THE HISTORY OF THE SCHOOL.
I was well acquainted with the three founders of our institute--Fredrich
Froebel, Middendorf, and Langethal--and the two latter were my teachers.
Froebel was decidedly “the master who planned it.”
When we came to Keilhau he was already sixty-six years old, a man of
lofty stature, with a face which seemed to be carved with a dull knife
out of brown wood.
His long nose, strong chin, and large ears, behind which the long locks,
parted in the middle, were smoothly brushed, would have rendered him
positively ugly, had not his “Come, let us live for our children,”
beamed so invitingly in his clear eyes. People did not think whether he
was handsome or not; his features bore the impress of his intellectual
power so distinctly that the first glance revealed the presence of a
remarkable man.
Yet I must confess--and his portrait agrees with my memory--that his
face by no means suggested the idealist and man of feeling; it seemed
rather expressive of shrewdness, and to have been lined and worn by
severe conflicts concerning the most diverse interests. But his voice
and his glance were unusually winning, and his power over the heart of
the child was limitless. A few words were sufficient to win completely
the shyest boy whom he desired to attract; and thus it happened that,
even when he had been with us only a few weeks, he was never seen
crossing the court-yard without a group of the younger pupils hanging to
his coattails and clasping his hands and arms.
Usually they were persuading him to tell stories, and when he
condescended to do so, older ones flocked around him too, and they were
never disappointed. What fire, what animation the old man had retained!
We never called him anything but “Oheim.” The word “Onkel” he detested
as foreign, because it was derived from “avunculus” and “oncle.” With
the high appreciation he had of “Tante”--whom he termed, next to the
mother, the most important factor of education in the family--our
“Oheim” was probably specially agreeable to him.
He was thoroughly a self-made man. The son of a pastor in Oberweissbach,
in Thuringia, he had had a dreary childhood; for his mother died
young, and he soon had a step-mother, who treated him with the utmost
tenderness until her own children were born. Then an indescribably sad
time began for the neglected boy, whose dreamy temperament vexed even
his own father. Yet in this solitude his love for Nature awoke. He
studied plants, animals, minerals; and while his young heart vainly
longed for love, he would have gladly displayed affection himself, if
his timidity would have permitted him to do so. His family, seeing him
prefer to dissect the bones of some animal rather than to talk with his
parents, probably considered him a very unlovable child when they sent
him, in his tenth year, to school in the city of Ilm.
He was received into the home of the pastor, his uncle Hoffman, whose
mother-in-law, who kept the house, treated him in the most cordial
manner, and helped him to conquer the diffidence acquired during the
solitude of the first years of his childhood. This excellent woman
first made him familiar with the maternal feminine solicitude, closer
observation of which afterwards led him, as well as Pestalozzi, to a
reform of the system of educating youth.
In his sixteenth year he went to a forester for instruction, but did
not remain long. Meantime he had gained some mathematical knowledge,
and devoted himself to surveying. By this and similar work he
earned a living, until, at the end of seven years, he went to
Frankfort-on-the-Main to learn the rudiments of building. There Fate
brought him into contact with the pedagogue Gruner, a follower of
Pestalozzi’s method, and this experienced man, after their first
conversation, exclaimed: “You must become a schoolmaster!”
I have often noticed in life that a word at the right time and place has
sufficed to give the destiny of a human being a different turn, and the
remark of the Frankfort educator fell into Froebel’s soul like a spark.
He now saw his real profession clearly and distinctly before him.
The restless years of wandering, during which, unloved and scarcely
heeded, he had been thrust from one place to another, had awakened in
his warm heart a longing to keep others from the same fate. He, who
had been guided by no kind hand and felt miserable and at variance with
himself, had long been ceaselessly troubled by the problem of how the
young human plant could be trained to harmony with itself and to sturdy
industry. Gruner showed him that others were already devoting their best
powers to solve it, and offered him an opportunity to try his ability in
his model school.
Froebel joyfully accepted this offer, cast aside every other thought,
and, with the enthusiasm peculiar to him, threw himself into the new
calling in a manner which led Gruner to praise the “fire and life” he
understood how to awaken in his pupils. He also left it to Froebel to
arrange the plan of instruction which the Frankfort Senate wanted
for the “model school,” and succeeded in keeping him two years in his
institution.
