Hildburghausen, who has been since New Year's Day 1825 a member of our
Institute, his particular work being to teach instrumental music and
singing. He lives and works in the true spirit of the Institute, and is
bound up heart and soul with its fortunes.[121] Of other teachers, who
have assisted us in the Institute for greater or less time, I need not
speak; they never properly belonged to our circle. Amongst all the
specially associated members of our little band, not one breach has
occurred since the beginning of our work. I would I could feel that I
had accomplished what I have aimed at in this letter--namely, to make
you acquainted with the inner deep seated common life which really
binds together the members composing our outwardly united association;
although it has only been feasible rather to suggest by implication the
internal mental phenomena of the external bonds of union than properly
to indicate them and to set them clearly forth.
* * * * *
This ends the autobiographical part of the Krause letter. Here and
there in the footnotes the present editors, profound admirers of the
great master, have ventured to criticise frankly the inordinate belief
in himself which was at once Froebel's strength, and his weakness.
On the one hand, his noble and truly gigantic efforts were only made
possible by his almost fanatical conviction in his principles and in
his mission. On the other hand, this dogmatic attitude made it very
difficult to work with him, for persons of any independence of mind.
He could scarcely brook discussion, never contradiction. This is most
characteristically shown by a fragment of Froebel's dated 1st April,
1829, as follows:--
"I consider my own work and effort as _unique_ in all time, as
_necessary_ in itself, and as the _messenger of reformation_ for all
ages, working forwards and backwards, offering and giving to mankind all
that it needs, and all that it perpetually seeks on every side. I have
no complaint to make if others think otherwise about it; I can bear with
them;[122] I can even, if need be, live with them, and this I have
actually done; but I can share no life-aim with them, they and I have no
_unity_ of purpose in life. It is not I, it is they who are at fault
herein; I do not separate myself from them, they withdraw themselves
from me."
To get a view of Froebel's work from the practical side, so as to
supplement the account we have received from Froebel himself as to the
origination and development of the principles upon which that work was
based, we have selected a sketch by Barop entitled "Critical Moments in
the Froebel Community;" written for Dr. Lange's edition by Barop (then
the principal and proprietor of Keilhau) about the year 1862.
CRITICAL MOMENTS IN THE FROEBEL COMMUNITY.
Under this heading Barop writes as follows:--
About 1827 we were in an unusually critical position. You know how
little means we had when we began to create our Institution.[123]
Middendorff had sacrificed his entire inheritance from his father, but
the purchase of the ground and the erection of necessary buildings
called for considerable sums, so that Middendorff's addition to the
capital had disappeared like drops of water falling on a hot stone.
My father-in-law, Christian Ludwig Froebel, had later on come forward
and placed his entire fortune unconditionally in the hands of his
brother,[124] but even this sacrifice was not sufficient to keep away
care and want from the door. My own father was a man of means, but he
was so angry at my joining the Froebel community at Keilhau[125] that he
refused me any assistance whatever. Mistrust surrounded us on all sides
in these early years of our work; open and concealed enmities assailed
us both from near and far, and sought to embitter our lot and to nip our
efforts in the bud. None the less for this, the institution blossomed
quick and fair; but later on, through the well-known persecution
directed against associations of students, it was brought to the verge
of ruin, for the spirit of 1815 was incarnate within it, and it was this
spirit which at the time (about 1827) was the object of the extremest
irritation.[126] It would carry me too far were I to attempt to give a
complete account of these things. At times it really seemed as if the
devil himself must be let loose against us. The number of our pupils
sank to five or six, and as the small receipts dwindled more and more,
so did the burden of debt rise higher and higher till it reached a giddy
height. Creditors stormed at us from every side, urged on by lawyers who
imbrued their hands in our misery. Froebel would run out at the back
door and escape amongst the hills whenever dunning creditors appeared.
