LIBRARY OF THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA. Class KINDERGARTEN AND CHILD CULTURE PAPERS. FKOEBEL'S KINDERGARTEN, WITH SUGGESTIONS ON PRINCIPLES AND METHODS OF CHILD CULTURE IN DIFFERENT COUNTRIES. REPUBLISHED FROM American Journal 0f (Etoratioiu HENRY BARNARD, LL.D., EDITOR. REVISED EDITIO.^ f OF THE I UNIVERSITY HARTFORD: OFFICE OF BARNARD'S AMERICAN JOURNAL OF EDUCATION. 189O. KINDERGARTEN AND CHILD-CULTURE PAPERS. PLAN OF PUBLICATION. LETTER TO PRESIDENT OF THE AMERICAN FROEBEL UNION. DEAR Miss PEABODY: I propose to do more in 1880 than 7, have done as publisher since 1838,* in any one year for the eluci- dation of Child-Culture, and particularly of the Kindergarten as devised by Froebel, and developed by himself and others who have acted in his spirit and after his methods. The conviction expressed by me in printed report f and public addresses in 1854, that "the system of infant culture, presented in the Interna- tional Exhibition of Educational Systems and Material at St. Martin's Hall, by Charles Hoffman of Hamburg, and illustrated by Madame Ronge in her Kindergarten in Tavistock Square, Lon- don, was by far the most original, attractive, and philosophical form of infant development the world has yet seen," has been deepened by much that I have since read and observed. But the suggestion in my Special Report as Commissioner of Education to the Senate in 1868, and again to the House of Representatives in 1870, on a System of Public Instruction for the District of Colum- bia, "that the first or lowest school in a graded system for cities should cover the play period of a child's life," and that "the great formative period of the human being's life" "in all that concerns habits of observation and early development, should be subjected to the training of the Kindergarten" must be received now under at least the conditions of the original recommendation. A variety of agencies must be at work to train the teachers of each grade (and the Kindergartners with the rest) for their special duties, and to instruct and interest parents in the work of the school-room, and to give to them as such a direct right of inspec- tion and suggestion as to the schools where their children are in attendance. I believe that parents as such have more rights, and rights which should be respected by their own direct representa- *In the Connecticut Common School Journal from 1838 to 1842. and from 1849 to 1854; Educational Tracts (monthly) from 1842 to 1845; the Journal of the Rhode Island Insti- tute of Instruction from 1845 to 1848 ; and the American Journal of Education from 1855 to 1880. In every year of these periodicals are elaborate Papers, original and selected, on the Principles and Methods of early education applicable to children in home and school. t Report to the Governor of Connecticut on the International Exhibition of Educational Systems and Material at St. Martin's Hall, London, under the auspices of Prince Albert, and the Society of Arts, Commerce, and Manufactures. By Henry Barnard, delegate from Connecticut by appointment of the General Assembly. 1854. 107501 KINDERGARTEN AND CHILD-CULTURE PAPERS. tion in all educational boards, than are now conceded to them in State and municipal school organizations. All schools not under progressive teachers, and not subjected to frequent, intelligent, and independent supervision are sure to fall into dull, mechanical routine; and the Kindergarten, of all other educational agencies, requires a tender, thoughtful, practical woman, more than a vivacious, and even regularly educated girL The power of influencing and interesting mothers in their home work and securing their willing co-operation, is an essential qualifi- cation of the Kindergartner. The selection of such cannot be safely left to school officers as now appointed, and who too often do not look beyond their neighbors, nephews, and nieces for can* didates. Until the principles of early child -culture are better understood, and school officers and teachers are more thoroughly trained in the best methods, the first establishment of Kindergar- tens had better be left to those who are already sufficiently interested to make some sacrifice of time or means in their behalf; and when found in successful operation and conforming to certain require- ments, they should be entitled to aid from public funds in proportion to attendance; and for such aid, be subject to official inspection. My desire is to help place this whole subject of the early devel- opment and training of the human being, especially of the claims and results of the Froebel Kindergarten in this work, clearly and fully before teachers, parents, and school officers; and in thest efforts I solicit your advice and co-operation, and through you, of all who are laboring for the same object in the Home, the Kinder- garten, and the Primary School. My first plan of publication was to issue these Child-Culture Papers in separate Numbers or Parts alternating with the regular Numbers of my Journal, but not