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Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
OF
FRIEDRICH FROEBEL
TRANSLATED AND ANNOTATED BY
EMILIE MICHAELIS,
_Head Mistress of the Croydon Kindergarten and Preparatory School_,
AND
H. KEATLEY MOORE, MUS. BAC., B.A.,
_Examiner in Music to the Froebel Society and Vice-Chairman of the Croydon
Kindergarten Company._
*"Come, let us live for our children."*
SYRACUSE, N.Y.:
C.W. BARDEEN, PUBLISHER.
1889.
German Books on Pedagogy.
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3. _Pestalozzi. Wie Gertrud ihre Kinder lehrt._ Mit einer Einleitung,
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5. _Diesterweg. Rhenische Blätter._ Mit einer Einleitung, "F.A.W.
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6. _Jacotot. Universal Unterricht._ Mit einer "Darstellung des Lebens
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7. _Fröbel._ Pädagogische Schriften. Herausgegeben von SEIDEL. 3 vols.
Price $7.00.
8. _Fichte._ Pädagogisch Schriften und Ideen. Mit "biographischer
Einleitung und gedrängter Darstellung von Fichte's Pädagogik," von
KEFERSTEIN. Price $2.00.
9. _Martin Luther._ Pädagogische Schrifte. Mit Einleitung von SCHUMANN.
Price $1.50.
10. _Herder als Pädagog._ Von MORRES. Price 75 cts.
11. _Geschichte der Pädagogik._ in Biographen, Uebersichten, und Proben
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11. _Lexikon der Pädagogik._ Von SANDER. Price $3.50.
For sale by
*C.W. BARDEEN, Publisher, Syracuse, N.Y.*
PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.
It will be long before we have a biography of Froebel to compare with
DeGuimp's _Pestalozzi_, of which an English translation has just
appeared. Meantime we must content ourselves with two long
autobiographical letters contained in this volume, which, though
incomplete, have yet the peculiar charm that comes from the candid
record of genuine impressions.
The first of these letters, that to the Duke of Meiningen, has already
appeared in English, in a translation by Miss Lucy Wheelock for
Barnard's _American Journal of Education_, since reprinted in pp. 21-48
of his _Kindergarten and Child Culture_, (see p. 146), and in a small
volume under the title _Autobiography of Froebel_ (see p. 146). While a
faithful attempt to reproduce the original, this translation struggled
in vain to transform Froebel's rugged and sometimes seemingly incoherent
sentences into adequate and attractive English, so that the long letter
has proved to most English readers formidable and repellant. But in the
original it is one of the most charming productions in literature,
candid and confidential in tone, and detailing those inner gropings for
ideas that became convictions which only an autobiography can reveal.
These qualities are so admirably preserved in the translation by Miss
Emily Michaelis and H. Keatley Moore that it seemed to leave nothing to
be desired. They have not only given a faithful rendering, but they have
impressed upon it the loving touch of faithful disciples. Accordingly I
purchased from the English publishers the American rights to this
translation; and have reproduced not only this letter, but that to the
philosopher Krause, with Barop's "Critical Moments," and the
"Chronological Abstract," all from duplicates of the English plates.
The rest of the volume appears for the first time. The Bibliography
seemed desirable, and is confined to attainable books likely to be of
value to American teachers. The Index is full, but not fuller than the
fragmentary character of the material seemed to require. The Table of
Contents will also serve to make reference easy to the principal evens
of Froebel's history.
In the lives of Pestalozzi and of Froebel many resemblances may be
traced. Both were sons of clergymen. Both were half-orphans from their
earliest recollections. Both were unhappy in childhood, were
misunderstood, companionless, awkward, clumsy, ridiculed. Both were as
boys thrown into the almost exclusive society of women, and both
retained to the last strongly feminine characteristics. Both were
throughout life lacking in executive ability; both were financially
improvident. Both were dependent for what they did accomplish upon
friends, and both had the power of inspiring and retaining friendships
that were heroic, Pestalozzi's Krüsi corresponding with Froebel's
Middendorf. Both became teachers only by accident, and after failure in
other professions. Both saw repeated disaster in the schools they
established, and both were to their last days pointed at as visionary
theorists of unsound mind. Both failed to realize their ideas, but both
planted their ideas so deeply in the minds of others that they took
enduring root. Both lacked knowledge of men, but both knew and loved
children, and were happiest when personally and alone they had children
under their charge. Both delighted in nature, and found in solitary
contemplation of flowers and woods and mountains relief from the
disappointments they encountered among their fellows.
But there were contrasts too. Pestalozzi had no family ties, while
Froebel maintained to the last the closest relations with several
brothers and their households. Pestalozzi married at twenty-three a
woman older than himself, on whom he thereafter relied in all his
troubles. Froebel deferred his marriage till thirty-six and then seems
to have regarded his wife more as an advantage to his school than as a
help-meet to himself.
Pestalozzi was diffident, and in dress and manner careless to the point
of slovenliness; Froebel was extravagant in his self-confidence, and at
times almost a dandy in attire. Pestalozzi was always honest and candid,
while Froebel was as a boy untruthful. Pestalozzi was touchingly humble,
and eager to ascribe the practical failure of his theories to his
personal inefficiency; Froebel never acknowledged himself in the wrong,
but always attributed failure to external causes. On the other hand,
while Froebel was equable in temperament, Pestalozzi was moody and
impressionable, flying from extreme gaiety to extreme dejection,
slamming the door if displeased with a lesson a teacher was giving, but
coming back to apologize if he met a child who smiled upon him. Under
Rousseau's influence Pestalozzi was inclined to skepticism, and limited
religious teaching in school to the reading of the gospels, and the
practice of Christianity; Froebel was deeply pious, and made it
fundamental that education should be founded plainly and avowedly upon
religion.