Middendorff, and he alone, generally succeeded in quieting them, a
feat which might seem incredible to all but those who have known the
fascination of Middendorff's address. Sometimes quite moving scenes
occurred, full of forbearance, trustfulness, and noble sentiment, on the
part of workmen who had come to ask us for their money. A locksmith, for
instance, was strongly advised by his lawyer to "bring an action against
the scamps," from whom no money was to be got, and who were evidently on
the point of failure. The locksmith indignantly repudiated the insult
thus levelled against us, and replied shortly that he had rather lose
his hard-earned money than hold a doubt as to our honourable conduct,
and that nothing was further from his thoughts than to increase our
troubles. Ah! and these troubles were hard to bear, for Middendorff had
already married, and I followed his example. When I proposed for my
wife, my future father-in-law and mother-in-law[127] said, "You surely
will not remain longer in Keilhau?" I answered, "Yes! I do intend to
remain here. The idea for which we live seems to me to be in harmony
with the spirit of the age, and also of deep importance in itself; and I
have no doubt but that men will come to believe in us because of our
right understanding of this idea, in the same way that we ourselves
believe in the invisible." As a matter of fact, none of us have ever
swerved one instant from the fullest belief in our educational mission,
and the most critical dilemma in the times we have passed through has
never revealed one single wavering soul in this little valley.
When our distress had risen to its highest pitch, a new and unexpected
prospect suddenly revealed itself.[128] Several very influential friends
of ours spoke to the Duke of Meiningen of our work. He summoned Froebel
to him, and made inquiries as to his plans for the future. Froebel
laid before him a plan for an educational institute,[129] complete in
every particular, which we had all worked at in common to draw up, in
which not only the ordinary "learned" branches of education but also
handicrafts, such as carpentering, weaving, bookbinding, tilling the
ground and so on were used as means of culture. During half the school
hours studies were to be pursued, and the other half was to be occupied
by handiwork of one kind or another. This work was to give opportunities
for direct instruction; and above all it was so planned as to excite in
the mind of the child a necessity for explanations as well as to gratify
his desire for creativeness and for practical usefulness. The awakening
of this eager desire for learning and creative activity, was one of the
fundamental thoughts of Friedrich Froebel's mind. The object-teaching
of Pestalozzi seemed to him not to go far enough; and he was always
seeking to regard man not only as a receptive being, but a creative, and
especially as a productive one. We never could work out our ideas in
Keilhau satisfactorily, because we could not procure efficient technical
teaching; and before all things we wanted the pupils themselves. But now
by the help of the Duke of Meiningen our keenest hopes seemed on the
point of gratification. The working out of the plan spoken of above, led
us to many practical constructions in which already lay the elements of
the future Kindergarten occupations. These models are now scattered far
and wide, and indeed are for the most part lost; but the written plan
has been preserved.
The Duke of Meiningen was much pleased with Froebel's explanations
of this plan, and with the complete and open-hearted way in which
everything was laid before him. A proposition was now made that Froebel
should receive the estate of Helba with thirty acres of land, and a
yearly subsidy of 1,000 florins.[130] In passing it may be noticed that
Froebel was consulted by the duke as to the education of the hereditary
prince. Froebel at once said outright that no good would be done for the
future ruler if he were not brought up in the society of other boys. The
duke came to his opinion, and the prince was actually so taught and
brought up.
When Froebel came back from Meiningen[131] the whole community was
naturally overjoyed; but their joy did not last very long. A man of
high station in Meiningen who was accustomed to exercise a sort of
dictatorship in educational matters, as he was the right-hand man of the
prince in such things, a man also who had earned an honourable place in
literature (of which no one surely would seek to deprive him), feared
much lest the elevation of Froebel should injure his own influence. We
were therefore, all of a sudden, once again assailed with the meanest
and most detestable charges, to which our unfortunate position at
Keilhau lent a convenient handle. The duke received secret warnings
against us. He began to waver, and in a temporising way sent again to
Froebel, proposing that he should first try a provisional establishment
of twenty pupils as an experiment. Froebel saw the intention in the
duke's mind, and was thrown out of humour at once; for when he suspected
mistrust he lost all hope, and immediately cast from his mind what a
few hours before had so warmly encouraged him. Therefore Froebel at
once broke off all negotiations, and set out for Frankfurt, to discuss
the work at Keilhau with his friends; since after so many troubles he
had almost begun to lose faith in himself. Here by chance he met the
well-known musical composer Schnyder, from Wartensee. He told this
gentleman of the events which had just occurred, talked to him of
his plans and of our work at Keilhau, and exercised upon him that
overpowering influence which is the peculiar property of creative
minds. Schnyder saw the value of his efforts, and begged him to set
up an educational establishment in his castle on the Wartensee, in
Switzerland.[132] Froebel hurriedly seized with joy the hand thus held
out to him, and at once set off for Wartensee with his nephew, my
brother-in-law Ferdinand.