necessarily connected with the latter. On further consideration I have concluded to incorporate them all with the discussion of other educational topics, and then to issue the whole in a volume of Contributions to the literature of the Kindergarten. You will greatly oblige me by suggesting additions or modifica- tions to the accompanying scheme of treatment for the first portion of the volume (to page 400), as well as Papers with their authors on any topic in the wide range of child-culture for the concluding portion. May I look to you for an article in the next Number on the Progressive Development of Froebel's Kindergarten? HENRY BARNARD. HARTFORD, December, 1879. DEVELOPMENT OF THE KINDERGARTEN. LETTER FROM MISS PEABODY TO THE EDITOR : DEAR SIR : Nothing, it seems to me, can do more to establish the Kindergarten on a permanent foundation, and place its prin- ciples and methods fairly before American parents and teachers, than the full and exhaustive treatment which you propose to give, in the last volume of your truly Encyclopediac Journal, of the whole subject of child culture, as held by eminent educators, at home and abroad, giving due prominence to its latest de- velopment in the Kindergarten as devised by Frederic Frobel and others trained in his spirit and methods. Your willingness to issue these papers in a connected form, and detached from other discussions, will enable Kindergartners to possess them- selves, at a moderate price, of a volume (a manual I think it will prove to be), in which the Frobel idea and institute will be pre- sented in their historical development, and in their pedagogical connection with other systems of human culture. I respond cor- dially to your invitation to co-operate in this work and to secure contributions from my correspondents and fellow-laborers in this field, in our own ^ind other countries ; and I will begin at once with the subject suggested by yourself, the "Development of the Kindergarten," as it was suggested to Frobel by his study of the vegetable kingdom of Nature, and his insight into the gracious purposes of the Father of Spirits. The Baroness Marenholtz-Biilow, in her " Reminiscences of Frobel," has told us of her discovery, in 1849, of this great gen- ius ; and her introduction of him to the Duke of Weimar, and to the leading educators of Germany ; and of the instantaneous acceptance of him by Diesterweg and others as " a prophet." Three years afterwards he died, when the reactionary govern- ment of Prussia had forbidden the introduction of his Kinder- gartens into the public system of education ; instinctively divin- ing that an education which recognizes every human being as self-active, and even creative, in his moral and intellectual na- ture, must be fatal, in the end, to all despotic governments. But already, through the friendship of the ducal family of 6 FROEBEL'S KINDERGARTEN. Weimar, Frobel's normal school for Kindergartners was estab- lished at Marienthal ; and through the influence of Diesterweg over Madame Johanna Goldschmidt, he had established another at the free city of Hamburgh ; and the governmental prohibition in Prussia had stimulated the founding of private Kindergartens in Berlin and elsewhere Some years after, his eminent and ap- preciative pupil and chosen apostle, the Baroness, brought about the rescinding of the prohibitory decree. Nevertheless, not even yet, as you will see from a letter I send you, written by Frau Ber- tha Meyer on their present condition in Berlin, are there any but private Kindergartens in Prussia. These, indeed, are patronized by the best people, led by the Crown Princess of Germany, Vic- toria of England, who has not only had her own children edu- cated by strictly Frobelian Kindergartners, but has interested among others the Princess Helena of Russia in the system, and lets herself be named as Lady Patroness of the training school for Kindergartners at 17 Tavistock square, London. Only two governments in Europe yet have recognized the Kin- dergarten as a public interest that of Austria, which imposes on all pupils of normal schools in the empire, of whatever grade of instruction, to make themselves acquainted with Frobel's princi- ples ; and makes compulsory on the people to send all their chil- dren under six to some Kindergarten ; also the government of Italy, where Kindergartens were first established by the Italian Minister of Education, whose attention had been directed to the subject, in 1868, by our own American minister, the Hon. George P. Marsh. This attempt was, however, rather premature, for Italian Kindergartners were not yet properly prepared for the work, and though Frobel's educational method is found to be harmonious with the deepest motherly instinct, when that is un- derstood, it does not come by instinct into a systematic form. In 1871-2 the Baroness Marenholtz-Biilow was solicited by the Ital- ian minister to go to Florence and lecture upon the training, and she taught a large class. The resume, of her lectures was printed in a pamphlet, in 