for the education of little children had fully taken shape in his mind.
I took rooms for him in the neighbouring Blankenburg.[142] Long did he
rack his brains for a suitable name for his new scheme. Middendorff and
I were one day walking to Blankenburg with him over the Steiger Pass.
He kept on repeating, "Oh, if I could only think of a suitable name for
my youngest born!" Blankenburg lay at our feet, and he walked moodily
towards it. Suddenly he stood still as if fettered fast to the spot,
and his eyes assumed a wonderful, almost refulgent, brilliancy. Then he
shouted to the mountains so that it echoed to the four winds of heaven,
"_Eurêka!_ I have it! KINDERGARTEN shall be the name of the new
Institution!"
Thus wrote Barop in or about the year 1862, after he had seen all his
friends pass away, and had himself become prosperous and the recipient
of many honours. The University of Jena made him a doctor, and the
Prince of Rudolstadt created him his Minister of Education. Froebel
slept in Liebenstein, and Middendorff at the foot of the Kirschberg in
Keilhau. They sowed and reaped not; and yet to possess the privilege of
sowing, was it not equivalent in itself to reaping a very great reward?
In any event, it is delightful to remember that Froebel, in the April
of 1852, the year in which he died (June 21st), received public honours
at the hands of the general congress of teachers held in Gotha. When
he appeared that large assembly rose to greet him as one man; and
Middendorff, too, who was inseparable from Froebel, so that when one
appeared the other was not far off, had before his death (in 1853) the
joy of hearing a similar congress at Salzungen declare the system of
Froebel to be of world-wide importance, and to merit on that account
their especial consideration and their most earnest examination.
A few words on Middendorff, culled from Lange's account, may be
serviceable. Middendorff was to Froebel as Aaron was to Moses. Froebel,
in truth, was "slow of speech and of a slow tongue" (Exod. iv. 10), and
Middendorff was "his spokesman unto the people" (v. 16). It was the
latter's clearness and readiness of speech which won adherents for
Froebel amongst people who neither knew him nor could understand him. In
1849 Middendorff had immense success in Hamburg; but when Froebel came,
later on, to occupy the ground thus conquered beforehand, he had to
contend against much opposition, for every one missed the easy eloquence
of Middendorff, which had been so convincing. Dr. Wichard Lange came to
know Froebel when the latter visited Hamburg in the winter of 1849-50.
At this time he spent almost every afternoon and evening with him, and
held the post of editor of Froebel's _Weekly Journal_. Even after this
close association with Froebel, he found himself unable thoroughly
to go with the schemes for the education of little children, the
Kindergarten, and with those for the training of Kindergarten teachers.
"Never mind!" said Froebel, out of humour, when Lange told him this; "if
you cannot come over to my views now, you will do so in ten years' time;
but sooner or later, _come you must_!" Dr. Lange nobly fulfilled the
prophecy, and the edition of Froebel's collected works (Berlin 1862),
from which we derive the present text (and much of the notes), was his
gift of repentance to appease the wrath of the Manes of his departed
friend and master. Nor was he content with this; but by his frequent
communications to _The Educational Journal_ (_Die Rheinischen Blätter_),
originally founded by Diesterweg, and by the Froebelian spirit which he
was able to infuse into the large boys'-school which he long conducted
at Hamburg, he worked for the "new education" so powerfully and so
unweariedly that he must be always thankfully regarded as one of the
principal adherents of the great teacher. His connection with the
Froebel community was further strengthened by a most happy marriage with
the daughter of Middendorff.
[1] Johann Jacob Froebel, father of Friedrich, belonged to the Old
Lutheran Protestant Church.
[2] These were four (1) August, who went into business, and died young.
(2) Christoph, a clergyman in Griesheim, who died in 1813 of the typhus,
which then overspread all central Germany, having broken out in the
over-crowded hospitals after the battle of Leipzig; he was the father of
Julius, Karl, and Theodor, the wish to benefit whom led their uncle
Friedrich to begin his educational work in Griesheim in 1816. (3)
Christian Ludwig, first a manufacturer in Osterode, and then associated
with Friedrich from 1820 onwards,--born 24th June, 1770, died 9th
January, 1851. (4) Traugott, who studied medicine at Jena, became a
medical man, and was burgomaster of Stadt-Ilm. Friedrich August Wilhelm
himself was born on the 21st April, 1782, and died on the 21st June,
1852. He had no sisters.
[3] Karl Poppo Froebel, who became a teacher, and finally a
publisher,--born 1786; died 25th March, 1824: not to be confounded with
his nephew, Karl, son of Christoph, now living in Edinburgh.