Intellectually the contrast is even stronger. While Froebel had a
university education, Pestalozzi was an eminently ignorant man; his
penmanship was almost illegible, he could not do simple sums in
multiplication, he could not sing, he could not draw, he wore out all
his handkerchiefs gathering pebbles and then never looked at them
afterward. Froebel was not only a reader but a scientific reader, always
seeking first to find out what others had discovered that he might
begin where they left off; Pestalozzi boasted that he had not read a
book in forty years. Naturally, therefore, Pestalozzi was always an
experimenter, profiting by his failures but always failing in his first
attempts, and hitting upon his most characteristic principles by
accident; while Froebel was a theorist, elaborating his ideas mentally
before putting them in practice, and never satisfied till he had
properly located them in his general scheme of philosophy.
And yet, curiously enough, it is Pestalozzi who was the author. His
"Leonard and Gertrude" was read by every cottage fireside, while
Froebel's writings were intelligible only to his disciples. Pestalozzi
had an exuberant imagination and delightful directness and simplicity of
expression; Froebel's style was labored and obscure, and his doctrines
may be better known through the "Child and Child Nature" of the Baroness
Marenholz von Buelow than through his own "Education of Man."
The account of Froebel's life given in this volume is supplemented
somewhat by the "Reminiscences" of this same Baroness, who became
acquainted with him in 1849, and was thereafter his most enthusiastic
and successful apostle. Till some adequate biography appears, that
volume and this must be relied upon for information of the man who
shares equally with Pestalozzi the honor of educational reform in this
century.
C.W. BARDEEN.
Syracuse, June 10, 1889.
COMMENTS UPON FROEBEL AND HIS WORK.
Und als er so, wie Wichard Lange richtig sagt, der Apostel des
weiblichen Gechlechts geworden war, starb er, der geniale, unermüdlich
thätige, von Liebe getragene Mann.--SCHMIDT, _Geschichte der Pädagogik_,
Cöthen, 1862, iv. 282.
En résumé, Rousseau aurait pu être déconcerté par les inventions
pratiques, un peu subtiles parfois, de l'ingénieux Froebel. Il eût
souri, comme tout le monde, des artifices par lesquels il obligeait
l'enfant à se faire acteur au milieu de ses petits camarades, à imiter
tour à tour le soldat qui monte la garde, le cordonnier qui travaille,
le cheval qui piétine, l'homme fatigué qui se repose. Mais, sur les
principes, il se serait mis aisément d'accord avec l'auteur de
_l'Education de l'homme_, avec un penseur à l'âme tendre et noble, qui
remplaçait les livres par les choses, qui à une instruction pédantesque
substituait l'éducation intérieure, qui aux connaissances positives
préférait la chaleur du sentiment, la vie intime et profonde de l'âme,
qui respectait la liberté et la spontanéité de l'enfant, qui enfin
s'efforçait d'écarter de lui les mauvaises influences et de faire à son
innocence un milieu digne d'elle--COMPAYRÉ's _Histoire Critique des
Doctrines de l'Éducation en France depuis le XVIme Siécle_, Paris, 1879,
ii. 125.
We might say that his effort in pedagogy consists chiefly in organizing
into a system the sense intuitions which Pestalozzi proposed to the
child somewhat at random and without direct plan.--COMPAYRÉ's _History
of Pedagogy_, Payne's translation, Boston, 1886, p. 449.
Er war gleich Pestalozzi von den höchsten Ideen der Zeit getragen und
suchte die Erziehung an diese Ideen anzuknüpfen. So lange die Mutter
nicht nach den Gesetzen der Natur ihr Kind erzieht und bildet und dafür
nicht ihr Leben einsetst, so lange--davon geht er aus--sind alle
Reformen der Schule auf Sand gebaut. Trotsdem verlegt er einen Theil der
mütterlichen Aufgabe in den Kindergarten, in welchem er die Kinder vor
ihre Schulpflichtigkeit vereinigt wissen will, (1) um auf die häusliche
Erziehung ergänzend und verbessernd einzuwirken, (2) um das Kind aus dem
Einzelleben heraus Zum Verkehr mil seinesgleichen zu führen, und (3) um
dem weiblichen Geschlechte Gelegenheit zu geben, sich auf seinen
erzieherischen Beruf vorzubereiten.--BÖHM's _Kurzgefasste Geschichte der
Pädagogik_, Nürnberg, 1880, p. 134.
Le jardin d'enfants est évidemment en opposition avec l'idée
fondamentale de Pestalozzi; car celui-ci avait confié entièrement à la
mère et au foyer domestique la tâche que Froebel remet, en grande
partie, aux jardins d'enfants et à sa directrice. A l'égard des rapports
de l'éducation domestique, telle qui elle est à l'heure qu'il est, on
doit reconnaître que Froebel avait un coup-d'oeil plus juste que
Pestalozzi.--_Histoire d'Éducation_, FREDERICK DITTES, Redolfi's French
translation, Paris, 1880, p. 258.
While others have taken to the work of education their own pre-conceived
notions of what that work should be, Froebel stands consistently alone
in seeking in the nature of the child the laws of educational action--in
ascertaining from the child himself how we are to educate him.--JOSEPH
PAYNE, _Lectures on the Science and Art of Education_, Syracuse, 1885,
p. 254.
Years afterwards, the celebrated Jahn (the "Father Jahn" of the German
gymnastics) told a Berlin student of a queer fellow he had met, who
made all sorts of wonderful things from stones and cobwebs. This queer
fellow was Froebel; and the habit of making out general truths from the
observation of nature, especially from plants and trees, dated from the
solitary rambles in the Forest.
As the cultivator creates nothing in the trees and plants, so the
educator creates nothing in the children,--he merely superintends the
development of inborn faculties. So far Froebel agrees with Pestalozzi;
but in one respect he was beyond him, and has thus become, according
to Michelet, the greatest of educational reformers. Pestalozzi said
that the faculties were developed by exercise. Froebel added that
the function of education was to develop the faculties by arousing
_voluntary activity_. Action proceeding from inner impulse
(_Selbsthäligkeit_) was the one thing needful, and here Froebel as
usual refers to God: "God's every thought is a work, a deed." As
God is the Creator, so must man be a creator also. Living acting,
conceiving,--these must form a triple cord within every child of man,
though the sound now of this string, now of that may preponderate, and
then again of two together.
