Part 29

§ 7. At the peace of Fontainebleau (signed in May, 1814) Froebel returned to Berlin, and became curator of the Museum of Mineralogy under Professor Weiss. In accepting this appointment from the Government he seemed to turn aside from his work as educator; but if not teaching he was learning. The unity of nature and human nature seemed more and more to reveal itself to him. Of the days past in the museum he afterwards wrote: “Here was I at the central point of my life and strife, where inner working and law, where life, nature, and mathematics were united in the fixed crystaline form, where a world of symbols lay open to the inner eye.” Again he says: “The stones in my hand and under my eye became speaking forms. The world of crystals declared to me the life and laws of life of man, and in still but real and sensible speech taught the true life of humanity.” “Geology and crystallography not only opened for me a higher circle of knowledge and insight, but also showed me a higher goal for my inquiry, my speculation, and my endeavour. Nature and man now seemed to me mutually to explain each other through all their numberless various stages of development. Man, as I saw, receives from a knowledge of natural objects, even because of their immense deep-seated diversity, a foundation for and a guidance towards a knowledge of himself and life, and a preparation for the manifestation of that knowledge” (_Autob._ _ut supra_, p. 97). More and more the thought possessed him that the one thing needful for man was unity of development, perfect evolution in accordance with the laws of his being, such evolution as science discovers in the other organisms of nature.

§ 8. He at first intended to become a teacher of natural science, but before long wider views dawned upon him. Langethal and Middendorff were in Berlin, engaged in tuition. Froebel gave them regular instruction in his theory, and at length, counting on their support, he resolved to set about realising his own idea of “the new education.” This was in 1816. Three years before one of his brothers, a clergyman, had died of fever caught from the French prisoners. His widow was still living in the parsonage at Griesheim, a village on the Ilm. Froebel gave up his post in Berlin, and set out for Griesheim on foot, spending his very last groschen on the way for bread. Here he undertook the education of his orphan niece and nephews, and also of two more nephews sent him by another brother. With these he opened a school, and wrote to Middendorff and Langethal to come and help in the experiment. Middendorff came at once, Langethal a year or two later, when the school had been moved to Keilhau, another of the Thuringian villages, which became the Mecca of the new faith. In Keilhau, Froebel, Langethal, Middendorff, and Barop, a relation of Middendorff’s, all married and formed an educational community. Such zeal could not be fruitless, and the school gradually increased, though for many years its teachers, with Froebel at their head, were in the greatest straits for money, and at times even for food. Karl Froebel, who was brought up in the school, tells how, on one occasion, he and the other children were sent to ramble in the woods till some of the seed-corn provided for the coming year had been turned into bread for them. Besides these difficulties the community suffered from the panic and reaction after the murder of Kotzebue (1819), and were persecuted as a nest of demagogues. But “the New Education” was sufficiently successful to attract notice from all quarters; and when he had been ten years at Keilhau (1826) Froebel published his great work, _The Education of Man_.

§ 9. Four years later he determined to start other institutions in connexion with the parent institution at Keilhau; and being offered by a private friend the use of a castle on the Wartensee, in the canton of Lucerne, he left Keilhau under the direction of Barop, and with Langethal made a settlement in Switzerland. The ground, however, was very ill chosen. The Catholic clergy resisted what they considered as a Protestant invasion, and the experiment on the Wartensee and at Willisau in the same canton, to which the institution was moved in 1833, never had a fair chance. It was in vain that Middendorff at Froebel’s call left his wife and family at Keilhau, and laboured for four years in Switzerland without once seeing them. The Swiss institution never flourished. But the Swiss Government wished to turn to account the presence of the great educator; so young teachers were sent to Froebel for instruction, and finally he removed to Burgdorf (a town already famous from Pestalozzi’s labours there thirty years earlier) to undertake the establishment of a public orphanage, and also to superintend a course of teaching for schoolmasters. The elementary teachers of the canton were to spend three months every alternate year at Burgdorf, and there compare experiences, and learn of distinguished men such as Froebel and Bitzius.

