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AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF
FRIEDRICH FROEBEL
TRANSLATED AND ANNOTATED BY
EMILIE MICHAELIS,
_Head Mistress of the Croydon Kindergarten and Preparatory School_,
AND
H. KEATLEY MOORE, MUS. BAC., B.A.,
_Examiner in Music to the Froebel Society and Vice-Chairman of the Croydon
Kindergarten Company._
*"Come, let us live for our children."*
SYRACUSE, N.Y.:
C.W. BARDEEN, PUBLISHER.
1889.
German Books on Pedagogy.
1. _Comenius. Grosse Unterrichtslehre._ Mit einer Einleitung, "J.
Comenius, sein Leben und Werken," von LINDNER. Price $1.50.
2. _Helvetius. Von Menschen, seinen Geisteskraften und seiner
Erziehung._ Mit einer Einleitung, "Cl. Adr. Helvetius, 1715-1771. Ein
Zeit- und Lebensbild," von LINDNER. 12mo, pp. 339. Price $1.50.
3. _Pestalozzi. Wie Gertrud ihre Kinder lehrt._ Mit einer Einleitung,
"J.H. Pestalozzi's Leben, Werke, und Grundsätze," von RIEDEL. Price
$1.25.
4. _Niemeyer. Grundsätze die Erziehung und des Unterrichtes._ Mit einer
Einleitung "Aug. Herm. Niemeyer, sein Leben und Werken," von LINDNER. 2
vols. Price $3.00.
5. _Diesterweg. Rhenische Blätter._ Mit einer Einleitung, "F.A.W.
Diesterweg," von JESSEN. Price $1.25.
6. _Jacotot. Universal Unterricht._ Mit einer "Darstellung des Lebens
und der Lehre Jacotot's," von GOERING. 12mo, pp. 364. Price $3.75.
7. _Fröbel._ Pädagogische Schriften. Herausgegeben von SEIDEL. 3 vols.
Price $7.00.
8. _Fichte._ Pädagogisch Schriften und Ideen. Mit "biographischer
Einleitung und gedrängter Darstellung von Fichte's Pädagogik," von
KEFERSTEIN. Price $2.00.
9. _Martin Luther._ Pädagogische Schrifte. Mit Einleitung von SCHUMANN.
Price $1.50.
10. _Herder als Pädagog._ Von MORRES. Price 75 cts.
11. _Geschichte der Pädagogik._ in Biographen, Uebersichten, und Proben
aus pädagogischen Hauptwerken. Von NIEDERGESAESS. Price $2.50.
11. _Lexikon der Pädagogik._ Von SANDER. Price $3.50.
For sale by
*C.W. BARDEEN, Publisher, Syracuse, N.Y.*
PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.
It will be long before we have a biography of Froebel to compare with
DeGuimp's _Pestalozzi_, of which an English translation has just
appeared. Meantime we must content ourselves with two long
autobiographical letters contained in this volume, which, though
incomplete, have yet the peculiar charm that comes from the candid
record of genuine impressions.
The first of these letters, that to the Duke of Meiningen, has already
appeared in English, in a translation by Miss Lucy Wheelock for
Barnard's _American Journal of Education_, since reprinted in pp. 21-48
of his _Kindergarten and Child Culture_, (see p. 146), and in a small
volume under the title _Autobiography of Froebel_ (see p. 146). While a
faithful attempt to reproduce the original, this translation struggled
in vain to transform Froebel's rugged and sometimes seemingly incoherent
sentences into adequate and attractive English, so that the long letter
has proved to most English readers formidable and repellant. But in the
original it is one of the most charming productions in literature,
candid and confidential in tone, and detailing those inner gropings for
ideas that became convictions which only an autobiography can reveal.
These qualities are so admirably preserved in the translation by Miss
Emily Michaelis and H. Keatley Moore that it seemed to leave nothing to
be desired. They have not only given a faithful rendering, but they have
impressed upon it the loving touch of faithful disciples. Accordingly I
purchased from the English publishers the American rights to this
translation; and have reproduced not only this letter, but that to the
philosopher Krause, with Barop's "Critical Moments," and the
"Chronological Abstract," all from duplicates of the English plates.
The rest of the volume appears for the first time. The Bibliography
seemed desirable, and is confined to attainable books likely to be of
value to American teachers. The Index is full, but not fuller than the
fragmentary character of the material seemed to require. The Table of
Contents will also serve to make reference easy to the principal evens
of Froebel's history.
In the lives of Pestalozzi and of Froebel many resemblances may be
traced. Both were sons of clergymen. Both were half-orphans from their
earliest recollections. Both were unhappy in childhood, were
misunderstood, companionless, awkward, clumsy, ridiculed. Both were as
boys thrown into the almost exclusive society of women, and both
retained to the last strongly feminine characteristics. Both were
throughout life lacking in executive ability; both were financially
improvident. Both were dependent for what they did accomplish upon
friends, and both had the power of inspiring and retaining friendships
that were heroic, Pestalozzi's Krüsi corresponding with Froebel's
Middendorf. Both became teachers only by accident, and after failure in
other professions. Both saw repeated disaster in the schools they
established, and both were to their last days pointed at as visionary
theorists of unsound mind. Both failed to realize their ideas, but both
planted their ideas so deeply in the minds of others that they took
enduring root. Both lacked knowledge of men, but both knew and loved
children, and were happiest when personally and alone they had children
under their charge. Both delighted in nature, and found in solitary
contemplation of flowers and woods and mountains relief from the
disappointments they encountered among their fellows.