Pestalozzi held that the child belonged to the family; Fichte on the
other hand, claimed it for society and the State. Froebel, whose mind,
like that of Frederick Maurice, delighted in harmonizing apparent
contradictions, and who taught that "all progress lay through opposites
to their reconciliations," maintained that the child belonged both to
the family and to society, and he would therefore have children spend
some hours of the day in a common life and in well-organized common
employments. These assemblies of children he would not call schools, for
the children in them ought not to be old enough for schooling. So he
invented the term _Kindergarten_, garden of children, and called the
superintendents "children's gardeners."--R.H. QUICK, in _Encyclopaedia
Britannica_, xix edition.
TABLE OF CONTENTS.
PAGE
INTRODUCTORY 1, 2
LETTER TO THE DUKE OF MEININGEN 3-101
Birth and early life 3, 104
Enters the girls' school 9
Goes away from home to Stadt-Ihm 15
Is apprenticed to a forester 24
Returns to his father's house 27
Goes to the University of Jena 28, 105
Returns home again 35
Goes to Bamberg as clerk 33
Becomes land-surveyor 39
Goes to the Oberfalz as accountant 42
Soon after to Mecklenberg 42
Gets small inheritance from his uncle 43
Goes to Frankfurt 48, 107
Becomes teacher in the Model School 31, 109
Visits Pestalozzi 52
Resigns to become a private tutor 65, 110
Takes his three pupils to Yverdon 77
Returns to Frankfurt 84
Goes to the University of Göttingen 84, 111
Goes to Berlin 89, 111
Enters the army 91, 111, 120
Becomes curator in Berlin 96, 111, 121
Enlists in the army again 100, 121
SUPPLEMENTARY REMARKS BY THE TRANSLATORS 102, 103
LETTER TO KRAUSE 104-125
Begins at Griesheim his ideal work 113, 121
Undertakes education of his nephews 121
Moves to Keilhau 122, 127
NOTE BY THE TRANSLATORS 126
CRITICAL MOMENTS IN THE FROEBEL COMMUNITY 127-137
Froebel goes to the Wartensee 131
Then to Willisau 132, 136
Then to the Orphanage at Burgdorf 135, 136
Visits Berlin 137
NOTES BY THE TRANSLATORS 138, 139
Death of Froebel 138
CHRONOLOGICAL ABSTRACT OF FROEBEL'S LIFE AND MOVEMENT 140-144
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF FROEBEL 145-152
INDEX 153-167
INTRODUCTORY.
The year 1882 was the centenary of Froebel's birth, and in the present
"plentiful lack" of faithful translations of Froebel's own words we
proposed to the Froebel Society to issue a translation of the "Education
of Man," which we would undertake to make at our own cost, that the
occasion might be marked in a manner worthy of the English branch of the
Kindergarten movement. But various reasons prevented the Society from
accepting our offer, and the lamentable deficiency still continues. We
have therefore endeavoured to make a beginning by the present work,
consisting of Froebel's own words done into English as faithfully as we
know how to render them, and accompanied with any brief explanation of
our own that may be essential to the clear understanding of the passages
given. We have not attempted to rewrite our author, the better to suit
the practical, clear-headed, common-sense English character, but have
preferred simply to present him in an English dress with his national
and personal peculiarities untouched.
In so doing we are quite aware that we have sacrificed interest, for in
many passages, if not in most, a careful paraphrase of Froebel would be
much more intelligible and pithy to English readers than a true
rendering, since he probably possesses every fault of style except
over-conciseness; but we feel that it is better to let Froebel speak for
himself.
For the faithfulness of translation we hope our respective nationalities
may have stood us in good stead. We would, however, add that a faithful
translation is not a verbal translation. The translator should rather
strive to write each sentence as the author would have written it in
English.
Froebel's opinions, character, and work grow so directly out of his
life, that we feel the best of his writing that a student of the
Kindergarten system could begin with is the important autobiographical
"Letter to the Duke of Meiningen," written in the year 1827, but never
completed, and in all probability never sent to the sovereign whose name
it bears. That this is the course Froebel would himself have preferred
will, we think, become quickly apparent to the reader. Besides, in the
boyhood and the earliest experiences of Froebel's life, we find the
sources of his whole educational system. That other children might be
better understood than he was, that other children might have the means
to live the true child-life that was denied to himself, and that by
their powers being directed into the right channels, these children
might become a blessing to themselves and to others, was undoubtedly in
great part the motive which induced Froebel to describe so fully all the
circumstances of his peculiar childhood. We should undoubtedly have a
clearer comprehension of many a great reformer if he had taken the
trouble to write out at length the impressions of his life's dawn, as
Froebel has done. In Froebel's particular case, moreover, it is evident
that although his account of himself is unfinished, we fortunately
possess all that is most important for the understanding of the origin
of the Kindergarten system. After the "Letter to the Duke of Meiningen,"
we have placed the shorter account of his life which Froebel included in
a letter to the philosopher Krause. A sketch of Barop's, which varies
the point of view by regarding the whole movement more in its outer
aspect than even Froebel himself is able to do, seemed to us also
desirable to translate; and finally we have added also a carefully
prepared "chronology" extended from Lange's list. Our translation is
made from the edition of Froebel's works published by Dr. Wichard Lange
at Berlin in 1862.
EMILIE MICHAELIS.
H. KEATLEY MOORE.
THE CROYDON KINDERGARTEN,
_January 1886_.
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FROEBEL.
(A LETTER TO THE DUKE OF MEININGEN.)
I was born at Oberweissbach, a village in the Thuringian Forest, in the
small principality of Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt, on the 21st April, 1782.