When a certain Frau von Holzhausen was looking for a man who would have
the ability to lead her spoiled sons into the right path, and Froebel
had been recommended, he separated from Gruner and performed his task
with rare fidelity and a skill bordering upon genius. The children, who
were physically puny, recovered under his care, and the grateful mother
made him their private tutor from 1807 till 1810. He chose Verdun, where
Pestalozzi was then living, as his place of residence, and made himself
thoroughly familiar with his method of education. As a whole, he could
agree with him; but, as has already been mentioned, in some respects he
went further than the Swiss reformer. He himself called these years his
“university course as a pedagogue,” but they also furnished him with the
means to continue the studies in natural history which he had commenced
in Jena. He had laid aside for this purpose part of his salary as tutor,
and was permitted, from 1810 to 1812, to complete in Gottingen his
astronomical and mineralogical studies. Yet the wish to try his powers
as a pedagogue never deserted him; and when, in 1812, the position of
teacher in the Plamann Institute in Berlin was offered him, he accepted
it. During his leisure hours he devoted himself to gymnastic exercises,
and even late in life his eyes sparkled when he spoke of his friend, old
Jahn, and the political elevation of Prussia.
When the summons “To my People” called the German youth to war, Froebel
had already entered his thirty-first year, but this did not prevent his
resigning his office and being one of the first to take up arms. He
went to the field with the Lutzow Jagers, and soon after made the
acquaintance among his comrades of the theological students Langethal
and Middendorf. When, after the Peace of Paris, the young friends
parted, they vowed eternal fidelity, and each solemnly promised to obey
the other’s summons, should it ever come. As soon as Froebel took off
the dark uniform of the black Jagers he received a position as curator
of the museum of mineralogy in the Berlin University, which he filled
so admirably that the position of Professor of Mineralogy was offered
to him from Sweden. But he declined, for another vocation summoned him
which duty and inclination forbade him to refuse.
His brother, a pastor in the Thuringian village of Griesheim on the Ilm,
died, leaving three sons who needed an instructor. The widow wished her
brother-in-law Friedrich to fill this office, and another brother, a
farmer in Osterode, wanted his two boys to join the trio. When Froebel,
in the spring of 1817, resigned his position, his friend Langethal
begged him to take his brother Eduard as another pupil, and thus
Pestalozzi’s enthusiastic disciple and comrade found his dearest wish
fulfilled. He was now the head of his own school for boys, and these
first six pupils--as he hoped with the confidence in the star of success
peculiar to so many men of genius--must soon increase to twenty. Some of
these boys were specially gifted: one became the scholar and politician
Julius Froebel, who belonged to the Frankfort Parliament of 1848, and
another the Jena Professor of Botany, Eduard Langethal.
The new principal of the school could not teach alone, but he only
needed to remind his old army comrade, Middendorf, of his promise,
to induce him to interrupt his studies in Berlin, which were nearly
completed, and join him. He also had his eye on Langethal, if his hope
should be fulfilled. He knew what a treasure he would possess for his
object in this rare man.
There was great joy in the little Griesheim circle, and the Thuringian
(Froebel) did not regret for a moment that he had resigned his secure
position; but the Westphalian (Middendorf) saw here the realization of
the ideal which Froebel’s kindling words had impressed upon his soul
beside many a watch-fire.
The character of the two men is admirably described in the following
passage from a letter of “the oldest pupil”:
“Both had seen much of the serious side of life, and returned from the
war with the higher inspiration which is hallowed by deep religious
feeling. The idea of devoting their powers with self-denial and
sacrifice to the service of their native land had become a fixed
resolution; the devious paths which so many men entered were far from
their thoughts. The youth, the young generation of their native land,
were alone worthy of their efforts. They meant to train them to a
harmonious development of mind and body; and upon these young people
their pure spirit of patriotism exerted a vast influence. When we recall
the mighty power which Froebel could exercise at pleasure over his
fellowmen, and especially over children, we shall deem it natural that a
child suddenly transported into this circle could forget its past.”