§ 10. In his conferences with these teachers Froebel found that the schools suffered from the state of the raw material brought into them. Till the school age was reached the children were entirely neglected. Froebel’s conception of harmonious development naturally led him to attach much importance to the earliest years, and his great work on _The Education of Man_, published as early as 1826, deals chiefly with the education of children. At Burgdorf his thoughts were much occupied with the proper treatment of _young_ children, and in scheming for them a graduated course of exercises modelled on the games in which he observed them to be most interested. In his eagerness to carry out his new plans he grew impatient of official restraints; and partly from this reason, partly on account of his wife’s ill health, he left Burgdorf without even actually becoming “Waisenvater” (father of the orphans).[174] After a sojourn of some months in Berlin, where he was detained through family affairs, but used the opportunities thus afforded of examining the recently founded infant schools, Froebel returned to Keilhau, and soon afterwards opened the first _Kindergarten_, or “Garden of Children,” in the neighbouring village of Blankenburg (A.D. 1837). Not only the thing but the name seemed to Froebel a happy inspiration, and it has now become inseparably connected with his own. Perhaps we can hardly understand the pleasure he took in it unless we know its predecessor, _Kleinkinderbeschäftigungsanstalt_.

§ 11. Firmly convinced of the importance of the Kindergarten for the whole human race, Froebel described his system in a weekly paper (his _Sonntagsblatt_) which appeared from the middle of 1837 till 1840. He also lectured in great towns; and he gave a regular course of instruction to young teachers at Blankenburg.

§ 12. But although the principles of the Kindergarten were gradually making their way, the first Kindergarten was failing for want of funds. It had to be given up; and Froebel, now a widower (he had lost his wife in 1839), carried on his course for teachers first at Keilhau, and from 1848, for the last four years of his life, at or near Liebenstein, in the Thuringian Forest, and in the duchy of Meiningen. It is in these last years that the man Froebel will be best known to posterity; for in 1849 be attracted within the circle of his influence a woman of great intellectual power, the Baroness von Marenholtz-Bülow, who has given us in her _Recollections of Friedrich Froebel_ the only life-like portrait we possess. In these records of personal intercourse we see the truth of Deinhardt’s words: “The living perception of universal and ideal truth which his talk revealed to us, his unbounded enthusiasm for the education and happiness of the human race, his willingness to offer up everything he possessed for the sake of his idea, the stream of thoughts which flowed from his enthusiasm for the ideal as from an inexhaustible fountain, all these made Froebel a wonderful appearance in the world, by whom no unprejudiced spectator could fail to be attracted and elevated.”

§ 13. These seemed likely to be Froebel’s most peaceful days. He married again; and having now devoted himself to the training of women as educators, he spent his time in instructing his class of young female teachers. But trouble came upon him from a quarter whence he least expected it. In the great year of revolutions, 1848, Froebel had hoped to turn to account the general eagerness for improvement, and Middendorff had presented an address on Kindergartens to the German Parliament. Besides this a nephew of Froebel’s published books which were supposed to teach socialism. True the uncle and nephew differed so widely that “the New Froebelians” were the enemies of the “Old.” But the distinction was overlooked, and Friedrich and Karl Froebel were regarded as the united advocates of “some new thing.” In the reaction which soon set in, Froebel found himself suspected of socialism and irreligion; and in 1851 the _Cultus-minister_ Raumer issued an edict forbidding the establishment of schools “after Friedrich and Karl Froebel’s principles” in Prussia. It was in vain that Froebel proved that his principles differed fundamentally from his nephew’s. It was in vain that a congress of schoolmasters, presided over by the celebrated Diesterweg, protested against the calumnious decree. The Minister turned a deaf ear, and the decree remained in force ten years after the death of Froebel (_i.e._, till 1862). But the edict was a heavy blow to the old man, who looked to the Government of the “_Cultus-staat_” Prussia for support, and was met with denunciation. Of the justice of the charge brought by the Minister against Froebel the reader may judge from the account of his principles given below.

Whether from the worry of this new controversy, or from whatever cause, Froebel did not long survive the decree. His seventieth birthday was celebrated with great rejoicings in May, 1852, but he died in the following month, and lies buried at Schweina, a village near his last abode, Marienthal.

