sin enter his being. . 
 
 The means which nature employs for the develop- "r* 
 ment of a child's body is physical movement. There- 
 fore let the limbs be carefully and wisely exercised — 
 which can only be properly done by one who knows 
 something of their structure and mode of action. The 
 child's most useful physical instrument is the hand. 
 Therefore let the hand and the sense of touch be care- 
 fully exercised. One of the most striking instincts 
 of childhood is construction ; at first simply imitative, 
 and then imaginative and original. Let this, therefore, 
 be encouraged and cultivated. The eye — with its 
 delight in color first, followed much later by delight 
 in form — comes next, and should be amply exercised. 
 Then comes the ear, with its delight in sounds ; and 
 this, therefore, should be helped in its development 
 by song and music. The occupatio n which Froebel 
 
 ^ 
 
100 FROEBEL 
 
 thought should be most diligently fostered is the care 
 of animals and plants, as has just been pointed out. 
 By it the child gains his first glimpses of the wonders 
 and beauties of nature far better than by mere gazing, 
 and learns to love labor and to use labor for the pleas- 
 ure and good of others. Ere very long we shall notice 
 in the child a dawning curiosity to know. This, there- 
 fore, like all other natural demands, should be attended 
 to and the spirit of inquiry encouraged. We must be 
 sure, however, that it is a natural^ spontaneous demand 
 on the child's part, and not the artificial creation of 
 our own nervous, fidgety anxiety to hurry the child out 
 of infancy and into the period of information and set 
 lessons in books. We learn to know by comparing, 
 by noticing the broad likenesses and the individual 
 differences of things ; and every means for exciting, 
 attracting, fostering the child's attention to these 
 likenesses and differences should in due season and 
 in due measure be placed in his way and the child 
 guided in his exercise. In short, Froebel aims at so 
 
 ^ fostering, controlling, and directing the natural and 
 spontaneous activity of the child according to its own 
 'inherent law that the purpose of nature — the com- 
 
 ( plete development of all the natural powers — shall 
 
 I be effectually fulfilled. 
 
 \ So much for the present as to the child's relations to 
 nature. To lead him on from nature to humanity, his 
 inborn social impulses, which show themselves in the 
 very earliest period, should be drawn out and kept 
 livingly active by every possible means. It is in this 
 connection that one of the most valuable and most strik- 
 ing parts of Froebel' s system first comes before us. 
 
FROEBEL'S THEORY OF EDUCATION 101 
 
 In his study of child-nature one of the most marked 
 characteristics which attracted and riveted his atten- 
 tion was the njijld's inborn dfti^irp. for a/^-hivity^ which 
 manifests itself in what we are wont to call " playJ^ 
 He saw and most thoughtfully pondered over the fact 
 that any number of children left to themselves invari- 
 ably fall to games of some kind, in which they evince 
 unmistakable delight. Nature seemed to say to him 
 plainly, almost audibly : " I educate children by play. 
 If you wish to educate children as I do, encourage 
 and organize their play." This was his special inspi-^ 
 ration ; and his organization of the play of childrenl 
 in the kindergarten was a stroke of genius. "It is 
 through play," says Professor Joseph Payne, "that 
 he (the child) learns the use of his limbs, of all his 
 bodily organs, and with this use gains health and 
 strength. Through play he comes to know the external 
 world, the physical qualities of the objects which sur- 
 round him, their motions, action, and reaction upon 
 each other, and the relation of these phenomena to 
 himself, — a knowledge which forms the basis of that 
 which will be his permanent stock for life. Through 
 play, involving associateship and combined action, he 
 begins to recognize moral relations, to feel that he 
 cannot live for himself alone, that he is a member of 
 a community whose rights he must acknowledge if his 
 own are to be acknowledged. In and through play, 
 moreover, he learns to contrive means for securing his 
 ends ; to invent, construct, discover, investigate ; to 
 bring by imagination the remote near ; and, further, 
 to translate the language of facts into the language of 
 words, to learn the conventionalities of his mother- 
 
102 FROEBEL 
 
 tongue." Froebel saw all this, and that, by exercising 
 a wise and thoughtful choice of games, he could, 
 without in any way spoiling the spontaneous delight 
 of play, make games the means by which his educa- 
 tional ideas might be put into practice in their earli- 
 est and most elementary forms.^ Games of movement 
 for the limbs, games for the hand, games of childish 
 song, of construction, of comparison, — all these might 
 well be collected or invented. These he did collect and 
 invent and organize with admirable skill and success. 
 The implements for the exercise and development of 
 intellectual power and knowledge are called " Froebel's 
 gifts " ; the processes for producing skill in the use of 
 knowledge are the *^ occupations." The employment 
 of games, songs, gifts, and occupations in the education 
 of little children is the kindergarteyi system. With 
 regard to the games and songs, it is unfortunately still 
 necessary to insist that a choice has to be made ; and 
 that, when chosen, the games and songs have to be 
 organized — adapted to the kindergarten purpose. This 
 purpose, this premeditated aim, is of course not dis- 
 played to the children — it should not even be notice- 
 able by them as a special purpose of the teacher ; but, 
 unless it does exist livingly conscious and present in the 
 mind of the teacher, the game or song will not be a kin- 
 dergarten exercise, but a mere pastime. One game only 
 did not require the assistance of his invention. This 
 was " gardening," which nature had already made the 
 
 iHailmann quotes from Plato: " If children are trained to sub- 
 mit to laws in their plays, the love for law enters their souls with 
 the music accompanying the games, never leaves them, and helps in 
 their development," 
 
FROEBEL'S THEORY OF EDUCATION 103 
 
 most delightful of games. All that he had to do here 
 was to urge that children should be encouraged and led 
 to make use of the results of their infant efforts, in this 
 and in every other department, in giving pleasure and 
 help to others. This would draw them to their fellows, 
 would link them to humanity ; and from love of their 
 fellows would be developed the love of God. Work 
 which was at the same time the fulfilment of duty he 
 saw (as Baroness von Marenholtz-Biilow points out) 
 was the only true basis of moral culture : but it was 
 necessary that such work should not only delight the 
 worker, but should also satisfy his instinct of love ; 
 it should therefore have an object; and that object 
 should be to give pleasure and help to others. To 
 make the beginning of all this still more easy the care 
 of pet animals was added. 
 
 In the next chapter I shall deal more at large with 
 the relations of the child to its fellows and to God. But 
 here I cannot refrain from giving the substance of the 
 Baroness's charming description of an almost ideal 
 kindergarten at work — or rather at play ; reminding 
 the student, before I do so, that Froebel seeks to give 
 the child experience rather than instruction, and to 
 educate him by action rather than by books, or any- 
 thing in the nature of abstract learning. 
 
 The pleasant sound of children's voices singing 
 falls on the ear of the visitor as he enters the kinder- 
 garten ; and in an open-air space shaded with trees 
 (or in winter in a large, pleasantly warmed room) he 
 sees a ring of little children from three to five or six 
 years of age, led by the kindergarten teacher, and 
 moving in rhythmic measures round one of their little 
 
104 FROEBEL 
 
 comrades who is going through an energetic course of 
 gesticulations and movements, which the others imi- 
 tate while they sing. The movements may represent 
 the incidents of husbandry and harvesting, or the 
 way in which birds build their nests, and fly out and 
 home again, or scenes in the market or the shop. The 
 actions are suited to the words and the words to the 
 actions, and mutually explain one another. Physical 
 and mental exercises go on together. The movements 
 exercise the limbs and muscles, the music helps to 
 call into activity the feelings and the imagination, 
 the words and the actions rouse the mind to observa- 
 tion, and the will is called into play by the desire and 
 the effort to imitate. A little farther on in the gar- 
 den under an awning will be seen tables, at each of 
 which are seated some ten children, — some, perhaps, 
 as old as eight — working away busily. At one table 
 strips of colored paper, straw, or leather are being 
 plaited into all sorts of pretty patterns to make letter- 
 cases, mats, etc. The patterns of the elder children 
 are their own invention, and their little productions 
 are destined to be presents to father and mother, 
 brothers and sisters, and friends. At the next table 
 building with cubes, or bricks, has been going on. 
 Before each child stands a structure of his own plan- 
 ning, and all are listening attentively to the story the 
 teacher is telling, in which each of the objects built is 
 made to play a part. Or the children may have been 
 counting, and comparing the sizes and shapes of the 
 bricks. At a third table paper is being folded into all 
 sorts of shapes, representing tools of different kinds, 
 boxes, boats, and even flowers. Most of the forms 
 
FROEBEL'S THEORY OF EDUCATION 105 
 
 which the children produce are arrived at by gradual 
 transitions from some fundamental mathematical form, 
 and thus first notions of the elements of geometry are 
 acquired, not through abstract teaching, but by obser- 
 vation and original construction. But the half-hour 
 is at an end, and there must be no more sitting still. 
 Spades, rakes, and watering-pots are now brought out 
 for work in the flower-beds (or, when indoors, in flower- 
 boxes or pots), of which each child has one of its own. 
 Vegetables, and sometimes fruit, as well as flowers, 
 are cultivated by the little people in these small 
 patches of ground ; but in the general garden, which 
 is in the common charge of all the children, are 
 grown corn, field products, and the like. In this 
 garden, too, many kinds of animals are kept, — rabbits, 
 goats, dogs, chickens, pigeons, — which have all to be 
 looked after and cared for. The little ones whom we 
 first saw engaged in their childish gymnastics now 
 come running up to the table deserted by the elder 
 children, and in their turn take their seats, and begin 
 laying together and interlacing little laths or sticks 
 in symmetrical shapes — forms of beauty, forms of 
 knowledge or mathematical figures, forms of practical 
 life, or buildings, tools and the like, — a sort of draw- 
 ing with concrete lines. The results of many of the 
 occupations are to be stored up in the glass cupboard 
 in the playroom. They are not all for birthday or 
 Christmas presents. A great many of them are to 
 go into a common fund by means of which a Christ- 
 mas tree is to be dressed, and the poor children of 
 the neighborhood are to come and join in the general 
 rejoicing — they are, indeed, to be the special guests. 
 
106 FROEBEL 
 
 And now the working-hours are ended, and a song, 
 in which all join, sounds through the kindergarten. 
 The little ones with their teachers form a circle and 
 sing, with childish reverence, words expressing grati- 
 tude to God and desire to please him and their par- 
 ents. The kindergarten always opens and closes in 
 this way. Three, or perhaps four, hours have thus 
 passed quickly away for the little people, and now 
 they hurry off to join the mothers or sisters or nurses 
 who have come to fetch them, eager to tell of all 
 the pleasures and work of the morning, and to carry 
 on by themselves at home the arts they have been 
 learning. 
 
 That all of this cannot be done in the family, after 
 Pestalozzi^s plan, must be quite evident. Part of it 
 may be, but not all. Mothers for the most part have 
 not the time, nor the apparatus, nor have they what 
 is still more important, — the trained skill necessary 
 for conducting this playful work or workful play prop- 
 erly. They may commence it; and they may in 
 some measure continue it at home ; but they cannot 
 do it entirely. If for no other reason, then for this 
 — that the social impulse, the love of others beyond 
 the narrow range of self and of one's own home, 
 cannot be properly excited and developed except 
 where numbers, and these from different homes, are 
 gathered together. But in order to commence and 
 continue the plan properly, in order to be always 
 working in harmony with it, — that is, in harmony 
 with the children's natures, — mothers must study 
 child-nature and the growth of child-mind much more 
 carefully than they do. For the mother is always. 
 
FROEBEL'S THEORY OF EDUCATION 107 
 
 or should be, the most important factor in the life of 
 the child. Froebel does not seek to change this, 
 but only to add to it and to make it more effective. 
 He is never tired of appealing to mothers to fit them- 
 selves for the holy duties of motherhood ; and indeed 
 it is directly to mothers that the greater part of what 
 he writes is addressed. The kindergarten takes 
 away the children for only a few hours in the morn- 
 ing, and still keeps them under the guidance and 
 skilled care of women. The temporary absence 
 should only add to the charm of home by the delight- 
 ful excitement of returning, and so be itself a Froe- 
 belian means for helping the child to realize its love 
 for home and mother. 
 
 y 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 FROEBEL'S VIEWS ON CHARACTER, CONDUCT, AND 
 RELIGION 
 
 In a memorable interview between Diesterweg and 
 Froebel, described in her Reminiscences, the Baroness 
 von Marenholtz-Biilow reports the latter, amongst 
 other things, to have said, " The firmament leads us 
 to recognize the connectedness of all that exists, and 
 leads us up to unity — God." The night was clear, 
 bright, and starry, as they drove home from Insels- 
 berg to Liebenstein, and the beauty of the heavens 
 had set them talking. "No one of the heavenly 
 bodies is isolated ; every planet has its centre in the 
 sun of its system. All the solar systems are in relation 
 and continual interaction with one another. This is 
 the condition of all life — everywhere mutual relation 
 of parts. As there above, in great things, unbroken 
 connection and harmony rule, so also here below, even 
 in the smallest thing ; everywhere there are the same 
 order and harmony, because the same law rules every- 
 where, the one law of God, which expresses itself in 
 thousand-fold many-sidedness, but in the last analysis 
 is one, for God is himself the law." " That is what 
 people call pantheism," remarked Diesterweg. "And 
 very unjustly," rejoined Froebel ; " I do not say, like 
 the pantheists, that the world is God's body, that 
 108 
 
ON CHARACTER, CONDUCT, AND RELIGION 109 
 
 God dwells in it, as in a house, but that the spirit of 
 God dwells and lives in nature, produces, fosters, and 
 unfolds everything, as the common life principle. As 
 the spirit of the artist is found again in his master- 
 pieces, so must we find God's spirit (Geist) in his 
 works." To the hasty inquirer the difference would 
 not, perhaps, be readily apparent — especially on occa- 
 sions when Froebel allowed his mystical tendencies to 
 intrude themselves; and so more than one adversary 
 called him pantheist and anti-christian. Pantheist 
 he undoubtedly is, or ideal-pantheist, as I have called 
 him ; but in no sense is he anti-christian. The 
 question has already been touched upon in a preced- 
 ing chapter; and it has been pointed out that it is 
 not a matter of essential importance to us, though 
 certainly a matter of interest, what ultimate inter- 
 pretation of the universe Froebel derived from his 
 long and careful study of physical phenomena, and of 
 the active manifestations of life and growth. It is 
 quite justifiable and consistent to accompany Froebel 
 as long as he deals with matters of physical science 
 and psychology, but to refuse to follow him beyond 
 these, into the region of metaphysics — just as we may 
 with great advantage follow Herbart as long as he is 
 dealing directly with the results of his own observa- 
 tion and practice as a teacher, but may decline to 
 accept in its entirety his system of psychology, which 
 was only in part derived from those results. Up to 
 the confines of metaphysics Froebel is sound enough. 
 It is, however, necessary to re-introduce here, though 
 but briefly, his particular view as to the ultimate 
 meaning of the universe, because he himself mingles 
 
110 FROEBEL 
 
 it so frequently with his ethical teaching; and it 
 would seem only fair to give him the opportunity of 
 stating his case clearly. Besides, I am not prepared 
 to state that his metaphysical views are in my 
 opinion wholly wrong, though I cannot accept all of 
 them. The particular views referred to are pre- 
 sented in many parts of The Education of Man; and 
 almost the whole of one section (sect. 63) is devoted 
 to the exposition of them. He is speaking of what 
 mankind can learn of the nature of God from the 
 " book of creation," apart from any direct revelation, — 
 in which revelation he constantly shows his belief, — 
 and, using once more the simile of the artist, says: 
 "As no material part of the human spirit, of the 
 artist, is in the work of art, and yet the work of art 
 bears within it the whole spirit of its artist, so that 
 he lives in it, expresses himself by it; and as the 
 work breathes forth again his spirit even to others, is 
 awakened, developed, improved, and formed by his 
 spirit ; as thus the man's spirit is related to the work 
 produced by him, as the man (as a spirit) is related 
 to that which he has produced, Uo is the spirit of God 
 related to nature, and to all created things. The 
 spirit of God rests, lives, and works in nature, 
 expresses itself by nature, imparts itself through 
 nature, continues to shape itself (to give itself visible 
 form) in and by nature ; but nature is not the body of 
 God." The whole section is of great value for a clear 
 understanding of this view, but is too long for quota- 
 tion. It may be added, however, that, both from what 
 he here says and from the rest of his writings, it is 
 quite evident that Froebel does not pretend to give 
 
ON CHARACTER, CONDUCT, AND RELIGION 111 
 
 a complete account of the Deity, but only of what a 
 limited human being can learn from (he universe of 
 the Deity in his character of Creator of man and of 
 the world man lives in. 
 
 From early boyhood Froebel had delighted in the 
 sights and sounds of nature. In especial, he himself 
 tells us, the world of plants and flowers had been the 
 object of liis observation and reflection. Even then, 
 and still more when he became a fervent student of 
 physical science, he was constantly struck by the 
 regularity of nature, by the existence of underlying 
 law — as has been already described ; and with the 
 perception of this he came to feel in the law " a pres- 
 ence which disturbed him with the joy of elevated 
 thoughts, a sense sublime of something^ far more 
 deeply interfused " than the mind could directly ob- 
 serve through the senses. This law and this presence 
 engrossed liis attention more and more. He sought 
 them everywhere. He had come upon their traces in 
 nature ; and it was to nature that he turned to learn 
 more of them. He listened to her many voices, con- 
 sidered her ways, and learnt her doings. Nature 
 became for him the book of God designed for our 
 learning.* Thus it happens that in Froebel's mind 
 science is never, even apparently, antagonistic to re- 
 ligion. In fact it becomes a part — a vital part — of 
 religion itself. Knowledge of the law of life, of all 
 that bears on life, becomes in his view a matter of the 
 greatest necessity. A man^s highest duty is to live out 
 that law here on earth by unceasing outward and up- 
 ward activity ; to develop and promote the realization 
 of God's idea in humanity. "But this is anti-chris- 
 
112 FROEBEL 
 
 tian," exclaimed some of his opponents. "By no 
 means," answered Froebel ; "it is the teaching of Jesus 
 himself, whose meat it was to do the will of him 
 that sent him ; who was ever about his Father's busi- 
 ness. He it was who taught us to call upon his 
 Father as our Father, and to pray that God's kingdom 
 may come, and his will be done here on earth, even 
 as it is in heaven. And you will find that Holy Writ 
 in no way contradicts me." The kingdom of God upon 
 earth is the complete development of humanity and 
 of all created things. This development has not yet 
 been reached. It is not a stationary, completed thing, 
 which has only to be repeated in greater universality; 
 but a growth yet to be produced, and only to be pro- 
 duced by the living way of individual, free, active 
 development and cultivation. This insistence on the 
 necessity of development brought another set of 
 adversaries into the field, who accuse Froebel of 
 despising knowledge, and thinking only of training. 
 These I will refer for their answer to what has already 
 been said and to what I shall say in the next chapter. 
 And meanwhile I will ask my readers to recall what 
 Bacon says in his Adva7iceme7it of Learning (especially 
 in bk. i, v. 11), merely pointing out that Froebel 
 did, indeed, look upon knowledge as " a rich store- 
 house for the glory of the Creator and the relief of 
 man's estate." He did not value it for its own sake, 
 but only as it bore on complete living. In that re- 
 spect no one has valued it more highly than he. 
 
 But it is time to have done with objectors, and to 
 turn to the consideration of the ethical bearing on 
 the child, the boy, the man, and society in general, 
 
ON CHARACTER, CONDUCT, AND RELIGION 113 
 
 of FroebePs theory ; for so far, I have only hinted 
 at it. 
 