But there were contrasts too. Pestalozzi had no family ties, while
Froebel maintained to the last the closest relations with several
brothers and their households. Pestalozzi married at twenty-three a
woman older than himself, on whom he thereafter relied in all his
troubles. Froebel deferred his marriage till thirty-six and then seems
to have regarded his wife more as an advantage to his school than as a
help-meet to himself.
Pestalozzi was diffident, and in dress and manner careless to the point
of slovenliness; Froebel was extravagant in his self-confidence, and at
times almost a dandy in attire. Pestalozzi was always honest and candid,
while Froebel was as a boy untruthful. Pestalozzi was touchingly humble,
and eager to ascribe the practical failure of his theories to his
personal inefficiency; Froebel never acknowledged himself in the wrong,
but always attributed failure to external causes. On the other hand,
while Froebel was equable in temperament, Pestalozzi was moody and
impressionable, flying from extreme gaiety to extreme dejection,
slamming the door if displeased with a lesson a teacher was giving, but
coming back to apologize if he met a child who smiled upon him. Under
Rousseau's influence Pestalozzi was inclined to skepticism, and limited
religious teaching in school to the reading of the gospels, and the
practice of Christianity; Froebel was deeply pious, and made it
fundamental that education should be founded plainly and avowedly upon
religion.
Intellectually the contrast is even stronger. While Froebel had a
university education, Pestalozzi was an eminently ignorant man; his
penmanship was almost illegible, he could not do simple sums in
multiplication, he could not sing, he could not draw, he wore out all
his handkerchiefs gathering pebbles and then never looked at them
afterward. Froebel was not only a reader but a scientific reader, always
seeking first to find out what others had discovered that he might
begin where they left off; Pestalozzi boasted that he had not read a
book in forty years. Naturally, therefore, Pestalozzi was always an
experimenter, profiting by his failures but always failing in his first
attempts, and hitting upon his most characteristic principles by
accident; while Froebel was a theorist, elaborating his ideas mentally
before putting them in practice, and never satisfied till he had
properly located them in his general scheme of philosophy.
And yet, curiously enough, it is Pestalozzi who was the author. His
"Leonard and Gertrude" was read by every cottage fireside, while
Froebel's writings were intelligible only to his disciples. Pestalozzi
had an exuberant imagination and delightful directness and simplicity of
expression; Froebel's style was labored and obscure, and his doctrines
may be better known through the "Child and Child Nature" of the Baroness
Marenholz von Buelow than through his own "Education of Man."
The account of Froebel's life given in this volume is supplemented
somewhat by the "Reminiscences" of this same Baroness, who became
acquainted with him in 1849, and was thereafter his most enthusiastic
and successful apostle. Till some adequate biography appears, that
volume and this must be relied upon for information of the man who
shares equally with Pestalozzi the honor of educational reform in this
century.
C.W. BARDEEN.
Syracuse, June 10, 1889.
COMMENTS UPON FROEBEL AND HIS WORK.
Und als er so, wie Wichard Lange richtig sagt, der Apostel des
weiblichen Gechlechts geworden war, starb er, der geniale, unermüdlich
thätige, von Liebe getragene Mann.--SCHMIDT, _Geschichte der Pädagogik_,
Cöthen, 1862, iv. 282.
En résumé, Rousseau aurait pu être déconcerté par les inventions
pratiques, un peu subtiles parfois, de l'ingénieux Froebel. Il eût
souri, comme tout le monde, des artifices par lesquels il obligeait
l'enfant à se faire acteur au milieu de ses petits camarades, à imiter
tour à tour le soldat qui monte la garde, le cordonnier qui travaille,
le cheval qui piétine, l'homme fatigué qui se repose. Mais, sur les
principes, il se serait mis aisément d'accord avec l'auteur de
_l'Education de l'homme_, avec un penseur à l'âme tendre et noble, qui
remplaçait les livres par les choses, qui à une instruction pédantesque
substituait l'éducation intérieure, qui aux connaissances positives
préférait la chaleur du sentiment, la vie intime et profonde de l'âme,
qui respectait la liberté et la spontanéité de l'enfant, qui enfin
s'efforçait d'écarter de lui les mauvaises influences et de faire à son
innocence un milieu digne d'elle--COMPAYRÉ's _Histoire Critique des
Doctrines de l'Éducation en France depuis le XVIme Siécle_, Paris, 1879,
ii. 125.
We might say that his effort in pedagogy consists chiefly in organizing
into a system the sense intuitions which Pestalozzi proposed to the
child somewhat at random and without direct plan.--COMPAYRÉ's _History
of Pedagogy_, Payne's translation, Boston, 1886, p. 449.
