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 Keilhau¹²⁵ 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-law¹²⁷ 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 Meiningen¹³¹ 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 thalers¹³³ 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.

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.

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.

When Friedrich Froebel came back from Berlin, the idea of an institution 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.

Footnote 1: Johann Jacob Froebel, father of Friedrich, belonged to the Old Lutheran Protestant Church.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 6: It will be remembered that this letter is addressed to the Duke of Meiningen.

Footnote 7: "Arise, my heart and spirit," and "It costs one much (it is a difficult task) to be a Christian."

Footnote 8: Christoph Froebel is here meant. He studied at the University of Jena.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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").

Footnote 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.

Footnote 13: Equal to an English middle-class school.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 15: Superintendents. The ephors of ancient Sparta amongst their duties had that of the superintendence of education, whence the German title.

Footnote 16: This story is not now popular, but its nature is sufficiently indicated in the text.

Footnote 17: Christoph and Traugott.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 26: Bruno, or the Over-Soul.

Footnote 27: "General Intelligencer of the German people."

Footnote 28: Upper Palatinate, a province in the north of Bavaria.

Footnote 29: Herr Von Dewitz, his employer.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 31: These were two pamphlets by the famous patriot and poet Ernst Moritz Arndt (1769-1860), published in 1805.

Footnote 32: That is, Froebel realised the distinction of the subject-world from the object-world.

Footnote 33: That is, he signed Wilhelm Froebel instead of Friedrich Froebel, for a time. It cannot have been for long, however.

Footnote 34: The young man mentioned on page 39.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 37: Held all over Protestant Germany in 1817.

Footnote 38: Our children still in like manner "say their catechism" at afternoon church in old-fashioned country places.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 41: He never does, for this interesting record remains a fragment.

Footnote 42: Situate at the head of the lake of Neuchatel, but in the canton of Vaud, in Switzerland.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 44: Wandernde Classen. Some of our later English schools have adopted a similar plan.

Footnote 45: One of Pestalozzi's teachers, to whom especially was confided the arrangement of the arithmetical studies.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 48: "Geht und schaut, es geht ungehür (ungeheuer)."

Footnote 49: The miserable quarrels between Niederer and Schmid, which so distressed the later years of Pestalozzi, are here referred to.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 51: That is, the education of other minds than his own; something beyond mere school-teaching.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 53: Like other matters, this, too, has been left undone, as far as the present (unfinished) letter is concerned.

Footnote 54: Erdkunde.

Footnote 55: Recht schreiben.

Footnote 56: Recht sprechen.

Footnote 57: One of Arndt's pamphlets, then quite new.

Footnote 58: 1827.

Footnote 59: He would have refused to countenance Froebel's throwing up his engagement.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 62: 1808.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 65: This account is dated 1827, it is always necessary to remember.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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).

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 72: Sanskrit is here probably meant.

Footnote 73: Hebrew and Arabic.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 75: Geognosie.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 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.)

Footnote 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.

Footnote 83: The Mark of Brandenburg.

Footnote 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.

Footnote 85: Carl Christian Friedrich Krause, an eminent philosopher, and the most learned writer on freemasonry in his day, was born in 1781. at Eisenberg, in Saxony. From 1801 to 1804 he was a professor at Jena, afterwards teaching in Dresden, Göttingen, and Munich, at which latter place he died in 1832.

Footnote 86: Lorenz Oken, the famous naturalist and man of science, was born at Rohlsbach, in Swabia, 1st August, 1779. (His real name was Ockenfuss.) In 1812 Oken was appointed ordinary professor of natural history at Jena, and in 1816 he founded his celebrated journal, the Isis, devoted chiefly to science, but also admitting comments on political matters. The latter having given offence to the Court of Weimar, Oken was called upon either to resign his professorship or suppress the Isis. He chose the former alternative, sent in his resignation, transferred the publication of the Isis to Rudolstadt, and remained at Jena as a private teacher of science. In 1821 he broached in the Isis the idea of an annual gathering of German savants, and it was carried out successfully at Leipzig in the following year. To Oken, therefore, may be indirectly ascribed the genesis of the annual scientific gatherings common on the Continent, as well as of the British Association for the Advancement of Science, which at the outset was avowedly organised after his model. He died in 1851.

Footnote 87: Those acquainted with the classical mythology will forgive us for noting that Charybdis was, and is, a whirlpool on the Sicilian shore of the Straits of Messina, face to face with some caverns under the rock of Scylla, on the Italian shore, into which the waves rush at high tide with a roar not unlike a dog's bark.

Footnote 88: The peculiar dreamy boy, who by his nature was set against much of his work, and therefore seemed but an idle fellow to his schoolmaster, was thought to be less gifted than his brothers, and on that account fitted not so much for study as for simple practical life. In Oberweissbach he was set down as "moonstruck." All this is more fully set forth in the Meiningen letter, and the footnotes to it.

Footnote 89: This was the time when he was apprenticed to the forester in Neuhaus, in the Thüringer Wald, and necessarily studied mathematics, nature, and the culture of forest trees. Eyewitnesses have described him as extremely peculiar in all his ways, even to his dress, which was often fantastic. He was fond of mighty boots and great waving feathers in his green hunter's-hat, etc.

Footnote 90: i.e., Frankfurt.

Footnote 91: Architecture, etc., at this time.