 The infant chikl lies at first involved in a chaos 
 of sensations, and of feelings of comfort and discom- 
 fort, acceptableness and offensiveness. Within these 
 there is somewhere the germ of a soul or spirit. How 
 does he rise out of the confusion, separate himself 
 from it, and become conscious of himself — "give birth 
 to himself as I," as Fichte would say ? Somehow, by 
 his own nature, and own inner power; — helped or hin- 
 dered by the impressions of outer things. \ Something, 
 therefore, may be done to help or hinder the youngest 
 infant — something through the senses and feelings, 
 and first infant activities, in aid of discrimination.^ 
 Froebel begins at this earliest period. Nor does he 
 find it too soon for a germ of ethics. While aiding the 
 child to make clear to himself his elementary sensa- 
 tions and feelings, he would, as he said in a conversa- 
 tion with Varnhagen (Reminiscences^ p. 210), " awaken 
 the senses as the organs of the mind, and not as the 
 organs of mere sensuous pleasure, or of mere desires, 
 as in animals." There should be no pampering in 
 food or dress, not too much aimless cossetin g ; but, 
 while enticing the child to use his perceptive faculties 
 by drawing his attention to simple, single, striking ob- 
 jects, "we should endeavor from the very beginning 
 to create such impressions upon the child's mind, 
 through material or concrete things, as, according to 
 the analogy between thought and its embodiment, 
 are the prototypes of ideas and conceptions." As 
 to how he would do this for the infant, Froebel 
 has been explicit enough in his ball games, and the 
 
114 FROEBEL 
 
 games and songs of his Mutter- und Kose-lieder^ by 
 which he seeks not only to exercise the infant per- 
 ceptions, and the little limbs and muscles, but also, as 
 has been pointed out, to utilize the loving union be- 
 tween mother and child, so as to draw them both into 
 intelligent and delightful relations with the objects 
 and simple life around them. " Everything," he says 
 {Education of Man, sect. 35), " which enters the child's 
 small range of vision, which widens his as yet narrow 
 world, is dear to him. The smallest thing is to him a 
 new discovery. But it must not come dead into the 
 little world ; it must not remain dead in it ; else the 
 small range of vision will be darkened, the young 
 world crushed." In a previous section {sect. 33) 
 Froebel shows admirably how a mother may call out 
 a child's consciousness of self by infant play with his 
 little limbs and body, beginning with what he can see 
 (hands, feet, etc.), and going to what he cannot see 
 (ears, eyes, etc.), and from the parts themselves to 
 their activities — and how this play may be linked 
 with speech. The advent of speech marks the begin- 
 ning of another period — that of boyhood or girlhood. 
 It is during this period of boyhood or girlhood that 
 the child more distinctly comes to feel those various 
 influences which Froebel groups under the heads of 
 nature, mankind, and God. I^om intercourse with 
 nature, the child, it will be remembered, is to gam an 
 -..anticipatory knowledge of God ; and through t£e care 
 he bestows on plants and animals is to be drawn into 
 closer touch with human beings, and to prepare him- 
 self for the loving care he is soon to bestow on them ; 
 while from love of his fellows is to be developed the 
 
ON CHARACTER, CONDUCT, AND RELIGION 115 
 
 love of God. Of course Froebel does not suppose 
 that all that he counsels us to do under these heads 
 can be done in boyhood, — it may not even be accom- 
 plished in manhood, — but he thinks it should be the 
 guiding principle and aim of every educator at all 
 times./ The end will not be reached by book-learning, 
 listening, or passive contemplation, but only by 
 action ; for it is only by action that man learns to 
 understand himself and others j \only by studying the 
 effects that he gains a knowledge of the cause. Gar- 
 dening is one of the occupations Froebel would have 
 us most carefully foster. By it the child gains his 
 first glimpses of the wonders and beauties of nature j 
 in it he watches the working of an unseen power; 
 through it he learns to love labor, to use labor for the 
 pleasure and good of others, and gains for himself a first 
 touch of a sense of duty and responsibility. A child's 
 activities should never, if possible, be left vague and 
 purposeless. Just as the senses are to be organs of 
 the mind, so the activities are to be expressions of 
 the mind — of the mind of the actor, the child. In 
 gardening, therefore, and in every other occupation, 
 children should be encouraged and led by every possi- 
 ble means to make use of the results of their infant 
 efforts, by giving pleasure and help to others. Work, ^ 
 which is also the fulfilment of duty, Froebel saw to be y* 
 the only true basis of moral culture. In other words, 
 if we infuse into work a sense of obligation to the 
 community, to one's friends, or even only to one's 
 better self, we readily make it a means of spiritual 
 development, — a conception most important in its 
 bearing on the healthiness and hopefulness of every- 
 
116 FROEBEL 
 
 day, social life. In fact, Froebel demands that physi- 
 cal and spiritual development shall be united from the 
 first, and shall begin in the earliest childhood, and thus 
 continues and completes what Richter, in his Levanaj 
 had already more than once hinted at. If, besides 
 individual work, children are given work — such as 
 gardening — to do in common, a sense of mutual respon- 
 sibility and fellowship in duty wiir still further be 
 exercised. It is evident how valuable in this connec- 
 tion will be the child's being allowed to take part in 
 domestic household work. To help father, mother, or 
 nurse is always a privilege as well as a pleasure ; and 
 the aim and utility of the work are both always clearly 
 manifest. There is no more beautiful sight in this 
 world of ours than a little child working for love and 
 honor's sake. But by far the most important of the ; 
 spontaneous activities of the young is that of play. ^^ 
 It is the freest active manifestation of the child's inner • 
 self, and springs from the need of that inner living 
 consciousness to realize itself outwardly. The child 
 literally lives in his play, and sees himself living in 
 his playmates, just as he sees himself acting and 
 doing in the stories he loves so well. All that we 
 can do here is to seek to prevent the activity from 
 ^becoming vague, erratic, meaningless.^ It should be 
 the expression of some idea in the child; and, 
 undoubtedly, those ideas will be best which lead him 
 into intelligent, loving harmony with his fellows and 
 
 1 Children often half-consciously confess this hy asking som^ . 
 sympathetic adult to join in their play. Many a time has a little^A 
 fellow said to me, " Oh, do come and play with us, and then the\ 
 game is sure to be jolly." The self -directing powers, in games as i 
 in all else, are slow in growth, 
 
ON CHARACTER, CONDUCT, AND RELIGION 117 
 
 with nature, and which keep him in touch with his 
 own life all through. It should be as little as pos- 
 sible merely imitative ; as much as possible creative, 
 i.e. the child's own endeavor to realize the idea which 
 he possesses. In any case, the idea and the action 
 should never be divorced. After what has already 
 been said as to FroebePs view of development, there 
 will be no need to insist further on the absolute 
 necessity of creativene ss in every department of a 
 child's education/accorSing to his method. As soon 
 as this is left out the plan ceases to be Froebers. We 
 need not, therefore, touch upon the other activities 
 and occupations. The same spirit and purpose runs 
 through them all, — the desire to develop the child's 
 own innate powers, and to give him clear percep- 
 tions of truth, and of his relations to nature, human- 
 ity, and God ; and to keep life and all that surrounds y 
 him full of beauty, suggestiveness, and peace. ^^ 
 
 " It is not enough," says Froebel in a letter to his 
 cousin Frau Schmidt, written in 1840 — "it is not 
 enough for man as an intelligent being merely that 
 good shall result from his actions ; his dignity, his sta- 
 tion as the child of God, is only then duly shown forth 
 when he has gained a clear, intelligent consciousness 
 of what he does," and its results on himself and his 
 fellows. " Religion," he says (Education of Man, sect. 
 60), "is the effort to raise to clear consciousness the 
 anticipation that the individual spiritual self, which 
 man perceives (the spirit of man) was originally one 
 with God, and is to be in union with God, — a union 
 founded on this consciousness, — and to continue to 
 live in this union with God in every position and 
 
lis FROEBEL 
 
 every relation of life, untroubled and unweakened. 
 Religion is not a fixture, but a constantly advancing 
 effort, and just on that account has a constant exist- 
 ence."^ Religious instruction consists in making 
 this clear to the individual ; in leading him to per- 
 ceive and understand the laws of his being as an 
 animal, as a man, as part of humanity, as a child of 
 God ; and in accustoming him to look for these laws 
 in the natural world around him, in himself, in the 
 life of humanity and the history of its development, 
 and in the sacred books which have applied these 
 laws to life, and especially to the individual life of 
 each person. " Even in boyhood there may be most 
 unequivocal proofs and convictions that God, to speak 
 humanly (as we can in general speak in no other 
 way of the Divine, or at least in no other comprehen- 
 sible, effective way), still uninterruptedly guides hu- 
 manity in and towards its development, improvement, 
 and outer manifestation, by his fatherly guardianship 
 and care, and constantly also accompanies each indi- 
 vidual — each as an essential part of the whole — in all 
 the occurrences oi his life with fatherly loving protec- 
 tion and help^^^Elsewhere he says: "Religion with- 
 ^out work runs the risk of becoming empty dreaming, 
 passing enthusiasm, and an evanescent phantom, as 
 work without religion makes man a beast of burden 
 or a machine." In this, as in every other department, 
 development is produced by exercise, by doing, by 
 creating. Morality is produced by moral practices. 
 
 ^What Froebel means by ** union with God" has already been 
 made sufficiently clear. It is actively living out the idea and pur- 
 pose of God consciously, and of one's own free will and desire. 
 
ON CHARACTER, CONDUCT, AND RELIGION 119 
 
 Froebel holds that the first germ of religious feel- 
 ing lies ill the feeling of community and that this 
 feeling first comes into active consciousness in the 
 family life. The family life, therefore, is the basis 
 and medium of religious development; as is also 
 the school life if based and modelled on that of the 
 I family. lyMoral practices, "the expressions of the 
 kind heart, and the thoughtful, pure mind," are what 
 he urges both for home and school ; linking these on 
 to what has been said above of the child's perception 
 and feeling of God's fatherhood, and taking the life of 
 Jesus as the model life. //"The boy's life," he says, 
 " should be an expression in action and production of 
 the prayer of Jesus." Here, as everywhere else, he 
 objects to dogmatic teaching. " If a man is to under- 
 stand many truths, especially religious truths, he 
 must be made to experience much, i.e. to become con- 
 scious of the events (perhaps small in themselves) of 
 his own religious life," — his own first, and then that 
 of others. He must rise grady^ly to a knowledge of 
 the truths of Christianity .j^te objects also to the 
 inculcating, in early life, of all such precepts as 
 " If you are good you will be happy." The child 
 can only take them as referring mainly or wholly to 
 the outer life ; and of that life they are not true. 
 Indeed, Froebel protests strongly against holding out 
 bribes to virtue, either for this world or the next. 
 Outward incentives are degrading to humanity. What 
 we should do, as far as possible, is " to make the boy 
 observe and realize the reflex action of his conduct, 
 not on his outer more or less agreeable position, but 
 on his inner spontaneous or fettered, clear or clouded. 
 
^. 
 
 120 FROEBEL 
 
 satisfied or dissatisfied, condition of spirit and mind,'* 
 and this only gradually and by the way of experience. 
 The child has to have some intuition of and insight 
 into his destiny, and how it is to be accomplished, 
 before he can understand such a consequence as aris- 
 
 iing from such a cause^Froebel does not desire to 
 produce a being learnea and fixed in religious dogma, 
 but to realize in the individual God's idea in humanity. 
 The chief instrument he would use, especially in 
 earlier life, is love, which conquers self-seeking, — 
 love in action, in the family, in the school, in the 
 community ; and from love of his fellows whom he 
 has seen should be developed the love of God, whom 
 he has not seen with his outer eye, but is learning to 
 see with his inner mind and heart. "All work, all 
 exercises which awaken the active powers," writes 
 Baroness von Marenholtz-Biilow, " which form the 
 capacity for rendering loving services to fellow-creat- 
 ures, will help to lay the groundwork of religion in 
 the child. The awakening of love goes before that of 
 faith ; he who does not love cannot believe, for it is 
 love that discovers to us the object or the being 
 worthy of our faith. Loving self-surrender to what 
 is higher than ourselves, to the highest of all, is the 
 beginning of faith. But love must show itself in 
 deeds, and this will be impossible unless there be the 
 ability to do. A child can no more be educated to a 
 life of religion and faith without the exercise of per- 
 sonal activity than heroic deeds can be accomplished 
 by words only." 
 
 General morality, as we have seen, is held by Froe- 
 bel to depend largely on having the ideal side of the 
 
ON CHARACTER, CONDUCT, AND RELIGION 121 
 
 human being awakened and gratified from the very- 
 beginning of life, in order to afford a counterpoise to 
 sensual desires, and to delay or prevent as far as 
 possible the awakening of the lower appetites. The 
 development of the sense of beauty, while the reflec- 
 tive powers are still slumbering in the child's soul, 
 offers the best means for this. Therefore, from the 
 earliest infancy onward, the eyes of the child are to 
 be opened to forms, colors, etc., and its ear to music ; 
 and the weak, childish powers are to be prepared and 
 used in the formation and creation of beautiful objects. 
 Here again creativeness is to render the soul suscep- 
 tible to the ideal. While, moreover, the principles 
 which underlie the formation of beauty will, in this 
 way, be brought home to the worker, and will be 
 another experience in the beneficent results of law 
 and harmony ; for beauty is the perfection of a thing 
 after its kind.^ 
 
 Froebel would not have the child suspected of evil. 
 In this way, by suspicion, the child is robbed of his 
 innocence, and is rendered powerless to act ; and it is 
 only by action that he c an develop the good.^ He by 
 no means ignores the presence of evil, both inherited 
 and newly acquired ; but he would overcome it by (so 
 to speak) starving it and developing what is good. 
 To do this we must not be in a hurry to pronounce 
 actions as evil, but must look into their springs and 
 
 1 See Reminiscences, chap. viii. 
 
 2 The child thus reduced to inaction — often mistaken for good- 
 ness—he compares to the butterfly or beetle, which, from much 
 handling, is feeble, '* and indeed also footless," and which the 
 little boy pronounces to be "quite tame now.'' —Education of 
 Man, sect. 53. 
 
122 FROEBEL 
 
 motives. Often enough a good meaning and endeavor 
 lie behind what is evil in appearance, or evil in reality, 
 but due to ignorance and misdirected exuberance of 
 young life and growing powers, the exercise of which 
 is instinctive and delightful. If evil is not wholly 
 extirpated in this way, its proportion is, at any rate, 
 constantly lessened, and its power continually reduced ; 
 while the power of will is not paralyzed, but only 
 diverted in its action. Punishment is not abolished, 
 but the necessity for it almosf disappears, and the 
 spirit of it is entirely changed. No longer does vir- 
 tue need to be avenged, or wicked nature to be re- 
 buked and put down. It is rather ignorance that 
 needs enlightenment, weakness that needs strength- 
 ening, strength that needs a right direction, contami- 
 nation that must not be allowed to spread. And if 
 the outer life suffers constraint and penalty, the 
 inner life is not left unappealed to or uncounselled. 
 
 " The development and cultivation of man to attain 
 his destiny, to fulfil his vocation, is a perpetual, un- 
 interruptedly continuous, unseparated whole, always 
 rising from one stage to another." "By his own ob- 
 servation, and his own discovering, by his own notice 
 of the living coherence of nature, by direct view of 
 nature itself (not by explanations in words and ideas, 
 for which the boy has no intuition), there will dawn 
 upon him early — and however dimly at the begin- 
 ning, yet more and more distinctly — the great thought 
 of the inner, continual, living connection of all things 
 and phenomena in nature." "No new subject of in- 
 struction should come to the scholar of which he does 
 not at least conjecture that it is grounded in the pre- 
 
ON CHARACTER, CONDUCT, AND RELIGION 123 
 
 ceding subject, and how it is so grounded (as shown 
 by its application), and concerning which he does 
 not, however diml}-, feel it to be a need of the 
 human spirit." A man, it will be remembered, is a 
 man, not because he has reached the age of manhood, 
 but only because the requirements of his infancy, his 
 boyhood, and liis youth, have all been faithfully ful- 
 tilled by him. These stages are in no sense separate, 
 but together form one continuous, unbroken, harmo- 
 nious development, every part of which vitally de- 
 pends on all that has gone before it. However sad it 
 may be, no after-effort can ever wholly remove the 
 consequences of earlier neglect. Here and there 
 something may be retrieved ; but, in general, things 
 can never be the same as if there had been no neglect. 
 The activity that should have been called out would 
 have produced some result, and that result, at least, 
 must be lost. Such are the more important thoughts 
 which constantly run in and out amongst FroebePs 
 ethical theories. They form, indeed, the skeleton 
 which unites and supports the whole body of these 
 theories. And further — in a very special sense they 
 constitute the ethics of his practice of teaching. 
 
 We might carry our inquiry further, and consider 
 the application of Froebers views to the training of 
 youth as well as boyhood. But, if what has already 
 been said is sufficiently clear and connected, the repe- 
 tition of principles and methods would be too little 
 varied to avoid tediousness. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 
 THE KINDERGARTEN — THE GENERAL NATURE OF ITS 
 PROCESSES — GIFTS AND OCCUPATIONS 
 
 In a letter to Miss Howe, written from Keilhau in 
 1847, and giving her an account of his system and of 
 his training-college plans, Froebel says : " But such a 
 course (as that just described) of training and occu- 
 pations for children, answering to the laws of develop- 
 ment and the laws of life, demanded a thoroughly 
 expressive medium, in the shape of materials for these 
 occupations and games for the child ; therefore, to meet 
 his want I designed a series of play materials, under 
 the title of ^A Complete Series of Gifts for Play.'" 
 It will now be my endeavor to explain more precisely 
 the meaning of kindergarten methods, and in par- 
 ticular to describe these gifts and occupations, and the 
 general nature of their employment in the education 
 of the young. 
 
 A few introductory remarks will make everything^ 
 clearer. In whatever way the aims of education, as 
 set forth by various writers, may differ as to phraseol- 
 ogy, they will be found, on careful examination, to be 
 reducible practically to three: the acquirement of 
 knowledge, the development of mental and physical / 
 power, and the production of skill, or effectiveness, in 
 doing, especially in the application of knowledge to 
 124 
 
THE KINDERGARTEN 125 
 
 practice^' The close interdependence of these three is 
 ^-one-TH the fundamental principles of the kindergarten ; 
 so much so that, with Herbert Spencer, we may sum 
 them up under one head, and define education as 
 preparation for complete living. In order to effect 1 
 the threefold aim of knojwrledge, power, and skill, we 
 employ certain processes. These processes* are no 
 doubt numerous and varied ; but, when they have 
 been analyzed and duly considered, they will be found 
 to readily group themselves under the heads of taking 
 irif assimilating y and giving outM^' expressing. And 
 here again the kindergarten hoSR strongly that the 
 effectiveness of each of these kinds of activity depends 
 mainly on its intimate connection with the other two, 
 and in particular that the assimilating will be more or 
 less perfect, precisely as the activities of taking in and 
 giving out are properly brought into play or not, and 
 are or are not self-activities of the mind, in the sense 
 already explained. Most of us are fairly well agreed 
 as to what is meant by power and by skill, but the 
 meaning of knowledge is not always kept quite clear. 
 It is frequently confused with information. Accord- 
 ing to Froebel, and, indeed, to most psychologists, 
 knowledge is information taken in and assimilated — 
 placed in its right relations, that is, to what the taker- 
 in has already thoroughly made his own. Informa- 
 tion becomes knowledge when we have thoroughly 
 mastered its meaning, when we have realized its bear- 
 ing on other facts and things, when we understand it 
 in such a way as to be able to put it to its simple, 
 natural uses. In order to understand a fact or a thing, 
 we note its likenesses and unlikenesses to other facts 
 
126 FROEBEL 
 
 and things, — its relations to them, — and so class it 
 with its likes and distinguish it from its unlikes. It is 
 in connection with the noting of differences — so as to 
 bring out the individual characteristics of a thing 
 most clearly — that Froebel introduces what has been 
 called his " doctrine of contrasts." He places hard- 
 ness with softness, darkness with light, rest with 
 motion, and so on ; and holds that by their contrasts 
 each is rendered more noticeable and more intelligible. 
 This helps analysis and the recognition of individual- 
 ity. It separates things from the confused general 
 mass. But this process has to be followed by another, 
 — the bringing of things together again in intelligible 
 relations, or what we call synthesis. As Sir William 
 Hamilton puts it : " The first procedure of the mind in 
 the elaboration of its knowledge is always analytical It 
 descends from the whole to the parts, from the vague 
 to the definite. . . . But though analysis be the 
 fundamental procedure, it is still only a means towards 
 an end. We analyze only that we may comprehend ; 
 and we comprehend only inasmuch as we are able 
 to reconstruct in thought the complex effects which 
 we have analyzed into their elements. This mental 
 reconstruction is, therefore, the final, the consumma- 
 tive procedure of philosophy. This is familiarly 
 known by the Greek word synthesis.'*^ This describes 
 the mind's movement as a whole. But on the way 
 from un-unified facts to completely unified philosophy 
 there is a perpetual alternation of analysis and syn- 
 thesis, by means of which the general ideas produced 
 by the latter become wider and wider, and more and 
 more abstract. All this Froebel, like Rosmini, keeps 
 
THE KINDERGARTEN 127 
 
 steadily in view. He begins with the most striking 
 contrasts, and, gradually, as the mind's observing 
 powers grow, by his choice of cases, he reduces the 
 amount or degree of difference to be observed. And( 
 always, beneath the difference, he endeavors to bring^ 
 out the underlying likeness or unity ; or, to use his ; 
 own phrase, he endeavors "to reconcile the oppo- 
 sites." " The most delightful and fruitful of all the 
 intellectual energies," as he says in the Education of 
 Man, " is the perception of similarity and agreement, 
 by which we rise from the individual to the general, 
 trace sameness in diversity, and master, instead of being 
 mastered by, the multiplicity of nature." For the pur- 
 pose of helping the detection of similarity, he intro- 
 duces what he calls "the reconciling mean" ; something 
 intermediate, that is, and partaking of the qualities of 
 both the "opposites." So various shades of purple 
 will " reconcile " red and blue ; various intermediate 
 degrees of temperature will bring out the cannection 
 between boiling-point and freezing-point ; and so on. 
 And here again the degrees of difficulty will be care- 
 fully graded, beginning with cases where the under- 
 lying likeness is readily made evident, and advancing 
 to cases only to be dealt with by the trained observer. 
 The history of the growth of human knowledge is, 
 in the main, the history of growth in the comprehen- 
 sion of the relations between things, or between facts 
 — based on careful observation and experiment. And 
 this, too, is the history of the growth of knowledge in 
 each one of us, however much we may be unconscious 
 of, or may strive to interfere with, the process. To 
 make a new subject or thing intelligible and interest- 
 
128 FROEBEL 
 
 ing to our pupils, we teachers must make clear and 
 establish and maintain its relations to other subjects or 
 things already known. To make their understandings 
 grow we must make these relations clearer and clearer, 
 and we must widen and deepen and add to their 
 number, — not only by adding new facts and things, 
 but also, and perhaps more, by bringing out nexo 
 connections, which were not at first easy to notice and 
 understand. Interest is one of the most powerful 
 factors in attention ; and attention is itself one of the 
 most powerful factors in understanding. Interest 
 lies in connection, not isolation. A thing or a fact, for 
 its own sake, is seldom interesting for very long. It 
 is in the multitude of its connections and suggestions 
 that lasting interest lies. What interests a child 
 must be immediate and level to his thoughts. He 
 cannot realize a far-off advantage ; or, at any rate, he 
 cannot feel it for long. Young and old, we all expe- 
 rience delight in discovering, or in being helped to see, 
 connections between isolated facts, — especially such 
 as we have ourselves picked up ; and how proud we are 
 when we can make use of any bit of knowledge or infor- 
 mation we have acquired, even if it be only in the least 
 useful of ways ! Children are always eager to make use 
 of what they know, and to catch glimpses of its bear- 
 ing on what they and others do. Knowledge becomes 
 valuable in their eyes just in proportion as it helps 
 them to do something there and then. Doing and 
 feeling are intimately connected; and this doing, 
 called into activity by interest, will itself excite 
 into activity other feelings, and will enlist the ser- 
 vices of the will, — that power of the mind whioh 
 
THE KINDERGARTEN 129 
 
 determines, sustains, and directs actions. But the 
 effort to express or use knowledge is of even greater 
 service than this. Knowledge being what I have de- 
 scribed it, the effort to express or use knowledge (not 
 mere information) exercises the mind, calls the whole of 
 it connectedly into play, and so develops mental power. 
 It also exhibits to us, in a very clear and objective 
 manner, the true nature and extent of our knowing, 
 and causes renewed observation of that which is to be 
 expressed, and of the means used to express it.^ We^ 
 never realize how little or how much we know of a thing ' 
 till we try to apply that little or that much to prac- 
 tice. Doing, or, rather, expressive doing, reveals to the 
 teacher also the nature of his pupil's knowledge; 
 exhibits to the pupil new connections, and suggests 
 others still ; develops skill or effectiveness in doing, 
 as mere exercise of information seldom does, or does 
 but feebly ; and trains the muscles, the nerves, and 
 the organs of sense to be willing, obedient, effec- 
 tive servants of the mind. Lastly, it nourishes and 
 clarifies feeling, by giving it definite exercise under 
 the control of the will ; and this is by no means the 
 
 1 Writing to his cousin, Frau Schmidt, in 1841, Froebel says: 
 " The representation of facts and circumstances of history, of geog- 
 raphy, and especially of every-day life, by means of building with 
 the bricks contained in my boxes of 'gifts,' I hold to be, in the 
 highest degree, important for children, even if these representations 
 are imperfect, and fall far short of their originals. The eye is at 
 all events aroused and stimulated to observe with greater precision 
 than before the object that has been represented, when next it 
 actually comes before the child in nature or in life. And thus, by 
 means of perhaps a quite imperfect outward representation, the 
 inner perception is made more perfect." —Xef Person tAe Kinder- 
 garten, p. 99. 
 