My father was the principal clergyman, or pastor, there.[1] (He died in
1802.) I was early initiated into the conflict of life amidst painful
and narrowing circumstances; and ignorance of child-nature and
insufficient education wrought their influence upon me. Soon after my
birth my mother's health began to fail, and after nursing me nine months
she died. This loss, a hard blow to me, influenced the whole environment
and development of my being: I consider that my mother's death decided
more or less the external circumstances of my whole life.
The cure of five thousand souls, scattered over six or seven villages,
devolved solely on my father. This work, even to a man so active as my
father, who was very conscientious in the fulfilment of his duty as
minister, was all-absorbing; the more so since the custom of frequent
services still prevailed. Besides all this, my father had undertaken to
superintend the building of a large new church, which drew him more and
more from his home and from his children.
I was left to the care of the servants; but they, profiting by my
father's absorption in his work, left me, fortunately for me, to my
brothers, who were somewhat older than myself.[2] This, in addition
to a circumstance of my later life, may have been the cause of that
unswerving love for my family, and especially for my brothers, which
has, to the present moment, been of the greatest importance to me in
the conduct of my life. Although my father, for a village pastor, was
unusually well informed--nay, even learned and experienced--and was an
incessantly active man, yet in consequence of this separation from him
during my earliest years I remained a stranger to him throughout my
life; and in this way I was as truly without a father as without a
mother. Amidst such surroundings I reached my fourth year. My father
then married again, and gave me a second mother. My soul must have felt
deeply at this time the want of a mother's love,--of parental love,--for
in this year occurs my first consciousness of self. I remember that I
received my new mother overflowing with feelings of simple and faithful
child-love towards her. These sentiments made me happy, developed my
nature, and strengthened me, because they were kindly received and
reciprocated by her. But this happiness did not endure. Soon my
step-mother rejoiced in the possession of a son of her own;[3] and then
her love was not only withdrawn entirely from me and transferred to her
own child, but I was treated with worse than indifference--by word and
deed, I was made to feel an utter stranger.
I am obliged here to mention these circumstances, and to describe them
so particularly, because in them I see the first cause of my early
habit of introspection, my tendency to self-examination, and my early
separation from companionship with other men. Soon after the birth of
her own son, when I had scarcely entered my boyhood, my step-mother
ceased to use the sympathetic, heart-uniting "thou" in speaking to me,
and began to address me in the third person, the most estranging of our
forms of speech. And as in this mode of address the third person, "he,"
isolates the person addressed, it created a great chasm between my
step-mother and me.[4] At the beginning of my boyhood, I already felt
utterly lonely, and my soul was filled with grief.
Some coarse-minded people wished to make use of my sentiments and my
mood at this time to set me against my step-mother, but my heart and
mind turned with indignation from these persons, whom I thenceforth
avoided, so far as I was able. Thus I became, at an early age, conscious
of a nobler, purer, inner-life, and laid the foundation of that proper
self-consciousness and moral pride which have accompanied me through
life. Temptations returned from time to time, and each time took a more
dangerous form: not only was I suspected as being capable of unworthy
things, but base conduct was actually charged against me, and this in
such a way as left no doubt of the impropriety of the suspicion and of
the untruthfulness of the accusation. So it came to pass that in the
first years of my boyhood I was perforce led to live to myself and in
myself--and indeed to study my own being and inner consciousness, as
opposed to external circumstances. My inward and my outward life were
at that time, even during play and other occupations, my principal
subjects for reflection and thought.
A notable influence upon the development and formation of my character
was also exercised by the position of my parents' house. It was closely
surrounded by other buildings, walls, hedges, and fences, and was
further enclosed by an outer courtyard, a paddock, and a kitchen garden.
Beyond these latter I was strictly forbidden to pass. The dwelling had
no other outlook than on to the buildings to right and left, the big
church in front, and at the back the sloping fields stretching up a high
hill. For a long time I remained thus deprived of any distant view: but
above me I saw the sky, clear and bright as we so often find it in the
hill country; and around me I felt the pure fresh breeze stirring. The
impression which that clear sky and that pure air then made on me has
remained ever since present to my mind. My perceptions were in this
manner limited to only the nearest objects. Nature, with the world of
plants and flowers, so far as I was able to see and understand her,
early became an object of observation and reflection to me. I soon
helped my father in his favourite occupation of gardening, and in this
way received many permanent perceptions; but the consciousness of the
real life in nature only came to me further on, and I shall return to
the point hereafter in the course of my narrative. Our domestic life at
this time gave me much opportunity for occupation and reflection. Many
alterations went on in our house; both my parents were exceedingly
active-minded, fond of order, and determined to improve their dwelling
in every possible way. I had to help them according to my capacity, and
soon perceived that I thereby gained strength and experience; while
through this growth of strength and experience my own games and
occupations became of greater value to me.
But from my life in the open air amongst the objects of nature, and from
the externals of domestic life, I must now turn to the inner aspects of
my home and family.
My father was a theologian of the old school, who held knowledge and
science in less estimation than faith; but yet he endeavoured to keep
pace with the times. For this purpose he subscribed to the best
periodicals he could obtain, and carefully examined what information
they offered him. This helped not a little to elevate and enlighten the
old-fashioned truly Christian life which reigned in our family. Morning
and evening all its members gathered together, and even on Sunday as
well, although on that day divine service would of course also call upon
us to assemble for common religious worship. Zollikofer, Hermes,
Marezoll, Sturm, and others, turned our thoughts, in those delightful
hours of heavenly meditation, upon our innermost being, and served to
quicken, unfold, and raise up the life of the soul within us. Thus my
life was early brought under the influence of nature, of useful
handiwork, and of religious feelings; or, as I prefer to say, the
primitive and natural inclinations of every human being were even in my
case also tenderly fostered in the germ. I must mention here, with
reference to my ideas regarding the nature of man, to be treated of
later, and as throwing light upon my professional and individual work,
that at this time I used repeatedly, and with deep emotion, to resolve
to try and be a good and brave man. As I have heard since, this firm
inward resolution of mine was in flagrant contrast with my outward life.