1872, and translated and published by our Bu- reau of Education at Washington, in its circular of July, and forms an admirable syllabus for the training of teachers. In that same year, 1872, Madame Salis-Schwab introduced the system at Naples at great expense to herself of money and labor, and gained from the municipality the promise to make it the first grade of the public education, when Kindergartners should be trained for FROEBEL'S KINDERGARTEN. Y it. You must publish in your volume the report of the success- ful Kindergarten now kept in the Collegia Medici, a copy of which I hope to furnish you. This jfroves one of the greatest charities in Europe, and princes send their children as pupils. But though the European governments do not yet adopt the system, Kindergartens are established widely in all the German states, in Sweden, Denmark, Russia, Switzerland, France, Bel- gium, even in Spain, also in England, Scotland and Ireland ; and wherever there are Kindergartens there are more or less inade- quate attempts at training Kindergartners, Koehler's establish- ment at Saxe-Gotha, and lately the Frobel Stif tung at Dresden, being the best. The latter will probably swallow up the former, as Koehler has lately died. In England, in 1872, there was an association formed, among whose members are famed scientists like Huxley, as well as dig- nitaries of the Church of England, who have founded an institu- tion for training Kindergartners at Manchester, to be examined for certificates after two years study with observation in a model Kindergarten now kept by Miss Anna Snell, a pupil of Midden- dorf. Two years afterwards another training class was founded, as a part of the Stockwell training school for primary teachers in London, S. W., and another pupil of Middendorf, Miss Elea- nor Heerwart, who had been keeping Kindergarten some years near Dublin, Ireland, was made its teacher and the principal of the Stockwell model Kindergarten. Also, in 1874, the London Frobel Society was founded by Miss Doreck and Mr. Payne, whose present president, Miss Emily Shirreff, and her sister, the Hon. Mrs. Grey, have published most valuable lectures, among which I would mention, as most important, Miss ShirrefPs "Life of Frobel," and her essay on the right of his Kindergarten to the name of the " New Education." This London society has a monthly meeting and lecture, and I can send you for your volume one of these : Miss E. A. Manning's lecture on " The Discour- agements and Encouragements of the Kindergartner." She has sent it to me to be read at the meeting of our American Frobel Union, which was appointed for December 29-31, 1879, but had to be postponed. Some other articles were sent ; one by Miss Shirreff, one by -Miss Lychinska, and one by Miss Heerwart, which are at your service also ; and I hope to have Miss Shirreff' s article about a chart of Kindergarten employments, made by Madame du Portugall for the direction of the Swiss Kindergart- g FROEBEL'S KINDERGARTEN. ners, and which has been asked for by the English Education Journal for publication in its pages. It was the Baroness ^Marenholz-Biilow who may be said to have started and done the most in this great propagandism. Acknowledged by Frobel, in 1849, as the one who more deeply than any one else saw into his " last thought," she must be considered as his most complete representative, and most effective apostle. In 1858 she went to Paris and, taking rooms at the Louvre, summoned to her parlor-lectures the most distinguished men of the time in Paris, of all churches, Catholic, Protestant and Jew- ish, and outsiders of every school of philosophy. Their wonderful unanimity in accepting the idea and system, as developed in her lectures, was expressed in letters to her from all of them, includ- ing the Cardinal of Tours, afterwards Archbishop of Paris, the Abbe Michaud, and many Catholic savants; Michelet, Edgar Quinet, Auguste Comte, Protestant pastors, Harmonists, etc , etc. These letters she has printed as an appendix, making one- half of her volume, which is entitled " Die Arbeit," relative to Frobel's Education, which was the resume of her lectures at the Louvre. This unanimity of assent is the best proof that the element in which the Kindergarten works is that of universal humanity, not yet narrowed from "the kingdom of heaven," which Christ declared that children represent, in their pre-intel- lectual era, when the Kindergarten takes them from the moth- er's nursery, to initiate them into the society of their equals. Madame Marenholtz also carried the system into Belgium, and the first guide-book of the method " Le Jardin des Enfants " was published in Brussels by F. Claasen, with an introduction by herself. She then went into England, where, however, she had been preceded by Madame Konge, one of that Meyer family of North Germany which has been always a munificent benefac- tor of education, Henry Adolf having given to Hamburg its Zoological Garden and Aquarium, the finest foundations of the kind in the world j and he is still the most enthusiastic patron of Frobel's Kindergarten. But in England some accidental collateral circumstances inter- fered with Madame Ronge's perfect work, and broke her heart. The seeds of Kindergarten were however planted in several local- ities, and some good work done, among others by Madame du Portugall at Manchester, who is now the Inspector of Primary Education in her native city, Geneva, Switzerland, and is gradu- FROEBEL'S KINDERGARTEN. 