130 FROEBEL 
 
 least of its services, since little children are so liable 
 to be driven hither and thither, and at times com- 
 pletely overwhelmed, by gusts and storms of feeling. 
 Control and direction of feeling are two of the first 
 things we have to help the young to learn. 
 
 In these ways, then, — by the processes of taking in, 
 assimilating, and expressing, — the child^s self is called 
 into action ; and more particularly by expressing is 
 this self -activity produced. I need not again describe 
 the nature of self-activity. It will be enough to note 
 that the life and growth of the mind, as of the body, 
 consists largely in transformation of material, and 
 that by this exercise of its functions the powers of 
 the mind as a whole are developed and strengthened ; 
 that the mind is aided in its growth by its taking in 
 the kind of knowledge it needs, just so much as it 
 needs, and just when it needs this knowledge ; and that 
 it is to work this up into its very self, and to use it as 
 a means of life. 
 
 Most of what I have been saying has had to do 
 with taking in and assimilating. I have but opened 
 the subject of giving out. I must now enter somewhat 
 more into details. One of the chief objects of the 
 kindergarten is to help the child to use his knowl- 
 edge, and his partially assimilated information, to 
 express himself; and this by each and all of those 
 modes and means of expression which really lie 
 within his power, and are most natural to him. The 
 1 watchwords of the kindergarten are self-activity, 
 all-sided connectedness, creativeness, or expressive 
 activity, well-ordered physical freedom and activity, 
 and happy and harmonious environment. Through 
 
THE KINDERGARTEN 131 
 
 doing, thinking, and feeling it endeavors to develop 
 the child's self — his individuality; to help him to 
 assimilate information, so that it may become knowl- 
 edge ; to develop his skill in doing, and his physical 
 powers ; and all this in the midst of, and largely by 
 means of, surroundings harmonious with and delight- 
 ful to child-nature. But what are the child's means/ 
 and modes of expression? First come movement and^; 
 gesture. Watch a child in expectation of some treat, 
 or under the impulse of some happy thought, dancing 
 along, moving his arms, swaying his body, tossing his 
 head and laughing; or, under dread of something 
 unpleasant, moving slowly, shrinking himself to- 
 gether, twisting his body, hanging his head, — and it 
 will be at once seen how powerful a means of 
 expression — especially of expressing feeling — move- 
 ment is. Or notice him and his fellows at play, how 
 they love to imitate the doings of adults around them, 
 and to dramatize everything, playing at riding, at 
 hunting, at driving, and the rest ; while the girls keep 
 house, or go to market, or look after baby. Dra- 
 matic action, gesture, — often accompanied by strange 
 descriptive sounds, — is not only the mode they choose 
 for expressing their own meaning, but also the mode 
 which most readily conveys to them the meaning of 
 some one else. Suiting the action to the word and 
 the word to the action is not only a device of great 
 value on the stage ; it is also an excellent plan for 
 making the meaning of words clear to little children, 
 and for helping them to remember and reproduce this 
 meaning. Moreover, the free physical exercise pro- 
 duced in this way in his games always has a meaning 
 
132 FROEBEL 
 
 for the child, — is closely linked to his ideas and 
 thoughts, — and therefore is far more interesting and 
 far more helpful to him than artificial gymnastics 
 ever can be, prescribed for him as they are by others, 
 and which are liable to call his attention only to the 
 physical side of his nature. Physical exercise shouldl 
 in the main be the expression of ideas and feelings, 
 however simple ; and that is why school-games, when 
 orderly and free, are found in practice to be of much 
 greater value than school-gymnastics, especially such 
 as are merely acrobatic. But apart from the par- 
 ticular kind of exercise here referred to, definite 
 physical education must of course always be a part — 
 an important part — of all education, and in the form 
 of exercise usually adopted in kindergartens, the 
 grace and beauty of the movements, and their evident 
 physical utility, add just that interest and meaning 
 which work in a gymnasium so often lacks. 
 
 Next may be mentioned song, — by which I do not 
 mean necessarily songs with words, but rather the giving 
 vent to rhythmic sounds, humming, the first beginning 
 of music, — sounds to which sense soon weds itself, 
 and with sense, words. This is so closely connected 
 with the preceding that I need not further enlarge upon 
 it here. Then there is the use of the concrete — in 
 building when the material is simply put together, 
 and in modelling when the shape of the material 
 itself is altered. The familiar scene on the sea-beach, 
 or in a hay-field, or even in the grimy but most 
 wonderful gutter, or the nursery experience with re- 
 gard to bricks, and bits of colored paper, and scraps 
 of cloth, — all these tell the tale of children's delight 
 
THE KINDERGARTEN 133 
 
 in constructing with the concrete, in giving outward 
 form in material to what is in their minds. And 
 again, not only do children express themselves readily 
 in this way, but they understand this mode of pre- 
 senting information better than any other. The best 
 description of a thing is the thing itself — then a 
 concrete model of it — then a picture — and, last 
 of all (certainly the last with young children), 
 a statement in words. How strongly do pictures 
 appeal to all of us ! How clearly, vividly, concisely 
 they tell their story to us — and in a language 
 intelligible to all nations alike, and which all 
 children so quickly learn ! And not only do 
 children quickly learn to understand this picture- 
 speech, they will freely and gladly use it to express 
 their own ideas, if the smallest help and encourage- 
 ment be given them, or even without any encourage- 
 ment at all. Of course one cannot understand a 
 child's picture-speech at once, any more than one can 
 his other utterances. We must study it and learn it. 
 It is not very hard, and it is intensely interesting ; 
 and, moreover, it will enable us to learn more about 
 the contents of a child's mind than any other plan 
 whatever. Indeed, drawing as a means of expression, 
 and as a definite test of definite knowledge, is of the 
 highest value all through school life, and long after 
 that period as well. If I want any one to tell me 
 what a plant or a flower is like, I value two or three 
 little drawings of it infinitely more than pages of 
 words — very nicely put together, no doubt, but 
 seldom definite and full enough to enable me to draw 
 the thing they describe. Moreover^ the desire and 
 
134 FROEBEL 
 
 the effort to draw a thing produce a closer and more 
 fruitful observation of details than is produced in 
 any other way. Of the value of drawing — or, as I 
 call it, graphic representation^ ov picture paraphrasing — 
 in the teaching of literature, I cannot speak here as 
 it deserves ; I can only refer to it and pass on.^ 
 
 And last — mingled with these modes of expression, 
 growing up out of them, and gradually becoming the 
 most powerful of all — comes the child's own use of 
 language, verbal speech. As far as the sounds alone 
 are concerned, the child usually picks them up quickly 
 enough ; but the precise meaning of words and sen- 
 tences is another matter altogether. It is mastered 
 only very slowly by the child; indeed, it is only 
 too evident that the majority of people never com- 
 pletely succeed in understanding the definite, precise 
 meaning of the words and sentences they themselves 
 use. It is a great mistake to presume too far on a 
 child's power to understand and to use language. In 
 the kindergarten our task is rather to prepare the 
 child to use language hereafter in the school as one 
 of the chief means h& will then have to employ for 
 expressing himself and for gaining knowledge. At 
 
 1 "It consists in requiring the pupils to represent on paper a 
 scene or action or figure from their poem. It induces a close ex- 
 amination of what the poet actually says ; it causes the foundation 
 of definite, clear mental images ; it allows the pupil to use in express- 
 ing himself that kind of language most intelligible to the young, — 
 pictures ; and it affords the teacher an excellent means of testing 
 how far the pupils have understood what has been described. Our 
 object here is not art-work, but the translation of word-speech 
 intop2C??/?T-speeeh, however clumsy the picture may be." See my 
 English Literature Teaching in Schools (Percival & Co.). See also 
 the note on p. 121) of this chapter. 
 
THE KINDERGARTEN 135 
 
 first it is not his chief means — and certainly not 
 his only means y as some people seem to think — for 
 expression and acquisition ; and children's confused 
 statements — over which the public, and even teachers, 
 often make merry — are simply, in many cases, the 
 results of premature and foolish forcing on of the 
 use of language, only half understood by the children, 
 and not infrequently very hazily used by teachers and 
 parents themselves. We shall best succeed in help- 
 ing the child to use and understand language aright, 
 not by restricting him to language, but by using all 
 his modes and means of expression in close con- 
 nection with one another, and with language, and 
 language in close connection with them all. This 
 is just what the kindergarten does. And while it 
 does this, mark the connectedness of the whole proc- 
 ess — as shown, for instance, in the use of that 
 most difficult and most valuable of all the kindergar-; 
 ten means of education, the story told by the teacher.! 
 The story of the week deals with the things the 
 children have been led to observe and take an inter- 
 est in ; it introduces language and helps the children 
 to improve their vocabulary and mode of speaking ; 
 it is illustrated by things which the children and the 
 teacher have collected from time to time, and by con- 
 crete constructions and modellings and pictures made 
 by the children ; its meaning is made real, and is 
 brought out still more clearly by pictures not drawn 
 by the children but exhibited to them ; it is enlivened 
 and dramatically made intelligible (especially as to 
 feeling) by songs and games which introduce move- 
 ment and gesture, and which utilize many a scrap of 
 
136 FROEBEL 
 
 knowledge picked up by the children themselves. 
 The story may prompt and direct the other work and 
 play, or the work and play may prompt the story ; it 
 matters little which, so long as together they pro- 
 duce one organic whole, and so long as all the differ- 
 ent modes and means of expression are made to 
 co-operate and interpret one another. In this way 
 the child learns many things and acquires power and 
 skill ; and, amongst other things, he acquires power 
 and skill in the use of language, far more real and 
 varied and valuable than any spelling-book or primer 
 can give. 
 
 Such are some of the most characteristic of Froe- 
 bel's kindergarten methods. But the most striking 
 and original of them all have yet to be described, 
 — those, namely, which are connected with what are 
 called "gifts" and "occupations," which it took 
 Froebel some fifteen years (1835-50) to think out 
 and invent. With these I must now endeavor to 
 deal.^ 
 
 The first plaything with which the child is provided 
 
 1 In 1835 Froebel begins with the study of ball games at Burg- 
 dorf. In 1850 he founded The Weekly Journal of Education, in 
 the pages of which appeared a description of a tolerably complete 
 System of Gifts and Occupations. This and twenty-nine other 
 papers on the kindergarten were collected and published by Dr. 
 W. Lange in his volume called Die Pddagogik des Kinder gar tens. 
 Most of these papers are of very high value ; but, strange to say, 
 they have not yet been translated. Those writers, other than 
 Froebel, to whom I am most indebted for what I say of the " gifts " 
 are Dr. Karl Schmidt (in his Geschichte der Pddagogik) and Prof. 
 Joseph Payne (in the lecture already referred to, which itself owes 
 somewhat to Dr. Schmidt) ; while here and there a hint is taken 
 from Miss Shirreff's The Kindergarten at Home, and from Koeh- 
 ler's well-known Praxis des Kindergartens, 
 
THE KINDERGARTEN 137 
 
 is, let us suppose, a ball made of wool, of one of the pri- 
 mary colors, say scarlet. It is placed before the baby 
 on the floor, rolled along the floor to right, to left, from 
 him and to him, thrown into the air and let fall ; or, 
 tied to a piece of string, it may be swung as a pendu- 
 lum or whirled in a circle. It is given to baby ; he 
 takes it into his hand ; grasps it, and by grasping it 
 strengthens the muscles of his hand and has his sensa- 
 tions directed to one point. He tries to do with the 
 ball what he has seen you do — fails — can hardly 
 hold it — tries again and again, and at length suc- 
 ceeds — and then is never tired of doing something 
 with it. All this is play — play which delights him ; 
 but it is play that has within it a germ of education. 
 The child is gaining his first notion of color (the ball 
 is like the curtains, red, but not like the floor or 
 mother's dress), of material (the ball is soft and 
 fluffy like the rug, but the floor is hard), of form, of 
 motion, of direction (to and fro, up and down), 
 of action and reaction, as well as of muscular sensi- 
 bility. At the same time the mother or the teacher 
 associates some of the simplest words with the thing 
 and its actions, — red, soft, warm, up, down, to, from, 
 right, left, etc., — and so leads the child uncon- 
 sciously to associate words with things and actions ; 
 and, by constantly employing words in their proper 
 sense and in the immediate presence of what they 
 tell him, initiates the child into the use of his mother- 
 tongue. Baby has begun to be an observer and ex- 
 perimenter, and even to express his observations in 
 words. Of course all this is in a most elementary 
 form — little more than sensation with the microscopic 
 
138 FROEBEL 
 
 beginnings of perception. Sometime or other this 
 must begin. Froebel takes the precaution that the 
 right environment and means of development shall be 
 provided from the very first, and always ready as 
 soon as they are needed, however unconscious and 
 invisible the need may be. 
 
 We come now to the "First Gift." This consists of 
 a box of six soft woollen balls of six different colors, 
 three primary and three secondary, or derived. One 
 of these the child recognizes as like the first ball 
 known ; the other he sees are unlike it. The same 
 games as before are continued. And now let us sup- 
 pose half a dozen children to be present. Each child 
 has a differently colored ball. The primary colors 
 are all contrasted in turn, two and two, and the inter- 
 mediate — or, as Froebel would say, the " reconciling " 
 — color, derived from each pair, is placed between 
 them. The idea of comparison is thus introduced, 
 and similarity, contrast, and discrimination are brought 
 into play. Sensation and perception are also made to 
 grow clearer and stronger by a wider and more fre- 
 quent exercise. The balls lend themselves to games 
 which are numerous beyond all counting. The ball is, 
 in fact, man's favorite plaything, indoors and out, from 
 cradle-time to the time when he can play no more. 
 
 The " Second Gift " consists of a box containing 
 three objects, all of hard wood, — a sphere (larger 
 than the balls we have been using), a cube (next to 
 the sphere the simplest regular solid), and the cylin- 
 der^ (which combines certain characteristics of both 
 
 1 The cylinder was added somewhere about 1844. It should be 
 noted that in Froebel's article on the gifts and occupations referred 
 
THE KINDERGARTEN 130 
 
 the sphere and the cube). The sphere is the known, 
 as far, at least, as shape is concerned, and we must 
 use it to help us to pass on to the unknown. But it 
 differs somewhat from the woollen balls. It is per- 
 haps larger ; it is hard, they are soft ; it is smooth, 
 they are rough; it is heavy, they are light. If 
 dropped, it makes a different sound to that made by 
 a woollen ball. When this has all been noticed, we 
 pass on to the cube. Differences of shape and move- 
 ment strike us at once : the sphere is round, with 
 one surface, no corners or edges, easily moved, rolls ; 
 the cube is not round, with several surfaces, corners 
 and edges, not so easy to move, slides. Many little 
 games will bring out all this readily. Then the cyl- 
 inder is introduced as the Froebelian " reconciliation " 
 between the sphere and the cube : it possesses some 
 of the characteristics and powers of each, and so links 
 them together; and yet it differs from each. It 
 has a round surface like the sphere, and flat ends like 
 the cube. So with regard to movement : the sphere 
 and the cylinder roll ; the cylinder and the cube slide ; 
 the sphere can roll in every position, the cylinder 
 only on its side ; the cube can slide on its six faces, 
 the cylinder only on its two ends. By spinning the 
 
 to above, Gift II contains also a cone of revolution, or right cone. 
 "As the cylinder," he says, '* excludes the intuition (Anschauung) of 
 corners and the fixed rotation upon one point, it calls for and com- 
 mands in its turn a body intermediary between all three, that is to 
 say. uniting the properties of all three, (which properties are) cor- 
 ners or points, edges or lines, sides or surfaces, plane as well as 
 curved ; this is the revolving cone." The introduction of tliis cone 
 would simplify many difficulties which kindergarten teachers have 
 felt in the development of some important forms. 
 
140 FROEBEL 
 
 cube and cylinder suspended by a string at various 
 points on their surfaces, their likeness and unlikeness 
 are still farther shown. The surfaces, then the edges, 
 then the corners, are all examined ; and so on. Then 
 common objects like our three shapes are pointed to 
 or named by the children. The sphere is like an 
 orange, a head, the beads of a necklace ; the cube is 
 like mamma's work-box, a trunk, a book, a chest of 
 drawers ; the cylinder is like the ruler on the table, a 
 candle, the garden roller, cook's rolling-pin. All these 
 various exercises bring into the mind notions of space, 
 time, form, motion, relativity in general ; ^ and, like 
 the sun, the rain, and the earth in physical nature, set 
 the thought-germs growing and give them the right 
 nourishment. 
 
 The " Third Gift '' is a large wooden cube divided 
 into eight small cubes of equal size. The cube is 
 known, and we present it to the children as a complete 
 whole. We proceed by analysis to call attention to 
 the relations of the parts to the whole, and of the 
 parts to one another. The cube is larger than that in 
 Gift II, but similar in shape. The eight small cubes 
 are the same in form as one another and as the cube 
 they compose when put together. They are equal to 
 one another in size, but smaller than the complete 
 cube. The notion of a whole as made up of parts is 
 introduced, and of parts going together to compose a 
 complete whole ; and this is emphasized by our con- 
 stantly in every exercise taking the whole cube to 
 
 1 Relativity is used to express the relation or connection of things 
 to or with one another — their bearing on one another — as parts of 
 one great whole. 
 
THE KINDERGARTEN 141 
 
 pieces, arranging the pieces in some symmetrical way, 
 and then gradually building the complete cube once 
 more. The children acquire the ideas — and perhaps 
 also the names — both in immediate connection with 
 actual concrete things — of halves, quarters, eighths. 
 Imagination is now called in; the cubes are called 
 "bricks " ; and the instinct of construction is awakened. 
 In the buildings and patterns Froebel would have the 
 children led to accustom themselves to regularity, 
 care, precision, and beauty. They should never be 
 allowed to roughly destroy. He lays great stress on 
 all the material being used up each time, so that the 
 children may become accustomed to reflection, to hav- 
 ing always a distinct aim before their eyes, and to 
 wasting nothing. The child must reflect in some 
 measure, if he feels he has to use up all his bricks. If 
 one or two are by chance left over, he must bring 
 them in symmetrically as parts of the whole; and 
 this will renew and emphasize his attention to the 
 symmetry of his construction. Besides, constructions 
 are sure to become aimless and vague if only so much 
 of the material is employed as the whim of the mo- 
 ment prompts. The things constructed will at first 
 be imitations from others present before the children, 
 either ready-made, or made there and then by the 
 teacher, — then they will be made from memory, — 
 then they will be original creations. They may be an 
 armchair for father, a bench, a throne for the queen, a 
 cross, a monument, a doorway, steps — in fact any- 
 thing the child likes that has a definite form and a 
 name. Our most prominent aims in all this — and in 
 the similar exercises with the three following gifts — 
 
142 FROEBEL 
 
 may be described as exciting interest in numbers and 
 in their relations to one another, associating number 
 with form, and applying number to artistic construc- 
 tions. And in all and through all it will be noticed 
 that each child employs his own hands, his own mind, 
 and his whole mind on his work. He is himself giv- 
 ing outward form and expression to what he has him- 
 self conceived. He is, therefore, intensely interested 
 and spontaneously happy. 
 
 The " Fourth," " Fifth," and " Sixth Gifts " con- 
 tinue the analysis of the cube, introducing new forms 
 and giving scope for exercises and constructions more 
 J, and more varied. In the " Fourth Gift " the cube is 
 divided into eight equal oblong parallelopipeds, or 
 common brick forms, by being divided into four equal 
 slabs by horizontal sections, these being bisected by a 
 vertical cut parallel to two of the faces. The new 
 shape brings in a considerable development of the 
 notions already referred to, especially in respect to 
 vertical building. By means of this gift, also, areas 
 may be set out and determined ; by laying one brick 
 across another, examples of balance or equilibrium 
 may be given ; while by placing all the bricks in a line, 
 with the length vertical so that the falling of one 
 will cause the others to fall also, the idea of communi- 
 cated motion can be introduced. The "Fifth Gift " is 
 'p -/ a development of the " Third." The cube is trisected 
 both horizontally and vertically, so that twenty-seven 
 small equal cubes are produced, and three of these 
 are bisected vertically through a diagonal, and three 
 others are quartered in a similar way. This is in some 
 ways the most valuable of all the gifts, especially in 
 the transition classes just above the kindergarten. Its 
 
THE KINDERGARTEN 143 
 
 exercises are simply countless. It introduces the tri- 
 angle. The parallelogram and the trapezoid can now 
 be constructed ; and later on older children can by 
 building see the truth of the statement that the square 
 on the hypothenuse of a right-angled triangle is equal 
 to the sum of the squares on the other two sides ; while 
 in number work they may even learn (should it be 
 thought necessary) how to extract the cube root. Of 
 course the names of the figures and solids and the 
 enunciations of the problems, in the first instance and 
 even in the second, need not — and I think should not 
 — be given in most cases. The geometrical work 
 should be kept informal. The use of this gift should, 
 moreover, be continued up into the school itself. 
 The "Sixth Gift" continues the development of 
 the "Fourth." The cube is divided into twenty- 
 seven equal oblong parallelopipeds^ and of these, 
 three are bisected lengthwise and six are bisected 
 breadthwise. This gift, like the fourth, offers excel- 
 lent means for working out little problems as to areas. 
 What is usually accepted now as the " Seventh Gift " 
 introduces surfaces, and consists of quadrangular 
 and triangular tablets of thin wood or card-board — 
 squares, equilateral triangles, right-angled triangles, 
 etc. Sets of these tablets may be colored uniformly 
 with the seven colors of the rainbow, and black and 
 white, and used for color constructions ; the results, if 
 need be, being copied permanently (in paper-mosaic) by 
 pasting bits of similarly colored and similarly shaped 
 gummed-paper on to card-board.^ The " Eighth " and 
 
 1 Of course when an exercise other than one in color is intended, 
 the tablets should be plain {i.e. of the wood's natural color) or else 
 
144 FROEBEL 
 
 the " Ninth Gifts " are introductory to drawing — are, 
 in fact, linear drawing in the concrete. The former 
 consists of small sticks or laths j the latter, of circular 
 and semi-circular rings. These can be laid in all sorts 
 of patterns, and be used to copy all sorts of shapes — 
 the former being also specially useful in counting- 
 exercises. By introducing small pith, wax, or cork 
 balls or soaked peas, the sticks — though wires are 
 better — can be used for constructing the skeleton 
 outlines of solids. But I need not continue. In each 
 case the kinds of exercise, always gradually and con- 
 tinuously progressive, are the same as those I have 
 described. Observation is called on with increasing 
 strictness, relativity is more and more appreciated, 
 and opportunities are afforded for countless manifes- 
 tations of constructiveness. And all the while impres- 
 sions and elementary notions are being formed in the 
 mind which will bear geometrical fruit hereafter, and 
 fruit of aesthetic kind. The dawning sense of the 
 beautiful as well as of the true will have begun to 
 gain consistency and power. In the case of the Fifth 
 Gift, especially, an experience of some of the funda- 
 mental operations of algebra, algebraic and other 
 geometry and trigonometry may easily be acquired, 
 though only in a most elementary state ; and the con- 
 nection of the triangle with the three-faced prisms 
 will also be perceived. But enough has been said to 
 
 all of one easily visible but not exciting color, such as reddish 
 brown, — otherwise color, with its contrasts and harmonies, will 
 largely engross the children's attention. I may add that in sticking 
 the colored paper on to card-board both sides of the paper should be 
 wetted, otherwise it will curl up. 
 
