MODERN EDUCATORS (_Continued_)
FROEBEL (1782-1852)
=Literature.=--_Lange_, Collected Writings of F. Froebel; _Kriege_,
Friedrich Froebel; _Bowen_, Froebel and Education by Self-activity;
_Herford_, The Student's Froebel; _Froebel_, Education of Man; _Quick_,
Educational Reformers; _Munroe_, Educational Ideal; _Williams_, History
of Modern Education; _Marenholtz-Buelow_, Reminiscences of F. Froebel;
_Rein_, Encyklopaedisches Handbuch der Paedagogik.
Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel was born at Oberweisbach, a village in
the beautiful Thueringian Forest of Germany. The first ten years of his
life were spent at home under the instruction of his father, who was a
Lutheran clergyman and had six villages under his pastorate. The many
cares of his office prevented the pastor from giving his son much
attention, and as the stepmother neither understood the boy, nor took
much interest in him, he spent most of his time in the woods, with birds
and flowers as his companions, and received far less rudimentary
training than most boys of his age. But at the age of ten an important
change took place in his life. He went to live with his mother's
brother, who sent him to school for four years. Here he was taught the
elementary branches and a little Latin. He tells us of the profound
impression made upon him the first day of school by the text of
Scripture that the children repeated. It was, "Seek ye first the kingdom
of God." He says, "The verse made an impression on me like nothing
before or since. Indeed, this impression was so lively and deep, that
to-day every word lives fresh in my memory with the peculiar accent with
which it was spoken; and yet since that time nearly forty years have
elapsed." His progress in the school does not seem to have been very
great.
At fourteen he returned to his father's home, and soon thereafter was
apprenticed to a forester. Here he was entirely in his element, and he
tells of four aspects of this life: "The homelier and more practical
life; the life spent with nature, especially forest nature; the life of
study, devoted to mathematics and languages, for which he found a good
supply of books ready to hand; and the time spent in gaining a knowledge
of plants, in which he was much helped by books on botany lent him by a
neighboring doctor."[149] But he obtained little help from the forester,
so at the end of three years Froebel withdrew, and soon thereafter
entered the university of Jena. He seems to have studied hard during the
year and a half he spent at Jena, but to have accomplished little. He
became involved in debt, and was imprisoned for nine weeks in the
university "Carcer."[150] After his liberation, he left the university.
=As Teacher.=--Meeting with little success in various enterprises in
which he engaged, he at last drifted to Frankfurt-am-Main, where he made
the acquaintance of Dr. Gruner, head master of the Model School. Dr.
Gruner quickly discovered Froebel's talent, and urged him to accept a
position under him as teacher. Froebel reluctantly consented, but in
speaking later of his first experience in the schoolroom, he says, "It
seemed as if I had found something I had never known, but always longed
for, always missed; as if my life had at last discovered its native
element. I felt as happy as the fish in the water, the bird in the air."
Although Froebel succeeded at once in his new profession, thereby
justifying Dr. Gruner's opinion of him, he felt that he needed special
preparation for the work of teaching. Accordingly, in 1808, after two
years' experience in teaching, having in the meantime visited Pestalozzi
at Yverdon, and having read his works, he gave up his position and
joined the institute at Yverdon.
He took with him three of his pupils to tutor, and "it thus happened,"
he tells us, "that I was there both as teacher and scholar, educator and
pupil." Froebel spent two years at Yverdon, and his testimony concerning
Pestalozzi is interesting. He says, "He set one's soul on fire for a
higher and nobler life, though he had not made clear or sure the exact
road toward it, nor indicated the means whereby to attain it." This sums
up in a word the secret and extent of Pestalozzi's power. Dittes thinks
that "the origin of the kindergarten is due to the pedagogical revival
of Pestalozzi." Froebel himself, speaking of his experience at Yverdon,
says, "I studied the boys' play, the whole series of games in the open
air, and learned to recognize their mighty power to awaken and to
strengthen the intelligence and the soul as well as the body." Here we
find the first suggestion of the kindergarten, which has made Froebel
famous.
After leaving Yverdon, Froebel spent about two years at the universities
of Goettingen and Berlin in furthering his preparation for educational
reform, to which he had devoted himself. In 1813 war for German liberty
broke out, and Froebel, with many other students, enlisted. It is not
the purpose here to follow his fortunes as a soldier, but while in the
army he made the acquaintance of two young men who afterward became
associated with him in educational enterprise,--Wilhelm Middendorff and
Heinrich Langethal.