9 ally making the Kindergarten the foundation of the primary ed- ucation there. But the most important establishment on the Continent for the education of Kindergartners is in Dresden, founded in 1872 by the Union, which grew up since 1867, out of the Committee of Education of the Congress of Philosophers that met in Prague that year. This committee was appointed to inquire into the ultimate results on individuals of the Kindergarten education given by Frobel with Middendorf, who had been his faithful friend and coadjutor at the school for boys founded by them both at Keilhau in 1817, long before the Kindergarten was named in 1839. It took more than twenty years of earnest experiment- ing to enable Frobel to arrive at the complete Kindergarten practically. In that year he gave it its very expressive name. As long before as 1827 he had published Erziehung der Mensch (the Education of Mankind), a book addressed to the mother, in which is found all the elementary principles of Kindergarten except one. In this book he took the ground that the mother exclusively should be the educator of the child till it was seven years old; but a dozen years of observation had taught him in 1839, that no mother had the leisure and strength to do for her child all that needed to be done in its first seven years, without assistants and in the narrow precinct of a single family. For the social and moral nature, after three years old, requires a larger company of equals. The Kindergarten does just what neither the home nor the primary school can do for a child. In 1867, at the re-assembling of the "Congress of Philoso- phers " at Frankfort-on-the-Main, the Committee of Inquiry ap- pointed at Prague, of which Prof. Fichte of Stuttgart, son of the great J. G. Fichte, was chairman, reported that the pupils taught at the Kindergarten age by Frobel himself, had been looked up at the universities and elsewhere, and been found to be of excep- tional intelligence : and that they themselves ascribed it to their Frobel education in the " connection of contrasts " or " law of equipoise," that secret of all nature and true life. At this meeting at Frankfort-on-the-Main, the Baroness Maren- holtz had four afternoons assigned her to explain FrobePs idea and method, and the result was the formation of the General Union, and the establishment of its organ, Die Erziehung der Geyenwart, together with the Training College, at Dresden. I will send you the first report of the activity of this society 10 FROEBEL'S KINDERGARTEN. which you can use if you think best in making up your volume. Mrs. Kriege has translated and sent it to me for the meeting, which is postponed until Easter. I will also send the Baroness's own letter to me, though it is rather sad. She feels the immense difficulties of planting, amid the stereotyped conservatisms of Europe, this living germ, which requires the fresh-plowed un- worn soil, and all the enlivening influences of the American na- tionality, in its pristine vigor, as is intimated by the flourishing growth at St. Louis and California, especially of the public Kin- dergartens there. BRIEF NOTICE OF THE KINDERGARTEN IN AMERICA. After your own articles on Frb'bel in your Journal in 1856 and 1858, nothing was said in America till the review in the Christian Examiner, in 1859, Boston, of " Le Jardin des En- fants" In the course of the next ten years some innocent, because ignorant, inadequate attempts were made at Kindergar- tens, but without such study into the practical details of the method as to do any justice to Frobel's idea ; and, on the whole, the premature attempt was unfortunate. The most noted one was my own in Boston ; but I must do myself the justice to say that I discovered its radical deficiency, by seeing that the results promised by Frobel, as the fruit of his method, did not accrue, but consequences that he deprecated, and which its financial success and the delight of the children and their parents in the pretty play-school did not beguile me into overlooking. Hence I went, in 1867, to Europe, to see the Kindergartens established and taught by Frobel himself and his carefully educated pupils ; and I returned in 1868, zealous to abolish my own and all similar mistakes, and establish the real thing, on the basis of an adequate training of the Kindergartners. My plan was to create, by parlor lecturing in Boston, a demand that should result in our sending to Lubeck, Germany, for Friiu- lein Marie Boelte (now Mrs. Kraus-Boelte of New York) to come to Boston and establish a model Kindergarten and a train- ing school for Kindergartners, inasmuch as she was one of the few ladies of position and high culture in Germany who, from purely disinterested motives, had become a Kindergartner. She had studied three years with Frobel's widow in Hamburg, and went to England with Madame Ronge, and was her most efficient assistant, and had a high reputation there, where she had ac- FROEBEL'S KINDERGARTEN. II quired the language in that perfection necessary to teach little children orally. 