Footnote 92: From Mecklenburg to Frankfurt.

Footnote 93: i.e., as an architect.

Footnote 94: His plan evidently was to use architecture, probably Gothic architecture, as a means of culture and elevation for mankind, and not merely to practise it to gain money.

Footnote 95: It was in 1805 that Froebel was appointed by Gruner teacher in the Normal School at Frankfurt.

Footnote 96: 1. Teacher in the Model School. 2. Tutor to the sons of Herr von Holzhausen near Frankfurt. 3. A resident at Yverdon with Pestalozzi.

Footnote 97: Froebel was driven to Yverdon by the perusal of some of Pestalozzi's works which Gruner had lent him. He stayed with Pestalozzi for a fortnight, and returned with the resolve to study further with the great Swiss reformer at some future time. In 1807, he became tutor to Herr von Holzhausen's somewhat spoilt boys, demanded to have the entire control of them, and for this object their isolation from their family. The grateful parents, with whom Froebel was very warmly intimate, always kept the rooms in which he dwelt with his pupils exactly as they were at that time, in remembrance of his remarkable success with these boys. Madame von Holzhausen had extraordinary influence with Froebel, and he continued in constant correspondence with her. In 1808 Froebel and his pupils went to Yverdon, and remained till 1810. But the philosophic groundwork of Pestalozzi's system failed to satisfy him. Pestalozzi's work started from the external needs of the poorest people, while Froebel desired to found the columns supporting human culture upon theoretically reasoned grounds and upon the natural sciences. A remarkable difference existed between the characters of the two great men. Pestalozzi was diffident, acknowledged freely his mistakes, and sometimes blamed himself for them bitterly; Froebel never thought himself in the wrong, if anything went amiss always found some external cause for the failure, and in self-confidence sometimes reached an extravagant pitch.

Footnote 98: Either Froebel or his editor has made a blunder here. Froebel went to Göttingen in July 1811 (see p. 84), and to Berlin in October 1812 (see p. 89).

Footnote 99: At this time, however, the symbols of the inorganic world did not appeal to Froebel with the same force as those of the organic world. In a letter to Madame von Holzhausen. 31st March, 1831, he writes: "It is the highest privilege of natural forms or of natural life that they contain agreement and perfection within themselves as a whole class, while differing and filled with imperfection in particular individuals; for look at the loveliest blooming fruit-tree, the sweetest rose, the purest lily, and your eye can always detect deficiencies, imperfections, differences in each one, regarded as a single phenomenon, a separate bloom; and, further, the same want of perfection appears also in every single petal: on the other hand, wherever mathematical symmetry and precise agreement are found, there is death".

Footnote 100: Not a figure of speech altogether; for Froebel did really decline a professorship of mineralogy which was offered him at this time, in order to set forth on his educational career.

Footnote 101: That is, putting development into a formula—

The true synthesis is that springing from the thesis and its opposite, the antithesis. Another type of the formula is this—

Understanding by "Compromise" (Vermittlung) that which results from the union of the two opposites, that which forms part of both and which links them together. The formula expressed in terms of human life, for example, is—

Philosophic readers acquainted with Hegel and his school will recognise a familiar friend in these formulæ.

Footnote 102: Froebel travelled from Berlin to Osterode, and took with him both his brother Christian's sons, Ferdinand and Wilhelm, to Griesheim; there to educate them together with the three orphans of his brother Christoph, who had died in 1813, of hospital fever, whilst nursing the French soldiers. Of the sons of Christian, Ferdinand studied philosophy, and at his death was director of the Orphanage founded by Froebel in Burgdorf; Wilhelm, who showed great talent, and was his uncle's favourite nephew, died early through the consequences of an accident, just after receiving his "leaving certificate" from the gymnasium of Rudolstadt.

As regards the sons of Christoph, they were the immediate cause of Froebel's going to Griesheim, for their widowed mother sent for her brother-in-law to consult him as to their education. Julius, the eldest, was well prepared in Keilhau for the active life he was afterwards destined to live. He went from school to Munich, first, to study the natural sciences; and while yet at the university several publications from his pen were issued by Cotta. Later on he took an official post in Weimar, and continued to write from time to time. Meanwhile he completed his studies in Jena and Berlin under Karl von Ritter, the great authority on cosmography, and under the distinguished naturalist, Alexander von Humboldt. In 1833 he became Professor at the Polytechnic School in Zurich; but his literary avocations eventually drew him to Dresden. Here he was chosen Deputy to the National Assembly at Frankfurt in 1848. After the dissolution of that Assembly, Julius Froebel, in common with many others of the more advanced party, was condemned to death. He escaped to Switzerland before arrest, and fled to New York. In after life he was permitted to return to Germany, and eventually he was appointed Consul at Smyrna.

Karl Froebel, the next son, went to Jena also. He then took a tutorship in England, and it was at this time (1831) that his pamphlet, "A Preparation for Euclid," appeared. He returned to the Continent to become Director of the Public Schools at Zürich. He left Zürich in 1848 for Hamburg, where he founded a Lyceum for Young Ladies. Some years later, when this had ceased to exist, he went again to England, and eventually founded an excellent school at Edinburgh with the aid of his wife; which, indeed, his wife and he still conduct. His daughters show great talent for music, and one of them was a pupil of the distinguished pianist, Madame Schumann (widow of the great composer).