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).
[Footnote 103]: Or, as we say, A is A.
[Footnote 104]: A great deal of Froebel's irony might all too truly be still applied to current educational work.
[Footnote 105]: Empiricism—that is, a posteriori investigations, based on actual facts and not a priori deductions from theories, or general laws, did good service before Froebel's time, and will do good service yet, Froebel notwithstanding. In Froebel's time the limits Kant so truly set to the human understanding were overstepped on every side; Fichte, Schelling, and Hegel were teaching, and the latter especially had an overpowering influence upon all science. Every one constructed a philosophy of the universe out of his own brain. Krause, the recipient of this letter, never attained to very great influence, though had he been in Hegel's chair he might perhaps have wielded Hegel's authority, and there was for a long time a great likelihood of his appointment. Meanwhile he reconstructed the university at Göttingen. Even practical students of Nature, such as Oken, did homage to the general tendency which had absorbed all the eager spirits of the vanguard of human advancement, amongst them Froebel himself. We see how firmly set Froebel was against experience-teaching, a posteriori work, or, as he calls it, empiricism. The Kantist, Arthur Schopenhauer, was not listened to, and dwelt apart, devouring his heart in bitter silence; breaking out at last with the dreary creed of Pessimism.
[Footnote 106]: Froebel is here hardly fair. How should people know much of him as yet? He had at this time written the following works:—(1) "On the Universal German Educational Institute of Rudolstadt" (1822); (2) "Continuation of the Account of the Universal German Educational Institute at Keilhau" (1823); (3) "Christmas at Keilhau: a Christmas Gift to the Parents of the Pupils at Keilhau, to the Friends and the Members of the Institute" (1824); (4) "The Menschen Erziehung," the full title of which was "The Education of Man: The Art of Education, Instruction, and Teaching, as attempted to be realised at the Universal Educational Institute at Keilhau, set forth by the Originator, Founder, and Principal of the Institute, Friedrich Froebel" (1826), never completed; (5) Family Weekly Journal of Education for Self-culture and the Training of Others, edited by Friedrich Froebel, Leipzig and Keilhau. But Froebel, in his unbusiness-like way, published all these productions privately. They came out of course under every disadvantage, and could only reach the hands of learned persons, and those to whom they were really of interest, by the merest chance. Further, Froebel, as has already abundantly appeared, was but a poor author. His stiff, turgid style makes his works in many places most difficult to understand, as the present translators have found to their cost, and he was therefore practically unreadable to the general public. In his usual self-absorbed fashion, he did not perceive these deficiencies of his, nor could he be got to see the folly of private publication. Indeed, on the contrary, he dreamed of fabulous sums which one day he was to realise by the sale of his works. It is needless to add that the event proved very much the reverse. As to criticism, it was particularly the "able editor" Harnisch who pulled to pieces the "Menschen Erziehung" so pitilessly on its appearance, and who is probably here referred to.
[Footnote 107]: This passage may serve as a sufficient illustration of Froebel's metaphysical way of looking at his subject. It is scarcely our habit at the present day to regard the science of being (ontology) as a science at all, since it is utterly incapable of verification; but it is not difficult to trace the important truth really held by Froebel even through the somewhat perplexing folds of scholastic philosophy in which he has clothed it.
[Footnote 108]: See the previous [footnote, p. 93].