1 knew, from a distinguished relative of hers, that she would be willing to sacrifice everything and it was a great deal she had to sacrifice to come to America, because she knew that Frobel had said that the spirit of the American na- tionality was the only one in the world with which his creative method was in complete harmony, and to which its legitimate institutions would present no barriers. But when I came back to Boston, I found Madame Kriege and her daughter already there, and the enterprise had to contend with an unprepared public, which had been also misled by my own unfortunately precipitate attempts, and others which had perhaps grown out of mine. But something valuable was done by the intelligent and faith- ful labors of Mrs. Kriege and daughter during the next four years j and then Miss Boelte came to New York on invitation of Miss Haines of Gramercy Park, at the moment that Mrs. Kriege and her daughter returned to Europe for a vacation. A pupil of Madame Kriege, Miss Garland, who associated with herself a pupil of her own, Miss Weston, has carried on the Kindergarten training school of Boston with great fidelity. These two train- ing schools are still doing the best work. Mrs. Kriege and daughter also returned to America in 1874, and as Miss Boelte married Mv. Kraus and became independent in her work, they took her place with Miss Haines for two years. There have also branched from Mrs. Kraus's school the work of Miss Blow, who has kept a free training school at St. Louis, since 1872, and is now inspector of the more than fifty free Kindergartens established by the municipality of that city ; and a training school in Iowa by another of Mrs. Kraus's pupils. Mrs. John Ogden of Worth- ington, Ohio, is also a valuable trainer, a pupil of Miss Garland ; also another, Miss Alice Chapin, in Indianapolis, Indiana, and another in connection with the Brooks school of Cleveland, Ohio. Of Mrs. Ogden's pupils, Miss Sara Eddy and Mrs. A. H. Put- nam, both of Chicago, and Miss Burritt, known as "the Centen- nial Kindergartner of the Great Exhibition." and the Misses Mclntosh of Montreal, P. Q., are at present training Kindergart- ners with success. Mrs. Van Kirk of Philadelphia, who studied three years with the best pupils of Miss Garland, practicing all the while in a Kindergarten of her own, in which one of them was principal, has also a training school in Philadelphia. One 12 FROEBEL'S KINDERGARTEN. of Miss Burritt's pupils has this year been appointed training teacher of a class of Kindergartners at the Baltimore Normal school, where she also keeps a model Kindergarten. There are three other training schools kept by German ladies Miss Anna Held, in Nashua, N. H., Miss Susie Pollock, in Wash- ington, D. C., both of whom were graduates of a training school in Berlin, and Miss Marwedel, once having her training school in Washington, and now in Berkeley, California, a woman of bril- liant genius, who has studied Frobel's works by herself very pro- foundly, according to the testimony of Madame Kriege, and who proved her understanding of Frobel by the beautiful results in her Kindergarten at Washington. A pupil of hers, Miss Graves, succeeded her in Washington when she left for California, and Miss Pollock and her mother have a training school there. There must be a good deal to choose with respect to these several train- ers. Of those trained in Germany I can myself fortn no judg- ment, with the exception of Madame Kraus-Boelte, all of whose remarkable antecedents I know, and whose work, both here and in Europe, I know. She has the obvious advantage of having been more than twice as long at work as any other, and from spontaneous enthusiasm, and having had the nearest relations to Frobel Mrs. Kraus-Boelte always cries aloud and spares not in deprecation of recent students and not long experienced Kinder- gartners undertaking to train others, and has much and most true things to say of the profoundness of insight and depth of expe- rience necessary in order to be sufficient to undertake the respon- sibilities of a Kindergartner, which are even greater than those of the Christian clergyman, because children are more utterly at the mercy of their Kindergartner than the adult at that of the cler- gyman. Mrs. Kraus would have the American Frobel Union do something very emphatic to check those who, as she thinks, rush too rashly upon holy ground, where "angels fear to tread." But no society has the power to take the place of conscience and reason, which are the only real guardians of the purity and efficiency of the Kindergartner's or