THE KINDERGARTEN 145 
 
 show what a wide field for varied activities is thus 
 laid open to the children. 
 
 The gifts, it will be seen, follow a definite order, 
 — the order of the natural growth of ideas and of pro- 
 gressive power in construction ; at any rate this is so 
 up to the Fifth Gift.^ They are intended, as Hail- 
 mann puts it, " to give the child from time to time 
 new universal aspects of the external world, suited to 
 a child's development. . . . The gift in form and ma- 
 terial is determined by the cosmic phase {i.e. the uni- 
 versal idea) to be brought to the child's apprehension, 
 and by the condition of the child's development at the 
 period for which the gift is intended." As a rule, the 
 first four gifts will last a child up to the end of his 
 fourth year. Froebel himself tells us what conditions 
 a true gift should satisfy. They amount to these : it\ 
 should enable the child to interpret the external world f 
 around him, and to give expression to the world '^^ 
 
 1 As has already been said, a large number of the exercises with 
 the Fifth Gift belong to the Transition Classes and to the school 
 proper. It is usually best in the kindergarten to introduce along 
 with the Fourth Gift the tablets of Gift VII, closely followed by the 
 sticks of Gift VIII, and to postpone the greater part of the exercises 
 of Gift V, and all of those of Gift VI, till later. Indeed, Gift VI is 
 seldom needed at all till the children are in their seventh or eighth 
 year. When, however, Gift VII is introduced with Gift IV, or imme- 
 diately after the beginning of Gift V, it should not, I think, contain 
 any surfaces which have not been led up to properly. The surfaces 
 which are equilateral, obtuse-angled, etc., which Gift VII in- 
 cludes, and which have not been led up to, may be introduced through 
 the sticks of Gift VIII and card-board ; and, reversing our former 
 mode of proceeding, we may, by tlie help of card-board, construct 
 the prisms from which the new surfaces may be derived, just as our 
 other surfaces were derived from the other prisms with which we 
 have been dealing. 
 
146 FROEBEL 
 
 within him ; each should, as far as may be, include 
 those which have gone before and foreshadow those 
 which are to follow ; and each should readily make 
 prominent the idea of a whole — of a whole as made 
 up of parts, and of parts going together to form an 
 orderly whole. The condition of " expressing the 
 world within," however, includes the ** occupations " 
 as well as the gifts ; and Froebel himself never made 
 any clear distinction between them. Gifts and occupa- 
 tions are undoubtedly very closely connected ; and, in- 
 deed, unless the latter are treated as direct applications 
 to practice of what has been learnt from the former, 
 they are liable to have very little educational value 
 whatever, even when they are connected with the 
 games. Still, the distinction between them is not 
 hard to see, and, as Hailmann says, has a decided 
 value of its own. But let me give a list of the "occu- 
 pations " which are most used at the present time. 
 The grouping is merely adopted for purposes of ref- 
 erence, and not necessarily as an indication of the 
 order in which they should be used. 
 
 Solids. — Modelling in clay and in card-board, 
 paper-folding (in three dimensions), and, later on, 
 wood-carving, or sloyd. 
 
 Surfaces, — Paper-folding (in two dimensions), 
 paper-cutting, paper-mosaic, work with color-brush. 
 
 Lines and Points. — Mat-plaiting, slat-weaving, pa- 
 per-weaving, kindergarten-sewing, wax or cork work 
 with sticks, drawing in chequers and free drawing, — 
 and sometimes paper-twisting, — together with bead- 
 threading, and sometimes (but not often) perforating. 
 All these occupations — whose names fairly well in- 
 
THE KINDERGARTEN 147 
 
 dicate in what they consist — have mainly to do with 
 giving out, or expression ; while the gifts have mainly, 
 though not exclusively, to do with taking in and as- 
 similating. The former, as Hailmann points out, give 
 invention, power, skill ; the latter give discovery, 
 insight, ideas. In the construction-exercises the gifts 
 only induce arrangement of materials whose individ- 
 ual shapes do not change, and this mainly for the pur- 
 pose of making noticeable the relations of parts to one 
 another and to the whole : the occupations deal with 
 materials plastic or easily changed in form, and the 
 exercises consist in modifying, changing the form, 
 adapting means to ends, creating new wholes from 
 parts of other wholes (the concrete counterpart of 
 constructive imagination) ; and the wholes are to be 
 permanent and, as far as possible, of some practical 
 value. And just as in the case of the gifts we call 
 attention to the likeness of the shapes we are dealing 
 with to common objects around us, so in the case of 
 the occupations, we use our materials to make copies 
 of those common objects; though, of course, we do not 
 restrict ourselves to using them in this way, as I have 
 just explained. But, as I have already pointed out in 
 the earlier part of this chapter, productive or creative 
 work, besides resulting in skill, has important intel- 
 lectual effects of its own : it corrects faulty taking 
 in (or at least calls attention to its faultiness), and 
 vigorously assists assimilation by shaking the parts 
 of our knowledge into their proper relations ; while it 
 enables the learner to feel the reality of those rela- 
 tions as nothing else can do. So that, in spite of our 
 distinctions, back we come to the very close connec- 
 
148 FROEBEL 
 
 tion between occupations and gifts. We must be 
 conscious of ideas before we can express them, and so 
 gift-work must regularly precede occupation-work ; 
 and we must have mastery over our material before 
 we can use it freely and effectively to express our 
 ideas, and so the materials of the occupations must be 
 such as come readily within the child's powers of con- 
 trol, and be fitted to do the work. Some connections 
 are evident at once : clay and card-board modelling go 
 with all the first six gifts, as far as exercises in solid 
 form are concerned ; paper-folding, paper-cutting, and 
 paper-mosaic (or work with colored paper pasted on 
 card-board) go with the tablets for exercises on sur- 
 faces; drawing and kindergarten-sewing and paper- 
 twisting go with the sticks and rings ; and so on. But 
 we have to look more closely even than this. As we 
 have seen, the gifts lend themselves to a great variety 
 of exercises. Sometimes the observations and impres- 
 sions refer to solid form, sometimes to number, some- 
 times to ideas of plane geometry, sometimes to ideas 
 of beauty, and so on. In choosing the occupation we 
 are to use, and the way we are to use it as a practical 
 sequence to a particular gift-exercise, we must note 
 the nature of that exercise, and make our choice ac- 
 cordingly. So, for instance, for number — especially 
 numbers in groups — mat-plaiting, which markedly 
 uses numbers in groups, is an excellent sequence; and 
 so too at times is drawing in chequers, or bead-thread- 
 ing. Eor plane geometry we may choose paper-cutting 
 or paper-folding ; and for ideas of beauty, color-work, 
 paper-mosaic, or free drawing. Not that we are to re- 
 strict the occupation-work solely to these ideas ; but 
 
THE KINDERGARTEN 149 
 
 these ideas must at least be very prominent among 
 those which we apply. This is why we cannot ar- 
 range the occupations in any definite sequence of 
 their own. For the rest I need only add that, since 
 the occupations distinctly introduce manual exercise 
 and demand dexterity, neatness, and accuracy, they 
 are of especial value in helping to make the hands and 
 the eyes obedient, effective servants of the mind, and 
 in particular of the will ; while, moreover, their free- 
 dom and suggestiveness never fail to delight and to 
 stimulate both little children and even those other 
 children who are grown up. It must not, however, 
 be supposed that any manual work will do as an occu- 
 pation. All honest work, certainly, produces a good 
 effect ; and domestic service — which is a child's public 
 service — most certainly ennobles a child, and, indeed, 
 all of us. But just as in the songs and games, so here — 
 a choice has to be made ; and what is chosen has to 
 be adapted to the kindergarten purpose, — the purpose 
 of mental, physical, and moral development. Not 
 only has the material of an occupation to be easy for 
 a child to manipulate, and well fitted for the work 
 required of it ; but the occupation in itself must be 
 varied and many-sided in its educative power; must 
 not be simply imitative ; must draw into itself what 
 has gone before and reach out to what is to follow ; 
 and must distinctly form a part of the organic unity 
 of the whole kindergarten process. The other kinds 
 of work may very well be left for the freer hours of 
 the life at home. 
 
 There is one other centre of interest and source of 
 stimulation in the kindergarten to which I must refer, 
 
150 FROEBEL 
 
 though the fuller treatment of it must be postponed 
 to the next chapter. I mean the study of nature, or, 
 rather, the observation of natural surroundings and 
 the stimulation of curiosity concerning them. Na- 
 ture-study in any true sense does not belong to the 
 kindergarten proper but to the transition classes, 
 and still more to the school. What the kindergarten 
 endeavors to do is to prepare the children for such a 
 study, and to give them an impulse and a bias in 
 that direction. Of the general ethical effects which 
 should result from a close intercourse and familiarity 
 with nature I have spoken in both of the two chapters 
 which precede this. With the kindergarten mode of 
 procedure I have dealt in the chapter on the Mutter- 
 und Kose-Lieder. The plan, it will be remembered, 
 though guided by a definite aim in the teacher's 
 mind, is essentially an indirect and informal one, 
 but all the more effective on that account. The 
 children are to be encouraged in their instinctive 
 love for flowers and living creatures by means of 
 gardening ^ and the care of pet animals ; while the 
 games and songs are to abound in references to, and 
 parables taken from, the children's natural surround- 
 ings and especially the lives and habits of birds and 
 the small four-footed things with which children 
 are acquainted; human beings, especially human 
 beings who work, not being omitted from the circle 
 of interest. The whole matter, after the plan of 
 
 1 See the Education of Man generally ; and more particularly 
 Froebel's paper, "Die Garten der Kinder im Kindergarten" (the 
 children's gardens in the kindergarten), in the volume entitled Die 
 Padagogik des Kindergartens, 
 
THE KINDERGARTEN 161 
 
 the kindergarten, is treated as a healthy, happy- 
 recreation, with just a germ of duty and responsibility 
 in it ; and, so treated, will undoubtedly produce the 
 result aimed at, — interest in nature. And if this 
 delight in the wonder and beauty of nature should, 
 as Froebel thinks, be called into play and exercised 
 in the country, how much more is it necessary in 
 our huge and smoky towns, where little children are 
 almost wholly shut out from nature — from birds, 
 and flowers, and streams, and soft green grass. Yet 
 very few kindergartens seem to make a really earnest 
 effort in this direction. The matter, no doubt, pre- 
 sents a certain amount of difficulty ; but it is not 
 really so difficult as some seem to imagine. Plants 
 and flowers can be grown in pots and boxes ; canaries 
 and poultry can be kept ; cats and dogs and tortoises 
 are not hard to manage; and aquariums are by 
 no means impossible. I have known all this managed 
 in London, and with the happiest results. There 
 is no reason why it should not be done elsewhere 
 — no reason except that many kindergarten teachers 
 are still blind to its value, and are in such a hurry 
 to get on to books and book-work that they will 
 hardly let childhood ripen in children. Without this 
 contact with living nature, however, no kindergarten 
 is complete. When it is absent we may only too 
 surely suspect that the true understanding of FroebeFs 
 process as a whole is absent also.^ 
 
 1 In this chapter I have profited in more than one place by the 
 good counsel of Madame Michaelis, the best-known authority in 
 England on the subject of kindergarten exercises. 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 TRANSITION CLASSES — THEIR AIM AND METHODS - 
 NATURE-STUDY 
 
 Continuity, it will be remembered, is one of the 
 fundamental principles of FroebePs theory of educa- 
 tion ; and yet to any one who has followed the kin- 
 dergarten plan as it has just been described, and who 
 is at all acquainted with schools as they are, it must 
 be quite as evident, as it was to Froebel himself, that 
 unless very great care is taken a very marked discon- 
 tinuity is likely to occur at this point. In a letter to 
 Ida Seele, written in 1847, Froebel says : " A school 
 is a place in which and by whose method a human 
 being obtains knowledge of something outside him- 
 self, and is won to the contemplation and acquisition 
 of facts placed before him. But the child must first 
 himself be something before he can turn to the con- 
 templation of strange things not wholly akin to 
 his nature." ^ It was this need that the child should 
 be something which he had felt very keenly in his 
 school work with the younger children and which he 
 had set himself to meet by the invention of the kin- 
 dergarten. But even then he found that the transition 
 from the methods of the kindergarten to those of an 
 ordinary school was liable to be too abrupt, the change 
 
 1 Letters on the Kindergarten, p. 291. 
 152 
 
TRANSITION CLASSES 153 
 
 of exercise too sudden, the demand for facts and 
 abstractions too new, so that there resulted a distinct 
 harm to the child^s mind ; and the school itself was 
 often perplexed and dissatisfied with the new pupil. 
 To avoid this he saw that there must be an inter- 
 mediate stage in which, without breaking wholly or 
 suddenly with the kindergarten, the child must be 
 gradually made ready to profit by the other methods 
 and other work of schools such as we find them. To 
 do this properly we must of course recall to mind the 
 essential characteristics of the kindergarten and those 
 of the school ; we must compare them and note their 
 likenesses and unlikenesses ; and upon the results of 
 this we must found our transitional methods and our 
 new choice of subjects, if the discontinuity is to be re- 
 duced to a minimum, — which discontinuity would 
 wholly disappear if the schools could be persuaded to 
 carry on the use of the most fruitful of the kinder- 
 garten methods, at any rate throughout their lower 
 classes. But long before the year 1840 and the estab- 
 lishment of the first kindergarten FroebeFs mind had 
 been occupied with the problem of this period of tran- 
 sition from infancy to boyhood, which may be taken to 
 be roughly from the age of six to that of eight, or from 
 seven to nine. In the Education of Man the sections 
 (sects. 45-59) which treat of '' Boyhood " and '' The 
 Boy at School,'^ though in the main describing the 
 characteristic activities of boyhood and how the 
 school should recognize and use them, nevertheless 
 constantly refer to the preceding period of infancy or 
 childhood, point out the most marked features of the 
 transition, and insist upon the necessity for continuity. 
 
154 FROEBEL 
 
 In the first of the sections referred to it is maintained 
 that the period of childhood is predominantly that of 
 life for the sake of merely living and developing, dur- 
 ing which the child should gain knowledge of himself 
 and his own powers by making the internal external ; 
 while the period of boyhood is predominantly the 
 period for learning, for making the external internal. 
 The school leads the chikl to the consideration and 
 knowledge of particular relationships and individual 
 things external to himself, and of their nature in 
 accordance with the laws that lie in them, with a view 
 to helping him later on to see a deeper connectedness, 
 and to move forward from the particular to the uni- 
 versal. Its task is " the conscious communication of 
 knowledge for a definite purpose and in a definite 
 inner connection, which the teacher must always have 
 present in his mind." Lit should give firmness to the 
 will and quicken it, so that it may become pure, and 
 strong, and enduring, and manifest itself in a genuine 
 human lifej Later on we are told that school instruc- 
 tion should be by means of example iS^nd words. 
 Neither example alone nor words alone will do : not 
 example alone, for it is particular and special, and the 
 word is needed to give to particular individual ex- 
 amples universal applicability; nor words alone, for 
 example is needed to interpret and explain the word, 
 which is general, spiritual, and often ambiguous. But 
 even instruction and example are not enough ; there 
 should also be a good, pure heart for them to act 
 upon, and this should have been produced by the 
 proper treatment of the child in the preceding 
 period. 
 
TRANSITION CLASSES 155 
 
 There is much else which might be quoted from the 
 Education of Man bearing on the question before us. 
 But we have a better and more recent source from 
 which we may with great advantage draw enlighten- 
 ment. During the last years of his life the difficulties 
 of this transitional period seem to have constantly 
 exercised Froebel's thoughts — so much so that he 
 invented a new gift of fourteen solids for the special 
 use of the transition or intermediate classes ; and just 
 four weeks before his death he wrote a long letter to 
 Emma Bothmann, one of his students, dealing solely 
 with this matter, and b A^ng date " Marienthal, May 
 25th, 1852." ^ It is to t^ letter, I think, we should 
 principally turn for direct information as to FroebePs 
 own views on the subject ; and in doing so we shall 
 get still further help if we study once more the par- 
 ticular passages in the Education of Man to which he 
 refers. 
 
 " In the kindergarten," says Froebel in this letter, 
 " we have only to deal with intuition (that is, intelli- 
 gent, direct observation) — apprehensioir — with doing, 
 exact designation of a thing by .means of the word, as 
 ^^o exact designation o#that produced by doing ; 
 but not yet vdih perception and re-perception (or 
 cognition), detached, as it were, from the object 
 perceived. The object and the cognition of it, intui- 
 tion and the word, form still in many ways an 
 intimate unity, just as the soul and body do. This 
 kindergarten stage of education must be maintained 
 by the kindergarten teacher, as one very sharply 
 
 1 Die VermittlungscMde (The Intermediate School), in the 
 volume entitled Die Pddagoyik des Kindergartens. 
 
166 FROEBEL 
 
 defined. It entirely excludes, for the present, re-per- 
 ception and abstract, self-dependent thought, towards 
 which the intermediate school leads us for the first 
 time." This is precisely the distinction which 
 Eosmini makes (Method in Education, sect, iii) between 
 cognitions of the first and second orders, the latter 
 of which he places in his third period of education, 
 and the transition from the first to the second of 
 which he considers is mainly assisted by language, 
 which, he says, serves the child as a kind of artificial 
 memory. But let us mark the stages again. The 
 first stage — sensation with the accompanying and 
 resulting percept — the effect produced on the mind 
 by an object actually present; and the second stage — 
 the trace left on the mind when the object is no 
 longer present — the mental image, which can be called 
 up and re-perceived, and later on, in company with 
 other mental images, can be analyzed and elaborated 
 (apart from the object) by the mind's own powers. 
 This distinction is strongly supported by physical 
 reasons, for it is, as a rule, at the close of the seventh 
 year that the predominance of the brain is firmly 
 established. It has attained very nearly its maximum 
 size, and is firmer, while its structural development 
 (shown mainly in a deeper and more intricate furrow- 
 ing of the convolutions) henceforth proceeds much 
 more rapidly. Physically, therefore, the child is 
 better fitted to analyze and elaborate the sense-impres- 
 sions and percepts which it has acquired ; and close 
 observers of child-mind tell us that this is also plainly 
 to be seen in the child's outer manifestations of 
 mental activity at this period. The eighth year 
 
TRANSITION CLASSES 167 
 
 usually introduces us to the critical period of second 
 dentition, which demands our most watchful care. 
 But when that is safely over, the child forges ahead 
 rapidly — often far too rapidly for its physical welfare 
 — and its strictly intellectual life may be said to have 
 definitely begun. And so, even if there were no 
 un-Froebellian school to follow, it would still be 
 necessary, between the years of seven and nine, to 
 introduce gradually some change in the mental 
 exercises, and in the material, which we employ in 
 the earlier years. 
 
 But to return to FroebePs letter. " In the kinder- 
 garten the essential thing is the child — its nature, its 
 growth in strength and efficiency, its development, 
 advancement, education. In the school proper this is 
 reversed. The essential thing here is the object, its 
 nature, and the cognition, the intuition and apprehen- 
 sion of its properties and relations; the formative 
 effect on the child being secondary, and, so to speak, 
 accessory and accidental. Through the demand made 
 on the child for understanding the object, the material 
 substance, the thing in its true nature, in its distinct 
 properties and clear relations, the child itself is also 
 , again influenced; but still the right cognition and 
 perception of the object by means of intuition is the 
 chief concern. In the school, in fact, we have mainly 
 to do with the comprehension of the object by means 
 of thought, the internal representation, the abstraction, 
 or, so to speak, the unclothing of the body of the 
 object. The intermediate school thus forms the 
 transition from sensuous and direct intuition to 
 abstract thought-comprehension.'' Again he says ; 
 
158 FROEBEL 
 
 "The keystone of the kindergarten activity is the 
 transformation of material, and, therefore, the per- 
 ception of the mutual connectedness of the various 
 solid forms, their derivation from one another, and 
 the connection of all with the primary unity of 
 space. ... As to the representation of the object by 
 the sign, i.e. by drawing: in the kindergarten we 
 hear little of this, because the small fingers are still 
 too weak ; stick-laying supplies its place on the one 
 side, and, on the other, the making of round o's, which 
 children love so much to do with their pencils, and 
 which can be carried forward to the simple drawing 
 of flowers and leaves. However, drawing, as writing, 
 precisely for the sake of the weak little fingers, has a 
 preponderance in the intermediate school, as has also 
 exercise in color and in songs and singing, to which 
 last the singing in the kindergarten is only prepar- 
 atory. Add (to what has been mentioned) the 
 introduction to life itself, at first through the move- 
 ment-plays, and then through the child's cultivation 
 of his little garden-beds, and the personal feeling of 
 self and of life awakened and nourished in the child 
 by means of these ^and with the advance of this 
 (simultaneously given and aroused), a prophetic sense 
 of a fatherly Life-giver, and his life-fostering care. . . . 
 Add all this, and you have the kindergarten in its 
 complete accomplishment, and the child as the pupil 
 of the same on the threshold of the intermediate 
 school." " You see," he adds, " with what a founda- 
 tion, a basis, with what a sum of living germs in the 
 life-material which he has gathered, the child passes 
 from the kindergarten to the intermediate school. At 
 
TRANSITION CLASSES 159 
 
 no point does the preparatory direction fail him ; for 
 every development demanded by life the impulse has 
 been given, as this shows itself in the great whole of 
 nature. All this awaits only development from 
 unconsciousness, through growing consciousness, to 
 consciousness itself ; and this, now, is the task of the 
 preparatory school. What path does the preparatory, 
 or intermediate school, now follow? It attaches 
 itself very closely to the acts, to the phenomena, and 
 to the intuitions of the kindergarten ; but it gives to 
 the observation of the particular and individual a 
 generality of significance, an intellectual apprehension, 
 and a thought-form ; for example : my little ball 
 moves easily liither and thither, forward and back, up 
 and down (uitnition of the kindergarten). Everywhere 
 in space I can imagine three lines, three directions, 
 which cut one another at right angles at one point 
 {conception of the intermediate scliool) . . . . A whole, 
 two halves ; two halves, a whole {intuition of the kin- 
 dergarten). I can divide every whole into two halves, 
 and can always put together these halves to make the 
 whole again {intellectual and general conception of the 
 intermediate school). ^^ He might have added a still 
 more striking contrast between the kindergarten in- 
 tercourse with plants and animals as they live and 
 grow and the first advance towards formal botany 
 and zoology in the intermediate school. 
 