§ 14. Throughout these essays my object has been to collect what seemed to me the most valuable lessons of various Reformers. In doing this I have had to judge and decide what was most valuable, and at times to criticise and differ from my authorities. This may perhaps give rise to the question, Do you then think yourself the superior or at least the equal of the great men you criticise? and I could only reply in all sincerity, I most certainly do not. If I am asked further, what then is my attitude towards them? I reply, it differs very much with different individuals. I cannot say I am prepared to sit at the feet of Mulcaster, or Dury, or Petty. In writing of these men I simply point out very early expression of ideas that following generations have developed partially and we are developing still. When we come to the great leaders we see among them men like Comenius who unite a thorough study of what has already been thought and done with a genius for original thinking, men like Locke with splendid intellectual gifts and a power of happy and clear expression, men like Rousseau with a talent for shaking themselves free from “custom”—custom which “lies upon us with a weight, Heavy as frost and deep almost as life,” and besides this (in his case at least) endowed with a voice to be heard throughout the world. Then again we have men like Pestalozzi who with a genius for investigating, devote their lives to the investigation, and men like Froebel who seem to penetrate to a region above us or at least beyond us, and to talk about it in language which at times only partially conveys a meaning. From all these men we have much to learn; and that we may do this we must come as learners to them. When we thus come we find that the great lessons they teach become clearer and clearer as each takes up wholly or in part what has been taught by his predecessors and adds to it. Some of these lessons we may now receive as established truths and seek to conform our practice to them. But in following our leaders we dare not close our eyes. Before we can know anything we must see it, as Locke says, with our mind’s eye. The great thing is to keep the eye of the mind wide open and always on the lookout for truth. Acting on this conviction I have not blindly accepted the dicta even of the greatest men but have selected those of their lessons which are taught if not by all at least by most of them, and which also seem to evoke “the spontaneous spring of the intelligence towards truth” (see p. 362, _supra_).

§ 15. In reading Froebel however I am conscious that this “spring” is wanting. Before one can accept teaching one must at least understand it, and this preliminary is not always possible when we would learn from Froebel. At times he goes entirely out of sight, and whether the words we hear are the expression of deep truth or have absolutely no meaning at all, I for my part am at times totally unable to determine. But where I can understand him he seems to me singularly wise; and working in the same lines as Pestalozzi he in some respects advances far beyond his great predecessor.

§ 16. Both these men were devotees of science; but instead of finding in science anything antagonistic to religion they looked upon science as the expression of the mind of God. Their belief was just that which Sir Thomas Browne had uttered more than 200 years before in the _Religio Medici_: “Though we christen effects by their most sensible and nearest causes yet is God the true and infallible cause of all, whose concourse [_i.e._, concurrence, co-operation] though it be general, yet doth it subdivide itself into the particular actions of everything, and is that spirit by which each singular essence not only subsists but performs its operation.”[175] With this belief Froebel sought to trace everything back to the central Unity, to God. The author of the _De Imitatione Christi_ has said: “The man to whom all things are one, who refers all things to one and sees all things in one, he can stand firm and be at peace in God. Cui omnia unum sunt, et qui omnia ad unum trahit, et omnia in uno videt, potest stabilis esse et in Deo pacificus permanere” (_De Im. Xti._ lib. i; cap. 3, § 2). So thought Froebel, and his great longing was to refer all things to one and see all things in one. However little we may share this longing we must admit that it is a natural outcome from the Christian religion. If there is One in Whom all “live and move and have their being,” everything should be referred to Him. As Froebel says, “In Allem wirkt und schafft _Ein_ Leben, Weil das Leben All’ ein einz’ger Gott gegeben. (In everything there works and stirs _one_ life, because to all One God has given life.)” So long then as we remain Christians we must agree with Froebel that all true education is founded on Religion. Perhaps in the end we may adopt his high ideal and say with him, “Education should lead and guide man to clearness concerning himself and in himself, to peace with nature, and to unity with God; hence, it should lift him to a knowledge of himself and of mankind, to a knowledge of God and of Nature, and to the pure and holy life to which such knowledge leads.” (_E. of M._, Hailmann’s t., 5.) “The object of education is the realization of a faithful, pure, inviolate, and hence holy life” (_Ib._ 4).

§ 17. This is indeed a high ideal: and we naturally ask, If we would work towards it what road would Froebel point out to us? This brings us to his theory of development or, as it has been called since Darwin, evolution. The idea of organic growth was first definitely applied to the young by Pestalozzi, but it was more clearly and consistently applied by Froebel. It has gone forth conquering and to conquer; and though far indeed from being accepted by the teaching profession of this age, it is likely to have a vast influence on the practice of those who will come after them. I therefore give the following statement of it, which seems to me excellent:—