When I entered it, though at that time it was much modified and
established on firm foundations, I met with a similar experience. It
was not only the open air, the forest, the life in Nature which so
captivated new arrivals at Keilhau, but the moral earnestness and the
ideal aspiration which consecrated and ennobled life. Then, too, there
was that “nerve-strengthening” patriotism which pervaded everything,
filling the place of the superficial philanthropy of the Basedow system
of education.
But Froebel’s influence was soon to draw, as if by magnetic power, the
man who had formed an alliance with him amid blood and steel, and who
was destined to lend the right solidity to the newly erected structure
of the institute--I mean Heinrich Langethal, the most beloved and
influential of my teachers, who stood beside Froebel’s inspiring genius
and Middendorf’s lovable warmth of feeling as the character, and at the
same time the fully developed and trained intellect, whose guidance was
so necessary to the institute.
The life of this rare teacher can be followed step by step from the
first years of his childhood in his autobiography and many other
documents, but I can only attempt here to sketch in broad outlines the
character of the man whose influence upon my whole inner life has been,
up to the present hour, a decisive one.
The recollection of him makes me inclined to agree with the opinion to
which a noble lady sought to convert me--namely, that our lives are far
more frequently directed into a certain channel by the influence of
an unusual personality than by events, experiences, or individual
reflections.
Langethal was my teacher for several years. When I knew him he was
totally blind, and his eyes, which are said to have flashed so brightly
and boldly on the foe in war, and gazed so winningly into the faces of
friends in time of peace, had lost their lustre. But his noble features
seemed transfigured by the cheerful earnestness which is peculiar to the
old man, who, even though only with the eye of the mind, looks back upon
a well-spent, worthy life, and who does not fear death, because he knows
that God who leads all to the goal allotted by Nature destined him also
for no other. His tall figure could vie with Barop’s, and his musical
voice was unusually deep. It possessed a resistless power when, excited
himself, he desired to fill our young souls with his own enthusiasm. The
blind old man, who had nothing more to command and direct, moved through
our merry, noisy life like a silent admonition to good and noble things.
Outside of the lessons he never raised his voice for orders or censure,
yet we obediently followed his signs. To be allowed to lead him was
an honor and pleasure. He made us acquainted with Homer, and taught us
ancient and modern history. To this day I rejoice that not one of us
ever thought of using ‘pons asinorum,’ or copied passage, though he was
perfectly sightless, and we were obliged to translate to him and learn
by heart whole sections of the Iliad. To have done so would have seemed
as shameful as the pillage of an unguarded sanctuary or the abuse of a
wounded hero.
And he certainly was one!
We knew this from his comrades in the war and his stories of 1813, which
were at once so vivid and so modest.
When he explained Homer or taught ancient history a special fervor
animated him; for he was one of the chosen few whose eyes were opened by
destiny to the full beauty and sublimity of ancient Greece.
I have listened at the university to many a famous interpreter of the
Hellenic and Roman poets, and many a great historian, but not one of
them ever gave me so distinct an impression of living with the ancients
as Heinrich Langethal. There was something akin to them in his pure,
lofty soul, ever thirsting for truth and beauty, and, besides, he had
graduated from the school of a most renowned teacher.
The outward aspect of the tall old man was eminently aristocratic, yet
his birthplace was the house of a plain though prosperous mechanic. He
was born at Erfurt, in 1792. When very young his father, a man unusually
sensible and well-informed for his station in life, entrusted him with
the education of a younger brother, the one who, as I have mentioned,
afterwards became a professor at Jena, and the boy’s progress was so
rapid that other parents had requested to have their sons share the
hours of instruction.
After completing his studies at the grammar-school he wanted to go to
Berlin, for, though the once famous university still existed in Erfurt,
it had greatly deteriorated. His description of it is half lamentable,
half amusing, for at that time it was attended by thirty students, for
whom seventy professors were employed. Nevertheless, there were many
obstacles to be surmounted ere he could obtain permission to attend
the Berlin University; for the law required every native of Erfurt, who
intended afterwards to aspire to any office, to study at least two
years in his native city--at that time French. But, in defiance of all
hindrances, he found his way to Berlin, and in 1811 was entered in the
university just established there as the first student from Erfurt. He
wished to devote himself to theology, and Neander, De Wette, Marheineke,
Schleiermacher, etc., must have exerted a great power of attraction over
a young man who desired to pursue that study.