I was full of youthful energy and in high spirits, and did not always
know how properly to moderate my vivacity. Through my want of restraint
I got into all kinds of scrapes. Often, in my thoughtlessness, I would
destroy the things I saw around me, in the endeavour to investigate and
understand them.
My father was prevented by his manifold occupations from himself
instructing me. Besides, he lost all further inclination to teach me,
after the great trouble he found in teaching me to read--an art which
came to me with great difficulty. As soon as I could read, therefore, I
was sent to the public village school.
The position in which my father stood to the village schoolmasters, that
is to say, to the Cantor,[5] and to the master of the girls' school, and
his judgment of the value of their respective teaching, decided him to
send me to the latter. This choice had a remarkable influence on the
development of my inner nature, on account of the perfect neatness,
quiet, intelligence, and order which reigned in the school; nay, I may
go further, and say the school was exactly suitable for such a child as
I was. In proof of this I will describe my entrance into the school. At
that time church and school generally stood in strict mutual
relationship, and so it was in our case. The school children had their
special places in church; and not only were they obliged to attend
church, but each child had to repeat to the teacher, at a special class
held for the purpose every Monday, some passage of Scripture used by the
minister in his sermon of the day before, as a proof of attention to the
service. From these passages that one which seemed most suitable to
children was then chosen for the little ones to master or to learn by
heart, and for that purpose one of the bigger children had during the
whole week, at certain times each day, to repeat the passage to the
little children, sentence by sentence. The little ones, all standing up,
had then to repeat the text sentence by sentence in like manner, until
it was thoroughly imprinted on their memories.
I came into school on a Monday. The passage chosen for that week was,
"Seek ye first the kingdom of God." I heard these words every day in the
calm, serious, somewhat sing-song voices of the children, sometimes
repeated by one child, sometimes by the whole number. And the text made
an impression upon me such as none had ever done before and none ever
did after. Indeed, this impression was so vigorous and permanent, that
to this day every word spoken, with the special tone and expression then
given to it, is still vivid in my mind. And yet that is now nearly forty
years ago! Perhaps even then the simple boy's heart felt that these
words would be the foundation and the salvation of his life, bringing to
him that conviction which was to become later on to the working and
striving man a source of unconquerable courage, of unflinching,
ever-ready, and cheerful self-sacrifice. In short, my introduction into
that school was my birth into the higher spiritual life.
Here I break off my narrative to ask myself whether I dare venture to
pause yet a little longer over this first period of my life. But this
was the time when the buds began to unfold on my tree of life; this was
the time when my heart found its pivot-point, and when first my inner
life awoke. If, then, I succeed in giving an exact description of my
early boyhood, I shall have provided an important aid to the right
understanding of my life and work as a man. For that reason I venture to
dwell at some inordinate length on this part of my life, and the more
willingly since I can pass more quickly over later periods.
It often suggests itself to me, while thus reviewing and describing my
life, just as it does with teaching and education--namely, that those
things which are by most men thrown aside as common and unimportant are
the very things which are, as I take it, of weightiest import. In my
eyes, it is always a mistake to leave a gap in the rudimentary and
fundamental part of a subject. Still I know one may exhaust the patience
of a reader by touching on every minute detail, before he has been
permitted to glance at the whole picture and to gather its scope and
object. Therefore I beg your Highness[6] to pass over, at all events on
the first reading, anything that may appear too long and too detailed.
Against standing rules, I was received in the girls' school, on account
of the position of my father as pastor of the district. For the same
reason I was placed, not with the pupils of my own age, but close to the
teacher, which brought me among the elder girls. I joined in their
lessons as far as I could. In two subjects I was quite able to do this.
First, I could read the Bible with them; and, secondly, I had to learn
line by line, instead of the little texts of the younger children
already spoken of, the hymns for the following Sunday's service. Of
these, two especially light up the gloomy lowering dawn of my early
boyhood, like two brilliant stars. They are--"Schwing dich auf, mein
Herz und Geist," and "Es kostet viel ein Christ zu sein."[7] These hymns
were hymns of life to me. I found my own little life expressed therein;
and they took such a hold upon me that often in later years I have found
strength and support in the message which they carried to my soul. My
father's home life was in complete harmony with this discipline of the
school. Although divine service was held twice on Sundays, I was but
very seldom allowed to miss attending each service. I followed my
father's sermons with great attention, partly because I thought I found
in them many allusions to his own position, profession, and life.
Looking back, I consider it of no slight importance that I used to hear
the service from the vestry, because I was there separated from the
congregation, and could the better keep my attention from wandering.
I have already mentioned that my father belonged to the old orthodox
school of theology; and in consequence the language both of his hymns
and of his sermons was mystical and symbolic--a style of speech which,
in more than one sense, I should call a stone-language, because it
requires an overwhelming power to burst its walls, and free from this
outer shell the life contained within. But what the full strength of
later life seems too weak to attain, is often accomplished by the
living, life-awakening, and life-giving power of some simple, thoughtful
young soul, by some young spirit first unfolding its wings, busily
seeking everywhere for the causes and connections of all things. Even
for such a youth, the treasure is to be gained only after long
examination, inquiry, and reflection. If ever I found that for which I
so longingly sought, then was I filled with exceeding joy.
The surroundings amidst which I had grown up, especially those in which
my first childhood was passed, had caused my senses to be much and early
exercised. The pleasures of the senses were from the first, therefore,
an object for the closest consideration with me. The results of this
analysing and questioning habit of my early boyhood were perfectly clear
and decisive, and, if not rendered into words, were yet firmly settled
in my mind. I recognised that the transitory pleasures of the senses
were without enduring and satisfying influence on man, and that they
were therefore on no account to be pursued with too great eagerness.