There Friedrich and Ferdinand Froebel had already been living and
working some little time when I was asked by the rest of the community
who still remained at Keilhau to go and see for myself exactly how they
were getting on in Switzerland. With ten thalers[133] in my pocket, and
in possession of one old summer coat, which I wore, and a threadbare
frock-coat, which I carried over my arm, I set off on "Shanks's
mare"[134] to travel the whole way. If I were to go into details as to
what I went through on that journey, I should probably run the risk of
being charged with gross exaggeration. Enough, I got to my destination,
and when I asked in the neighbourhood about my friends and their doings,
I learned from every one that there was nothing further to say against
"the heretics," than that they were heretics. A few peasant children
from the neighbourhood had found their way to them, but no one came to
them from any distance, as had been reckoned upon from the first by
Froebel as a source of income. The ill-will of the clergy, which began
to show itself immediately the institution was founded, and which became
stronger as the footing of our friends grew firmer, was able to gather
to itself a following sufficient to check any quick growth of our
undertaking. Besides, the basis for such an establishment was not to be
found at Wartensee. Schnyder had, indeed, with a generosity never too
greatly to be admired and praised, made over to us his castle and all
its furniture, his plate, his splendid library,--in short, all that was
in or around the castle was fully at our disposition; but he would
permit no new buildings or alterations of any sort, and as the rooms
assigned to us were in no way suitable for our use, it was evident that
his generous support must be regarded as only a temporary and passing
assistance. We perceived the evil of our situation in all its keenness,
but we saw no way out of the difficulty.
In a most remarkable way there dawned upon us a new prospect at the very
moment when we least expected it. We were sitting one day in a tavern
near Wartensee, and talking of our struggles with some strangers
who happened to be there. Three travellers were much interested in
our narrative. They gave themselves out as business people from
Willisau,[135] and soon informed us that they had formed the notion of
trying to get some assistance for us, and our enterprise for their
native town. This they actually did. We received an invitation from
twenty associated well-to-do families in Willisau to remove our
school there, and more fully to work out our plans amongst them. The
association had addressed the cantonal authorities, and a sort of castle
was allotted provisionally to us. About forty pupils from the canton at
once entered the school, and now we seemed at last to have found what we
had so long been seeking. But the priests rose up furiously against us
with a really devilish force. We even went in fear of our lives, and
were often warned by kind-hearted people to turn back, when we were
walking towards secluded spots, or had struck along the outlying paths
amongst the mountains. To what abominable means this spirit of bigotry
resorted, the following example may serve to show.