of the clergyman's office. All that the American Frobel Union can do is to provide a stand- ard library of Kindergarten literature, and at its meetings, and by correspondence with Kindergartners' reunions and auxiliary societies, propagate the science and art of Frobel, and do its best to keep the Kindergartners careful and studious, humble and dil- igently progressive ; fitting themselves to Hue with the children FROEBEL'S KINDERGARTEN 13 genially and to their edification, by themselves becoming as little children, and living their own lives over again, religiously and morally, in the light of Frobel's idea, and so becoming capable of character-forming and mind-building, by sincere study of nat- ure, material, human and divine. The Union was formed primarily to protect the name of Kin- dergarten from being confounded with methods of infant-training inconsistent with Frobel's idea and system, and which was as- sumed, without sincerity, as a cover of quite another thing, which calls itself " the American Kindergarten," and claimed Frobel's authority expressly for its own devices. The society has already done this work by giving a nation-wide impression that there is the difference of a genuine and a contrary thing, and awakening care and inquiry in those who are seeking the most desirable edu- cation for their little children. I must not omit to speak of one professor of Frobel's art and science, whose works sufficiently praise him I mean Mr. W. N. Hailman, author of an admirable little work called " Kindergar- ten Culture," also " Letters to Mothers," " Lectures to Kinder- gartners" (the two latter first published in "the New Educa- tion," which he edits, but now to be had in pamphlet form). This gentleman, who learnt the system in his native city of Zurich, has been engaged for ten years and more in this country in the Ger- man-American schools of Louisville, Milwaukee, and now in De- troit, and earned the money to enable his wife (American-born) to carry on a Kindergarten, as he is doing again now in Detroit, and also keeping with her a free training school for Kiiidergart- ners in that city. I do not know any one who has made such sub- stantial sacrifices to the cause, or is doing more for it now. And now a word upon the American Frobel literature and I have done. The first publication in America, except* some letters by Mr. John Kraus, in the Army and Navy Gazette and other newspa- pers, and my own letters in the New York Herald, of 1867-8, was the "Plea for Frobel's Kindergarten as the Primary Art School," appended to the " Artisan and Artist Identified," an American re-publication of Cardinal Wiseman's lecture on " the Relations of the Arts of Design and the Arts of Production," *Earlier than either was a pamphlet issue of an article in the American Journal of Education for September, 1856, which by successive enlargements in 1858, 1861, and 1867, was continued 011 the List of Barnard's Educational Publications, and substan- tially embodied in the first edition of " German Pedagogy" in 1867. 14 FROEBEL'S KINDERGARTEN. Boston, 1869 ; the next was the article on ' Kindergarten Cul- ture," in. the Report of the Bureau of Education for 1870. I see you mean to re-publish these in your volume. I also re- published, revised in 1869, the " Moral Culture of Infancy and Kindergarten Guide," by which I had misled the public, previ- ous to my visit to Europe, in 1867 ; and in 1873, two lectures, one on the " Education of the Kindergartner," and one on the "Nursery," in which I state the grounds of Frobel's authority. In that same year came out the "Resume" of Mrs. Kriege's in- structions to her training class, which she names "The Child in its threefold Nature as the Subject of the Kindergarten," and with most honorable intentions she called it a free rendering of the Baroness Marenholtz, which has unfortunately led many to suppose it was a translation of the Baroness's book on '* the Be- ing of a Child," which it is not, as she desires should be dis- tinctly stated, that it may not preclude a possible English trans- lation of that work.* But in 1871, Milton Bradley, a toy manufacturer of Spring- field, Mass., and a very intelligent man, became interested, by Mr. Edward Wiebe, in the Kindergarten idea, and under his ad- vice, undertook the manufacture of Frobel's materials, in the faith that there would presently be a remunerative demand for them. He also published a manual to show their use, which was largely a selection from Goldammer's German Guide, both as to plates and matter; to which Mr. Wiebe prefixed also an exact translation of the Baroness Marenholtz's introduction to that work (but without giving credit). The work was called " Paradise of Childhood," but was a different thing from Lina Morgenstern's German book of the same title. Within a year, Mr. Bradley has re-published the plates of this work, but with other letter-press of a superior character, credited to the Kindergartners of Flor- ence, Massachusetts. I think Mr. Bradley himself was the author of the very valuable chapter on the manipulation of the scalene triangle. The chapters on the Second Gift and the Fifth Gift are better than those of any other manual that I have seen. In 1873, I began to edit the Kindergarten Messenger, and carried it through the years 1873-4-5 and 7, affording many able persons opportunity to express themselves. There is one article which I have twice printed arid which I wish you would re-print *Such a translation has been made by Miss Alice M. Christie, (London : W. Swan Sonneschein, 15 Paternoster Square, 1879,) and will be republished in the Kinder- garten Papers. FROEBEL'S KINDERGARTEN. 