CHAPTER XXXIX
MODERN EDUCATORS (Continued)
FROEBEL (1782-1852)
Literature.—Lange, Collected Writings of F. Froebel; Kriege, Friedrich Froebel; Bowen, Froebel and Education by Self-activity; Herford, The Student's Froebel; Froebel, Education of Man; Quick, Educational Reformers; Munroe, Educational Ideal; Williams, History of Modern Education; Marenholtz-Bülow, Reminiscences of F. Froebel; Rein, Encyklopädisches Handbuch der Pädagogik.
Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel was born at Oberweisbach, a village in the beautiful Thüringian Forest of Germany. The first ten years of his life were spent at home under the instruction of his father, who was a Lutheran clergyman and had six villages under his pastorate. The many cares of his office prevented the pastor from giving his son much attention, and as the stepmother neither understood the boy, nor took much interest in him, he spent most of his time in the woods, with birds and flowers as his companions, and received far less rudimentary training than most boys of his age. But at the age of ten an important change took place in his life. He went to live with his mother's brother, who sent him to school for four years. Here he was taught the elementary branches and a little Latin. He tells us of the profound impression made upon him the first day of school by the text of Scripture that the children repeated. It was, "Seek ye first the kingdom of God." He says, "The verse made an impression on me like nothing before or since. Indeed, this impression was so lively and deep, that to-day every word lives fresh in my memory with the peculiar accent with which it was spoken; and yet since that time nearly forty years have elapsed." His progress in the school does not seem to have been very great.
At fourteen he returned to his father's home, and soon thereafter was apprenticed to a forester. Here he was entirely in his element, and he tells of four aspects of this life: "The homelier and more practical life; the life spent with nature, especially forest nature; the life of study, devoted to mathematics and languages, for which he found a good supply of books ready to hand; and the time spent in gaining a knowledge of plants, in which he was much helped by books on botany lent him by a neighboring doctor."[149] But he obtained little help from the forester, so at the end of three years Froebel withdrew, and soon thereafter entered the university of Jena. He seems to have studied hard during the year and a half he spent at Jena, but to have accomplished little. He became involved in debt, and was imprisoned for nine weeks in the university "Carcer."[150] After his liberation, he left the university.
As Teacher.—Meeting with little success in various enterprises in which he engaged, he at last drifted to Frankfurt-am-Main, where he made the acquaintance of Dr. Gruner, head master of the Model School. Dr. Gruner quickly discovered Froebel's talent, and urged him to accept a position under him as teacher. Froebel reluctantly consented, but in speaking later of his first experience in the schoolroom, he says, "It seemed as if I had found something I had never known, but always longed for, always missed; as if my life had at last discovered its native element. I felt as happy as the fish in the water, the bird in the air."
Although Froebel succeeded at once in his new profession, thereby justifying Dr. Gruner's opinion of him, he felt that he needed special preparation for the work of teaching. Accordingly, in 1808, after two years' experience in teaching, having in the meantime visited Pestalozzi at Yverdon, and having read his works, he gave up his position and joined the institute at Yverdon.
He took with him three of his pupils to tutor, and "it thus happened," he tells us, "that I was there both as teacher and scholar, educator and pupil." Froebel spent two years at Yverdon, and his testimony concerning Pestalozzi is interesting. He says, "He set one's soul on fire for a higher and nobler life, though he had not made clear or sure the exact road toward it, nor indicated the means whereby to attain it." This sums up in a word the secret and extent of Pestalozzi's power. Dittes thinks that "the origin of the kindergarten is due to the pedagogical revival of Pestalozzi." Froebel himself, speaking of his experience at Yverdon, says, "I studied the boys' play, the whole series of games in the open air, and learned to recognize their mighty power to awaken and to strengthen the intelligence and the soul as well as the body." Here we find the first suggestion of the kindergarten, which has made Froebel famous.