[4] This needs explanation. In Germany, even by strangers, children are
universally addressed in the second person singular, which carries with
it a certain caressing sentiment. Grown persons would be addressed
(except by members of their own family, or intimate friends) in the
third person plural. Thus, if one met a child in the street, one might
say, _Willst Du mit mir kommen_? (Wilt thou come with me?); whereas to
a grown person the proper form would be, _Wollen Sie mit mir kommen_?
(Will THEY--meaning, will YOU--come with me?). The mode of speech of
which Froebel speaks here is now almost obsolete, and even in his day
was only used to a person of markedly inferior position. Our sentence
would run in this case, _Will Er mit mir kommen_? (Will HE--meaning,
will YOU, John or Thomas--come with me?), and carries with it a sort of
contemptuous superciliousness, as if the person spoken to were beneath
the dignity of a direct address. It is evident, therefore, that to a
sensitive, self-torturing child like Froebel, being addressed in this
manner would cause the keenest pain; since, as he justly says, it has
the effect, by the mere form of speech, of _isolating_ the person
addressed. Such a one is not to be considered as of our family, or even
of our rank in life.
[5] The Cantor would combine the duties of precentor (whence his title),
leading the church singing and training the choristers, with those of
the schoolmaster of the village boys' school. In large church-schools
the Cantor is simply the choir-master. The great Bach was Cantor of the
Thomas-Schule, Leipzig.
[6] It will be remembered that this letter is addressed to the Duke of
Meiningen.
[7] "Arise, my heart and spirit," and "It costs one much (it is a
difficult task) to be a Christian."
[8] Christoph Froebel is here meant. He studied at the University of
Jena.
[9] In this case Froebel's usually accurate judgment of his own
character seems at fault; his opinions being always most decided, even
to the point of sometimes rendering him incapable of fairly appreciating
the views of others.
[10] Froebel is alluding to his undertaking the education of his brother
Christoph's sons, in November 1816, when he finally decided to devote
his life to the cause of education.
[11] At the time Froebel was writing this autobiographical letter
(1827), and seeking thereby to enlist the Duke of Meiningen's sympathies
in his work, in order to found a fresh institution at Helba, he was
undergoing what was almost a persecution at Keilhau. All associations of
progressive men were frowned upon as politically dangerous, and Keilhau,
amongst the rest, was held in suspicion. Somewhat of this is seen in the
interesting account by Barop further on ("Critical Moments at Keilhau").
[12] Herr Hoffmann, a clergyman, representing the State in Church matter
for the district of Stadt-Ilm; a post somewhat analogous to that of our
archdeacon.
[13] Equal to an English middle-class school.
[14] The Ilm, flowing through Thuringia into the Saale, a tributary of
the Elbe. Oberweissbach is upon the Schwarza, also flowing into the
Saale. Weimar stands upon the Ilm, Jena upon the Saale.
[15] Superintendents. The _ephors_ of ancient Sparta amongst their
duties had that of the superintendence of education, whence the German
title.
[16] This story is not now popular, but its nature is sufficiently
indicated in the text.
[17] Christoph and Traugott.
[18] In Germany a _Forstmann_, or forester, if he has studied forest
cultivation in a School of Forestry, rises eventually to the position of
supervisor of forests (_Forst-meister_). The forester who does not study
remains in the inferior position.
[19] In the German State forests, the timber, when cut down, is
frequently not transported by road, but is made to slide down the
mountain-sides by timber-shoots into the streams or rivers; it is then
made up into rafts, and so floated down to its destination.
[20] Jussieu's natural system of botany may possibly be here alluded
to. The celebrated "Genera Plantarum" appeared in 1798, and Froebel was
at Jena in 1799. On the other hand, A.J.G. Batsch, Froebel's teacher,
professor at the university since 1789, had published in 1787-8 his
"Anleitung zur Kentniss und Geschichte der Pflanzen," 2 vols. We have
not seen this work. Batsch also published an "Introduction to the Study
of Natural History," which reached a second edition in 1805.
[21] In justice to Froebel and his teacher, it must be remembered that
the theory of evolution was not as yet formed, and that those who dimly
sought after some explanation of the uniformity of the vertebrate plan,
which they observed, were but all too likely to be led astray.