15 in your volume : Miss Garland's paper on Frb'bel's " Law of Con- trasts and their Connection," which is the best statement I have seen made of this fundamental principle, in which lies the secret of the power of the system. There may be other articles you may wish to preserve ; especially do I wish to suggest to you to consider Mrs. Aldrich's address to her mothers 7 class in an article called "Mothers' Unions," in the double number for March 1877. During 1876 our Kindergarten Messages were put into the New England Journal of Education, but discontinued because the editor advertised and recommended the spurious so-called Amer- ican Kindergarten ; and since 1877 the New Education, edited by Mr. Hailman, has been our Kindergarten Messenger. The American Frobel Union commenced, in 1871, the Stand- ard Library for Kindergartners and Parents, by publishing Mrs. Horace Mann's translation of the Baroness Marenholtz's " Rem- iniscences of Frobel," and in 1878, a fac simile reproduction of Frobel's most characteristic work, *' Mother Play and Nursery Songs," with the music and engravings ; the songs being trans- lated in the very cadence of the music by Miss F. E. Dwight, and the explanatory notes by Miss Josephine Jarvis. When our treasury shall be large enough to afford it, a translation of the Erziehung der Mensch and his posthumous works, edited by Wichard Lange of Hamburg (son-in-law of Middendorf), will be added. Meanwhile the Union considers, as a part of the Stand- ard Library, Mrs. Kraus-Boelte's Guide and Manual, which is in the course of publication by E. Steiger, 25 Park Place, New York, and most of the Kindergarten literature which he publishes, in English and German, and especially his " Kindergarten Tracts," so called, which he sends to all who ask for them, post-paid, on receipt of an order with six cents. The 5th, 9th, and 14th of these tracts have diffused an immense amount of information all over the country. Mr. Steiger also imports all the materials of occupation and gifts and is a truly liberal propagandist of the idea of Frobel. But I must here put in a caveat. The interest of manufactur- ers and of merchants of the gifts and materials is a snare. It has already corrupted the simplicity of Frobel in Europe and America, for his idea was to use elementary forms exclusively, and simple materials, as much as possible of these being pre- pared by the children themselves. And here I would say a word respecting all reputed improve- 16 FROEBEL'S KINDERGARTEN. ments on Frobel. Of these pretensions we cannot be too jealous. Frobel, in his half century of experimenting, very thoroughly explored the prime necessities of the Kindergarten age. Chil- dren under seven years old, at least at three or four, are very much alike in all countries and ages. And I am inclined to think that but one harmony of nature, available for earliest education, was left undiscovered by Frobel, and that is the discovery of Mr. D. Batchellor, of the use to be made of colors in teaching children the elements of music. He is to explain this and his happy experiment in Miss Garland's Kindergarten at our next meeting. But the heights and depths of the moral and religious nature of children will open more and more on mankind, as progress is made in moral refinement ; and will open on the Kindergartners deeper and clearer views of Frobel's moral idea, which it seems to me is nothing less than Christ's idea of the child, of whom He says, " Of such is the kingdom of heaven," and " He that receiveth a little child in my name receiveth me." Before you close your projected volume of the history and ex- position of Frobel's reform, I hope we shall have our postponed meeting, and hear the papers from Mr. Batchellor and others, on practical points of Kindergartening ; and those of Dr. W. T. Harris, Rev. R. H. Newton, Prof. Felix Adler, Dr. J. S. White, Thomas Gushing, and other principals, on its relations to the state, church, and the progressive education of humanity. ELIZABETH P. PEABODY. THE KINDEKGAKTEN AND ITS FOUNDER. PREFATORY NOTE.