This conviction stamped and determined my whole being, just as my
questioning examination and comparison of the inner with the outer
world, and my study of their inter-connection, is now the basis of my
whole future life. Unceasing self-contemplation, self-analysis, and
self-education have been the fundamental characteristics of my life from
the very first, and have remained so until these latest days.
To stir up, to animate, to awaken, and to strengthen, the pleasure and
power of the human being to labour uninterruptedly at his own education,
has become and always remained the fundamental principle and aim of my
educational work.
Great was my joy when I believed I had proved completely to my own
satisfaction that I was not destined to go to hell. The stony,
oppressive dogmas of orthodox theology I very early explained away,
perhaps assisted in this by two circumstances. Firstly, I heard these
expressions used over and over again, from my habit of being present at
the lessons given by my father in our own house, in preparation for
confirmation. I heard them used also in all sorts of ways, so that my
mind almost unconsciously constructed some sort of explanation of them.
Secondly, I was often a mute witness of the strict way in which my
father performed his pastoral duties, and of the frequent scenes between
him and the many people who came to the parsonage to seek advice and
consolation. I was thus again constantly attracted from the outer to the
inner aspects of life. Life, with its inmost motives laid bare, passed
before my eyes, with my father's comments pronounced upon it; and thing
and word, act and symbol were thus perceived by me in their most vivid
relationship. I saw the disjointed, heavy-laden, torn, inharmonious life
of man as it appeared in this community of five thousand souls, before
the watchful eyes of its earnest, severe pastor. Matrimonial and sexual
circumstances especially were often the objects of my father's gravest
condemnation and rebuke. The way in which he spoke about these matters
showed me that they formed one of the most oppressive and difficult
parts of human conduct; and, in my youth and innocence, I felt a deep
pain and sorrow that man alone, among all creatures, should be doomed to
these separations of sex, whereby the right path was made so difficult
for him to find. I felt it a real necessity for the satisfaction of my
heart and mind to reconcile this difficulty, and yet could find no way
to do so. How could I at that age, and in my position? But my eldest
brother, who, like all my elder brothers, lived away from home, came to
stay with us for a time; and one day, when I expressed my delight at
seeing the purple threads of the hazel buds, he made me aware of a
similar sexual difference in plants. Now was my spirit at rest. I
recognised that what had so weighed upon me was an institution spread
over all nature, to which even the silent, beautiful race of flowers was
submitted. From that time humanity and nature, the life of the soul and
the life of the flower, were closely knit together in my mind; and I can
still see my hazel buds, like angels, opening for me the great God's
temple of Nature.
I now had what I needed: to the Church was added the Nature-Temple; to
the religious Christian life, the life of Nature; to the passionate
discord of human life the tranquil peace of the life of plants. From
that time it was as if I held the clue of Ariadne to guide me through
the labyrinth of life. An intimate communion with Nature for more than
thirty years (although, indeed, often interrupted, sometimes for long
intervals) has taught me that plants, especially trees, are a mirror, or
rather a symbol, of human life in its highest spiritual relations; and I
think one of the grandest and deepest fore-feelings that have ever
emanated from the human soul, is before us when we read, in the Holy
Scriptures, of a tree of knowledge of good and evil. The whole of Nature
teaches us to distinguish good from evil; even the world of crystals and
stones--though not so vividly, calmly, clearly, and manifestly as the
world of plants and flowers. I said my hazel buds gave me the clue of
Ariadne. Many things grew clear to me: for instance, the earliest life
and actions of our first parents in Paradise, and much connected
therewith.
There are yet three points touching my inner life up to my tenth year,
which, before I resume the narrative of my outer life, I should like to
mention here.
The folly, superstition, and ignorance of men had dared to assume then,
as they have done lately, that the world would soon come to an end. My
mind, however, remained perfectly tranquil, because I reasoned thus with
myself firmly and definitely:--Mankind will not pass from the world,
nor will the world itself pass away, until the human race has attained
to that degree of perfection of which it is capable on earth. The earth,
Nature in its narrowest sense, will not pass away, moreover, until men
have attained a perfect insight into its essence. This idea has returned
to me during my life in many a varied guise, and I have often been
indebted to its influence for peace, firmness, perseverance, and
courage.
Towards the end of this epoch, my eldest brother, already spoken of, was
at the university, and studied theology.[8] Philosophic criticism was
then beginning to elucidate certain Church dogmas. It was therefore not
very surprising that father and son often differed in opinion. I
remember that one day they had a violent dispute about religion and
Church matters. My father stormed, and absolutely declined to yield; my
brother, though naturally of a mild disposition, flushed deep-red with
excitement; and he, too, could not abandon what he had recognised as
true. I was present also on this as on many other occasions, an
unobserved witness, and can still see father and son standing face to
face in the conflict of opinion. I almost thought I understood something
of the subject in dispute; I felt as if I must side with my brother, but
there seemed at the same time something in my father's view which
indicated the possibility of a mutual understanding. Already I felt in a
dim way that every illusion has a true side, which often leads men to
cling to it with a desperate firmness. This conviction has become more
and more confirmed in me the longer I have lived; and when at any time I
have heard two men disputing for the truth's sake, I have found that the
truth is usually to be learnt from both sides. Therefore I have never
liked to take sides; a fortunate thing for me.[9]
Another youthful experience which also had a decided influence in
forming my cast of character, was the following:--There are certain
oft-repeated demands made upon the members of our Established Church;
such as, to enter upon the service of Christ, to show forth Christ in
one's life, to follow Jesus, etc. These injunctions were brought home to
me times without number through the zeal of my father as a teacher of
others and a liver himself of a Christian life. When demands are made on
a child which are in harmony with child nature, he knows no reluctance
in fulfilling them; and as he receives them entirely and unreservedly,
so also he complies with them entirely and unreservedly. That these
demands were so often repeated convinced me of their intense importance;
but I felt at the same time the difficulty, or indeed, as it seemed to
me, the impossibility of fulfilling them. The inherent contradiction
which I seemed to perceive herein threw me into great depression; but at
last I arrived at the blessed conviction that human nature is such that
it is not impossible for man to live the life of Jesus in its purity,
and to show it forth to the world, if he will only take the right way
towards it.