 I have quoted but a few of the passages of this 
 remarkable letter which bear most distinctly on the 
 general aspect of the question with which I am dealing. 
 The whole of the letter, however, is worthy of very 
 careful attention, and should have been translated 
 
160 FROEBEL 
 
 long ago. But let us now look at some of the prac- 
 tical applications to which these general principles 
 readily lend themselves. On the one hand, we have 
 the kindergarten, with its activities almost exclusively 
 concerned with physical development and with sense- 
 impressions, percepts, mental images, and certain rudi- 
 mentary feelings chiefly egoistic. On the other, we 
 have the school proper, in which we have most to 
 do with conception or the formation of general ideas, 
 and with judgment and reasoning. Without breaking 
 with the former we have gradually to fit the child for 
 the latter. Now in our study of the growth of mind 
 we have found that the different modes of activity 
 show themselves as becoming noticeably prominent 
 in a certain order, while the mind is working up its 
 material into higher and higher, or more and more 
 abstract and universal forms. Between the formation 
 of percepts and mental images and the formation of 
 general ideas and the rest, two intimately related 
 modes of activity emerge clearly into view and demand 
 our attention. They are memory and imagination. 
 In the intermediate classes, therefore, the earlier forms 
 of memory and imagination distinctly indicate them- 
 selves as modes of activity in which the mind should 
 specially be exercised — though, of course, from the 
 first, the mind has already been remembering and 
 imagining many things. It is only, however, on the 
 earlier and simpler forms of these that I would lay 
 any stress — the later and more elaborated forms 
 belong to the school proper. Memory and imagination 
 — or constructive imagination as it is usually called — 
 in the transition classes, or intermediate school, must 
 
TRANSITION CLASSES 161 
 
 be concerned with what the child brings with it from 
 the kindergarten, viz. sense-impressions, percepts, men- 
 tal images, and childish feelings. Memory in particu- 
 lar will not be merely, nor even chiefly, the mind 
 exercising itself on icords; it will be memory of the 
 eye, memory of the touch, of muscular sensation, and 
 also to some extent memory of the ear. Memory of 
 words spoken and written will, of course, not be omit- 
 ted ; and will be exercised in close connection with 
 the things and actions observed, and with the mental 
 results of observation. In the higher transition classes 
 exercises in rudimentary conception and reasoning, etc., 
 will be introduced ; but they will not be effective until 
 the mind has made some small progress in developing 
 its powers of observation, memory, and imagination. 
 We must remember, moreover, that memory, imagina- 
 tion, and the rest are not parts or sections of the 
 mind, but simply the kinds or modes of activity in 
 which the mind as a whole manifests itself. The 
 mind as a whole, therefore, — though only a partially 
 developed whole, — is what we must guide, stimulate, 
 and nourish. 
 
 I will now go through the various departments of 
 the kindergarten, and point out what changes as to 
 method, subject-matter, etc., the transition classes 
 demand. 
 
 We must bear in mind that there is to be a general 
 movement in the direction of instruction — towards 
 the acquiring of knowledge more or less, though not 
 wholly, for its own sake. The stories will more and 
 more take the form of biography and real adventure 
 — the simple life-story of interesting human beings 
 
162 FROEBEL 
 
 (interesting to the children), and of other interesting 
 animals, and also of plants and flowers — stories that 
 bring out the most distinctive characteristics and habits 
 clearly. This is the beginning of history. Such 
 stories will also deal with localities and surroundings 
 — a place becomes interesting speedily because of the 
 living things in it — and this interest in localities and 
 in the haunts of plants and animals is the beginning 
 of geography. It is closely connected with nature- 
 study, to which I shall presently refer. The songs and 
 games follow in general the lead of the stories — apart 
 from the advance made possible by the improvement 
 of organs and limbs. They will have more to do with 
 human occupations and industries, and will help con- 
 siderably to exercise the mind in memory and imagi- 
 nation. The games may also call in the aid of the 
 kindergarten occupations, and of other occupations 
 specially fitted for the present stage of the child ; and 
 so become more practical, with concrete results which 
 may be used. In other words, games and occupations 
 should draw closer together and become more instruc- 
 tive; and the songs may begin to assume what, for 
 want of a better term, I must call the first elements 
 of a literary tone, i.e. become a little more imaginative 
 and be better expressed. As to the child's own use of 
 language, Froebel, you will remember, is very explicit 
 in the Education of Man ; and you will find much 
 more on the same subject in How Lina leaiifis to Write 
 and to Mead (note the order), written, I believe, about 
 fifteen years later, and which is to be found in the 
 same volume as the letter I have just been considering. 
 It will be sufficient for our present purpose to quote 
 
TRANSITION CLASSES 163 
 
 what Madame de Portugal! has said on the subject.^ 
 " At the end of every talk the teacher can sum up, in 
 a few simple, clear, concise sentences, some elementary 
 notions to which the little story or object-lesson has 
 led. These short statements, pronounced clearly and 
 correctly, are the points of departure for the study of 
 the mother-tongue, or rather of its first step, reading. 
 Then these statements can be analyzed into words (five 
 or six words), the words into syllables, the syllables 
 into sounds. . . . Then the symbol, the sign, the let- 
 ter, will be given to the child for the sound which he 
 knows." The child will reproduce orally the spoken 
 statements and imitate in writing their written form, 
 as Lina did; for writing teaches us to read just as 
 drawing teaches us to observe. This gives us a good 
 general idea of the kind of work required. But you 
 will remember that Froebel considers writing and 
 ciphering as special, and not the easiest, kinds of 
 drawing, and begins the teaching of writing some- 
 what before that of reading. This, I think, is the 
 right order for commencing these exercises, though, of 
 course, reading will soon forge ahead of writing ; while 
 the drawing which he proposes as preparatory to writ- 
 ing is the drawing in checkers. As to the precise 
 method to be used for reading, it seems now generally 
 agreed that the best is the " Phonic-analytic " method 
 — based on the " Look-and-say," with certain good 
 points borrowed from the "Phonic" method. But 
 
 1 Criticisms on FroebeVs System and its Extension, a paper in the 
 Proceedings of the International Congress at Brussels, 1880, trans- 
 lated and printed by Dr. Henry Barnard in Kindergarten and Child- 
 culture. 
 
164 FROEBEL 
 
 over and above this introduction to the use of symbols, 
 the child must be constantly exercised in expressing 
 itself orally with regard to what it has seen and heard 
 and imagined — as it must also express itself by means 
 of graphic representation, or childish drawing, and by 
 means of songs and games. 
 
 What has been said of ivords applies equally to 
 number's. To the transition classes properly belongs 
 the introduction of the use of written symbols or 
 figures — based on some small rudimentary knowledge 
 of linear drawing, or on the drawing in checkers. 
 Let us note the most marked stages in the teach- 
 ing of number. First, there is the observation and 
 manipulation of groups of concrete things (small 
 cubes, sticks, beads, etc.) ; the analyzing of these into 
 parts or smaller groups ; the recom position of the 
 larger groups ; the arranging of the groups in different 
 shapes, etc., — all with a view to discrimination of 
 groups as to number of things in them. And into 
 this work soon enters a mental activity, which con- 
 sists of mentally picturing the groups associated with 
 the names of the different numbers — number as a gen- 
 eralized abstract notion having so far given no sign of 
 existence. Secondly, we have the stage of initial ab- 
 straction, and the introduction of symbols — essentially 
 the stage of the transition classes. The idea of 
 number begins to separate itself from the groups of 
 particular concrete things — a process which is much 
 assisted by occasional exercises in which each group 
 consists of mingled materials. The mental pictures 
 are becoming more generalized, and are changing into 
 concepts — a process still further helped by the intro- 
 
TRANSITION CLASSES 165 
 
 duction of figures, and the mental pictures of these. 
 In this stage our work is concrete, mental, and sym- 
 bolic — with a perpetual interplay of these, and the 
 constant translation of each kind into the other two ; 
 or by dividing the children of our classes into groups, 
 the three kinds of work may be simultaneously em- 
 ployed on the same problem. A couple of examples 
 will perhaps make this clearer. In the first place, we 
 must note that numbers come before children, in the 
 gifts and in other matters, as ideas connected with 
 groups of things. In the first gift we have six balls, in 
 the third gift eight cubes, and so on. The knowledge 
 to be gained of individual numbers or of their relations 
 to one another sliould therefore be derived, in the 
 first instance, from the analysis of groups, and not 
 from successive increments of unity. This view is 
 further supported by the fact, which has already been 
 dwelt on, that "the first procedure of the mind in the 
 elaboration of its knowledge is always analytical ^\' 
 the next, synthetical; and that thereafter the two 
 processes succeed one another alternately. This will 
 be our guide. We might begin with the six balls of 
 Gift I ; but the varieties of color which these display 
 would make the formation of ideas of number need- 
 lessly difficult. So we shall begin with the eight cubes 
 of Gift 111. Having attracted attention to number 
 by presenting various groups of things, setting them 
 out in patterns and various like plans, we return to 
 our cubes and give the idea '^ eight cubes." Setting 
 them out, we divide them symmetrically into two 
 groups. This gives the idea ''four cubes." From 
 this analysis we get the fact that eight cubes contain 
 
166 FROEBEL 
 
 or are equivalent to two sets of four cubes ; and syn- 
 thetically that two sets of four cubes make one set of 
 eight cubes. This we may express symbolically as 
 
 eight = two fours, or 8 = 2 x 4. 
 two fours = eight, or 2 x 4 = 8. 
 From the former we further learn that 
 
 four = half of eight, or 4 = ^ of 8. 
 From the latter, 
 
 half of eight = four, or ^ of 8 = 4. 
 
 We might next proceed to the analysis of "four.'' 
 But as I am not describing complete lessons, but only 
 giving examples of the kind of work to be done, I will 
 continue with " eight." Setting out our cubes in sets 
 of two each we get ideas, which may be written 
 symbolically as 8 = 4 x 2, and 4x2 = 8. 
 
 From the former we get 2 = ^ of 8. 
 
 From the latter | of 8 = 2. 
 
 Again moving three of the groups to one side, we next 
 get 2 = 8 - 6, and 2 + 6 = 8. 
 
 And then further, 6 = 8 — 2, and 6 + 2 = 8; and so on. 
 Later we may proceed to the analysis of " six." 
 
 Work such as this — which I have expressed with 
 the utmost brevity, so as to show merely the gen- 
 eral mode of procedure — is of course done again and 
 again in various lessons, and always consists of results 
 derived directly from observation of the cubes which 
 the children move about and arrange in various sym- 
 metrical patterns — the signs X, — , and -f being, of 
 course, introduced only in the later stages, and cer- 
 
TRANSITION CLASSES 167 
 
 tainly not at first. It will be noticed that in this 
 plan division and subtraction precede multiplication 
 and addition respectively — which, with Froebel and 
 his followers, I believe to be the right order. And 
 Froebel gives us another hint — let the primary divi- 
 sions of our groups be symmetrical, that is, let the 
 minor groups into which we divide the whole be equal : 
 little children can deal with them more easily than 
 they can with groups that are unequal. Moreover, this 
 work of division leads directly to fractions.^ Naturally 
 in the higher transition-class there will be a good deal 
 of revision of past work of this kind ; and this will be 
 the time for making its informalities formal, and for 
 arranging our knowledge in an orderly, more closely 
 connected, and logical manner ; for, as Froebel puts it, 
 number-work as a subject of knowledge is then begin- 
 ning to assert its own claims to attention. 
 
 My other example shall deal with addition. I will 
 suppose I have a class of six little people between the 
 ages of six and seven. They are provided with a num- 
 ber of small cubes (edges about half an inch). Ten 
 of these will just fill each of the small wooden boxes 
 provided ; and ten of these boxes will just fill each of 
 the large wooden boxes also provided. Small round 
 objects will not do — they roll about, and moreover 
 suggest marbles and other games, and so distract atten- 
 tion from number. Moreover, when put into bags they 
 do not suggest the idea of a whole as the cubes do. Some- 
 times instead of boxes of ten, we have staves equiva- 
 lent to ten cubes joined end on to one another ; and 
 
 1 See also a very suggestive paper, by Hailmaim in Kinder- 
 garten, July, 1888. 
 
168 FROEBEL 
 
 instead of boxes of a hundred, tablets equivalent to 
 ten staves joined side to side. These are very good 
 and handy ; but have this drawback — that when units 
 are combined into tens, the actual units themselves 
 are not carried forward, but only their equivalent staves ; 
 and even so small a matter as this may prove a stum- 
 bling-block to a slow little person who is just begin- 
 ning to observe and reason. Well, now we are ready. 
 We divide the class into three sets of two — one set 
 to look after the cubes, one to write on the blackboard, 
 and the third to calculate mentally. If the boards of 
 the floor give us well-marked columns, so much the 
 better; if not, we must mark three columns. The 
 first set of children place a certain number of cubes 
 and boxes neatly in the marked columns in a horizon- 
 tal line : say six cubes in the right-hand column, three 
 ten-boxes in the middle, and four hundred-boxes in the 
 left-hand column. The mental workers read off " four 
 hundred and thirty-six " ; and the blackboard workers 
 write 436. Another line of figures and of boxes, etc., 
 follows in like manner ; then a third line, and then a 
 fourth. Let us suppose these to stand on the black- 
 board as 129, 375, 208. The children with the cubes 
 read down the right-hand column six, nine, five, eight ; 
 the blackboard children have the figures before them ; 
 the others work the addition in their heads without 
 looking at either board or cubes, and when ready pro- 
 claim the result (checked by the others) — 28. Two 
 ten-boxes are at once filled with the collected cubes 
 and transferred to the top of the ten-box column, the 
 eight cubes over being left at the bottom of the cube 
 column. On the board 8 is written below the unit 
 
TRANSITION CLASSES 169 
 
 column and 2 is written above the ten column. And 
 so the work goes merrily on to the end, when we find 
 that there are as the result eleven hundred-boxes, four 
 ten-boxes, and eight cubes on the floor; and on the 
 board 1148; which all unite in reading as eleven hun- 
 dred and forty-eight. Next time the children change 
 places, and so change their mode of work. This will, I 
 think, give a good idea of what I mean by the inter- 
 play of the concrete, the mental, and the symbolic, 
 which I hold should be the essential characteristic of 
 the transition classes. 
 
 Our third stage of number-work brings us to the 
 purely mental and symbolic — or only so far concrete 
 that concrete things are spoken of in the problems, 
 and so far ungeneralized that figures are still used as 
 our symbols. In the fourth stage we should find 
 ourselves doing what is called Algebra, or universal 
 arithmetic, with symbols of universal application. 
 These four stages seem to me to give the right general 
 order of number-study. The methods to be employed 
 are Froebel's. I need scarcely, I hope, remind you 
 that you cannot grade your difficulties by arranging 
 your stages as (1) numbers 1 to 5 ; (2) numbers 5 to 
 10 ; (3) numbers 10 to 20, and so on ; which may do 
 very well for arranging tickets at a concert, but is 
 not educational. You must, however, bear in mind 
 that as long as the mental work is the picturing of 
 groups of particular concrete things, you cannot em- 
 ploy large numbers. There is a decided limit for all 
 of us in our power to mentally picture groups ; and I 
 very much doubt whether children of seven years can 
 ever mentally picture groups of more than ten things, 
 or even of so many. 
 
170 FROEBEL 
 
 If we bear in mind that in the transition classes 
 there is to be a general move in the direction of 
 instruction, and towards ideas slightly generalized, 
 we shall, I think, find the gifts of the kindergarten 
 still amply sufficient for our exercises in form and 
 dimension. I do not think there is any necessity to 
 employ the box of fourteen solids which Froebel sent 
 with his letter to Emma Bothmann ; partly because 
 they are specially designed as an introduction to 
 crystallography, which we do not teach in our schools, 
 and partly because there is work to be done with the 
 gifts we already possess, which must not by any 
 means be omitted, viz. the exercises preparatory to 
 practical plane geometry. These, as you know, con- 
 sist in drawing attention, by means of experiment, to 
 the properties and to the relations to one another, of 
 areas, of angles, and of lines — properties and relations 
 which will become generalized later into the concep- 
 tions of pure theoretical geometry. I need only remind 
 you of the valuable assistance which is given in this 
 work by the geometrical paper-folding of Koehler, 
 Froebel's own advice on paper-folding in the volume 
 referred to above, and his exercises in paper-cutting 
 which have lately been translated and enlarged by 
 Fraulein Heerwart. 
 
 The Occupations which most distinctively belong to 
 the transition classes are drawing, painting, paper- 
 folding and cutting, modelling in plastic clay, and card- 
 board work J and I should like to add the extension 
 of Gift VII, which I have recommended as affording 
 good exercises in color. Froebel has three plans for 
 drawing — work in checkers, imitation with the pen- 
 
TRANSITION CLASSES 171 
 
 cil of the ring and stick designs, and free drawing in 
 connection with nature-study, with which last painting 
 is also connected. The checker-work belongs more 
 particularly to the last year of the kindergarten and 
 the first of the transition classes; the other two 
 kinds of drawing mainly to the transition period and 
 the earlier years at school. In both these, as in the 
 kindergarten, free drawing or "graphic representa- 
 tion " gives the teacher one of the most powerful means 
 of communicating ideas, and affords the child not only 
 a valuable exercise in expression, but also a strong 
 stimulus to attentive observation. The painting, or 
 rather the color-work with brush or chalk, should be 
 done, I think, if not always, at any rate frequently, 
 without any previously marked outlines. The model- 
 ling, besides dealing with geometrical forms, should 
 deal largely with forms of life (animals, fruit, etc.), 
 and forms of industry (boxes, cups, birds' nests, etc.) 
 — much more largely than is usually the case. 
 
 In the Education of Man Froebel deals fully and 
 admirably with the subject of Nature-Study, or the 
 observation of plants and animals and the external 
 world in general. Two sections (§§ 75, 91) are espe- 
 cially devoted to the exposition of his views ; and in 
 many others we are given hints and side-lights which 
 are not a little valuable. Intercourse with plants and 
 animals, and an interest in their external characteris- 
 tics and habits, form, as we remember, one of the 
 most valuable parts of the kindergarten activity. In 
 the kindergarten they are encouraged and promoted, 
 not for the sake of the knowledge to be gained from 
 them, but mainly for the sake of the ethical effect 
 
172 FROEBEL 
 
 which they produce on the children. A somewhat 
 more formal study of nature should begin in the 
 transition classes and stretch onwards through the 
 school itself, becoming slowly, as has been indicated, 
 more formal and more scientific ; and so we shall find 
 that Froebel has a great deal to tell us about it in 
 his letter to Emma Bothmann, to which we shall 
 return presently. In the earlier of the sections just 
 referred to Froebel says : " Let not the teacher or 
 parent object that he himself is as yet ignorant of 
 this " (the knowledge of nature and of natural law, 
 the educational value of which has just been urged). 
 "The question here is by no means the communi- 
 cation of knowledge already possessed, but the call- 
 ing forth of new knowledge. Let teachers observe, 
 lead their pupils to observe, and render themselves 
 and their pupils conscious of their observations. An 
 apprehension of the prevailing conformity of the 
 laws in nature, and of the unity of these laws, does 
 not require special technical terms for the objects or 
 their attributes, but distinct and accurate observation 
 and precise designation of these things in accordance 
 with the character of language and of the thing named. 
 In rendering the boy familiar with natural objects we 
 are by no means concerned with the teaching of names 
 nor of preconceived views and opinions, but only with 
 presenting the things themselves with their obvious 
 attributes, in such a way that the boy may view each 
 object as the precise individual object it makes itself 
 known to be by its form," etc. Elsewhere (§ 64) he 
 observes that boys may " spend all their time in fields 
 and forests, and see and feel nothing of the beauties 
 
TRANSITION CLASSES 173 
 
 of nature, and of their influence on the human heart." 
 Our business is to give them the seeing eye and to 
 stimulate them to the necessary curiosity and inter- 
 est. The boy shoukl begin with his natural surround- 
 ings ; be helped to follow out the knowledge these 
 give him along the many branching paths which they 
 suggest and indicate ; ^ and be led to see how much we 
 learn of the nature of a thing by the study of its ordi- 
 nary environment, v So, whenever possible, plants and 
 animals are to be studied living — with their natural 
 surroundings and in their habitual localities. There 
 is no need to rigidly exclude all that lies outside the 
 boy's own particular circle. If chance introduces such 
 a thing to the boy's notice we must seek to connect it 
 with what is familiar and near to him. But we shall 
 generally have quite enough to do without seeking 
 after what is strange and foreign — though what comes 
 from a distance also helps us by widening our horizon, 
 giving us a consciousness of things even beyond this 
 horizon, and by bringing home to us once more the 
 interdependence and connectedness of mankind. Boys 
 are not fitted to begin and continue all this without 
 assistance; and the best assistance will be the sym- 
 pathy and enthusiasm of a teacher who feels himself 
 to be a fellow-discoverer with his pupils. Learned 
 men are not wanted at this stage — except indeed such 
 as can readily become once again as little children, and 
 humbly once more enter with them the kingdom of 
 knowledge. 
 