In Willisau a church festival is held once a year, in which a
communion-wafer is shown, miraculously spotted with blood. The drops of
blood were believed by the people to have been evoked from the figure
of Jesus by the crime of two gamblers; who, having cursed Jesus, flung
their sword at him, whereupon the devil appeared. As "God be with
us"[136] seized the villains by the throat, a few drops of blood
trickled from Jesus' wounds. To prevent others, therefore, from
falling in a like way into the power of the arch-deceiver, a yearly
commemorative festival is held at Willisau. The wafer is shown as a
warning to devout people, who flock in crowds from all parts of the
neighbourhood to join in the procession which closes the ceremony. We
felt of course compelled to attend, and as we wished to take our part,
we offered to lead the singing. I feared an outbreak, and I earnestly
implored my friends to keep quiet under any circumstances, and whatever
happened, to give no pretext for any excitement. Our singing was
finished, when in the place of the expected preacher, suddenly there
appeared a blustering, fanatical Capuchin monk. He exhausted himself in
denunciations of this God-forsaken, wicked generation, sketched in
glaring colours the pains of hell awaiting the accursed race, and then
fell fiercely upon the alarmed Willisauers, upbraiding them, as their
worst sin, with the fostering of heretics in their midst, the said
"heretics" being manifestly ourselves. Fiercer and fiercer grew
his threats, coarser and coarser his insults against us and our
well-wishers, more and more horrible his pictures of the flames of hell,
into grave danger of which the Willisauers, he said, had fallen by their
awful sin. Froebel stood as if benumbed, without moving a muscle, or
changing a feature, exactly in face of the Capuchin, in amongst the
people; and we others also looked straight before us, immovable. The
parents of our pupils, as well as the pupils themselves, and many
others, had already fled midway in the monk's Jeremiad. Every one
expected the affair to end badly for us; and our friends, outside the
church, were taking precautions for our safety, and concerting measures
for seizing the monk who was thus inciting the mob to riot. We stood
quite still all the time in our places listening patiently to the close
of the Capuchin's tirade: "Win, then, for yourselves an everlasting
treasure in heaven." shouted he, "bring this misery to an end, and
suffer the wretched men to remain no longer amongst you. Hunt the wolves
from the land, to the glory of God and the rage of the devil. Then will
peace and blessing return, and great joy in heaven with God, and on
earth with those who heartily serve Him and His saints. Amen." Hardly
had he uttered the last word than he disappeared through a side door
and was no more seen. As for us, we passed quietly through the staring
and threatening mob. No hand was raised against us at that moment, but
danger lay about us on every side, and it was no pleasure to recognise
the fact that the sword of Damokles always hung by a hair over our
head. Feeling very uneasy at our insecure condition, I was sent, on the
part of the rest, to the authorities of the canton, especially to Abbe
Girard,[137] and the mayor, Eduard Pfyffer, to beg that they would
provide for our safety with all the means in their power. On my way I
was recognised by a priest for one of the newly-introduced "heretics" as
I rested a moment in an inn. The people there began to talk freely about
me, and to cast looks of hatred and contempt at me. At last, the priest
waxing bolder and bolder, accused me aloud of abominable heresy. I arose
slowly, crossed with a firm step over to the black-frocked one, and
asked him, "Do you know, sir, who Jesus Christ was, and do you hold Him
in any particular esteem?" Quite nonplussed by my firm and quiet address
he stammered out, "Certainly, He is God the Son, and we must all honour
Him and believe on Him, if we are to escape everlasting damnation." I
continued, "Then perhaps you can tell me whether Christ was a Catholic
or a Protestant?"
The black-frock was silenced, the crowd stared, and presently began to
applaud. The priest made off, and I was left in peace. My question had
answered better than a long speech.
In Eduard Pfyffer I found an estimable sterling man of humane and firm
character. He started from the fundamental principle that it was of
little use freeing the people from this or that special superstition,
but that we should do better by working for the future against sloth
of thought and want of independent mental character from the very
bottom--namely, by educating our young people. Therefore, he set
great store by our undertaking. And when I told him of our downcast
spirits and the absolute danger in which we lived at the moment, he
replied:--"There is only one way to ensure your safety. You must win
over the people. Work on a little longer, and then invite them all from
far and near to a public examination. If this test wins over the crowd
to your side, then, and only then, are you out of harm's reach." I went
home, and we followed this counsel. The examination was held on a lovely
day in autumn. A great crowd from several cantons flocked together, and
there appeared delegates from the authorities of Zürich, of Bern, and
other cantons. Our contest with the clerical party, which had been
commented upon in most of the Swiss journals, had drawn all eyes upon
us. We scored a great victory with our examination. The children
developed so much enthusiasm, and answered so readily, that all were
agreeably surprised, and rewarded us with loud applause. From seven in
the morning till seven in the evening lasted this examination, closing
with games and gymnastic exercises performed by the whole school. We
rejoiced within ourselves; for our undertaking might now be regarded as
fairly floated. The institution was spoken of in the great Council of
the Canton, and most glowing speeches were delivered in our favour by
Herr Pfyffer, Herr Amrhyn, and others. The Council decided that the
castle and its outbuildings should be let to us at a very cheap rate,
and that the Capuchin who had openly incited to riot against us should
be expelled from the canton.