This thought, which, as often as it comes into my mind, carries me back
even now to the scenes and surroundings of my boyhood, may have been not
improbably amongst the last mental impressions of this period, and it
may fitly close, therefore, the narrative of my mental development at
this age. It became, later, the point whereon my whole life hinged.
From what I have said of my boyish inner life, it might be assumed that
my outer life was a happy and peaceful one. Such an assumption would,
however, not be correct. It seems as if it had always been my fate to
represent and combine the hardest and sharpest contrasts. My outer life
was really in complete contrast with my inner. I had grown up without a
mother; my physical education had been neglected, and in consequence I
had acquired many a bad habit. I always liked to be doing something or
another, but in my clumsy way I made mistakes as to choice of materials,
of time, and of place, and thus often incurred the severe displeasure of
my parents. I felt this, being of a sensitive disposition, more keenly
and more persistently than my parents; the more so as I felt myself
generally to blame in form rather than in substance, and in my inmost
heart I could see there was a point of view from whence my conduct would
seem, in substance at all events, not altogether wrong, still less
blameworthy. The motives assigned to my actions were not those which
actuated me, so far as I could tell; and the consciousness of being
misjudged made me really what I had been believed to be before, a
thoroughly naughty boy. Out of fear of punishment I hid even the most
harmless actions, and when I was questioned I made untruthful answers.
In short, I was set down as wicked, and my father, who had not always
time to investigate the justice of the accusations against me,
remembered only the facts as they were represented to him. My neglected
childhood called forth the ridicule of others; when playing with my
step-brother, I was always, according to my mother, the cause of
anything that went wrong. As the mind of my parents turned more and more
away from me, so on my side my life became more and more separated from
theirs; and I was abandoned to the society of people who, if my
disposition had not been so thoroughly healthy, might have injured me
even more than they did. I longed to escape from this unhappy state of
things; and I considered my elder brothers fortunate in being all of
them away from home. Just at this melancholy time came home my eldest
brother. He appeared to me as an angel of deliverance, for he recognised
amidst my many faults my better nature, and protected me against
ill-treatment. He went away again after a short stay; but I felt that my
soul was linked to his, thenceforth, down to its inmost depths; and
indeed, after his death, this love of mine for him turned the whole
course of my life.[10]
The boon was at last vouchsafed me, and that at my greatest need, to
leave my father's house. Had it been otherwise, the flagrant
contradiction between my outer and inner life must necessarily have
developed the evil inclinations which had begun in earnest to fasten
upon me. A new life entirely different from the former now opened before
me. I was ten years and nine months old. But I pause yet another moment
in the contemplation of this period before I pass to its narration. In
order to be clearly understood by your serene Highness, which is very
necessary to me if I am to attain my object, I will compare, with your
permission, my former life with my present. I shall endeavour to show
how I trace the connection of my earlier and my later life; how my
earlier life has proved for me the means of understanding my later; how,
in general, my own individual life has become to me a key to the
universal life, or, in short, to what I call the symbolic life and the
perpetual, conditioned, and unbroken chain of existence.
Since, throughout the period which I have just described, my inner self,
my life and being, my desires and endeavours, were not discerned by my
parents, so is it with me now with regard to certain German
Governments.[11] And just as my outward life then was imperfect and
incomplete, through which incompleteness my inner life was
misunderstood, so also now the imperfection and incompleteness of my
establishment prevent people from discerning the true nature, the basis,
the source, the aim and purpose, of my desires and endeavours, and from
promoting them, after recognising their value, in a right princely and
patriotic spirit.
The misapprehension, the oppression under which I suffered in my early
years, prepared me to bear similar evils later on, and especially those
which weigh upon me in the present circumstances of my life. And as I
see my present private and public life and my destiny reflected in a
part of my former life, just so do I read and trace the present
universal life in my former individual life. Moreover, in the same way
as I tried as child or boy to educate myself to be a worthy man
according to those laws which God had implanted, unknown to me, within
my nature, so now do I strive in the same way, according to the same
laws, and by the same method, to educate the children of my country.
That for which I strove as a boy, not yet conscious of any purpose; the
human race now strives for with equal unconsciousness of purpose, but
for all that none the less truly. The race is, however, surrounded by
less favourable circumstances than those which influenced me in my
boyhood.
Life in its great as well as in its small aspects, in humanity and the
human race as well as in the individual (even though the individual man
often wilfully mars his own existence)--life, in the present, the past,
and the future, has always appeared to me as a great undivided whole, in
which one thing is explained, is justified, is conditioned and urged
forward by the other.
In order that, if it be possible, there should remain no obscurity
whatever in my actions, thoughts, and life, I shall proceed to consider
them all, down to the very latest event which has happened to me; that
is, the writing-down of this statement of my life for your Highness. My
life experience it is which urges me to do this; not any whim or
caprice. Common worldly wisdom would challenge such a step if it were
known; no one would desire to take it, no one would dare to take it. I
dare it, and I do it, because my childhood has taught me that where for
trust we find distrust, where for union we find division, where for
belief we find doubt, there but sad fruit will come to the harvest, and
a burdensome and narrow life alone can follow.
I return again to the narrative of the development of my inner and outer
life.