Er war gleich Pestalozzi von den höchsten Ideen der Zeit getragen und
suchte die Erziehung an diese Ideen anzuknüpfen. So lange die Mutter
nicht nach den Gesetzen der Natur ihr Kind erzieht und bildet und dafür
nicht ihr Leben einsetst, so lange--davon geht er aus--sind alle
Reformen der Schule auf Sand gebaut. Trotsdem verlegt er einen Theil der
mütterlichen Aufgabe in den Kindergarten, in welchem er die Kinder vor
ihre Schulpflichtigkeit vereinigt wissen will, (1) um auf die häusliche
Erziehung ergänzend und verbessernd einzuwirken, (2) um das Kind aus dem
Einzelleben heraus Zum Verkehr mil seinesgleichen zu führen, und (3) um
dem weiblichen Geschlechte Gelegenheit zu geben, sich auf seinen
erzieherischen Beruf vorzubereiten.--BÖHM's _Kurzgefasste Geschichte der
Pädagogik_, Nürnberg, 1880, p. 134.
Le jardin d'enfants est évidemment en opposition avec l'idée
fondamentale de Pestalozzi; car celui-ci avait confié entièrement à la
mère et au foyer domestique la tâche que Froebel remet, en grande
partie, aux jardins d'enfants et à sa directrice. A l'égard des rapports
de l'éducation domestique, telle qui elle est à l'heure qu'il est, on
doit reconnaître que Froebel avait un coup-d'oeil plus juste que
Pestalozzi.--_Histoire d'Éducation_, FREDERICK DITTES, Redolfi's French
translation, Paris, 1880, p. 258.
While others have taken to the work of education their own pre-conceived
notions of what that work should be, Froebel stands consistently alone
in seeking in the nature of the child the laws of educational action--in
ascertaining from the child himself how we are to educate him.--JOSEPH
PAYNE, _Lectures on the Science and Art of Education_, Syracuse, 1885,
p. 254.
Years afterwards, the celebrated Jahn (the "Father Jahn" of the German
gymnastics) told a Berlin student of a queer fellow he had met, who
made all sorts of wonderful things from stones and cobwebs. This queer
fellow was Froebel; and the habit of making out general truths from the
observation of nature, especially from plants and trees, dated from the
solitary rambles in the Forest.
As the cultivator creates nothing in the trees and plants, so the
educator creates nothing in the children,--he merely superintends the
development of inborn faculties. So far Froebel agrees with Pestalozzi;
but in one respect he was beyond him, and has thus become, according
to Michelet, the greatest of educational reformers. Pestalozzi said
that the faculties were developed by exercise. Froebel added that
the function of education was to develop the faculties by arousing
_voluntary activity_. Action proceeding from inner impulse
(_Selbsthäligkeit_) was the one thing needful, and here Froebel as
usual refers to God: "God's every thought is a work, a deed." As
God is the Creator, so must man be a creator also. Living acting,
conceiving,--these must form a triple cord within every child of man,
though the sound now of this string, now of that may preponderate, and
then again of two together.
Pestalozzi held that the child belonged to the family; Fichte on the
other hand, claimed it for society and the State. Froebel, whose mind,
like that of Frederick Maurice, delighted in harmonizing apparent
contradictions, and who taught that "all progress lay through opposites
to their reconciliations," maintained that the child belonged both to
the family and to society, and he would therefore have children spend
some hours of the day in a common life and in well-organized common
employments. These assemblies of children he would not call schools, for
the children in them ought not to be old enough for schooling. So he
invented the term _Kindergarten_, garden of children, and called the
superintendents "children's gardeners."--R.H. QUICK, in _Encyclopaedia
Britannica_, xix edition.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTORY 1, 2
LETTER TO THE DUKE OF MEININGEN 3-101
Birth and early life 3, 104
Enters the girls' school 9
Goes away from home to Stadt-Ihm 15
Is apprenticed to a forester 24
Returns to his father's house 27
Goes to the University of Jena 28, 105
Returns home again 35
Goes to Bamberg as clerk 33
Becomes land-surveyor 39
Goes to the Oberfalz as accountant 42
Soon after to Mecklenberg 42
Gets small inheritance from his uncle 43
Goes to Frankfurt 48, 107
Becomes teacher in the Model School 31, 109
Visits Pestalozzi 52
Resigns to become a private tutor 65, 110
Takes his three pupils to Yverdon 77
Returns to Frankfurt 84
Goes to the University of Göttingen 84, 111
Goes to Berlin 89, 111
Enters the army 91, 111, 120
Becomes curator in Berlin 96, 111, 121
Enlists in the army again 100, 121
SUPPLEMENTARY REMARKS BY THE TRANSLATORS 102, 103
LETTER TO KRAUSE 104-125
Begins at Griesheim his ideal work 113, 121
Undertakes education of his nephews 121
Moves to Keilhau 122, 127
NOTE BY THE TRANSLATORS 126
CRITICAL MOMENTS IN THE FROEBEL COMMUNITY 127-137
Froebel goes to the Wartensee 131
Then to Willisau 132, 136
Then to the Orphanage at Burgdorf 135, 136
Visits Berlin 137
NOTES BY THE TRANSLATORS 138, 139
Death of Froebel 138
CHRONOLOGICAL ABSTRACT OF FROEBEL'S LIFE AND MOVEMENT 140-144
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF FROEBEL 145-152
INDEX 153-167
INTRODUCTORY.