At the latter’s lectures he became acquainted with Middendorf. At
first he obtained little from either. Schleiermacher seemed to him
too temporizing and obscure. “He makes veils.” He thought the young
Westphalian, at their first meeting, merely “a nice fellow.” But in
time he learned to understand the great theologian, and the “favourite
teacher” noticed him and took him into his house.
But first Fichte, and then Friedrich August Wolf, attracted him far
more powerfully than Schleiermacher. Whenever he spoke of Wolf his calm
features glowed and his blind eyes seemed to sparkle. He owed all that
was best in him to the great investigator, who sharpened his pupil’s
appreciation of the exhaustless store of lofty ideas and the magic of
beauty contained in classic antiquity, and had he been allowed to follow
his own inclination, he would have turned his back on theology, to
devote all his energies to the pursuit of philology and archaeology.
The Homeric question which Wolf had propounded in connection with
Goethe, and which at that time stirred the whole learned world, had also
moved Langethal so deeply that, even when an old man, he enjoyed nothing
more than to speak of it to us and make us familiar with the pros and
cons which rendered him an upholder of his revered teacher. He had been
allowed to attend the lectures on the first four books of the Iliad,
and--I have living witnesses of the fact--he knew them all verse by
verse, and corrected us when we read or recited them as if he had the
copy in his hand.
True, he refreshed his naturally excellent memory by having them all
read aloud. I shall never forget his joyous mirth as he listened to my
delivery of Wolf’s translation of Aristophanes’s Acharnians; but I was
pleased that he selected me to supply the dear blind eyes. Whenever he
called me for this purpose he already had the book in the side pocket
of his long coat, and when, beckoning significantly, he cried, “Come,
Bear,” I knew what was before me, and would have gladly resigned the
most enjoyable game, though he sometimes had books read which were by
no means easy for me to understand. I was then fourteen or fifteen years
old.
Need I say that it was my intercourse with this man which implanted in
my heart the love of ancient days that has accompanied me throughout my
life?
The elevation of the Prussian nation led Langethal also from the
university to the war. Rumor first brought to Berlin the tidings of
the destruction of the great army on the icy plains of Russia; then
its remnants, starving, worn, ragged, appeared in the capital; and the
street-boys, who not long before had been forced by the French soldiers
to clean their boots, now with little generosity--they were only
“street-boys”--shouted sneeringly, “Say, mounseer, want your boots
blacked?”
Then came the news of the convention of York, and at last the irresolute
king put an end to the doubts and delays which probably stirred the
blood of every one who is familiar with Droysen’s classic “Life of
Field-Marshal York.” From Breslau came the summons “To my People,”
which, like a warm spring wind, melted the ice and woke in the hearts of
the German youth a matchless budding and blossoming.
The snow-drops which bloomed during those March days of 1813 ushered
in the long-desired day of freedom, and the call “To arms!” found the
loudest echo in the hearts of the students. It stirred the young, yet
even in those days circumspect Langethal, too, and showed him his
duty But difficulties confronted him; for Pastor Ritschel, a native of
Erfurt, to whom he confided his intention, warned him not to write to
his father. Erfurt, his own birthplace, was still under French rule,
and were he to communicate his plan in writing and the letter should be
opened in the “black room,” with other suspicious mail matter, it might
cost the life of the man whose son was preparing to commit high-treason
by fighting against the ruler of his country--Napoleon, the Emperor of
France.
“Where will you get the uniform, if your father won’t help you, and
you want to join the black Jagers?” asked the pastor, and received the
answer:
“The cape of my cloak will supply the trousers. I can have a red collar
put on my cloak, my coat can be dyed black and turned into a uniform,
and I have a hanger.”
“That’s right!” cried the worthy minister, and gave his young friend ten
thalers.
Middendorf, too, reported to the Lutzow Jagers at once, and so did the
son of Professor Bellermann, and their mutual friend Bauer, spite of his
delicate health which seemed to unfit him for any exertion.
They set off on the 11th of April, and while the spring was budding
alike in the outside world and in young breasts, a new flower of
friendship expanded in the hearts of these three champions of the same
sacred cause; for Langethal and Middendorf found their Froebel. This was
in Dresden, and the league formed there was never to be dissolved. They
kept their eyes fixed steadfastly on the ideals of youth, until in old
age the sight of all three failed. Part of the blessings which were
promised to the nation when they set forth to battle they were permitted
to see seven lustra later, in 1848, but they did not live to experience
the realization of their fairest youthful dream, the union of Germany.