=His First School.=--In 1816 Froebel opened his first school at
Griesheim, under the high-sounding title of "Universal German
Educational Institute." At first he had his five nephews as his only
pupils. Soon after, the school was removed to Keilhau, near Rudolstadt,
in the Thueringian Forest. Here he was joined by his old friends
Middendorff and Langethal. This institution continued for a number of
years with some success, until 1833, when Froebel removed to Burgdorf,
Switzerland. The Prussian government, far from giving encouragement to
the institution at Keilhau, had regarded it with suspicion. A commission
was sent by the government to examine the institution, and although the
report was highly complimentary to Froebel's work,[151] the persecution
did not cease. In 1851 the government prohibited kindergartens, as
forming "a part of the Froebelian socialistic system, the aim of which
is to teach children atheism"; and this decree was in force till 1860!
Indeed, to this day, Prussia does not regard the kindergarten as an
educational institution, nor does she give aid to it as such. The
kindergarten is officially recognized as a sort of _day nursery_, its
teachers are not licensed,--hence have no official standing,--and
"everything that pertains to the work of the elementary schools, every
specific preparation for the work of the latter, must be strictly
excluded, and these schools can in no way be allowed to take the
character of institutions of learning. Especially can neither reading
nor arithmetic be allowed a place in them."[152]
But Froebel received more encouragement in Switzerland. He admitted
children from four to six years of age, and organized a teachers' class
to study his theories. Although Froebel did not remain long in
Switzerland, that land proved congenial to his ideas, and the
kindergarten has flourished there from his time to the present. Great
credit is due to this country, which extended its hospitality to the two
great educational modern reformers, Pestalozzi and Froebel!
=The Kindergarten.=--Mr. Herford says of Froebel's institution at
Burgdorf, that, "Here we recognize the rise of the kindergarten, not yet
so named."[153] The name came to Froebel a few years later as an
inspiration. He had returned to Keilhau and opened a school in the
neighboring town of Blankenburg. For a long time he had been pondering
over a suitable name for the new institution. "While taking a walk one
day with Middendorff and Barof to Blankenburg over the Steiger Pass,
Froebel kept repeating, 'Oh, if I could only think of a good name for my
youngest born!' Blankenburg lay at our feet, and he walked moodily
toward it. Suddenly he stood still as if riveted to the spot, and his
eyes grew wonderfully bright. Then he shouted to the mountain so that it
echoed to the four winds, 'Eureka! _Kindergarten_ shall the institute be
called!'"
But, like Pestalozzi, Froebel was wholly incapable of financial
management, and the institution at Blankendorf had to be closed. He
devoted the remainder of his life to lecturing upon his theories in
different parts of Germany. He appealed to mothers, and endeavored to
instruct them in the duty of training young children. He taught that the
mother is the natural teacher of the child, and that it is her duty to
fit herself for the sacred responsibility that God has placed upon her.
Froebel's greatest discovery was that education comes only through
self-activity, though he never clearly formulated his discovery. The
Baroness Bertha von Marenholtz-Buelow has published one of the best
accounts of his life and work.[154]
=The "Education of Man."=--Froebel gives his philosophy of education in
his "Education of Man," but his most popular work is "Songs for Mother
and Nursery." His chief contribution to the work of educational reform
is the kindergarten, an institution that has been ingrafted upon the
school systems of many lands, and that is destined to become ever
increasingly potent for good. In no country in the world has the
kindergarten taken so strong a hold and made so great progress as in
America. The purpose of the kindergarten, according to Froebel himself,
is, "to take the oversight of children before they are ready for school
life; to exert an influence over their whole being in correspondence
with its nature; to strengthen their bodily powers; to exercise their
senses; to employ the awakening mind; to make them thoughtfully
acquainted with the world of nature and of man; to guide their heart and
soul in the right direction, and to lead them to the Origin of all life,
and to unison with Him."
FOOTNOTES:
[149] Bowen, "Froebel," p. 11.
[150] For a part of this debt Froebel's brother, also a student, was
responsible. The amount of the debt was less than twenty-five dollars.
[151] The sole recommendation of the commission that might be
interpreted as a criticism was that the boys should have their hair cut!
See Bowen's "Froebel," p. 26, for the full report of the visiting
commission.
[152] Rescript from the Prussian Minister of Education, April 7, 1884.
[153] "The Student's Froebel," XV.
[154] "Handbuch der Froebelischen Erziehungslehre," "Reminiscences of
Friedrich Froebel, Child and Child-nature."