The year 1882 was the centenary of Froebel's birth, and in the present
"plentiful lack" of faithful translations of Froebel's own words we
proposed to the Froebel Society to issue a translation of the "Education
of Man," which we would undertake to make at our own cost, that the
occasion might be marked in a manner worthy of the English branch of the
Kindergarten movement. But various reasons prevented the Society from
accepting our offer, and the lamentable deficiency still continues. We
have therefore endeavoured to make a beginning by the present work,
consisting of Froebel's own words done into English as faithfully as we
know how to render them, and accompanied with any brief explanation of
our own that may be essential to the clear understanding of the passages
given. We have not attempted to rewrite our author, the better to suit
the practical, clear-headed, common-sense English character, but have
preferred simply to present him in an English dress with his national
and personal peculiarities untouched.
In so doing we are quite aware that we have sacrificed interest, for in
many passages, if not in most, a careful paraphrase of Froebel would be
much more intelligible and pithy to English readers than a true
rendering, since he probably possesses every fault of style except
over-conciseness; but we feel that it is better to let Froebel speak for
himself.
For the faithfulness of translation we hope our respective nationalities
may have stood us in good stead. We would, however, add that a faithful
translation is not a verbal translation. The translator should rather
strive to write each sentence as the author would have written it in
English.
Froebel's opinions, character, and work grow so directly out of his
life, that we feel the best of his writing that a student of the
Kindergarten system could begin with is the important autobiographical
"Letter to the Duke of Meiningen," written in the year 1827, but never
completed, and in all probability never sent to the sovereign whose name
it bears. That this is the course Froebel would himself have preferred
will, we think, become quickly apparent to the reader. Besides, in the
boyhood and the earliest experiences of Froebel's life, we find the
sources of his whole educational system. That other children might be
better understood than he was, that other children might have the means
to live the true child-life that was denied to himself, and that by
their powers being directed into the right channels, these children
might become a blessing to themselves and to others, was undoubtedly in
great part the motive which induced Froebel to describe so fully all the
circumstances of his peculiar childhood. We should undoubtedly have a
clearer comprehension of many a great reformer if he had taken the
trouble to write out at length the impressions of his life's dawn, as
Froebel has done. In Froebel's particular case, moreover, it is evident
that although his account of himself is unfinished, we fortunately
possess all that is most important for the understanding of the origin
of the Kindergarten system. After the "Letter to the Duke of Meiningen,"
we have placed the shorter account of his life which Froebel included in
a letter to the philosopher Krause. A sketch of Barop's, which varies
the point of view by regarding the whole movement more in its outer
aspect than even Froebel himself is able to do, seemed to us also
desirable to translate; and finally we have added also a carefully
prepared "chronology" extended from Lange's list. Our translation is
made from the edition of Froebel's works published by Dr. Wichard Lange
at Berlin in 1862.
EMILIE MICHAELIS.
H. KEATLEY MOORE.
THE CROYDON KINDERGARTEN,
_January 1886_.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FROEBEL.
(A LETTER TO THE DUKE OF MEININGEN.)
I was born at Oberweissbach, a village in the Thuringian Forest, in the
small principality of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, on the 21st April, 1782.
My father was the principal clergyman, or pastor, there.[1] (He died in
1802.) I was early initiated into the conflict of life amidst painful
and narrowing circumstances; and ignorance of child-nature and
insufficient education wrought their influence upon me. Soon after my
birth my mother's health began to fail, and after nursing me nine months
she died. This loss, a hard blow to me, influenced the whole environment
and development of my being: I consider that my mother's death decided
more or less the external circumstances of my whole life.
The cure of five thousand souls, scattered over six or seven villages,
devolved solely on my father. This work, even to a man so active as my
father, who was very conscientious in the fulfilment of his duty as
minister, was all-absorbing; the more so since the custom of frequent
services still prevailed. Besides all this, my father had undertaken to
superintend the building of a large new church, which drew him more and
more from his home and from his children.
I was left to the care of the servants; but they, profiting by my
father's absorption in his work, left me, fortunately for me, to my
brothers, who were somewhat older than myself.[2] This, in addition
to a circumstance of my later life, may have been the cause of that
unswerving love for my family, and especially for my brothers, which
has, to the present moment, been of the greatest importance to me in
the conduct of my life. Although my father, for a village pastor, was
unusually well informed--nay, even learned and experienced--and was an
incessantly active man, yet in consequence of this separation from him
during my earliest years I remained a stranger to him throughout my
life; and in this way I was as truly without a father as without a
mother. Amidst such surroundings I reached my fourth year. My father
then married again, and gave me a second mother. My soul must have felt
deeply at this time the want of a mother's love,--of parental love,--for
in this year occurs my first consciousness of self. I remember that I
received my new mother overflowing with feelings of simple and faithful
child-love towards her. These sentiments made me happy, developed my
nature, and strengthened me, because they were kindly received and
reciprocated by her. But this happiness did not endure. Soon my
step-mother rejoiced in the possession of a son of her own;[3] and then
her love was not only withdrawn entirely from me and transferred to her
own child, but I was treated with worse than indifference--by word and
deed, I was made to feel an utter stranger.