 1 Section 91 of the Education of Man gives a very minute and 
 interesting description of how the boy's every day environment may 
 I^ad him out into the great world. 
 
174 FROEBEL 
 
 Some small beginning of classification may be made 
 in the higher transition classes ; but it need not nec-^ 
 essarily, Froebel thinks, be the classification adopted 
 by science. It should be based at first on what first 
 attracts the attention of children ; what they see 
 with the natural eye will be quite sufficient. In the 
 same way the names employed may be local, or long 
 descriptive names, or the inventions of the children, 
 if it pleases them to invent names ; and these (both 
 names and classes) should later be gradually brought 
 into harmony with the terms and classes used by 
 science, so that the knowledge acquired may be brought 
 into harmony with the common knowledge, and made 
 clear and complete by means of it. The great thing 
 is to learn to see the orderly, law-abiding energy of 
 Nature, to be interested in her workings, to listen to 
 her many voices, to consider her ways and learn her 
 doings, that thereby we may enter the Kingdom of 
 Heaven which is on earth — that Eden in which the 
 tree of knowledge is no longer forbidden, but from 
 which, alas ! we can still so easily be driven forth. 
 Froebel connects the natural sciences, and especially 
 botany, with this observation and contemplation of the 
 external world in ever-widening circles of knowledge. 
 " With botany," he says, in the letter to his student, 
 "is connected, in a perfectly organic and living way, 
 the knowledge of the surface of the earth ; for many 
 plants are companions of the water, and grow on the 
 border of brook and river, and give beauty to the 
 springs of both ; many plants prefer to deck the turf 
 of the meadow and valley, and many love the clear, 
 fresh, balmy air of hill or mountain top, many the 
 
TRANSITION CLASSES 175 
 
 neighborhood of man, and many the deep recesses of 
 the woodland; many the ocean ships bring us from 
 distant parts of the world ... to the home-place of 
 each one of us, to the garden, and even into our very 
 dwelling and room. Thus are plants excellent guides 
 and incentives to a knowledge of the earth's surface." 
 " And," he adds, " to the contemplation of the exter- 
 nal world, and especially to that of the plant-world, 
 the cultivation of the sense of color and form, which 
 is the introduction to drawing and painting, is closely 
 attached. So important to the child in the intermed- 
 iate school is the study of the growth of plants, and 
 above all of trees." 
 
 As the gifts — or some of them — gradually drop 
 into the background, nature-study should more and 
 more take its place as the leading object ; till in the 
 school proper it becomes that which reconciles every- 
 thing and unites the growing curriculum into one 
 organic whole. Some of the occupations, too, are now 
 gradually discontinued ; and the rest take on more and 
 more the form of preparation for industrial training 
 which may follow hereafter, and are drawn into closer 
 union with the knowledge of nature. This is to be at 
 first an informal knowledge — growing, but only very 
 gradually, more and more precise — a knowledge of 
 plants and animals, of their external characteristics and 
 habits, their localities, their uses to man, and so on — 
 including man himself after a while. From this also, 
 as from what has gone before, should develop simply, 
 naturally, and connectedly the study of form, of color, 
 of language, of number, of life, of material, beginning 
 with the personally familiar, and proceeding to what 
 
176 FROEBEL 
 
 is not so familiar but still somewhat like, and so 
 onward ; and diligently maintaining the mutual con- 
 nectedness of everything at every opportunity. It 
 does not require any great effort of the imagination to 
 see how the whole school curriculum gradually emerges 
 from all this : drawing — graphic representation first, 
 and later on, art — f ro^n the forms of leaves and flow- 
 ers and animals ; language, spoken, written, and sung, 
 from the talks and stories about plants and animals 
 and localities, with literature to follow later ; geogra- 
 phy from much the same sources, and from considera- 
 tion of the effects of plants and animals (including 
 man) on localities, and the effects of localities on them ; 
 history, in an informal state, following close on its 
 steps ; natural science, from almost everything, and 
 particularly from the consideration of the effects on 
 plants of the earth in which they grow, and of their 
 need of water, air, and light ; geometry from the con- 
 sideration of form and measurements and number; 
 arithmetic, and that universal arithmetic which we 
 call algebra, from the same sources, and from observ- 
 ing the physical characteristics of plants and animals. 
 Nor need I omit physiology and the knowledge of 
 some of those simpler conditions on which health and 
 wise living depend. I am far from contending that 
 these subjects should be solely developed from this 
 source, or even that in the cases of many nature-study 
 can ever be their cliief source. My aim is rather to 
 show the power nature-study has of connecting and 
 keeping connected all that the school teaches ; its 
 power of adding a living, growing interest to what is 
 taught ; and how, as a matter of fact, it does in several 
 
TRANSITION CLASSES 177 
 
 cases give the best point of departure, indicate the best 
 route to follow, and does itself supply most of the 
 knowledge needed. Nor will its prominence in the 
 school be wholly without value if it does no more than 
 render some of the work done there a little less 
 bookish. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE BEARING OF FROEBEL'S PRINCIPLES ON THE 
 SCHOOL AND ON TECHNICAL INSTRUCTION — MAN- 
 UAL TRAINING — FROEBEL AND PEST ALOZZI — CON- 
 CLUSION 
 
 In the concluding passage of the Education of Man, 
 after ably summing up the results which would be 
 produced in the first period of school life by the prac- 
 tice of his methods, Froebel adds : " Thus we find the 
 human being even in the earlier stages of boyhood 
 fitted for the highest and most important business of 
 life — the fulfilment of his destiny and vocation, which 
 is the representation (or outer active manifestation) 
 of the divine nature within him. To lead this capa- 
 bility forward to the acquirement of skill and certainty, 
 to lift it into full consciousness, to give it insight and 
 clearness, and to exalt it into a life of creative freedom 
 by fitting stages of development and cultivation, is the 
 business of the years which are now to follow. To 
 demonstrating the ways and means for this, and to 
 bringing them into the actual practice of life, a contin- 
 uation of this treatise will be devoted, as w^ll also the 
 author's own life." Unfortunately, though Froebel 
 sketched many school plans, and gave many lectures, 
 and wrote many articles on the more advanced periods 
 of education, he never gave us any formal continua- 
 178 
 
FROEBEL^S PRINCIPLES 179 
 
 tion of the Education of Man} The task of inventing 
 and developing the practice of the kindergarten, the 
 training of kindergarten teachers, and the incessant 
 calls upon him for the exposition of his views, left 
 hiin too little time for this. He had set forth his 
 ideas, his principles, and his plans mainly in connec- 
 tion with the earliest periods of life ; and as the next 
 step it seemed wisest to him to show these principles 
 and plans practically at work, and to endeavor to pro- 
 duce the results in these periods which he had asserted 
 would be produced. For the rest, he could point to 
 the Institutes at Keilhau, at Willisau, Burgdorf, and 
 elsewhere for evidence of the results which the new 
 education could produce in the middle and later 
 periods of school life, due allowance being of course 
 made for the particular circumstances of each case. 
 But though he could point to these results, the fact 
 that he occupied himself — as did many of his immedi- 
 ate friends and disciples — mainly with the education 
 of children under eight years of age, has led the public, 
 and even the majority of teachers, to imagine that his 
 principles apply solely to that earliest period — to that 
 period and to no other. That the practice and subject- 
 matter of the school must differ markedly in character, 
 though not necessarily in hind, from those of the kin- 
 dergarten, no one has pointed out more forcibly than 
 Froebel himself. That the particular plans best fitted 
 
 1 The title-page of the first edition of the Education of Man tells 
 us that the treatise is an exposition of ** the art of education, instruc- 
 tion, and training aimed at in the Universal German Educational 
 Institute at Keilhau"; and on it is also the statement, "First 
 Volume : To the beginning of boyhood." 
 
180 FROEBEL 
 
 for little children cannot also be best fitted for big 
 children he saw probably more clearly than any other 
 teacher ever did ; while he was quite convinced that 
 during the middle and later periods of school life the 
 acquisition of knowledge must be a matter of very great 
 importance, though not the only important matter. To 
 such an extent did he feel and believe this that it was 
 for the express purpose of rendering that acquisition 
 as sound, as easy, and as effective as possible, that he 
 devoted himself with such zeal and care to the study 
 of all that should come before it and be prepara- 
 tory to it. All this is so ; and there could not be a 
 greater mistake than to imagine that either Froebel 
 or his disciples have ever allowed that his principles 
 cease to apply as soon as the child emerges from 
 infancy. To hold such a view is, in fact, to condemn 
 those principles for the period of infancy itself. All- 
 sided connectedness and unbroken continuity of suc- 
 cession are fundamental ideas in FroebePs system. Of 
 course the way in which a principle is applied must 
 vary continually as the child changes and grows ; and 
 the material introduced and made use of must also 
 vary. But the principle itself must remain the same 
 throughout. If it be true for one period it is true for 
 all. 
 
 The main principles, it will be remembered, whose 
 applications form Froebel's system, are: self-activity, 
 to produce development; ; all-sided connectedness and 
 unbroken continuity, to help the right acquisition of 
 knowledge ; creativeness, or expressive activity, to pro- 
 duce assimilation of knowledge, growth of power, and 
 acquisition of skill ; well-ordered physical "activity, to 
 
FROEBEL'S PRINCIPLES 181 
 
 develop the physical body and its powers ; and happy 
 and hamiotiious surroimdingSj to foster and help all 
 these. If a school, therefore, includes amongst its 
 aims the true acquisition of knowledge — as distinct 
 from the more or less temporary possession of informa- 
 tion — and with this the development of power and the 
 production of skill — and most schools at least profess 
 to do so — it follows at once that the school must look to 
 these same principles for continued guidance and help, 
 unless it denies their efficacy altogether, or holds that 
 the life of a human being is a series of discontinuous 
 separate existences, the natural laws of which differ 
 for each successive existence. Some changes the school 
 must introduce; but they should not consist in the 
 abandonment of the educational ideas which have 
 hitherto guided and helped the pupil's life and devel- 
 opment. What is to be changed is the application of 
 these ideas ; and this application, as Froebel tells us, 
 is to move forward " in fitting stages of development 
 and cultivation," always keeping harmoniously in 
 touch with the growth and knowledge of the pupil. 
 It argues, therefore, an absolute misunderstanding of 
 the whole matter to callously and indifferently admit 
 that Froebel's ideas are true enough for the kinder- 
 garten, and at the same time to deny that they have 
 anything to do with the school. 
 
 To some extent, though only indirectly and uncon- 
 sciously (and therefore inadequately), the principles 
 which this book has been written to expound have 
 succeeded in effecting an entrance into some of our 
 schools, — mainly those for girls and for the work- 
 ing classes. But before dealiim^ji giiliy'Xliua gt.^e must 
 
182 FROEBEL 
 
 first notice certain plans which are connected in the 
 public mind with the application of these principles. 
 Plans for Industrial or Trade Schools, if not the 
 schools themselves, are of considerable antiquity ; 
 but it is seldom that they contain any really educa- 
 tional idea. Their object is philanthropic ; they seek 
 to give a poor boy a trade ; and in a measure they 
 represent a distaste for over-much bookishness. By 
 far the most interesting, and in many ways the best, 
 of the plans proposed in England was that by Sir 
 Wiiliam Petty in 1647. He addressed it to "His 
 
 •honored friend, Master Samuel Hartlib," to whom 
 he probably owed many of his ideas, as he owed not 
 a little to their common friend, the good Moravian 
 bishop Comenius, the father of modern pedagogy. 
 He proposed "that there be instituted Ergastula 
 Literaria, literary work-houses, where children may 
 
 ( be taught as well to do something towards their liv- 
 jing as to read and write." Poor children are to be 
 
 M;aught to support themselves as far as their strength 
 and understanding will permit ; " and if they cannot 
 get their whole living, and their parents can contribute 
 nothing at all to make it up, let them stay somewhat 
 the longer in the work-house.'' This is precisely the 
 same in character as Pestalozzi's earlier plans ; and 
 as far as the use of manual work is concerned, has 
 little in it that is educational, — though Sir William 
 adds many excellent observations, partly his own and 
 partly adaptations from Comenius, on child-nature and 
 the value of educational realism. More than one plan 
 we owe to Hartlib himself — whom Milton called " one 
 sent hither by some good providence from a far coun- 
 
FROEBEL AND PESTALOZZI 183 
 
 try (Poland) to be the occasion and the excitement of 
 great good to this island." One of these would, in 
 1641, have given us something like a Technical Uni- 
 versity for London, constructed on lines laid down by 
 Comenius ; another plan is entitled " Propositions for 
 erecting a College of Husbandry," and was printed in 
 London in 1651. The object was "the good of the Com- 
 mon-wealth and the relief of the poor therein." The 
 main proposition was "that there may be a College 
 or School of all sorts and parts of good Husbandry 
 erected ; that so the knowledge and practice may become 
 more universal, and men may have more sweet invita- 
 tions and stronger allurements to seek the knowledge 
 of this deep and excellent mystery ; and practice it to 
 the advancement of a more general and public good — 
 not as now in a sordid, clownish way for mere self- 
 profit ; nor as now according to unsound and rather 
 customary than rational rules and grounds ; nor as now 
 in a dishonorable and drudging way." But once more, 
 admirable as the proposition is, it is the philanthropist 
 and wise agriculturist who puts it forth rather than 
 the educator. But no -^natter what old plans there 
 may have been, there is no doubt at all that the rapid 
 spread of Trade or Industrial Schools throughout 
 Europe and the United States during the early and 
 middle years of this century was due to Pestalozzi and 
 the views which he preached. Here are the poor, he 
 said, everywhere in great distress and wretchedness, 
 and everywhere a constant source of danger. You 
 sometimes punish them severely, even savagely ; some- 
 times you pauperize them with sentimental, irrespon- 
 sible almsgiving. ^Neither plan will succeed. You 
 
184 FROEBEL 
 
 treat the symptom, and not the disease itself. You 
 must make the destitute able to support themselves ; 
 and, as far as you can, you must make them intelli- 
 gent and self-respecting. This is the purport of most 
 of what he wrote before 1787, and in particular in the 
 Evenings of a Hermit. Excellent advice it is and pro- 
 foundly true, and great has been the good which has 
 resulted from it ; but the thought is the thought of 
 the philanthropist and social reformer rather than 
 that of the educational philosopher. Educational 
 philosopher in any true sense Pestalozzi never was — 
 beautiful-hearted and noble, and marvellously sugges- 
 tive, but not a philosopher ; and though through the 
 varied experience of his long life and the help of his 
 philosopher friends he eventually to some extent 
 acquired a scientific method of thought in his system, 
 to the end manual work remained with him rather a 
 preparation for industry than a means of education. 
 
 Still later than the rise of Industrial Schools has 
 come the widespread adoption of Technical Instruc- 
 tion — due plainly enough to the rapid growth of 
 scientific knowledge, and to the steadily increasing 
 conviction that work not based on some knowledge of 
 general principles and how they should be applied 
 to particular cases must always remain narrow and 
 more or less unintelligent. The aim of Technical 
 Instruction is to attain to skilled work by the right 
 application of the right knowledge — the converse, and 
 yet the natural sequence for an adult, of the kinder- 
 garten plan, which helps the child to attain to true 
 knowledge by the right application of the right work. 
 The former plan is best in the main for the adult, the 
 
FROEBEL AND PESTALOZZI 185 
 
 latter for the little child; and yet all through life the 
 two plans must constantly alternate with one another 
 and be mutually helpful — true knowledge must pro- 
 duce sound work, and true work must produce sound 
 knowledge ; and the best preparation for the technical 
 instruction of the adult must be the kindergarten 
 education of the child. We cannot say, however, that 
 either the Industrial School or Technical Instruction is 
 historically the outcome of Froebel's teaching. Never- 
 theless, to be rendered thoroughly efficient. Industrial 
 Schools will have to be reformed on Froebelian lines ; 
 and Technical Instruction will find its greatest gain 
 in realizing that the kindergarten is its own natural 
 first stage. 
 
 Much as Froebel and Pestalozzi resemble one another, 
 and much as the former owes to the latter, there are 
 nevertheless some contrasts between the two which 
 seem to me instructive (especially at this point), and 
 which help us to understand why Industrial Schools, 
 which are largely Pestalozzian, have not produced 
 results quite as excellent as they were expected to do. 
 
 /'The first thing, of course, which strikes one forcibly 
 is that Pestalozzi, trusting to sympathy and the inspi- 1 
 ration of the moment, plunges straight into practice 
 apd leaves general principles to take care of themselves, 
 
 '^or at any rate to come afterwards ; so that his general 
 principles are the explanations (not always by himself) 
 of what he found fairly successful in practice, rather 
 than his practice the application of general principles. 
 Froebel is always seeking to arrive at sound general | 
 principles from the results of his observation and 
 experience, and to make his educational method the 
 
V 
 
 186 FROEBEL 
 
 application of these principles. Pestalozzi's effective^ 
 ness lies chiefly in helping the intellect to acquire 
 in boyhood a knowledge of the particular and the con- 
 crete. Froebel adopts Pestalozzi's plan and goes fur- 
 ther, showing great effectiveness in training the sensa- 
 tions and emotions to a right activity, — and that from 
 the earliest infancy, — and making this traming the 
 preparation for later knowledge and religion. Broadly 
 speaking, Pesta^zzi's plan is one of observing and 
 imiiaiing ; Fro^el's, one of observing and inv^iLing. 
 To exercise the creative, originating powers of the child 
 is FroebePs main object; to teach the child to speak 
 and to do work already pi;escribed is largely the aim 
 of Pestalozzi. Froebel's plan, therefore, more directly 
 tends to develop independence and originality of char- 
 acter. And lastly — to give one more contrast — 
 Pestalozzi often tried to give manual work and instruc- 
 tion at the same time ; Froebel made manual work and 
 physical activity in general the means of education. 
 I am not, of course, attempting to give a full estimate 
 of the value, direct and indirect, of the plans and 
 general ideas set forth by Pestalozzi and his colleagues. 
 But I note that Pestalozzian methods, pure and simple, 
 are steadily receding into the background, while those 
 of them which Froebel adopted and rejFormed, and those 
 methods which he himself originated, are steadily and 
 surely winning public confidence ; ^ and I believe that 
 the contrasts I have marked in a great measure explain 
 
 1 The number of candidates who entered for the certificate exam- 
 ^ inations of the National Froebel Union of England in 1887, '88, '89, 
 '90, '91, and '92 respectively were 75, 138, 169, 231, 261, and 305 ; while 
 early in 1892 the certificates were recognized by the Education Depart- 
 ment of England as qualifying teachers for work in Infant Schools. 
 
/ 
 
 / 
 
 FROEBEL AND PESTALOZZI 187 
 
 the reason for this. Besides, with Technical Instruc- 
 tion spreading so rapidly amongst us, it seems to me 
 high time , for the public to cease to confuse the 
 methods of these two reformers, especially as regards 
 the educational uses of manual work. 
 
 We cannot claim, then, for Froebel any share in the 
 introduction of Trade and Industrial Schools ; and his 
 views have only indirectly promoted the idea of Tech- 
 nical Instruction. Other forces, I think, have been 
 more powerful than kindergarten principles in compel- 
 ling the public to attend to this last matter ; though 
 we do claim for Froebel's system that it is the indis- 
 pensable preliminary to all sound scientific and tech- 
 nical training. But on the other hand, we distinctly 
 assert that Manual Training and in particular sloyd, \ 
 which have been making such marked progress on both ] 
 sides of the Atlantic of late, are direct and undeniable 
 outcomes of Froebel's views ; and that unless they are ^ 
 dealt with on Froebelian principles, they are certain \ 
 to be little better than waste of time. The term 
 "manual training" is not a very happy one; for 
 though the hand is the chief instrument we employ, \ 
 and though the aim is partly to make hand-work aid 
 the pupil in his acquisition and assimilation of knowl- 
 edge, we nevertheless endeavor to train much more 
 than the hand. The term should be taken to mean train- 
 ing through the use of the hand, or exercise in express- 
 ing the mind by means of the concrete ; and the x^ew 
 Jersey Council of Education summed up the matter 
 excellently when (in 1889) it stated that "Manual 
 training is training in thought-expression by other 
 means than gesture and verbal language, in such a 
 
188 FROEBEL 
 
 carefully graded course of study as shall also provide 
 adequate training for the judgment and the executive 
 faculty.'' Stated in this way, it will be seen that 
 manual training is a direct outcome of the kindergarten 
 exercises, and is in fact the necessary intermediate 
 stage between those exercises and technical instruction ; 
 though it need not advance as far as that instruction. 
 As a further development of part of the kindergarten 
 activity and creativeness, it has its place as a necessary 
 part of general education, and should be treated as 
 such ; otherwise it has no right to be in the school at 
 all. If technical instruction is to follow — not unless 
 — a gradual movement in the direction of specializa- 
 tion may be made in the later school stages ; but this 
 should not proceed to the extent of isolating the manual 
 exercises. The nature of the change is easy enough to 
 see. The aim of the school, besides the production of 
 knowledge and of skill in the use of knowledge, should 
 be the production of the power to think. We produce 
 the power to think by thinking; and one of the chief 
 means which we employ for this is the expressing of 
 thought. Manual training will begin in this way, as 
 hand- work for the sake of head-work, wliich will grad- 
 ually tend to become head-work for the sake of hand- 
 work — in other words, knowledge will be more and 
 more brought in and applied for the sake of skilled 
 results, and accuracy will be more and more insisted 
 upon ; while all through we shall carefully abstain 
 from trying to force into the manual work what the 
 thought itself, of which it is the expression, does not 
 possess. For instance, we shall not begin with a pedan- 
 tic and tirespme insistence on accuracy (which is not a 
 
FROEBEL AND PESTALOZZI 189 
 
 characteristic of the young mind), but endeavor 
 steadily to lead up to it — to groiv it — producing at 
 the same time an ever-increasing appreciation of its 
 value. 
 