I must deny myself the pleasure of describing the battles and the
marches of the Lutzow corps, which extended to Aachen and Oudenarde; but
will mention here that Langethal rose to the rank of sergeant, and had
to perform the duties of a first lieutenant; and that, towards the end
of the campaign, Middendorf was sent with Lieutenant Reil to induce
Blucher to receive the corps in his vanguard. The old commander
gratified their wish; they had proved their fitness for the post when
they won the victory at the Gohrde, where two thousand Frenchmen were
killed and as many more taken prisoners. The sight of the battlefield
had seemed unendurable to the gentle nature of Middendorf he had formed
a poetical idea of the campaign as an expedition against the hereditary
foe. Now that he had confronted the bloodstained face of war with all
its horrors, he fell into a state of melancholy from which he could
scarcely rouse himself.
After this battle the three friends were quartered in Castle Gohrde,
and there enjoyed a delightful season of rest after months of severe
hardships. Their corps had been used as the extreme vanguard against
Davoust’s force, which was thrice their superior in numbers, and in
consequence they were subjected to great fatigues. They had almost
forgotten how it seemed to sleep in a bed and eat at a table. One night
march had followed another. They had often seized their food from the
kettles and eaten it at the next stopping-place, but all was cheerfully
done; the light-heartedness of youth did not vanish from their
enthusiastic hearts. There was even no lack of intellectual aliment, for
a little field-library had been established by the exchange of books.
Langethal told us of his night’s rest in a ditch, which was to entail
disastrous consequences. Utterly exhausted, sleep overpowered him in the
midst of a pouring rain, and when he awoke he discovered that he was up
to his neck in water. His damp bed--the ditch--had gradually filled, but
the sleep was so profound that even the rising moisture had not roused
him. The very next morning he was attacked with a disease of the eyes,
to which he attributed his subsequent blindness.
On the 26th of August there was a prospect of improvement in the
condition of the corps. Davoust had sent forty wagons of provisions
to Hamburg, and the men were ordered to capture them. The attack was
successful, but at what a price! Theodor Korner, the noble young poet
whose songs will commemorate the deeds of the Lutzow corps so long as
German men and boys sing his “Thou Sword at my Side,” or raise their
voices in the refrain of the Lutzow Jagers’ song:
“Do you ask the name of yon reckless band? ‘Tis Lutzow’s black troopers
dashing swift through the land!”
Langethal first saw the body of the author of “Lyre and Sword” and
“Zriny” under an oak at Wobbelin; but he was to see it once more under
quite different circumstances. He has mentioned it in his autobiography,
and I have heard him describe several times his visit to the corpse of
Theodor Korner.
He had been quartered in Wobbelin, and shared his room with an Oberjager
von Behrenhorst, son of the postmaster-general in Dessau, who had taken
part in the battle of Jena as a young lieutenant and returned home with
a darkened spirit.
At the summons “To my People,” he had enlisted at once as a private
soldier in the Lutzow corps, where he rose rapidly to the rank of
Oberjager. During the war he had often met Langethal and Middendorf;
but the quiet, reserved man, prematurely grave for his years, attached
himself so closely to Korner that he needed no other friend.
After the death of the poet on the 26th of August, 1813, he moved
silently about as though completely crushed. On the night which followed
the 27th he invited his room-mate Langethal to go with him to the body
of his friend. Both went first to the village church, where the dead
Jagers lay in two long black rows. A solemn stillness pervaded the
little house of God, which had become during this night the abode of
death, and the nocturnal visitors gazed silently at the pallid, rigid
features of one lifeless young form after another, but without finding
him whom they sought.
During this mute review of corpses it seemed to Langethal as if Death
were singing a deep, heartrending choral, and he longed to pray for
these young, crushed human blossoms; but his companion led the way into
the guard’s little room. There lay the poet, “the radiance of an angel
on his face,” though his body bore many traces of the fury of the
battle. Deeply moved, Langethal stood gazing down upon the form of the
man who had died for his native land, while Behrenhorst knelt on the
floor beside him, silently giving himself up to the anguish of his soul.
