FROEBEL, Frarnnrcir WILUELII AUGUST, 1782-1852; a German philosopher, philanthropist, and educational reformer. He was the son of a priest, and lost his mother while in infancy. An uncle gave him a home and sent him to school; but he was a strange child, and passed for a dunce; so while his half-brother was sent to the university, F. was apprenticed to a forester. In the grand Thuringian forest his study of nature, despite the absence of scientific instruction, gave him a profound insight into the laws of the universe, strengthened his inborn tendency to mysticism; and when at the age of 17 he left the forest, he seemed to have been possessed by the main ideas which influ enced his after-life. He was too poor to study in the university, although he tried it fora few months, returning home with dark prospects. When he was 20 years old his father died, and he was left to take care of himself. For more than three yearshe tried one thing and another, satisfied with nothing, but always believed that he had some great work to do; and at last, while studying architecture in Frankfort, he became acquainted with the director of a model school who had caught some of enthusiasm of Pestalozzi. He took a place in the school, and worked with success for two years. Then undertaking the education of three boys in one family, he took them to Yverdon, near Neufchatel, forming with them a part of the celebrated institution of Pcstalozzi. Here, taking the results at which Pestalozzi had arrived through the necessity of his opinion, F. developed their principles by deduction from the nature of man. In 1811, he begs n study at Gottingen ; but again was interrupted, this time by the king of Prussia's celebrated call " to my peple." Though not a Prussian, he enlisted and went through the campaign of 1813. While he did his duty as a soldier, he carried in his thoughts his future calling as an educator. After the peace of 1814, Froebel became curator of the museum of mineralogy in Berlin. Learning that his brother's widow in a village on the Ilm was in trouble, F. gave up his post and set out on foot to assist her. He spent his last groschen on the way for bread. He undertook the education of his orphan niece and nephews, and of the nephews sent by another brother, and with these children opened a school in the village of Keilhau, in Thuringia. Froebel, with his friends Langethal, Middendorf, and Barop, a relative off Middendorf's all married, and formed an educational community. The little school increased, though its founders were often in straits for money, and sometimes even for food. In his conferences with young Swiss teachers sent to him by the government on the
occasion of his being in Lucerne, he found that the schools suffered from the state of the raw material brought into them. Until the school age was reached, the children were entirely neglected. His conception of harmonious development naturally led him to attach much importance to the earliest years, and his great work on the Thitteation cf Aran, published in 1826, deals chiefly with the child up to the age of seven. At Burg dorf, where he had these young teachers for pupils, his thoughts were much occupied with the proper treatment of young children, and in scheming for them a graduated course of exercises, modeled on the games in which lie observed them to be most interested. In his eagerness to carry out his own plans he became impatient of official restraints; so he returned to Keilhau and soon afterwards opened the first ",kinder garten" or "garden of children," in the neighboring village of Blankenburg in 1b37. In 1849, he attracted within the circle of his influence a woman of great intellectual power, the baroness von Marenholtz-Billow, who, in her Recollections of Friedrich Froebel, has given us the only life-like portrait we possess. It seemed that those were to be Froebel's most peaceful days. He had become a widower; and now, marrying again, he began the education of young women for teachers. But trouble came upon him from an unexpected quarter. His nephew Karl had published books advocating theories widely different from those of P., and which were deemed socialistic. The distinction between the two men was overlooked, and in the reaction which soon set in after the year of revolutions, 1848, P. found himself suspected of socialism and irre ligion; and in 1851 the " cultus-minister" Hamner issued an edict forbidding the estab lishment in Prussia of schools "after Friedrich and Karl Froebel's principles." This was a heavy blow to the old man, who had looked to the government of the " Cultus staat" Prussia for support, but 'was met with denunciation The charges brought against F. were absurdly untrue. Whether from the worry of this new controversy, or from whatever cause, F. did not long survive the decree. His 70th birthday was cele brated 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.