 I have dwelt only on the intrinsic thought-connec- 
 tion between manual training and the kindergarten ; 
 but the h'storical connection i« quite as evident and 
 is extremely interesting. I can only touch upon it 
 here ; and I will restrict myself to that particular kind 
 of hand-work which uses wood as its material and is 
 called " sloyd," for this is the form under which the 
 movement has spread most rapidly in England in our 
 High Schools for Girls. In 1829 Froebel had recently 
 won the favor of the Duke of Meiningen, and his li^pes 
 were high of being able at last to carry out on an ade- 
 quate scale some of his most distinctive plans for gen- 
 eral education. He wrote at the duke's request a 
 description of the kind of institution he proposed to 
 establish at Helba near Meiningen ; and the descrip- 
 tion has been preserved.^ The training and instruc- 
 tion were to rest on the foundation from which 
 proceed all genuine knowledge and all genuine prac- 
 tical attainments; that is, "on life itself and on 
 creative effort, and on the union and interdepend- 
 ence of doing and thinking, representing and perceiving, 
 skill and science.^^ It will base its work on "the 
 pupil's self-activity and self-expression," and make 
 these the bases of knowledge and culture. The morn- 
 ing is to be devoted to the ordinary school subjects ; 
 the afternoon to various kinds of manual work. I 
 
 1 See FroebeVs Collected Works, toI. i, pp. 399-417. Die project- 
 irte Volkserziehungsanstalt zu Helba. 
 
 \ 
 
190 FROEBEL 
 
 cannot attempt to give the long and full list of occu- 
 pations here; suffice it is to say that it covers, and 
 more than covers, the ground now usually marked out 
 by institutions of this kind. FroebePs hopes were 
 disappointed. He never had the chance of carrying 
 out this plan. But the description remained, anH with 
 his other tracts and articles, gained the attention of 
 educational thinkers in more than one place. Amongst 
 others it attracted Uno Cygnseus, the "Father of the 
 Primary School in Finland." In 1866 Cygnaeus intro- 
 duced sloyd as a compulsory part of education into the 
 schools of his country. The success of the movement 
 in Finland stimulated Sweden, Denmark, and Austria- 
 Hungary to like efforts. From Sweden, where it was 
 greatly improved by Herr Salomon, the system has 
 passed over to England. And indeed in a measure 
 all Europe now recognizes it, the spread of kinder- 
 garten ideas having prepared the way for it in more 
 than one country. I cannot do better than quote 
 an extract from a letter written by Cygnseus to Dr. 
 Wichard Lange which tells how he came to adopt the 
 system.^ " The idea of the introduction of hand-work 
 [sloyd]," he says, "came to me from the study of the 
 writings of Pestalozzi and Froebel : I have, therefore, 
 derived it from Germany." He goes on to remark on 
 the value of Pestalozzi's intuitive teaching, and how 
 through its lack of true scientific method it has fallen 
 into ill repute, having become so often no better than 
 empty chatter. " Then came Froebel, who urged that 
 
 1 1 quote from an interesting article on Cygnaeus by Mr. J. S. 
 Thornton in The Journal of Education, Sept. 1890. Mr. Thornton 
 quotes the above from the Rhemische Blalter for 1882. 
 
FROEBEL AND PESTALOZZI 191 
 
 the child must not only practise intuition, and express 
 the representation which he has thus received, but 
 should also learn to carry out in play, and in smaller 
 pieces of hand-work, what he has grasped — should as 
 a productive being be educated from the beginning to 
 self-activity and productive energy — should thus be 
 educated through work for work. ... In this way 
 I was led to the thought that we must introduce into 
 the school not only FroebePs gifts and the rest of the 
 exercises in work recommended by him, but also estab- 
 lish for elder children such kinds of hand-work as 
 have for their aim the training of the hand, the devel- 
 opment of the sense of form, and of the sesthetic feel- 
 ing, and which help young men to a general practical 
 dexterity, which shall be useful in every walk of life. 
 . . . But all these kinds of work must not be con- 
 ducted like trades, but always with reference to the 
 aim of general education and as a means of culture." 
 Thus wrote the founder of the sloyd system in Finland. 
 But after all, sloyd and other modes of manual train- 
 ing are but a part of the reform which is needed before 
 our schools become in any true sense Froebelian. 
 There must be more self-activity, more creativeness, 
 and that of greater variety, more connectedness be- 
 tween the subjects of instruction, less imitation and 
 repetition and more thinking. But unless I have 
 wholly failed in the foregoing chapters to express my 
 meaning, the general characteristics of the reform 
 which I would urge must be quite evident ; and into 
 details I cannot enter now. I must draw my forces 
 together and conclude. 
 
192 FROEBEL 
 
 /.-^rue freedom, according to Froebel, depends on per- 
 fect development ; and development is only another 
 name for progress according to law. True freedom is 
 therefore an active fulfilment of the purpose of our 
 existence in conscious and willing submission to law — 
 the law of our life as individuals, and as members of 
 society; not a narrow, specialized law, but a broad, 
 human, natural law. The large amount of political 
 liberty which is common at the present day, can only 
 be beneficial to the nation and to individuals, on con- 
 dition that the individual is intelligent and law-abid- 
 ing, and capable of self-direction for the good of himself 
 and his fellows. He must be in some measure con- 
 scious of his own vocation and of that of humanity ; 
 and must have learnt the necessity and advantage of 
 submission to, and fulfilment of, law. The misuse of 
 political liberty, which in some quarters has not been 
 unfrequent of late years, arises from ignorance of all 
 this, from ill-proportioned development, and ill-directed 
 powers. Children have too little education in true 
 liberty. They are too often the playthings of their 
 parents, or are merely a burden. They must either 
 be indulged in every way, or suffer unmerited neglect. 
 They seldom learn even the wisdom and the necessity 
 of submission to natural law — and no mere " citizen " 
 readers or primers of biology are of any great avail. 
 Citizenship — the flower and fruit of manhood — is a 
 growth produced by exercise, not something learnt in a 
 book, or presented in a gilt casket. Of all this Froebel 
 shows an ever-present consciousness, from the earliest 
 stages of his method ; and experience has shown that 
 this method is on the whole well fitted to produce the 
 
CONCLUSION 193 
 
 result at which he aimed. Education, in his eyes, is 
 emancipation — emancipation of the inner self from 
 the tyranny of lawlessness and confusion. As the 
 Baroness von Marenholtz Biilow, his ablest disciple, 
 points out, it demands freedom for development ; it 
 uses work for development; and its guiding spirit 
 should be unity and harmony of development. On 
 the perfection of the individual depends the perfection 
 of the state ; and he cultivates and fosters individual- 
 ity and originality most wisely and well. Happiness 
 is the condition most favorable to the growth of moral- ^^ 
 ity and brotherly-kindness. Nothing is so fruitful and 
 frequent a cause of unhappiness as ignorance of, and 
 futile opposition to, the laws of nature and of life. 
 Froebel trains the child from the first to a recognition 
 and appreciation of these laws. Moreover he holds — 
 and rightly holds — that not only in childhood, but 
 all through life, a free, healthy exercise of powers and 
 feelings in a manner which accords with their nature 
 and their strength, is a never-failing source of true 
 delight and moral (and political) purity and growth. 
 And this activity he provides for and promotes. He 
 gives to common human work its true dignity by show- 
 ing it to be, and by using it as, the means for spiritual 
 and physical progress. It is no longer limited to mere 
 bread-getting and material ease ; but becomes, as the in- 
 strument and means of development, as the outward and 
 visible product of human love, an important and neces- 
 sary part of the fulfilment of man's divinely ordered 
 destiny. Work connected, consecutive, and productive, 
 it will be remembered, is the very foundation of Froe- 
 bel's system ; and the chief aim of the Mutter- und Kose- 
 
 J 
 
194 FROEBEL 
 
 lieder is to show the value, the necessity, and, if I may 
 so speak, the divine nature of work — which is not 
 man's curse, but his blessing and his privilege. More- 
 over, by his spiritualizing of nature and natural proc- 
 esses — which, as I have shown, reminds us contin- 
 ually of Wordsworth's teaching — he seeks to correct 
 and change the view that self-preservation and 
 wordly gain and prosperity are the highest aims 
 for man. And if such a change is ever to be 
 effected, if but greater honesty and more straight- 
 forwardness are ever to be infused into trade, busi- 
 ness, and politics, it can only be done by, in some 
 way or other, spiritualizing and ennobling all necessary 
 human work ; and by showing tliat the ordinary every- 
 day processes of human . occupation are capable, if 
 rightly directed, of producing that continuous develop- 
 ment which it is man's highest duty to promote and 
 to fulfil. And this Froebel claims to have shown, 
 and to be able to do. Keligion in his teaching — in 
 which he follows the pure, simple view of the Gospels 
 
 — is brotherly-kindness growing up into love of God 
 
 — living, moving, and having its being in the practice 
 of love. It is a growing into union with humanity 
 and with God, by a willing, conscious endeavor to live 
 out on earth God's great purpose in humanity — a 
 purpose which more than once has been made to 
 seem narrow and unattractive, but which, as Froebel 
 expounds it, is again worthy of man, of man's Creator. 
 This growth, too, Froebel's plan is well fitted to pro- 
 
 / duce. And if it be — as sometimes it would seem to 
 
 be — the destiny of nations to grow more and more 
 
 \ into unity and homogeneousness within themselves, 
 
CONCLUSION 195 
 
 and of mankind, as a whole, to become essentially one, 
 even as its divine cause is one — there is no better 
 method to prepare for and to promote that end than 
 the method employed by Proebel. And we should 
 bear in mind that, while fostering and cultivating a 
 wide feeling of human fellowship, continually by it 
 and for it he teaches us the truest wisdom — intelli- 
 gent submission to the true conditions of life; and 
 that best human virtue, cheerfully to do without 
 what we may be justified in wishing for, and cheer- 
 fully to bear what is unpleasant, for the good of others ; 
 and this in no indolent and merely Stoic spirit, but as 
 the honorable duty of a vigorous and ever-striving 
 manhood. 
 
 He pleads for the unification of thought and the 
 unification of life by means of the unification of the 
 materials of thought and the unification of the prepara- 
 tion for life ; and bases his plea on the psychological 
 necessity of such a change in the means if we are ever 
 to attain to such a result in the end ; and on the interest, 
 novelty, and intelligibility which a true all-sided con- 
 nectedness alone can give to our work, and gives 
 unceasingly. He bids us bend all our energies to 
 attuning all the subjects, the instruments of knowl- 
 edge, and all the varied activities of our nature, so as 
 to bring out the full orchestral harmony of thought 
 and life. And what is the ideal which he sets before 
 us towards which we should strive ? It is the produc- 
 tion in a human being of qualities which all of us 
 acknowledge to be best. He aims at producing in a 
 human being clearness, quickness, and soundness of 
 observation ; a mind capable of retaining and readily 
 
106 FROEBEL 
 
 recalling what it has learnt, with power to combine and 
 use what it knows, and to imagine and deal with what 
 is new ; able to grasp the general ideas and principles 
 which underlie particular cases ; rapid and sagacious 
 in drawing inferences, sound and wise in reasoning ; 
 full of interest and pride in its work, moved by a sense 
 of what is good and true and beautiful; energetic, 
 honest, strong in purpose, full of kindness. This may 
 seem to some an ideal too lofty for a work-a-day life ; 
 but the degree in which we draw near to it will be, I 
 am certain, the only true measure of our success. 
 
APPENDIX A 
 
 FROEBEL^S WKITINGS 
 
 The following is the list of Froebel's writings as 
 they appear in Dr. Wichard Lange's Friedrich FrobeVs 
 gesammelte pddagogische Schriften, in three volumes 
 octavo, published at Berlin by Enslin in 1861 and 
 1862 : — 
 
 Vol. i. : Autobiographical Letters : (a) to the Duke of Meinin- 
 gen, 1827 ; (6) to C. Ch. Fr. Krause, 1828. (Both translated 
 in the American Journal of Education^ and by E. Michaelis 
 and H. K. Moore.) 
 
 F, Froebel on H. Pestalozzi : letter to the princess-regent of 
 Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt. Yverdun, 1809. (Translated in 
 American Journal of Education.) 
 
 To our German People. (Written at Keilhau, 1820.) 
 
 Principles^ Aim, and Liner Life of the Universal German Edu- 
 cational Listitute at Keilhau (1821). 
 
 Aphorisms. (Written down in 1821 ; with a preface by Lange.) 
 
 Concerning the Universal German Educational Institute at 
 Keilhau (1822). 
 
 On German Education in general, and on the German charac- 
 ter of the Listitute at Keilhau in particular (1822). 
 
 Beport continued on the Universal German Educational Insti- 
 tute at Keilhau (with a plan of study for the year 1823-24). 
 
 Christmas Festivals at the Listitute in Keilhau, 1816-24. (By 
 Middendorff, with an epilogue by Froebel, written in the last 
 years of his life.) 
 
 197 
 
198 APPENDIX 
 
 Announcement concerning the People's Educational Institute at 
 Helba near Meiningen. (Keilhau, 1829.) 
 
 At the grave of Wilhelm Carl. (Keilhau, 1830.) 
 
 Announcement of the Institute at Warlensee (1831). 
 
 Fundamental Principles of the Education of Man (1830), with 
 apian of study for the Institute at Willisau (1833). 
 
 Plan for an Educational Institute for the Poor^ for the Canton 
 of Bern. (Willisau, 1833.) 
 
 Plan of the elementary school and announcement of the Educa- 
 tional Institution for the orphanage at Burgdorf, (Burgdorf, 
 1836.) 
 
 Appendix: Letter to Christoph Froebel (Frankfurt, 1807.) 
 
 Vol. ii. : The Education of Man. (Keilhau, 1826.) Trans- 
 lated by Miss J. Jarvis, 1885 ; Lovell & Co., New York. Also 
 by Mr. W. N. Hailmann, 1887 ; D. Appleton & Co., New 
 York. (Mr. Hailmann's translation is abridged and somewhat 
 free, but is abundantly supplied with excellent notes.) 
 
 Appendix : Essays of the year 1826 : — 
 
 (a) Of the being and destiny of man and of the possibility of 
 realizing this destiny in life, (b) Betrothal, (c) Plays for 
 boys and boyhood, and church and children's festivals, (d) A 
 walk in the middle of January, and children sliding on the 
 ice. (e) The little child, or the significance of the earliest 
 childish activity, (f) From child-life, (g) The knowledge 
 of forms and fig^ires^ and its higher significance and indica- 
 tion, (h) Instruction in earth-knowledge, with a map of the 
 Schala distnct, in ichich Keilhau is situated. 
 
 The new year 1836 demands the renewing of life. (Burgdorf, 
 1836.) 
 
 Vol. iii. : The Pedagogy of the Kindergarten. (A series of 
 essays, most of which appeared in the journal Come, let us 
 live icith our children (1837-40), and most of which deal 
 with the games, gifts, or occupations of the kindergarten. 
 They form our most valuable original authority for kinder- 
 garten methods and practice.) 
 
APPENDIX 109 
 
 The double glance. A new year's meditation. 
 
 Plan of an institution for fostering the impulse to creatwe 
 
 activity. 
 Child-life. The first activity of a child. 
 The BalU the First plaything of childhood. 
 The grain of seed and the child : a comparison. 
 Play and the playing of the child. 
 
 The Sphere and the Cube as the Second play-gift for the child. 
 First survey of games; or the means for fostering children''s 
 
 need of occupation. 
 The Third game and cradle-songs. 
 The Fourth game of the child. 
 The Second survey of games. 
 The Fifth Gift. 
 Movement games. 
 Exposition given in the presence of Her Majesty the Queen of 
 
 Saxony at Dresden, January 7, 1839. 
 Friedrich Froebel, his principles^ his aim^ and his means of 
 
 education in their relations to the needs and aspirations of 
 
 the time, expounded by himself. 
 The children''s gardens in the kindergarten. 
 How Lena learns to read and lorite. 
 Spirit of the developing-educating human culture. 
 The child's love of Drawing. 
 Child-occupation : directions for Paper-folding. 
 Stick- laying (unfinished) . 
 
 The 2^th of June, 1840 (the Gutenberg fete and the inaugura- 
 tion of the first kindergarten). 
 Plan for the founding of a kindergarten for the year 1840, and 
 
 report upon the expenses for the year 1843. 
 Appeal for the establishment of societies for education, with 
 
 the statutes of such a society. (Keilhau, 1845.) 
 Plan of the training school for kindergarten nurses and teachers. 
 
 (Keilhau, 1847.) 
 
200 APPENDIX 
 
 The intermediate school. (Marienthal, May, 1852.) 
 
 Speech made at the opening of the first municipal kindergarten 
 in Hamburg (1850). 
 
 The festival of games at Altenstein (1850). 
 
 A complete written description of the means used for the em- 
 ployments of the kindergarten. (Unfinished ; written towards 
 the end of FroebePs life.) 
 
 Under the title of Die Frohelliteratur, Herr Louis 
 Walter, a teacher in Dresden, issued in 1881 (pub- 
 lished by Alwin Huhle at Dresden) a pamphlet of 
 197 pages devoted to the publications which Froebers 
 system had called forth in elucidation, attack, or 
 defence since Froebel issued the Soimtagsblatt in 
 1838. It is fairly, but not altogether, complete as 
 far as it goes ; but it is already eleven years old. In 
 most cases a brief notice of the contents is added to 
 the title of the work mentioned. Herr Walter adds 
 the following writings of FroebePs to the above : — 
 
 Thorough and satisfactory education for the deteriorating Ger- 
 man character, the foundation and springhead needed for the 
 German people. (1821.) 
 
 The Family Journal of Education. A weekly journal for the 
 education of self and others. (Keilhau, 1826.) 
 
 Come, let us live %mth our children. A Sunday paper for like- 
 thinkers. (1838-40.) 
 
 A large box of play and occupation for childhood and youth. 
 Gifts 1-5. 
 
 FroebeVs personally efficient work in Dresden and Leipzig^ 1839 ; 
 described by himself in fourteen letters to his first wife, and 
 published by Dr. Lange in Nos. 2, 3, and 4 of the Bheinische 
 Blatter. 1878. (A translation of these letters is appended 
 to Miss Shirrefi's Short Life of Froebel^ published by Chap- 
 man & Hall.) 
 
APPENDIX 201 
 
 FroebeVs Weekly Journal. A publication to serve as a link 
 between all friends of human education. 1850. Edited by 
 Dr. Lange at Hamburg. 
 
 Mutter- und Kose-lieder (Songs for Mother and Nursery) ; for 
 the generous fostering of child- life. A family book. Music 
 by Robert Kohl, 1843. (Published for Dr. Lange by Enslin, 
 of Berlin, 1860, 1874, 1878. Translated by Miss Dwight and 
 Miss J. Jarvis, with introduction by Miss E. Peabody ; Lee 
 & Shepard, Boston. Also by Frances and Emily Lord ; Wil- 
 liam Rice, London, 1885 and 1888.) 
 
 A Hundred Ball -songs for the games used in the Kindergarten 
 at Blankenhurg, 1843. (Music by Robert Kohl.) 
 
 A Journal for Friedrich FroebeVs educational aims. Published 
 by Froebel and his friends. Edited by Director Marquart in 
 Dresden, 1851-52. Six numbers. 
 
 FroebeVs letter to Kern, the teacher of the deaf and dumb in 
 Eisenach f 1840. 
 
 Letters of FroebeVs to the Bev. Dr. Felsberg, in Sonneberg, near 
 Gotha. 
 
 To the above must be added : — 
 
 FroebeVs letters on the Kindergarten, 1838-52. Edited by 
 Hermann Poesche and published in 1887 ; translated by E. 
 Michaelis and H. K. Moore; Sonnenschein & Co., London. 
 (Forty-one letters and four addresses to the women of Ger- 
 many.) 
 
APPENDIX B 
 
 SOME BOOKS ON FROEBEL LIKELY TO BE OF USE 
 TO THE STUDENTS 
 
 As this list is intended for the ordinary, not the 
 advanced, student, I have inserted only very few Ger- 
 man books unless they have been translated. 
 
 Encyclopaedias, etc. 
 
 Geschichte der Pddagogik. Karl Schmidt. 4 vols. (Kothen, 
 Schettler.) 
 
 Encyklopddie des gesammten Erziehungs- und Unterrichtswesena. 
 
 K. A. Schmid. 11 vols. (Gotha, Besser.) 
 Dictionnaire de Pedagogie. Premiere partie. 2 vols. (Paris, 
 
 Hachette. ) 
 
 (All these contain good articles on Froebel and his system. 
 Schmidt's article is very sympathetic ; Guillaume's article, in the 
 Dictionnaire, is well-informed but uuappreciative.) 
 
 Kindergarten and Child-culture. Edited by Dr. Henry Bar- 
 nard. (Hartford, by the Editor.) 
 
 (This is a mine of wealth. It contains (i.) translations of almost 
 the whole of Dr. Lange's vol. i.: (ii.) a translation, by Miss A. M. 
 Christie, of the Baroness von Marenholtz-Biilow's Child and Child 
 Nature : and (iii.) a large number of tracts (some translated) by 
 Prof. J. H. von Fichte, Fischer, Guillaum, Madame Schraeder, 
 Madame de Portugall, Miss Peabody, Miss Susan E. Blow, Dr. W. 
 T. Harris, Mrs. Louise Pollock, Mrs. H. Mann, etc.) 
 202 
 
APPENDIX 203 
 
 Biographical 
 
 Friedrich Frdbel : die Entwickelung seiner Erziehungsidee in 
 seinem Leben. Alexander Bruno Hanschmann. (Eisenach, 
 J. Bacmeister. ) 
 
 (This is the completest Life we possess ; but is rather diffuse, 
 and here and there somewhat emotional.) 
 
 Life of FroeheL ' Miss Shirreff. (London, Chapman & Hall.) 
 
 (Short, but interesting. Contains a translation of the fourteen 
 Dresden letters to Froebel's tirst wife.) 
 
 Autobiography of FroebeL Translated by the same. (London, 
 
 Sonnenschein.) 
 Reminiscences of Froebel. Baroness von Marenholtz-Btilow. 
 
 Translated by Mrs. H. Mann. (Boston, Lee & Shepard.) 
 
 (Covers the years 1851-52. Valuable for its incidental exposi- 
 tion of theories.) 
 
 Theory and Practice 
 
 The Child and Child Nature. Baroness von Marenholtz-Btilow. 
 
 Translated by Miss A. M. Christie. (London, Sonnenschein.) 
 Hand-work and Head-work. The same author and translator. 
 
 (Loudon, Sonnenschein.) 
 The Kindergarten at Home. Miss Shirreff. (London, Joseph 
 
 Hughes.) 
 Kindergarten Essays. Ten lectures by Miss Shirreff and others. 
 
 (London, Sonnenschein.) 
 
 The Home, the Kindergarten., and the Primai^ School. Miss 
 
 E. P. Peabody. (London, Sonnenschein.) 
 Lectiires for Kindergartners. The same. (Boston, Heath & 
 
 Co.) 
 
 Praxis des Kindergartens. August Kohler. 3 vols. Weimar, 
 Bohlau.) 
 
 FroebeVs First Gifts (abridged from Kohler). Mary Gurney. 
 