He remained in this attitude a long time, then suddenly started up,
threw his arms upward, and exclaimed, “Korner, I’ll follow you!”
With these words Behrenhorst darted out of the little room into the
darkness; and a few weeks after he, too, had fallen for the sacred cause
of his native land.
They had seen another beloved comrade perish in the battle of Gohrde, a
handsome young man of delicate figure and an unusually reserved manner.
Middendorf, with whom he--his name was Prohaska--had been on more
intimate terms than the others, once asked him, when he timidly avoided
the girls and women who cast kindly glances at him, if his heart never
beat faster, and received the answer, “I have but one love to give, and
that belongs to our native land.”
While the battle was raging, Middendorf was fighting close beside his
comrade. When the enemy fired a volley the others stooped, but Prohaska
stood erect, exclaiming, when he was warned, “No bowing! I’ll make no
obeisance to the French!”
A few minutes after, the brave soldier, stricken by a bullet, fell
on the greensward. His friends bore him off the field, and
Prohaska--Eleonore Prohaska--proved to be a girl!
While in Castle Gohrde, Froebel talked with his friends about his
favourite plan, which he had already had a view in Gottingen, of
establishing a school for boys, and while developing his educational
ideal to them and at the same time mentioning that he had passed his
thirtieth birthday, and alluding to the postponement of his plan by the
war, he exclaimed, to explain why he had taken up arms:
“How can I train boys whose devotion I claim, unless I have proved by my
own deeds how a man should show devotion to the general welfare?”
These words made a deep impression upon the two friends, and increased
Middendorf’s enthusiastic reverence for the older comrade, whose
experiences and ideas had opened a new world to him.
The Peace of Paris, and the enrolment of the Lutzow corps in the line,
brought the trio back to Berlin to civil life.
There also each frequently sought the others, until, in the spring
of 1817, Froebel resigned the permanent position in the Bureau of
Mineralogy in order to establish his institute.
Middendorf had been bribed by the saying of his admired friend that he
“had found the unity of life.” It gave the young philosopher food for
thought, and, because he felt that he had vainly sought this unity and
was dissatisfied, he hoped to secure it through the society of the
man who had become everything to him His wish was fulfilled, for as an
educator he grew as it were into his own motto, “Lucid, genuine, and
true to life.”
Middendorf gave up little when he followed Froebel.
The case was different with Langethal. He had entered as a tutor the
Bendemann household at Charlottenburg, where he found a second home. He
taught with brilliant success children richly gifted in mind and heart,
whose love he won. It was “a glorious family” which permitted him to
share its rich social life, and in whose highly gifted circle he
could be sure of finding warm sympathy in his intellectual interests.
Protected from all external anxieties, he had under their roof ample
leisure for industrious labour and also for intercourse with his own
friends.
In July, 1817, he passed the last examination with the greatest
distinction, receiving the “very good,” rarely bestowed; and a brilliant
career lay before him.
Directly after this success three pulpits were offered to him, but he
accepted neither, because he longed for rest and quiet occupation.
The summons from Froebel to devote himself to his infant institute,
where Langethal had placed his younger brother, also reached him. The
little school moved on St. John’s Day, 1817, from Griesheim to Keilhau,
where the widow of Pastor Froebel had been offered a larger farm. The
place which she and her children’s teacher found was wonderfully adapted
to Froebel’s purpose, and seemed to promise great advantages both to the
pupils and to the institute. There was much building and arranging to
be accomplished, but means to do so were obtained, and the first pupil
described very amusingly the entrance into the new home, the furnishing,
the discovery of all the beauties and advantages which we found as
an old possession in Keilhau, and the endeavour, so characteristic of
Middendorf, to adapt even the less attractive points to his own poetic
ideas.
Only the hours of instruction fared badly, and Froebel felt that he
needed a man of fully developed strength in order to give the proper
foundation to the instruction of the boys who were entrusted to his
care. He knew a man of this stamp in the student F. A. Wolfs, whose
talent for teaching had been admirably proved in the Bendemann family.