I am obliged here to mention these circumstances, and to describe them
so particularly, because in them I see the first cause of my early
habit of introspection, my tendency to self-examination, and my early
separation from companionship with other men. Soon after the birth of
her own son, when I had scarcely entered my boyhood, my step-mother
ceased to use the sympathetic, heart-uniting "thou" in speaking to me,
and began to address me in the third person, the most estranging of our
forms of speech. And as in this mode of address the third person, "he,"
isolates the person addressed, it created a great chasm between my
step-mother and me.[4] At the beginning of my boyhood, I already felt
utterly lonely, and my soul was filled with grief.
Some coarse-minded people wished to make use of my sentiments and my
mood at this time to set me against my step-mother, but my heart and
mind turned with indignation from these persons, whom I thenceforth
avoided, so far as I was able. Thus I became, at an early age, conscious
of a nobler, purer, inner-life, and laid the foundation of that proper
self-consciousness and moral pride which have accompanied me through
life. Temptations returned from time to time, and each time took a more
dangerous form: not only was I suspected as being capable of unworthy
things, but base conduct was actually charged against me, and this in
such a way as left no doubt of the impropriety of the suspicion and of
the untruthfulness of the accusation. So it came to pass that in the
first years of my boyhood I was perforce led to live to myself and in
myself--and indeed to study my own being and inner consciousness, as
opposed to external circumstances. My inward and my outward life were
at that time, even during play and other occupations, my principal
subjects for reflection and thought.
A notable influence upon the development and formation of my character
was also exercised by the position of my parents' house. It was closely
surrounded by other buildings, walls, hedges, and fences, and was
further enclosed by an outer courtyard, a paddock, and a kitchen garden.
Beyond these latter I was strictly forbidden to pass. The dwelling had
no other outlook than on to the buildings to right and left, the big
church in front, and at the back the sloping fields stretching up a high
hill. For a long time I remained thus deprived of any distant view: but
above me I saw the sky, clear and bright as we so often find it in the
hill country; and around me I felt the pure fresh breeze stirring. The
impression which that clear sky and that pure air then made on me has
remained ever since present to my mind. My perceptions were in this
manner limited to only the nearest objects. Nature, with the world of
plants and flowers, so far as I was able to see and understand her,
early became an object of observation and reflection to me. I soon
helped my father in his favourite occupation of gardening, and in this
way received many permanent perceptions; but the consciousness of the
real life in nature only came to me further on, and I shall return to
the point hereafter in the course of my narrative. Our domestic life at
this time gave me much opportunity for occupation and reflection. Many
alterations went on in our house; both my parents were exceedingly
active-minded, fond of order, and determined to improve their dwelling
in every possible way. I had to help them according to my capacity, and
soon perceived that I thereby gained strength and experience; while
through this growth of strength and experience my own games and
occupations became of greater value to me.
But from my life in the open air amongst the objects of nature, and from
the externals of domestic life, I must now turn to the inner aspects of
my home and family.
My father was a theologian of the old school, who held knowledge and
science in less estimation than faith; but yet he endeavoured to keep
pace with the times. For this purpose he subscribed to the best
periodicals he could obtain, and carefully examined what information
they offered him. This helped not a little to elevate and enlighten the
old-fashioned truly Christian life which reigned in our family. Morning
and evening all its members gathered together, and even on Sunday as
well, although on that day divine service would of course also call upon
us to assemble for common religious worship. Zollikofer, Hermes,
Marezoll, Sturm, and others, turned our thoughts, in those delightful
hours of heavenly meditation, upon our innermost being, and served to
quicken, unfold, and raise up the life of the soul within us. Thus my
life was early brought under the influence of nature, of useful
handiwork, and of religious feelings; or, as I prefer to say, the
primitive and natural inclinations of every human being were even in my
case also tenderly fostered in the germ. I must mention here, with
reference to my ideas regarding the nature of man, to be treated of
later, and as throwing light upon my professional and individual work,
that at this time I used repeatedly, and with deep emotion, to resolve
to try and be a good and brave man. As I have heard since, this firm
inward resolution of mine was in flagrant contrast with my outward life.
I was full of youthful energy and in high spirits, and did not always
know how properly to moderate my vivacity. Through my want of restraint
I got into all kinds of scrapes. Often, in my thoughtlessness, I would
destroy the things I saw around me, in the endeavour to investigate and
understand them.
My father was prevented by his manifold occupations from himself
instructing me. Besides, he lost all further inclination to teach me,
after the great trouble he found in teaching me to read--an art which
came to me with great difficulty. As soon as I could read, therefore, I
was sent to the public village school.