[22] The text (Lange, Berlin, 1862) says _meinen ältesten Bruder_, that
is, "of my eldest brother;" but this is quite an error, whether of
Froebel or of Herr Lange we cannot at present say. As we have already
said in a footnote on p. 3, August was the eldest brother of Friedrich,
and Christoph was the eldest then living. Traugott, who was at Jena with
Friedrich, was his next older brother, youngest of the first family,
except only Friedrich himself. It is Traugott who is meant in this
passage.
[23] "In carcer;" that is, in the prison of the university, where in the
last resort students who fail to comply with university regulations are
confined. The "carcer" still exists in German universities. It has of
course nothing to do with the ordinary prison of the town.
[24] The Prince-Bishop of Bamberg shared in the general Napoleonic
earthquake. The domain of the bishopric went to Bavaria ultimately, the
title alone remaining to the Church.
[25] Shared the fate of the Bamberg possessions, and of many other
principalities and small domains at that time existent; namely,
absorption under the Napoleonic _régime_ into the neighbouring States.
This went to Bavaria; see the text, later on.
[26] Bruno, or the Over-Soul.
[27] "General Intelligencer of the German people."
[28] Upper Palatinate, a province in the north of Bavaria.
[29] Herr Von Dewitz, his employer.
[30] The Pädagogium in Halle answered somewhat to our grammar schools
with a mixture of boarders and day-scholars. It was founded by Francke
in 1712, after the ideas of the famous Basedow, and was endowed by means
of a public subscription.
[31] These were two pamphlets by the famous patriot and poet Ernst
Moritz Arndt (1769-1860), published in 1805.
[32] That is, Froebel realised the distinction of the subject-world from
the object-world.
[33] That is, he signed Wilhelm Froebel instead of Friedrich Froebel,
for a time. It cannot have been for long, however.
[34] The young man mentioned on page 39.
[35] The pretty district bordering the river Ucker, in pleasing contrast
with the sandy plains of Brandenburg; it lies at no great distance from
Berlin, so that it forms the favourite goal for a short excursion with
the people of that arid city.
[36] Whither Luther fled for refuge after the Diet of Worms in 1521; and
where, protected by the Elector of Saxony, he lay concealed for a year.
During this year he translated the Bible.
[37] Held all over Protestant Germany in 1817.
[38] Our children still in like manner "say their catechism" at
afternoon church in old-fashioned country places.
[39] This school, still in existence up to 1865 and later, but now no
longer in being, had been founded under Gruner, a pupil of Pestalozzi,
to embody and carry out the educational principles of the latter.
[40] There is a smaller town called Frankfurt, on the Oder. "Am Main,"
or "An der Oder," is, therefore, added to the greater or the smaller
Frankfurt respectively, for distinction's sake.
[41] He never does, for this interesting record remains a fragment.
[42] Situate at the head of the lake of Neuchatel, but in the canton of
Vaud, in Switzerland.
[43] Austria was not the only country alive to the importance of this
new teaching. Prussia and Holland also sent commissioners to study
Pestalozzi's system, and so did many other smaller states. The Czar
(Alexander I.) sent for Pestalozzi to a personal interview at Basel.
[44] _Wandernde Classen._ Some of our later English schools have adopted
a similar plan.
[45] One of Pestalozzi's teachers, to whom especially was confided the
arrangement of the arithmetical studies.
[46] By positive instruction Froebel means learning by heart, or by
being told results; as distinguished from actual education or
development of the faculties, and the working out of results by pupils
for themselves.
[47] This must mean the system invented by Rousseau, a modern
development of which is the Chevé system now widely used on the
Continent. In England the tonic-sol-fa notation, which uses syllables
instead of figures, but which rests fundamentally on the same
principles, is much more familiar.
[48] _"Geht und schaut, es geht ungehür (ungeheuer)."_
[49] The miserable quarrels between Niederer and Schmid, which so
distressed the later years of Pestalozzi, are here referred to.
[50] A Consistorium in Germany is a sort of clerical council or
convocation, made up of the whole of the Established clergy of a
province, and supervising Church and school matters throughout that
province, under the control of the Ministry of Religion and Education.
No educator could establish a school or take a post in a school without
the approval of this body.
[51] That is, the education of other minds than his own; something
beyond mere school-teaching.
[52] _Einertabelle_; tables or formulas extending to units only; a
system embodied to a large extent in Sonnenschein's "ABC of Arithmetic,"
for teaching just the first elements of the art.