 Parti. (London, Myers.) 
 FroebeVs Plane Surfaces (do.). Gifts 7-10. The same. Part 
 
 ii. (London, Myers.) 
 
204 APPENDIX 
 
 FroebeVs Course of Paper-cutting. Edited and supplemented 
 by Frftulein E. Heerwart. (London, Sonnenschein.) 
 
 Manuel pratique des jardins d^enfanta de Fr. Frohel a V usage 
 des institutrices et des meres de famille. J. F. Jakobs. (Brus- 
 sels, Claason.) 
 
 A Practical Guide to the English Kindergarten. J. and B. 
 Ronge. (London, Myers.) 
 
 The praxis of the Kindergarten. Hermann Goldammer. Trans- 
 lated by Wright. 
 
 Synoptical Table of FroebeVs' Principles. Mme. de Portugall. 
 (London, Myers.) 
 
 Principles of the Kindergarten. Miss Lyschinska. (London, 
 Isbister.) 
 
 Kindergarten Drawing. Parts i.-vl. Frftulein E. Heerwart. 
 (London, Myers.) 
 
 Manual of Kindergarten Drawing . N.Moore. (London, Son- 
 nenschein. ) 
 
 Music for the Kindergarten. Frftulein E. Heerwart. (Lon- 
 don, Boosey.) 
 
 Kindergarten Songs and Games. Mrs. Berry and Mme. Michae- 
 
 lis. (London, Myers.) 
 Thirty-tico Kindergarten Songs. J. F. Borschitzky. (London, 
 
 Myers.) 
 The Kindergarten Guide. Maria Kraus-Boelte and John Kraus. 
 
 (London, Myers.) 
 
 Nos. 1 and 2. Gifts 1-0. 144 pages, 547 illustrations. 
 
 No. 3. Tablet-laying. 94 pages, 553 illustrations. 
 
 No. 4. Jointed lath, stick-plaiting, stick-laying. 134 pages, 
 309 illustrations. 
 
 No. 6. Ring-laying and thread-laying. 82 pages, 468 illus- 
 trations. 
 The Paradise of Childhood. Prof. Ed. Wiebe. (London, Son- 
 nenschein.) 
 
INDEX 
 
 Accuracy, 88. 
 
 Addition, teaching of, 167. 
 
 Advancement of Learning, 112. 
 
 Algebra, 144, 1G9. 
 
 Analysis, 126. 
 
 Animals and plants, care of, 61, 72, 
 
 100. 
 Anstalt fUr Kieinkinderplege, 36. 
 Areas, selling out of, 142. 
 Art, educational value of, 61. 
 Assimilation, 125. 
 Atbeium, Bacon's Essay on, 44. 
 Autobiography, Froebel's, 6 note; 8. 
 
 B 
 
 Bamberg, 14. 
 
 Basket, The, 72. 
 
 Barop, Johanues Arnold, 24, 35, 42. 
 
 Bead-threading, 146, 148. 
 
 Beauty, sense of, 61, 84, 121, 144. 
 
 Biography, teaching of, 161. 
 
 Blankenburg, 36. 
 
 Book for Mothers, Pestalozzi's, 2, 5, 
 18. 
 
 ** Bo-peep," 73. 
 
 Botany, 174. 
 
 Bothmann, Emma, Froebel's letter 
 to, 155. 
 
 Brain, growth of, 156. 
 
 Browne, Sir Thomas, 44. 
 
 Browning, Robert, 81. 
 
 Building, 142. 
 
 " Bump, see how my Baby's Fall- 
 ing,'* 74. 
 
 Burgdorf, 34, 35. 
 
 Carlyle, 44. 
 
 Checkers, drawing in (see Draw- 
 ing). 
 
 •• Chickens, The,*' 71. 
 
 Child's relations with mankind, 73. 
 
 " Church-door and the WindoiOt 
 The," 75, 86. 
 
 Classification, teaching of, 174. 
 
 Cognition, stages of, 156. 
 
 Collected writings of Fr. Froebel, 
 Dr. Lange's, 26. 
 
 College of Husbandry, propositions 
 for, 183. 
 
 Comenius, 2. 
 
 Comparison, 138. 
 
 Couceptiou, in intermediate school, 
 159. 
 
 Concrete, use of, in kindergarten, 
 132. 
 
 Cone, revolving, 139 note. 
 
 Connectedness, 52, 54, 71, 84, 97, 130, 
 195; of humanity, 48. 
 
 Construction, 141. 
 
 Constructive imagination (see Im- 
 agination). 
 
 Continuity, 51, 54, 122, 152. 
 
 Contrasts, Froebel's doctrine of, 126; 
 Connection of, 50. 
 
 CreativenesB, 54, 72, 80, 98, 117, 121, 
 130, 147. 
 
 Critical moments in the Froehelian 
 community, 23 note. 
 
 Criticisms on FroeheVs system and 
 its extension, 163 note. 
 
 Cube, 139, 140; analysis of, 142. 
 206 
 
206 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Curiosity, the child's, 80, 100. 
 Curriculum, the school's, connection 
 
 with kindergarten, 176. 
 Cygnaeus, Uno, 190. 
 Cylinder, 139. 
 
 De Imitatione Christi, 44. 
 Dentition, second period of, 157. 
 De Portugale, Madame, 163. 
 J)es Kindes Zeichenlust, 67 note. 
 Development, 19, 30, 47, 68, 91, 118, 
 
 122 (see also Evolution). 
 Development of humanity, 112. 
 Diesterweg, 39, 108. 
 Dogmatic religious teaching, 86, 119. 
 Doing, 54 (see also Creativeness and 
 
 Self-activity). 
 Drawing, 133, 146, 158, 164, 171. 
 Drawing in checkers, 56, 148, 163, 
 
 171. 
 
 £ 
 Education of Man, The, 25 ; chap* 
 
 iii; 56, 59, 93, 94, 97, 110, 114, 117, 
 
 127, 150, 153, 155, 171, 173, 178, 179 
 
 note. 
 Elements, teaching of, 55. 
 Environment, child's, 69. 
 Ergastula Literarin, 182. 
 Ethics, beginning of, 113. 
 Evenings of a Hermit, 184. 
 Evil, treatment of, in kindergarten 
 
 period, 83, 87, 121. 
 Evolution, general theory of, 46 ; as 
 
 applied to education, 47, 61 ; man 
 
 subject to laws of, 50 (see also 
 
 Development). 
 Expression of knowledge, 125, 129. 
 Expression of self, child's, 130. 
 
 Family, The, 74. 
 
 Family Journal of Education, The, 
 
 25. 
 F^nelon, 59. 
 Fichte, J. von, 96. 
 Fish, The, 71. 
 Frankfurt-on-Maiu, 14, 17. 
 
 Freedom, 192. 
 
 Froebel, Christian, 7 note, 21, 24, 42. 
 
 Christoph, 7 note, 10, 14, 21. 
 
 Frau, death of, 37. 
 
 Friedrich Wilkelm August, 
 born, 6; early years, 7; life 
 with Hoffmann, 8; school at 
 Stadt-Ilm, 9; apprenticed to a 
 forester, 10 ; studies at Jena, 
 12; at Bamberg, 14; works, 
 with Dr. GrUner, 15; visits 
 Yverdon, 16; has sons of Frau 
 von Uolzhausen as pupils, 17; 
 at Gottingen, 18; at Berlin, 19; 
 enlists, 20; assistant to Weiss, 
 20; at Keilhau, 23; marries, 
 24 ; at Wartensee, 33 ; at Burg, 
 dorf, 35; at Blankenburg, 36; 
 settles at Liebenstein, 39; mar- 
 ries Luise Levin, 40; at Mari- 
 enthal, 40; death, 42. 
 
 Karl, 40. 
 
 Games, 102, 162; choice of (see 
 Songs). 
 
 Gardening, 61, 102, 115, 150. 
 
 Geography, beginning of, 162. 
 
 Geometry, plane, 143, 144, 148. 
 
 Gesture, 131. 
 
 Gifts, 69; first nine, 138-144; quali- 
 ties of, 145. 
 
 Gift work, relation to occupations, 
 147. 
 
 Gifts and occupations, system of, 
 56 note. 
 
 Giving out (see Expression). 
 
 Godlikeness, 94. 
 
 Gottingen, University of, 18. 
 
 Graphic representation (see Draw- 
 ing). 
 
 Griesheim, 21. 
 
 GrUner, Dr., 14. 
 
 H 
 
 Hanschman (see Life of Froebel). 
 •' Happy brothers and sisters, The," 
 74. 
 
INDEX 
 
 207 
 
 Heerwart, Fraulein, 170. 
 
 Helba, proposed institute at, 33, 189. 
 
 Heredity (see ConnectedDesa of 
 Humanity). 
 
 Herzog, 31. 
 
 Hide and seek, 73. 
 
 " Hide ! baby** 74. 
 
 High Schools for Girls and Kin- 
 dergartens, 40. 
 
 Hildburghausen, 13. 
 
 History, beginning of, 162. 
 
 Hofifmunn, Superintendent, 8, 14. 
 
 Hoffraeister, Henrietta Wilhelmine, 
 24,42. 
 
 How Lina learns to write and read, 
 162. 
 
 I 
 
 Imagination, constrnctive, 160. 
 Individuality in education, 87, 06. 
 Industrial schools, 182. 
 Intermediate schools, 159; chap. viii. 
 Intuition, 4, 155, 159. 
 
 Jena, University of, 12. 
 Jesus, his life the model, 119. 
 
 Keilhan, 23, 42; report on institute 
 at, 26. 
 
 Kindergarten, first idea of, 33; name 
 thought of, 37; forbidden by Prus- 
 sian government, 41 ; methods of, 
 chap, vii; the system, 102; de- 
 scription of ideal, 103; relation to 
 home, 106; to school, 157, 180; 
 books on, 136 note. 
 
 Knowledge, meaning of, 125; growth 
 of, 127 (see also E-xpresslon). 
 
 Koehler, geometrical paper, folding 
 of, 170. 
 
 Koseliedchen, 63. 
 
 Kotzebue, 25. 
 
 Lange, Dr. Wichard, 16, 19, 39, 40, 
 42. 
 
 Langethal, Henry, 20, 23, 35, 36. 
 Language, child's use of, 134, 156, 
 
 162. 
 Law in nature. 98, 108, 111. 
 Letters on Art, Winckelmann's, 13. 
 Levin, Luise, 39, 40. 
 Liebcnstein, 39. 
 Life of Froehel, Hanschmann's, 6 
 
 note. 
 Little Artist, The, 72. 
 Little Gardener, The, 72. 
 Locke, 3, 59. 
 Luther, 59. 
 
 M 
 
 Manual training, 187. 
 
 Marienthal, 40, 42. 
 
 Mat-plaiting, 148. 
 
 Mean, the reconciling, 127. 
 
 Meiningen, Duke of, 32, 189. 
 
 Memory in intermediate schools, 160. 
 
 Menschen Erziehuny, Die (see Edu- 
 cation of Man). 
 
 Method of Education, Rosmini's, 
 156. 
 
 Middendorff, Alwine, 39. 
 
 MiddendorfP, William, 20, 23, 35, 38, 
 42. 
 
 Mind, activities of, 49. 
 
 Modelling, 146, 148; in intermediate 
 school, 171. 
 
 Morality, 84, 118, 120. 
 
 Motion, idea of, communicated, 142. 
 
 Movements of body, 99, 131. 
 
 Mowing Grass, 71. 
 
 Music, 88, 99. 
 
 Mutter- und Kose-lieder, 38, 58, 93, 
 chap, iv; defects of, 67. 
 
 N 
 
 National Froehel Union, 186 note. 
 Nature, knowledge of, 71, 175; study 
 
 of, 60; in intermediate school, 172; 
 
 ethical effects of contact with, 150. 
 I^est, The, 71. 
 New Jersey Council of Education, 
 
 187. 
 Number. 
 
INDEX 
 
 O 
 Occupations, 39, 146; relation of to 
 
 gift work, 147; in transition 
 
 classes, 170. 
 Opposites (see Reconciliation). 
 
 Padagoglk des Kindergartens, 57 
 note, 136 note, 150. 
 
 Painting in intermediate school, 171. 
 
 Pantheism, Froebel's, 95, 109. 
 
 Paper-cutting, 148. 
 
 Paper-folding, 146, 148. 
 
 Paper-mosaic, 143, 146, 148. 
 
 Pat-a-cake, 71. 
 
 Payne, Joseph, 101. 
 
 Pestalozzi, 1, 16, 18, 106, 183; rela- 
 tion of, to Froebel, 185. 
 
 Petty, Sir William, his plan for an 
 Industrial School, 182. 
 
 Phonic-analytic method, 163. 
 
 Physical exercise, 66, 99, 131. 
 
 Pictures, use of, 80, 88, 133. 
 
 Plamann's Pestalozzian School, 19. 
 
 Plato, 59, 95, 102. 
 
 Play, 59, 101, 116. 
 
 Plaything, the first, 136. 
 
 Preparatory School (see Intermedi- 
 ate). 
 
 Problem ofPoptdar Education^ von 
 Fichte's, 5. 
 
 Punishment, 122. 
 
 Quintilian, 59. 
 
 Reading, methods of teaching, 163. 
 Reconciling mean (see Mean). 
 Reconciliation of opposites, 50, 127. 
 Relativity, 140. 
 Religio Medici (see Sir Thomas 
 
 Browne). 
 Religion, 81, 111, 194; the child's, 82, 
 
 118. 
 Religious Instruction, 118. 
 Reminiscences of Fr. Froebel, Dr. 
 
 Lange's, 6 note, 23 note; of Bar- 
 
 oness von Marenholtz-Blilow, 23 
 
 note, 69, 84, 113. 
 Rosmini, 66, 126 (see also Method of 
 
 Education). 
 Rousseau, 3, 93. 
 
 Salomon, 190. 
 
 Schola Materna Gremii, 31. 
 
 School, functions of, 154; contrasted 
 with Kindergarten, 157; applica- 
 tion of Froebel's principles to, 181. 
 
 Schnyder, 33. 
 
 Bch warzburg - Rudolstadt, Princess 
 Regent of, 18, 36. 
 
 Self-activity, 29, 49, 52, 54, 129, 180. 
 
 Self, comprehension of, by child, 71. 
 
 Senses, exercise of child's, 69; first 
 awakening of, 113. 
 
 Sewing, Kindergarten, 146, 148. 
 
 Sloyd, 54, 146, 190. 
 
 Smell, sense of, 72. 
 
 Smell Song, 72. 
 
 Solid forms, 146, 148. 
 
 Song, 132, 162. 
 
 Songs and games, choice of, 88 note; 
 in Intermediate Schools, 162. 
 
 Songs relating to human occupa- 
 tions, 76; for city children, 77; 
 dealing with natural phenomenal 
 83. 
 
 Speech (see Language). 
 
 Spencer, Herbert, 47, 93 note, 126. 
 
 Sphere, 138. 
 
 Stadt-Ilm, School at, 8. 
 
 Sticks and rings, 57, 148. 
 
 Stories, 59, 135, 161. 
 
 Symbols, 164. 
 
 Symbolism, Froebel's, 46, 88. 
 
 Synthesis, 126. 
 
 T 
 
 Taking in (see Assimilation) 
 
 Taste, sense of, 72. 
 
 Taste Song, 72. 
 
 Technical Instruction, 184. 
 
 Thomas k Kempis, 44. 
 
 Trade Schools (see Industrial). 
 
INDEX 
 
 209 
 
 Training of mothers, 35. 
 Transition classes, chap. viii. 
 Trigonometry, 144. 
 
 U 
 
 Unity, 91. 
 
 Vermittiungschule, Die, 156 note. 
 
 Von Ficht<», J. H., 5. 
 
 Von Holzhausen, Frau, 17. 
 
 Von Marenboltz- Billow, Baroness 
 Bertha, 89, 120, 193; her descrip- 
 tion of a Kindergarten, 108; books 
 of, 90 (see also Kemioiscences). 
 
 W 
 Wartensee, 83. 
 H'e/tthercock, The, 64. 
 Weekly Journal of Education, 40. 
 
 "Weiss, Professor, 19, 20. 
 " IFho Killed Cock Robin?** 79. 
 Whole and parts, teaching of, 140. 
 Willisau, 34, 36 note. 
 Winckelmann (see Letters on Art). 
 }Vindoxo8, The, 73. 
 Women, Mission to, 35. 
 Wood-carving (see Sloyd). 
 Wordsworth, 46, 69, 70, 71, 75, 82, 84. 
 Work, Froebel's views on, 58, 76, 
 
 103, 115, 193; child's share in do- 
 
 mestic, 116, 149. 
 Writing, 163. 
 
 Y 
 
 Yverdon, 17. 
 
 Zeh, Superiotendent, 26. 
 
 Typography by J. S. Gushing & Co., Boston, U.S.A. 
 Presswork by Berwick & Smith, Boston, U.S.A. 
 
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 ARISTOTLE, and the Ancient Educational Ideals. By Thomas 
 
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 by others besides those specially interested in the theories and methods 
 of education. Written by a member of the Jesuit Society, it comes to 
 us with authority, and presents a complete and well-arranged survey of 
 the work of educational development carried out by Ignatius and his 
 followers." — London Saturday Review. 
 
 ALCUIN, and the Rise of the Christian Schools. By 
 
 Andrew F. West, Ph.D., Professor of Latin and Peda- 
 gogics in Princeton University. 
 
 Professor West aims to develop the story of educational 
 institutions in Europe from the beginning of the influence 
 of Christianity on education to the origin of the Universi- 
 ties and the first beginnings of the modern movement. A 
 careful analysis is made of the effects of Greek and Roman 
 thought on the educational theory and practice of the early 
 Christian, and their great system of schools, and its results 
 are studied with care and in detail. The personality of 
 Alcuin enters largely into the story, because of his domi- 
 nating influence in the movement. 
 
 " I take pleasure in saying that it seems to me to combine careful 
 scholarly investigation with popularity, and condensation with interest 
 of detail, in a truly admirable way." — Professor G. T. Ladd, of Yale. 
 
THE GREAT EDUCATORS, 
 
 " I have read it with much profit and interest. Profdssor West has 
 given a vivid and trustworthy picture of the man and his work. The 
 estimate of Alcuin's services to the cause of Education in Europe is, it 
 seems to me, a very just one, and the book is a contribution to the his- 
 tory of the progress of education." — Professor Martin L. D'Ooge, 
 University of Michigan, 
 
 " Hochgeehrte Herrcn : — 
 
 Die von Ihnen mir frcundlichst zugeschickte Schrift des Herrn 
 Prof. West iiber Alcuin habe ich mit lebhaftem Interesse gelesen und 
 bin iiberrascht davon in N. America eine so eingehende Beschaftigung 
 mit unserer Vorzeit und eine so ausgebreitete Kenntniss der Literatur 
 iiber diesen Gegenstand zu finden. Es sind mir wohl Einzelheiten 
 begegnet, an denen ich etwas auszusetzen fand, die ganze Auffassung 
 und Darstellung aber kann ich nur als sehr wohl gelungen und zutref- 
 fend bczeichnen. ^j^ ausgezeichneter Hochachtung, 
 
 " Berlin, December 1892. Prof. Waitenbach." 
 
 " Prof. West's ' Alcuin ' — A very interesting and scholarly treatment 
 of an attractive and important theme." — Edward H. Griffin, ^oAn 
 Hopkins University. 
 
 FROEBEL, and Education by Self- Activity. By H. Court- 
 hope BowEN, M.A., Lecturer on Education in the Uni- 
 versity of Cambridge. 
 
 Friedrich Froebel stands for the movement known botb in 
 Europe and in this country as the New Education, more com- 
 pletely than any other single name. His careful analysis of 
 child-nature, and his intimate knowledge of children, afforded 
 him the practical insight into the early educational process 
 that makes his ideas so fruitful and important. The kin- 
 dergarten movement, and the whole development of modern 
 methods of teaching, have been largely stimulated by, if not 
 entirely based upon, his philosophical exposition of education. 
 Mr. Bowen passes each of these points in review, and gives 
 an analysis of the principle of self-activity in education that 
 is extremely suggestive. It is not believed that any other 
 account of Froebel and his work is so complete and exhaus- 
 tive, as the author has for many years been a student of 
 Froebel's principles and methods not only in books, but also 
 in actual practice in the kindergarten. Mr. Bowen is a fre- 
 quent examiner of kindergartens, of the children in them, 
 and of students who are trained to be kindergarten teachers. 
 
 The table of contents contains, among other important 
 headings, the following : FroebePs Early Days ; Education at 
 
THE GREAT EDUCATORS. 
 
 School and University ; Principles as Teacher and Reformer ; 
 Leading Principles ; The " Education of Man " ; Mutter und 
 Kose-Lieder ; Infant Games and Songs, — their Meaning and 
 Educational Value ; FroebePs Theory of Education ; Views 
 of Character, Conduct, and Religion ; The Kindergarten, — 
 its Processes ; Manual Training ; Writings ; Bibliography. 
 
 ** Wo one, in England or America, is fitted to give a more sympathetic 
 or lucid interpretation of Froebel than Mr. Courthope Bo wen. ... Mr. 
 Bowen's book will be a most important addition to any library, and no 
 student of Froebel can afford to do without it. " — Kate Douglas Wiggin, 
 New York City. 
 
 ABELARD, and the Origin and Early History of Univer- 
 sities. By Jules Gabriel Compayre, Rector of the 
 Academy of Poitiers, France. Net, $1.25. 
 
 M. Compayr^, the well-known French educationist, has 
 prepared in this volume an account of the origin of the 
 great European Universities that is at once the most sci- 
 entific and the most interesting in the English language. 
 Naturally the University of Paris is the central figure in 
 the account ; and the details of its early organization and 
 influence are fully given. Its connection with the other 
 great universities of the Middle Ages and with modern 
 university movement is clearly pointed out. Abelard, whose 
 system of teaching and disputation was one of the earliest 
 signs of the rising universities, is the typical figure of the 
 movement; and M. Compayrd has given a sketch of his 
 character and work from an entirely new point of view 
 that is most instructive. 
 
 Many important additions have been made to our valuable 
 text-book catalogue, especially in the departments of Science, 
 Philosophy, History, and Religion, besides a much enlarged 
 list of importations. 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS, Publishers, 
 
 NEW YORK CITY, 
 
IS DTJB. ON TS^ 
 
 2iAST DATE 
 
 THIS BOOK 18 -p-Et) BE-' 
 
 rJTE OF 25 CENTS 
 
 ^Id for failure to return 
 the date due. the penalty 
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