* To aid parents and teachers to a thorough understanding of the Kindergarten its genesis and growth, its theories and philosophy, its method and processes, and to some extent its relations to other systems of early training is the object of this publication. / Our hopes of a better popular education for our country and the world rest on the universal understanding and recognition in the family and the school, of the fundamental ideas of Froebel as to the law of human development, and of the intuitional method of both Pesta- lozzi and Froebel, as the surest process at once of mental discipline and valuable attainment. In Froebel's letter to the Duke of Meiningen, as published by Dr. Wichard Lange, we have the key to some of the mental peculi- arities of the founder of the Kindergarten in his own family, school, and self training ; and in his letter to the Princess Sophia of Rudold- stadt on the system of Pestalozzi we find the germs of that child culture which it was the blessed results of his restless and self- sacrificing life-work to develop and mature. The gradual ripening of the Kindergarten is shown in his letters to Barop in 1829, and again in 1836 and 1839, until, in 1840, he appeals to the women of Germany " to assist in founding an institution for the nurture of children, which shall be named Kindergarten, on account of its inner life and aim." In the published observations and experience of many thoughtful educators and teachers in our own and other countries, we have aids to a fuller understanding of the underlying principles of Froebel, to such modifications of his Kindergarten method and processes, as peculiarities of individual children, or family and national surround- ings may demand, and, above all, to such changes in the subjects and methods of existing primary instruction, as will make the transition from improved home and Kindergarten training to the School, easy and progressive. If the Kindergarten is to form an integral part of the popular education of our country, its aims and methods must be felt in the Public Primary School. Froebel, Kindergarten, and Child Culture Papers : Republished from The American Journal of Education, Henry Barnard, LL.D., Editor. Hartford, 1881. 758 American Froebel Union Edition. $3.50. A NEW LIFE OF FRIEDERICH FROEBEL. Compiled from Original Documents in Dr. Wichard Lange's Collected Writings of Froebcl. INTRODUCTORY NOTE. The following reminiscences of Froebel, and aids to the better understanding of his life-work,by Dr. Wichard Lange, gathered from articles he wrote upon Froebel from time to time, are of inestima- ble value, for they show from the outside, as he himself attempted to do in his autobiographical letter to the Duke of Meiningen from the inside, the growth of his great idea, as well as the estimation in which he was held not only by the world, who gradually saw in him the great man that he was, but that of his own inner circle, the members of which never lost their enthusiasm and devotion to him in spite of some human faults that one can easily see grew out of that temperament of genius which makes anything unbearable to the sensitive soul of such a man which even threatens to inter- fere with the great purpose of his life. Our sympathy for him is quickened and intensified by the picture of his shady side, and we can understand the magic power he wielded over those whom he found ready to understand him and who were capable of helping him by such devotion of life as is seldom met with in this world. PREFACE TO COLLECTED EDITION OF FROEBEL'S WRITINGS. FRIEDERICH FROEBEL AND WILLIAM MIDDENDORFF were insepar- able in life. If Middendorff appeared, Froebel was not far off. Middendorff came before the German people in 1848 and 1861, and after his death that reputation which he acquired in his life greatly increased. He traveled as an apostle of the new idea in those districts and regions of Germany in which the efforts of his bosom friend were yet unknown, and by his philanthropic, versatile, radi- ant personality, and by his powerful because heart-winning and persuasive eloquence, he could not but excite enthusiasm. He was the Aaron who stood by the side of the heavy-tongued Moses as a needed expositor, and softened the heart of many a hardened Pharaoh. Here in Hamburg, up to 1840, he won unheard of success, and fastened general attention upon the cause of Froebel. Froebel found a smooth path made for him, but he still had to combat many difficulties, because people did not and could not find * Thoughts on the Kindergarten dedicated to the German Parliament in 1818. 2 (17) 18 FROEBEL AND HIS EDUCATIONAL WORK. what they had been led to expect; namely, versatility and elo- quence like Middendorff's. May the little messenger of 1861 have roused the desire and the impulse to draw full attention to the distinguished chief wherever the unskillful form makes the reading or the understanding of the idea difficult. I have endeavored to improve this form so far as such alteration is consistent with reverence for what is thus criti- cised. Originals must remain originals. I was obliged to give a new shape to the autobiography running through almost the whole, because its contents could only thus be deciphered from an almost unreadable manuscript. Since Froebel's appearance in Hamburg in the winter of 1849- V 1850, I have been occupied uninterruptedly, even if sometimes