[53] Like other matters, this, too, has been left undone, as far as the
present (unfinished) letter is concerned.
[54] _Erdkunde._
[55] _Recht schreiben._
[56] _Recht sprechen._
[57] One of Arndt's pamphlets, then quite new.
[58] 1827.
[59] He would have refused to countenance Froebel's throwing up his
engagement.
[60] Georg Friedrich Seller (1733-1807), a Bavarian by birth, became a
highly-esteemed clergyman in Coburg. He wrote on religious and moral
subjects, and those amongst the list of his works, the most likely to be
alluded to by Froebel, are "A Bible for Teachers," "Methods of Religious
Teaching for Schools," "Religious Culture for the Young," etc.
[61] Jean Paul Friedrich Richter (1763-1825). No doubt the celebrated
"Levana," Richter's educational masterpiece, which was published in this
same year, 1807, is here alluded to.
[62] 1808.
[63] This is in 1827. But the expression of his thought remained a
difficult matter with Froebel to the end of his life, a drawback to
which many of his friends have borne witness; for instance, Madame von
Marenholtz-Bülow.
[64] Probably done with the point of a knitting needle, etc. The design
is then visible on the other side of the paper in an embossed form.
[65] This account is dated 1827, it is always necessary to remember.
[66] After all, the work was left to Froebel himself to do. These words
were written in 1827. The "Menschen Erziehung" of Froebel ("Education
of Man"), which appeared the year before, had also touched upon the
subject. It was further developed in his "Mutter und Koselieder"
("Mother's Songs and Games"), in which his first wife assisted him. That
appeared in 1838. In the same year was also founded the _Sonntags-Blatt_
(_Sunday Journal_), to which many essays and articles on this subject
were contributed by Froebel. The third volume ("Pädagogik") of Dr.
Wichard Lange's complete edition of Froebel's works is largely made up
of these _Sonntags-Blatt_ articles. The whole Kindergarten system rests
mainly on this higher view of children's play.
[67] A report that Froebel drew up for the Princess Regent of Rudolstadt
in 1809, giving a voluminous account of the theory and practice pursued
at Yverdon (Wichard's "Froebel," vol. i., p. 154).
[68] The castle of Yverdon, an old feudal stronghold, which Pestalozzi
had received from the municipality of that town in 1804, to enable him
to establish a school and work out his educational system there.
[69] Froebel desired to see in Rudolstadt, or elsewhere in Thuringia
(his "native land"), an institution like that of Pestalozzi at Yverdon;
and he sought to interest the Princess Regent of Rudolstadt by the full
account of Yverdon already mentioned.
[70] This would scarcely seem probable to those who admire and love
Pestalozzi. But we must remember that religious teaching appeals so
intimately to individual sympathies that it is quite possible that what
was of vital service to many others was not of so much use to Froebel,
who was, as he frankly admits, out of harmony on many points with his
noble-hearted teacher.
[71] That the boys' characters were immersed in an element of
strengthening and developing games as the body is immersed in the water
of a strengthening bath, seems to be Froebel's idea.
[72] Sanskrit is here probably meant.
[73] Hebrew and Arabic.
[74] The comet of 1811, one of the most brilliant of the present
century, was an equal surprise to the most skilled astronomers as to
Froebel. Observations of its path have led to a belief that it has a
period of 300 years; so that it was possibly seen by our ancestors in
1511, and may be seen by our remote descendants in 2111. The appearance
of this comet was synchronous with an unusually fine vintage harvest,
and "wine of the great Comet year" was long held in great esteem.
[75] _Geognosie._
[76] The Plamann School, an institution of considerable merit. Plamann
was a pupil of Pestalozzi. One of the present writers studied
crystallography later on with a professor who had been a colleague of
Froebel's in this same school, and who himself was also a pupil of
Pestalozzi.
[77] Froebel is here symbolically expressing the longing which pervaded
all noble spirits at that time for a free and united Germany, for a
great Fatherland. The tender mother's love was symbolised by the ties of
home (Motherland), but the father's strength and power (Fatherland) was
only then to be found in German national life in the one or two large
states like Prussia, etc. It needed long years and the termination of
this period of preparation by two great wars, those of 1866 and of 1870,
to bind the whole people together, and make Germany no longer a
"geographical expression" but a mighty nation.
[78] In the beginning of this great contest it was Prussia who declared
war against the common enemy and oppressor, Napoleon. The other German
powers, for the most part, held aloof.