The position in which my father stood to the village schoolmasters, that
is to say, to the Cantor,[5] and to the master of the girls' school, and
his judgment of the value of their respective teaching, decided him to
send me to the latter. This choice had a remarkable influence on the
development of my inner nature, on account of the perfect neatness,
quiet, intelligence, and order which reigned in the school; nay, I may
go further, and say the school was exactly suitable for such a child as
I was. In proof of this I will describe my entrance into the school. At
that time church and school generally stood in strict mutual
relationship, and so it was in our case. The school children had their
special places in church; and not only were they obliged to attend
church, but each child had to repeat to the teacher, at a special class
held for the purpose every Monday, some passage of Scripture used by the
minister in his sermon of the day before, as a proof of attention to the
service. From these passages that one which seemed most suitable to
children was then chosen for the little ones to master or to learn by
heart, and for that purpose one of the bigger children had during the
whole week, at certain times each day, to repeat the passage to the
little children, sentence by sentence. The little ones, all standing up,
had then to repeat the text sentence by sentence in like manner, until
it was thoroughly imprinted on their memories.
I came into school on a Monday. The passage chosen for that week was,
"Seek ye first the kingdom of God." I heard these words every day in the
calm, serious, somewhat sing-song voices of the children, sometimes
repeated by one child, sometimes by the whole number. And the text made
an impression upon me such as none had ever done before and none ever
did after. Indeed, this impression was so vigorous and permanent, that
to this day every word spoken, with the special tone and expression then
given to it, is still vivid in my mind. And yet that is now nearly forty
years ago! Perhaps even then the simple boy's heart felt that these
words would be the foundation and the salvation of his life, bringing to
him that conviction which was to become later on to the working and
striving man a source of unconquerable courage, of unflinching,
ever-ready, and cheerful self-sacrifice. In short, my introduction into
that school was my birth into the higher spiritual life.
Here I break off my narrative to ask myself whether I dare venture to
pause yet a little longer over this first period of my life. But this
was the time when the buds began to unfold on my tree of life; this was
the time when my heart found its pivot-point, and when first my inner
life awoke. If, then, I succeed in giving an exact description of my
early boyhood, I shall have provided an important aid to the right
understanding of my life and work as a man. For that reason I venture to
dwell at some inordinate length on this part of my life, and the more
willingly since I can pass more quickly over later periods.
It often suggests itself to me, while thus reviewing and describing my
life, just as it does with teaching and education--namely, that those
things which are by most men thrown aside as common and unimportant are
the very things which are, as I take it, of weightiest import. In my
eyes, it is always a mistake to leave a gap in the rudimentary and
fundamental part of a subject. Still I know one may exhaust the patience
of a reader by touching on every minute detail, before he has been
permitted to glance at the whole picture and to gather its scope and
object. Therefore I beg your Highness[6] to pass over, at all events on
the first reading, anything that may appear too long and too detailed.
Against standing rules, I was received in the girls' school, on account
of the position of my father as pastor of the district. For the same
reason I was placed, not with the pupils of my own age, but close to the
teacher, which brought me among the elder girls. I joined in their
lessons as far as I could. In two subjects I was quite able to do this.
First, I could read the Bible with them; and, secondly, I had to learn
line by line, instead of the little texts of the younger children
already spoken of, the hymns for the following Sunday's service. Of
these, two especially light up the gloomy lowering dawn of my early
boyhood, like two brilliant stars. They are--"Schwing dich auf, mein
Herz und Geist," and "Es kostet viel ein Christ zu sein."[7] These hymns
were hymns of life to me. I found my own little life expressed therein;
and they took such a hold upon me that often in later years I have found
strength and support in the message which they carried to my soul. My
father's home life was in complete harmony with this discipline of the
school. Although divine service was held twice on Sundays, I was but
very seldom allowed to miss attending each service. I followed my
father's sermons with great attention, partly because I thought I found
in them many allusions to his own position, profession, and life.
Looking back, I consider it of no slight importance that I used to hear
the service from the vestry, because I was there separated from the
congregation, and could the better keep my attention from wandering.
I have already mentioned that my father belonged to the old orthodox
school of theology; and in consequence the language both of his hymns
and of his sermons was mystical and symbolic--a style of speech which,
in more than one sense, I should call a stone-language, because it
requires an overwhelming power to burst its walls, and free from this
outer shell the life contained within. But what the full strength of
later life seems too weak to attain, is often accomplished by the
living, life-awakening, and life-giving power of some simple, thoughtful
young soul, by some young spirit first unfolding its wings, busily
seeking everywhere for the causes and connections of all things. Even
for such a youth, the treasure is to be gained only after long
examination, inquiry, and reflection. If ever I found that for which I
so longingly sought, then was I filled with exceeding joy.
The surroundings amidst which I had grown up, especially those in which
my first childhood was passed, had caused my senses to be much and early
exercised. The pleasures of the senses were from the first, therefore,
an object for the closest consideration with me. The results of this
analysing and questioning habit of my early boyhood were perfectly clear
and decisive, and, if not rendered into words, were yet firmly settled
in my mind. I recognised that the transitory pleasures of the senses
were without enduring and satisfying influence on man, and that they
were therefore on no account to be pursued with too great eagerness.
This conviction stamped and determined my whole being, just as my
questioning examination and comparison of the inner with the outer
world, and my study of their inter-connection, is now the basis of my
whole future life. Unceasing self-contemplation, self-analysis, and
self-education have been the fundamental characteristics of my life from
the very first, and have remained so until these latest days.
