Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852)

The first Kindergarten was opened by Froebel in 1837 at Bradenburg, Germany; in 1852 he died. Fifteen short years sufficed to unfold and establish a system that has revolutionized primary education.

Some one has said: "Women and children are a new discovery!" If this be true, then Froebel is their great discoverer. The people of the Thuringian Forest, where he was born and lived the greater part of his seventy years, and where he died, called Froebel "the great child-lover." The children, who loved him and ran after him from every doorstep along the street, and clung to him and fairly climbed over him, called him "the great play-father." This child-lover and play-father taught that whoever thoroughly learned to understand one child had gained a standpoint from which to study the world of children.

Friedrich Froebel crept into the heart of a little child, and told its story to the world. Then he planted "a garden" for children to play and grow in, and called it "Kindergarten" (childgarden); for he found that the heart and soul of a child expanded through its play.

And this is the cue to the Kindergarten system: the threefold development of the young child, mentally, spiritually, and physically, through its natural instinct for play, the common heritage of childhood. "Give me the child," says the kindergartner, "and the State may have the man."

"I see in every child the possibility of a perfect man." "The hope of the world lies in the children," said Froebel.

But Froebel did not stop here; he also said: "Who educates a woman, educates a race." Late in life he established at Marienthal a school for the training of women to work in his "childgarden." He taught them that true growth, according to nature's laws, must be a development from within, not a method from without; that into the child-heart, before the knowledge of evil has developed, the knowledge of all that is good and true and beautiful must be instilled if we would train up good citizens. But like all great reformers, Froebel met with opposition. Kindergartens and kindergartners were springing up and spreading under his genial influence and direction. But "The New Learning," as his methods were called, came into conflict with "the old," until in 1851 the King of Prussia forbade the establishment of kindergartens within his dominions. In vain did the friends of the new movement rally around the "play-father;" the heart of the old man of seventy years could not stand the blow, but broke under the strain of what seemed to him the failure of his life-work. Among his last treasured words were: "Take care of my flowers and spare my weeds." Yet how often does seeming failure mean success. A traveller through "the land of Froebel" writes: "In Thuringia, where the great child-lover was born, the kindergartens, his best memorials, cluster thickly now, and on the face of the cliffs that overhang the bridle-path across the Glockner mountains may be seen in great letters the single word 'Froebel,' hewn deep into the solid rock." The memorable words spoken of Washington, "Heaven left him childless that a nation might call him father," might be applicable to Froebel, for "his wise and tender fatherhood extends to all the children of the world." There is a beautiful picture of Froebel, with little ones clustered about him, as they clustered about another Teacher in Galilee many centuries ago.