[79] The Baron von Lützow formed his famous volunteer corps in March
1813. His instructions were to harass the enemy by constant skirmishes,
and to encourage the smaller German states to rise against the tyrant
Napoleon. The corps became celebrated for swift, dashing exploits in
small bodies. Froebel seems to have been with the main body, and to have
seen little of the more active doings of his regiment. Their favourite
title was "Lützow's Wilde Verwegene Schaar" (Lützow's Wild Bold Troop).
Amongst the volunteers were many distinguished men; for instance, the
poet Körner, whose volume of war poetry, much of it written during the
campaign, is still a great favourite. One of the poems, "Lützow's Wilde
Jagd" ("Lützow's Wild Chase"), is of world-wide fame through the musical
setting of the great composer Weber. In June 1813 came the armistice of
which Froebel presently speaks. During the fresh outbreak of war after
the armistice the corps was cut to pieces. It was reorganised, and we
find it on the Rhine in December of the same year. It was finally
dissolved after Napoleon's abdication and exile to Elba, 20th April, and
the peace of Paris 30th May, 1814.
[80] _Die Grafschaft Mark._ The Mark of Brandenburg (so called as being
the mark or frontier against Slavic heathendom in that direction during
the dark ages) is the kernel of the Prussian monarchy. It was in the
character of Markgraf of Brandenburg, that the Hohenzollern princes
were electors of the German Empire; their title as king was due not to
Brandenburg, but to the dukedom of Prussia in the far east (once the
territory of the Teutonic military order), which was elevated to the
rank of an independent kingdom in 1701. The title of the present Emperor
of Germany still begins "William, Emperor of Germany, King of Prussia.
Markgraf of Brandenburg," etc., etc., showing the importance attached to
this most ancient dignity. The Mark of Brandenburg contains Berlin.
Middendorff seems to have been then living in the Mark. Froebel cannot
have forgotten that by origin Wilhelm Middendorff was a Westphalian.
[81] Of Bauer little further is to be known. He was afterwards professor
in the Frederick-William Gymnasium (Grammar School) in Berlin, but has
no further connection with Froebel's career. On the other hand, a
few words on Langethal and Middendorff seem necessary here. Heinrich
Langethal was born in Erfurt, September 3rd, 1792. He joined Froebel at
Keilhau in 1817. He was a faithful colleague of Froebel's there, and
at Willisau and Burgdorf, but finally left him at the last place, and
undertook the management of a girls' school at Bern. He afterwards
became a minister in Schleusingen, returning eventually to Keilhau. One
of the present writers saw him there in 1871. He was then quite blind,
but happy and vigorous, though in his eightieth year. He died in 1883.
Wilhelm Middendorff, the closest and truest friend Froebel ever had,
without whom, indeed, he could not exist, because each formed the
complement of the other's nature, was born at Brechten, near Dortmund,
in Westphalia, September 20th, 1793, and died at Keilhau November 27th,
1853, a little over a year after his great master. (Froebel had passed
away at Marienthal July 21st, 1852.)
[82] "Ansichten vom Nieder Rhein, Flandern, Holland, England, Frankreich
in April, Mai, und Juni 1790" ("Sketches on the Lower Rhine, Flanders,"
etc.). Johann Georg Forster (1754-1794), the author of this book,
accompanied his father, the naturalist, in Captain Cook's journey round
the world. He then settled in Warrington (England) in 1767; taught
languages, and translated many foreign books into English, etc. He left
England in 1777, and served many princes on the Continent as librarian,
historiographer, etc., amongst others the Czarina Catherine. He was
librarian to the Elector of Mainz when the French Revolution broke out,
and was sent as a deputation to Paris by the republicans of that town,
who desired union with France. He died at Paris in 1794. His prose is
considered classical in Germany, having the lightness of French and
the power of English gained through his large knowledge of those
literatures.
[83] The Mark of Brandenburg.
[84] It is to be regretted that Froebel has not developed this
point more fully. He speaks of "die Betrachtung des Zahlensinnes in
horizontaler oder Seiten-Richtung," and one would be glad of further
details of this view of number. We think that the full expression
of the thought here shadowed out, is to be found in the Kindergarten
occupations of mat-weaving, stick-laying, etc., in their arithmetical
aspect. Certainly in these occupations, instead of number being built up
as with bricks, etc., it is laid along horizontally.