To stir up, to animate, to awaken, and to strengthen, the pleasure and
power of the human being to labour uninterruptedly at his own education,
has become and always remained the fundamental principle and aim of my
educational work.
Great was my joy when I believed I had proved completely to my own
satisfaction that I was not destined to go to hell. The stony,
oppressive dogmas of orthodox theology I very early explained away,
perhaps assisted in this by two circumstances. Firstly, I heard these
expressions used over and over again, from my habit of being present at
the lessons given by my father in our own house, in preparation for
confirmation. I heard them used also in all sorts of ways, so that my
mind almost unconsciously constructed some sort of explanation of them.
Secondly, I was often a mute witness of the strict way in which my
father performed his pastoral duties, and of the frequent scenes between
him and the many people who came to the parsonage to seek advice and
consolation. I was thus again constantly attracted from the outer to the
inner aspects of life. Life, with its inmost motives laid bare, passed
before my eyes, with my father's comments pronounced upon it; and thing
and word, act and symbol were thus perceived by me in their most vivid
relationship. I saw the disjointed, heavy-laden, torn, inharmonious life
of man as it appeared in this community of five thousand souls, before
the watchful eyes of its earnest, severe pastor. Matrimonial and sexual
circumstances especially were often the objects of my father's gravest
condemnation and rebuke. The way in which he spoke about these matters
showed me that they formed one of the most oppressive and difficult
parts of human conduct; and, in my youth and innocence, I felt a deep
pain and sorrow that man alone, among all creatures, should be doomed to
these separations of sex, whereby the right path was made so difficult
for him to find. I felt it a real necessity for the satisfaction of my
heart and mind to reconcile this difficulty, and yet could find no way
to do so. How could I at that age, and in my position? But my eldest
brother, who, like all my elder brothers, lived away from home, came to
stay with us for a time; and one day, when I expressed my delight at
seeing the purple threads of the hazel buds, he made me aware of a
similar sexual difference in plants. Now was my spirit at rest. I
recognised that what had so weighed upon me was an institution spread
over all nature, to which even the silent, beautiful race of flowers was
submitted. From that time humanity and nature, the life of the soul and
the life of the flower, were closely knit together in my mind; and I can
still see my hazel buds, like angels, opening for me the great God's
temple of Nature.
I now had what I needed: to the Church was added the Nature-Temple; to
the religious Christian life, the life of Nature; to the passionate
discord of human life the tranquil peace of the life of plants. From
that time it was as if I held the clue of Ariadne to guide me through
the labyrinth of life. An intimate communion with Nature for more than
thirty years (although, indeed, often interrupted, sometimes for long
intervals) has taught me that plants, especially trees, are a mirror, or
rather a symbol, of human life in its highest spiritual relations; and I
think one of the grandest and deepest fore-feelings that have ever
emanated from the human soul, is before us when we read, in the Holy
Scriptures, of a tree of knowledge of good and evil. The whole of Nature
teaches us to distinguish good from evil; even the world of crystals and
stones--though not so vividly, calmly, clearly, and manifestly as the
world of plants and flowers. I said my hazel buds gave me the clue of
Ariadne. Many things grew clear to me: for instance, the earliest life
and actions of our first parents in Paradise, and much connected
therewith.
There are yet three points touching my inner life up to my tenth year,
which, before I resume the narrative of my outer life, I should like to
mention here.
The folly, superstition, and ignorance of men had dared to assume then,
as they have done lately, that the world would soon come to an end. My
mind, however, remained perfectly tranquil, because I reasoned thus with
myself firmly and definitely:--Mankind will not pass from the world,
nor will the world itself pass away, until the human race has attained
to that degree of perfection of which it is capable on earth. The earth,
Nature in its narrowest sense, will not pass away, moreover, until men
have attained a perfect insight into its essence. This idea has returned
to me during my life in many a varied guise, and I have often been
indebted to its influence for peace, firmness, perseverance, and
courage.
Towards the end of this epoch, my eldest brother, already spoken of, was
at the university, and studied theology.[8] Philosophic criticism was
then beginning to elucidate certain Church dogmas. It was therefore not
very surprising that father and son often differed in opinion. I
remember that one day they had a violent dispute about religion and
Church matters. My father stormed, and absolutely declined to yield; my
brother, though naturally of a mild disposition, flushed deep-red with
excitement; and he, too, could not abandon what he had recognised as
true. I was present also on this as on many other occasions, an
unobserved witness, and can still see father and son standing face to
face in the conflict of opinion. I almost thought I understood something
of the subject in dispute; I felt as if I must side with my brother, but
there seemed at the same time something in my father's view which
indicated the possibility of a mutual understanding. Already I felt in a
dim way that every illusion has a true side, which often leads men to
cling to it with a desperate firmness. This conviction has become more
and more confirmed in me the longer I have lived; and when at any time I
have heard two men disputing for the truth's sake, I have found that the
truth is usually to be learnt from both sides. Therefore I have never
liked to take sides; a fortunate thing for me.[9]
Another youthful experience which also had a decided influence in
forming my cast of character, was the following:--There are certain
oft-repeated demands made upon the members of our Established Church;
such as, to enter upon the service of Christ, to show forth Christ in
one's life, to follow Jesus, etc. These injunctions were brought home to
me times without number through the zeal of my father as a teacher of
others and a liver himself of a Christian life. When demands are made on
a child which are in harmony with child nature, he knows no reluctance
in fulfilling them; and as he receives them entirely and unreservedly,
so also he complies with them entirely and unreservedly. That these
demands were so often repeated convinced me of their intense importance;
but I felt at the same time the difficulty, or indeed, as it seemed to
me, the impossibility of fulfilling them. The inherent contradiction
which I seemed to perceive herein threw me into great depression; but at
last I arrived at the blessed conviction that human nature is such that
it is not impossible for man to live the life of Jesus in its purity,
and to show it forth to the world, if he will only take the right way
towards it.