A little time after this examination a deputation from Bern came
to invite Froebel to undertake the organisation of an Orphanage at
Burgdorf. Froebel suggested that he should not be restricted to teach
orphans alone in the new establishment; his request was granted, and he
then accepted the invitation.
With this, it seemed to me, my mission in Switzerland was at an end, and
I began to long to return to Keilhau; my eldest son was now a year old,
and I had never yet seen him. Middendorff left his family, and replaced
me at Willisau, living there for four years far away from wife and
child.[138] At Keilhau I found things had improved, and the numbers had
increased most cheeringly. I determined to throw all my strength into
the work of raising the mother institution from her slough of debt. I
began by a piece of honourable swindling: and borrowed of Peter to pay
Paul, covering one debt with another, but at the same time making it
appear that we were paying our way. In this fashion our damaged credit
was restored, and as the receipts grew happily greater and greater, I
began to gain ground. Eventually I was able to send help to the other
branches of our community, to increase my help as time went on, and to
prepare a place of refuge for them if anything went wrong elsewhere.
In Switzerland our enterprise did not develop as rapidly as we desired,
in spite of the sanction of the Council of the Canton. The institution
at Willisau gained unlimited confidence there; but the malevolent
opposition of the clerical party secretly flourished as before, and
succeeded in depriving it of all aid from more distant places. Under
these circumstances we could not attain that prosperity which so much
activity and self-sacrificing work on the part of our circle must
otherwise infallibly have brought.
Ferdinand Froebel and Middendorff remained in Willisau. Froebel and his
wife went to Burgdorf, to found and direct the proposed Orphanage.[139]
In his capacity as Director, Froebel had to give what was called a
Repetitive Course to the teachers. In that Canton, namely, there was an
excellent regulation which gave three months' leave to the teachers once
in every two years.[140] During this leave they assembled at Burgdorf,
mutually communicated their experiences, and enriched their culture with
various studies. Froebel had to preside over the debates and to conduct
the studies, which were pursued in common. His own observations and the
remarks of the teachers brought him anew to the conviction that all
school education was as yet without a proper foundation, and, therefore,
that until the education of the nursery was reformed nothing solid and
worthy could be attained. The necessity of training gifted capable
mothers occupied his soul, and the importance of the education of
childhood's earliest years became more evident to him than ever. He
determined to set forth fully his ideas on education, which the tyranny
of a thousand opposing circumstances had always prevented him from
working out in their completeness; or at all events to do this as
regards the earliest years of man, and then to win over the world of
women to the actual accomplishment of his plans. Pestalozzi's "Mothers'
Book" (_Buch der Mütter_) Froebel would replace by a complete
theoretical and practical system for the use of women in general. An
external circumstance supervened at this point to urge him onwards.
His wife grew alarmingly ill, and the physicians prescribed complete
absence from the sharp Swiss mountain air. Froebel asked to be permitted
to resign his post, that he might retire to Berlin. The Willisau
Institution, although outwardly flourishing, was limited more and more
narrowly by the bigotry of the priests, and must evidently now be soon
given up, since the Government had passed into the hands of the Jesuit
party. Langethal and Ferdinand Froebel were nominated Directors of
Burgdorf.[141] Middendorff rejoined his family at Keilhau. Later on,
Langethal split off from the community and accepted the direction
of a girls' school in Bern (that school which, after Langethal, the
well-known Fröhlich conducted); but Froebel never forgave him this step.
Ferdinand Froebel remained, till his sudden and early death, Director of
the Orphanage at Burgdorf. A public funeral, such as has never found its
equal at Burgdorf, bore witness to the amount of his great labours, and
to the general appreciation of their value.