“The first thing to note in the idea of development is that it indicates, not an increase in bulk or quantity (though it may include this), but an increase in complexity of structure, an improvement in power, skill, and variety in the performance of natural functions. We say that a thing is fully developed when its internal organisation is perfect in every detail, and when it can perform all its natural actions or functions perfectly. If we apply this distinction to mind, an increase in bulk will be represented by an increase in the amount of material retained in the mind, in the memory; development will be a perfecting of the structure of the mind itself, an increase of power and skill and variety in dealing with knowledge, and in putting knowledge to all its natural uses. The next thing to consider is how this development is produced. How can we aid in promoting this change from germ to complete organism, from partially developed thing to more highly developed thing? The answer comes from every part of creation with ever-increasing clearness and emphasis—development is produced by exercise of function, use of faculty. Neglect or disuse of any part of an organism leads to the dwindling, and sometimes even to the disappearance, of that part. And this applies not only to individuals, but stretches also from parent to child, from generation to generation, constituting then what we call heredity, or what Froebel calls the connectedness of humanity. Slowly through successive generations a faculty or organ may dwindle and decay, or may be brought to greater and greater perfection. As Froebel puts it, humanity past, present, and future is one continuous whole. The _amount_ of development, then, possible in any particular case plainly depends partly on the original outfit, and partly (and as a rule in a greater measure) on the opportunities there have been for exercise, and the use made of those opportunities. If we wish to develop the hand, we must exercise the hand. If we wish to develop the body, we must exercise the body. If we wish to develop the mind, we must exercise the mind. If we wish to develop the _whole_ human being, we must _exercise the whole_ human being. But will _any_ exercise suffice? Again the answer is clear. Only that exercise which is always in harmony with the nature of the thing, and which is always proportioned to the strength of the thing, produces true development. All other exercise is partially or wholly hurtful. And another condition, evident in every case, becomes still more evident when we apply these laws to the mind. To produce development most truly and effectively, the exercise must arise from and be sustained by the thing’s own activity—its own natural powers, and all of them (as far as these are in _any_ sense connected with the activity proposed) should be awakened and become naturally active. If, for instance, we desire to further the development of a plant, what we have to do is to induce the plant (and the whole of it) to become active in its own natural way, and to help it to sustain that activity. We may abridge the time; we may modify the result; but we must act through and by the plant’s own activity. This activity of a thing’s own self we call _self-activity_ (_E. of M._, § 9). We generally consider the mind in the light of its three activities of _knowing, feeling, and willing_. The exercise which aims at producing mental development must be in harmony with the nature of _knowing_, _feeling_, and _willing_, and continually in proportion to their strength. And, further, it is found that the more the activity is that of the _whole_ mind, the more it is the mind’s _own_ activity—self-produced, and self-maintained, and self-directed—the better is the result. In other words, knowing, feeling, and willing must _all_ take their rightful share in the exercise; and, in particular, feeling and willing—the mind’s powers of prompting and nourishing, of maintaining and directing its own activities—must never be neglected” (H. C. Bowen on _Ed. of M._).

§ 18. “A divine message or eternal regulation of the Universe there verily is, in regard to every conceivable procedure and affair of man; faithfully following this, said procedure or affair will prosper ... not following this ... destruction and wreck are certain for every affair.” These words of Carlyle’s express Froebel’s thought about education. Before attempting to educate we must do all we can to ascertain the divine message and must then direct our proceedings by it. The divine message must be learnt according to Froebel by studying the nature of the organism we have to assist in developing. Each human being must “develop from within, self-active and free, in accordance with the eternal law. This is the problem and the aim of all education in instruction and training; there can be and should be no other” (_Ed. of M._, 13). For “all has come forth from the Divine, from God, and is through God alone conditioned. To this it is that all things owe their existence—to the Divine working in them. The Divine element that works in each thing is the true idea (_das Wesen_) of the thing.” Therefore “the destiny and calling of all things is to develop their true idea, and in so doing to reveal God in outward and through passing forms.”

§19. What we must think of then is the “true idea” which each child should develop. How is this idea to be ascertained? In other words, how are we to learn the Divine Message about the bringing up of children? This Message is given us through the works of God. “In the creation, in nature and the order of the material world, and in the progress of mankind, God has given us the true type (_Urbild_) of education.”

§ 20. So Froebel would have all educators lay to heart the great principle of the Baconian philosophy: We command Nature only by obeying her. They are to be very cautious how they interfere, and the education they give is to be “passive, following.” Even in teaching they must bear in mind, that “the purpose of teaching is to bring ever more _out of_ man rather than to put more and more _into_ him.” (_Ed. of M._, 279.) Froebel in fact taught the Pestalozzian doctrine that the function of the educator was that of “benevolent superintendence.”[176]

§21. But if Froebel would thus limit the action of the educator he would greatly extend the action of those educated; and here we see the great principle with which the name of Froebel is likely to be permanently associated. “The starting-point of all that appears, of all that exists, and therefore of all intellectual conception, is act, action. From the act, from action, must therefore start true human education, the developing education of the man; in action, in acting, it must be rooted and must spring up.... Living, acting, conceiving,—these must form a triple chord within every child of man, though the sound now of this string, now of that, may preponderate, and then again of two together.”