“Langethal,” as the first pupil describes him, was at that time a very
handsome man of five-and-twenty years. His brow was grave, but his
features expressed kindness of heart, gentleness, and benevolence. The
dignity of his whole bearing was enhanced by the sonorous tones of his
voice--he retained them until old age--and his whole manner revealed
manly firmness. Middendorf was more pleasing to women, Langethal to men.
Middendorf attracted those who saw, Langethal those who heard him, and
the confidence he inspired was even more lasting than that aroused by
Middendorf.
What marvel that Froebel made every effort to win this rare power for
the young institute? But Langethal declined, to the great vexation of
Middendorf. Diesterweg called the latter “a St. John,” but our dear,
blind teacher added, “And Froebel was his Christus.”
The enthusiastic young Westphalian, who had once believed he saw in
this man every masculine virtue, and whose life appeared emblematical,
patiently accepted everything, and considered every one a “renegade” who
had ever followed Froebel and did not bow implicitly to his will. So he
was angered by Langethal’s refusal. The latter had been offered, with
brilliant prospects for the present and still fairer ones for the
future, a position as a tutor in Silesia, a place which secured him the
rest he desired, combined with occupation suited to his tastes. He was
to share the labour of teaching with another instructor, who was to take
charge of the exact sciences, with which he was less familiar, and he
was also permitted to teach his brother with the young Counts Stolberg.
He accepted, but before going to Silesia he wished to visit his
Keilhau friends and take his brother away with him. He did so, and the
“diplomacy” with which Froebel succeeded in changing the decision of the
resolute young man and gaining him over to his own interests, is
really remarkable. It won for the infant institute in the person of
Langethal--if the expression is allowable--the backbone.
Froebel had sent Middendorf to meet his friend, and the latter, on the
way, told him of the happiness which he had found in his new home and
occupation. Then they entered Keilhau, and the splendid landscape which
surrounds it needs no praise.
Froebel received his former comrade with the utmost cordiality, and the
sight of the robust, healthy, merry boys who were lying on the floor
that evening, building forts and castles with the wooden blocks which
Froebel had had made for them according to his own plan, excited the
keenest interest. He had come to take his brother away; but when he saw
him, among other happy companions of his own age, complete the finest
structure of all--a Gothic cathedral--it seemed almost wrong to tear the
child from this circle.
He gazed sadly at his brother when he came to bid him “good-night,” and
then remained alone with Froebel. The latter was less talkative than
usual, waiting for his friend to tell him of the future which awaited
him in Silesia. When he heard that a second tutor was to relieve
Langethal of half his work, he exclaimed, with the greatest anxiety:
“You do not know him, and yet intend to finish a work of education with
him? What great chances you are hazarding!”
The next morning Froebel asked his friend what goal in life he had set
before him, and Langethal replied:
“Like the apostle, I would fain proclaim the gospel to all men according
to the best of my powers, in order to bring them into close communion
with the Redeemer.”
Froebel answered, thoughtfully:
“If you desire that, you must, like the apostles, know men. You must
be able to enter into the life of every one--here a peasant, there a
mechanic. If you can not, do not hope for success; your influence will
not extend far.”
How wise and convincing the words sounded! And Froebel touched the
sensitive spot in the young minister, who was thoroughly imbued with
the sacred beauty of his life-task, yet certainly knew the Gospels,
his classic authors, and apostolic fathers much better than he did the
world.
He thoughtfully followed Froebel, who, with Middendorf and the boys, led
him up the Steiger, the mountain whose summit afforded the magnificent
view I have described. It was the hour when the setting sun pours its
most exquisite light over the mountains and valleys. The heart of the
young clergyman, tortured by anxious doubts, swelled at the sight of
this magnificence, and Froebel, seeing what was passing in his mind,
exclaimed:
“Come, comrade, let us have one of our old war-songs.”
The musical “black Jager” of yore willingly assented; and how clearly
and enthusiastically the chorus of boyish voices chimed in!
When it died away, the older man passed his arm around his friend’s
shoulders, and, pointing to the beautiful region lying before them in
the sunset glow, exclaimed:
“Why seek so far away what is close at hand? A work is established
here which must be built by the hand of God! Implicit devotion and
self-sacrifice are needed.”
While speaking, he gazed steadfastly into his friend’s tearful eyes, as
if he had found his true object in life, and when he held out his hand
Langethal clasped it--he could not help it.