This thought, which, as often as it comes into my mind, carries me back
even now to the scenes and surroundings of my boyhood, may have been not
improbably amongst the last mental impressions of this period, and it
may fitly close, therefore, the narrative of my mental development at
this age. It became, later, the point whereon my whole life hinged.
From what I have said of my boyish inner life, it might be assumed that
my outer life was a happy and peaceful one. Such an assumption would,
however, not be correct. It seems as if it had always been my fate to
represent and combine the hardest and sharpest contrasts. My outer life
was really in complete contrast with my inner. I had grown up without a
mother; my physical education had been neglected, and in consequence I
had acquired many a bad habit. I always liked to be doing something or
another, but in my clumsy way I made mistakes as to choice of materials,
of time, and of place, and thus often incurred the severe displeasure of
my parents. I felt this, being of a sensitive disposition, more keenly
and more persistently than my parents; the more so as I felt myself
generally to blame in form rather than in substance, and in my inmost
heart I could see there was a point of view from whence my conduct would
seem, in substance at all events, not altogether wrong, still less
blameworthy. The motives assigned to my actions were not those which
actuated me, so far as I could tell; and the consciousness of being
misjudged made me really what I had been believed to be before, a
thoroughly naughty boy. Out of fear of punishment I hid even the most
harmless actions, and when I was questioned I made untruthful answers.
In short, I was set down as wicked, and my father, who had not always
time to investigate the justice of the accusations against me,
remembered only the facts as they were represented to him. My neglected
childhood called forth the ridicule of others; when playing with my
step-brother, I was always, according to my mother, the cause of
anything that went wrong. As the mind of my parents turned more and more
away from me, so on my side my life became more and more separated from
theirs; and I was abandoned to the society of people who, if my
disposition had not been so thoroughly healthy, might have injured me
even more than they did. I longed to escape from this unhappy state of
things; and I considered my elder brothers fortunate in being all of
them away from home. Just at this melancholy time came home my eldest
brother. He appeared to me as an angel of deliverance, for he recognised
amidst my many faults my better nature, and protected me against
ill-treatment. He went away again after a short stay; but I felt that my
soul was linked to his, thenceforth, down to its inmost depths; and
indeed, after his death, this love of mine for him turned the whole
course of my life.[10]
The boon was at last vouchsafed me, and that at my greatest need, to
leave my father's house. Had it been otherwise, the flagrant
contradiction between my outer and inner life must necessarily have
developed the evil inclinations which had begun in earnest to fasten
upon me. A new life entirely different from the former now opened before
me. I was ten years and nine months old. But I pause yet another moment
in the contemplation of this period before I pass to its narration. In
order to be clearly understood by your serene Highness, which is very
necessary to me if I am to attain my object, I will compare, with your
permission, my former life with my present. I shall endeavour to show
how I trace the connection of my earlier and my later life; how my
earlier life has proved for me the means of understanding my later; how,
in general, my own individual life has become to me a key to the
universal life, or, in short, to what I call the symbolic life and the
perpetual, conditioned, and unbroken chain of existence.
Since, throughout the period which I have just described, my inner self,
my life and being, my desires and endeavours, were not discerned by my
parents, so is it with me now with regard to certain German
Governments.[11] And just as my outward life then was imperfect and
incomplete, through which incompleteness my inner life was
misunderstood, so also now the imperfection and incompleteness of my
establishment prevent people from discerning the true nature, the basis,
the source, the aim and purpose, of my desires and endeavours, and from
promoting them, after recognising their value, in a right princely and
patriotic spirit.
The misapprehension, the oppression under which I suffered in my early
years, prepared me to bear similar evils later on, and especially those
which weigh upon me in the present circumstances of my life. And as I
see my present private and public life and my destiny reflected in a
part of my former life, just so do I read and trace the present
universal life in my former individual life. Moreover, in the same way
as I tried as child or boy to educate myself to be a worthy man
according to those laws which God had implanted, unknown to me, within
my nature, so now do I strive in the same way, according to the same
laws, and by the same method, to educate the children of my country.
That for which I strove as a boy, not yet conscious of any purpose; the
human race now strives for with equal unconsciousness of purpose, but
for all that none the less truly. The race is, however, surrounded by
less favourable circumstances than those which influenced me in my
boyhood.