That very day a letter to the Counts Stolberg informed them that they
must seek another tutor for their sons, and Froebel and Keilhau could
congratulate themselves on having gained their Langethal.
The management of the school was henceforward in the hands of a man of
character, while the extensive knowledge and the excellent method of a
well-trained scholar had been obtained for the educational department.
The new institute now prospered rapidly. The renown of the fresh,
healthful life and the able tuition of the pupils spread far beyond
the limits of Thuringia. The material difficulties with which the
head-master had had to struggle after the erection of the large new
buildings were also removed when Froebel’s prosperous brother in
Osterode decided to take part in the work and move to Keilhau. He
understood farming, and, by purchasing more land and woodlands,
transformed the peasant holding into a considerable estate.
When Froebel’s restless spirit drew him to Switzerland to undertake new
educational enterprises, and some one was needed who could direct the
business management, Barop, the steadfast man of whom I have already
spoken, was secured. Deeply esteemed and sincerely beloved, he managed
the institute during the time that we three brothers were pupils
there. He had found many things within to arrange on a more practical
foundation, many without to correct: for the long locks of most of
the pupils; the circumstance that three Lutzen Jagers, one of whom had
delivered the oration at a students’ political meeting, had established
the school; that Barop had been persecuted as a demagogue on account
of his connection with a students’ political society; and, finally,
Froebel’s relations with Switzerland and the liberal educational
methods of the school, had roused the suspicions of the Berlin
demagogue-hunters, and therefore demagogic tendencies, from which in
reality it had always held aloof, were attributed to the institute.
Yes, we were free, in so far that everything which could restrict or
retard our physical and mental development was kept away from us, and
our teachers might call themselves so because, with virile energy, they
had understood how to protect the institute from every injurious and
narrowing outside influence. The smallest and the largest pupil was
free, for he was permitted to be wholly and entirely his natural self,
so long as he kept within the limits imposed by the existing laws. But
license was nowhere more sternly prohibited than at Keilhau; and the
deep religious feeling of its head-masters--Barop, Langethal, and
Middendorf--ought to have taught the suspicious spies in Berlin that the
command, “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s,” would never
be violated here.
The time I spent in Keilhau was during the period of the worst reaction,
and I now know that our teachers would have sat on the Left in the
Prussian Landtag; yet we never heard a disrespectful word spoken of
Frederick William IV, and we were instructed to show the utmost respect
to the prince of the little country of Rudolstadt to which Keilhau
belonged. Barop, spite of his liberal tendencies, was highly esteemed by
this petty sovereign, decorated with an order, and raised to the rank of
Councillor of Education. From a hundred isolated recollections and words
which have lingered in my memory I have gathered that our teachers
were liberals in a very moderate way, yet they were certainly guilty of
“demagogic aspirations” in so far as that they desired for their native
land only what we, thank Heaven, now possess its unity, and a popular
representation, by a free election of all its states, in a German
Parliament. What enthusiasm for the Emperor William, Bismarck, and Von
Moltke, Langethal, Middendorf, and Barop would have inspired in our
hearts had they been permitted to witness the great events of 1870 and
1871!
Besides, politics were kept from us, and this had become known in wider
circles when we entered the institute, for most of the pupils belonged
to loyal families. Many were sons of the higher officials, officers,
and landed proprietors; and as long locks had long since become the
exception, and the Keilhau pupils were as well mannered as possible,
many noblemen, among them chamberlains and other court officials,
decided to send their boys to the institute.
The great manufacturers and merchants who placed their sons in the
institute were also not men favourable to revolution, and many of our
comrades became officers in the German army. Others are able scholars,
clergymen, and members of Parliament; others again government officials,
who fill high positions; and others still are at the head of large
industrial or mercantile enterprises. I have not heard of a single
individual who has gone to ruin, and of very many who have accomplished
things really worthy of note. But wherever I have met an old pupil of
Keilhau, I have found in him the same love for the institute, have seen
his eyes sparkle more brightly when we talked of Langethal, Middendorf,
and Barop. Not one has turned out a sneak or a hypocrite.
The present institution is said to be an admirable one; but the
“Realschule” of Keilhau, which has been forced to abandon its former
humanistic foundation, can scarcely train to so great a variety of
callings the boys now entrusted to its care.