A new existence now began for me, entirely opposed to that which I had
hitherto led. An uncle on my mother's side came to visit us in this
year; he was a gentle, affectionate man.[12] His appearance among us
made a most agreeable impression upon me. This uncle, being a man of
experience, may have noticed the adverse influences which surrounded me;
for soon after his departure he begged my father by letter to turn me
over to him entirely. My father readily consented, and towards the end
of the year 1792 I went to him. He had early lost both wife and child,
and only his aged mother-in-law lived in his house with him. In my
father's house severity reigned supreme; here, on the contrary, mildness
and kindness held sway. There I encountered mistrust; here I was
trusted. There I was under restraint; here I had liberty. Hitherto I had
hardly ever been with boys of my own age; here I found forty
schoolfellows, for I joined the upper class of the town school.[13]
The little town of Stadt-Ilm is situated in a somewhat wide valley, and
on the banks of a small limpid stream.[14] My uncle's house had gardens
attached, into which I could go if I liked; but I was also at liberty to
roam all over the neighbourhood, if only I obeyed the strict rule of the
house to return punctually at the time appointed. Here I drank in fresh
life-energy in long draughts; for now the whole place was my playground,
whereas formerly, at home, I had been limited to our own walls. I gained
freedom of soul and strength of body.
The clergyman who taught us never interfered with our games, played at
certain appointed playgrounds, and always with great fun and spirit.
Deeply humiliating to me were the frequent slights I received in our
play, arising from my being behind boys of my age in bodily strength,
and more especially in agility; and all my dash and daring could not
replace the robust, steady strength, and the confident sureness of aim
which my companions possessed. Happy fellows! they had grown up in
continual exercise of their youthful boyish strength. I felt myself
exceedingly fortunate when I had at length got so far that my
schoolfellows could tolerate me as a companion in their games. But
whatever I accomplished in this respect by practice, by continual effort
of will, and by the natural course of life, I always felt myself
physically deficient in contrast with their uncramped boyish powers.
Setting aside that which I had been robbed of by my previous education,
my new life was vigorous and unfettered by external restraint; and they
tell me I made good use of my opportunity. The world lay open before me,
as far as I could grasp it. It may indeed be because my present life was
as free and unconstrained as my former life had been cramped and
constrained, anyhow the companions of my youth have reminded me of
several incidents of that time which make me think that my good spirits
led me to the borders of wildness and extravagance; although as a boy I
considered my demeanour quieter by far than that of my companions of my
own age. My communion with Nature, silent hitherto, now became freer and
more animated. And as, at the same time, my uncle's house was full of
peace and quiet contemplation, I was able as I grew up to develop that
side of my character also; thus on every side my life became
harmoniously balanced.
In two places, alike centres of education, I found myself as before
quite at home, even though I was more frequently than ever the victim of
absence of mind--I mean the church and the school. In the latter I
especially enjoyed the hours devoted to religious instruction. As with
my uncle himself, and with his life, so was it also with his sermons;
they were gentle, mild, and full of lovingkindness. I could follow them
quite readily, and in the Monday repetition at school I was able to give
a good account of them. But the religious instruction of our own
school-teacher responded best to my needs; all that I had worked out for
myself was placed by him in a fuller light, and received from him a
higher confirmation. Later in life, when I had grown to manhood, I spoke
with my uncle on the excellence of this teaching, and he made reply that
it was indeed very good, but was too philosophical and abstruse for
those to whom it was addressed; "for thee," continued he, "it may have
been well suited, since thou hadst already received such unusually good
instruction from thy father." Let that be as it may, this teaching
enlightened, animated, and warmed me,--nay, glowed within me till my
heart was completely melted, especially when it touched upon the life,
the work, and the character of Jesus. At this I would burst into tears,
and the longings to lead in future a similar life took definite form,
and wholly filled my soul. When I now hear tales of the ebullitions of
my youthful spirit occurring in that period of my life, I cannot help
thinking that they must have led superficial observers to the erroneous
opinion that the monitions and teachings of religion swept over my
spirit without leaving a trace of their passage. And yet how wrongly
would such observers have judged the true state of my inner life!
The subjects best taught in the school of Stadt-Ilm were reading,
writing, arithmetic, and religion. Latin was miserably taught, and still
worse learnt. Here, as in so many similar schools, the teaching utterly
lacked the elucidation of first principles. The time spent on Latin was
therefore not wasted upon me, in so far that I learnt from it that such
a method of teaching could bear no fruit among the scholars. Arithmetic
was a very favourite study of mine; and as I also received private
tuition in this subject, my progress was so rapid that I came to equal
my teacher both in theory and practice, although his attainments were by
no means despicable. But how astonished was I when, in my twenty-third
year, I first went to Yverdon, and found I could not solve the questions
there being set to the scholars! This was one of the experiences which
prepossessed me so keenly in favour of Pestalozzi's method of teaching,
and decided me to begin arithmetic myself from the very beginning over
again, according to his system. But more of this later.
In physical geography we repeated our tasks parrot-wise, speaking much
and knowing nothing; for the teaching on this subject had not the very
least connection with real life, nor had it any actuality for us,
although at the same time we could rightly name our little specks and
patches of colour on the map. I received private tuition in this subject
also. My teacher wished to advance further with me; he took me to
England. I could find no connection between that country and the place
and country in which I dwelt myself, so that of this instruction also I
retained but little. As for actual instruction in German, it was not to
be thought of; but we received directions in letter-writing and in
spelling. I do not know with what study the teaching of spelling was
connected, but I think it was not connected with any; it hovered in the
air. I had lessons, furthermore, in singing and in pianoforte playing,
but without result. I merely mention all this now, in order to be able
to refer to it later on.
My life the whole time of my stay with my uncle had three aspects: the
religious life developing and building up my moral being; the external
life made up of boyish play, into which I threw my whole energy; and the
life of thought quietly showing itself within my uncle's peaceful home.
To this last influence also I yielded myself with equal earnestness, and
felt no suspicion of the apparent contradiction which my outward life
exhibited to such a mood. Like my school-fellows, I lived without
control; as far as I saw or felt, I was untrammelled; and yet I do not
call to mind that any of us ever committed a seriously culpable action.
Here I am obliged to mention something which as an educationist I can by
no means pass lightly by. We received instruction from two
schoolmasters: one was pedantic and rigid; the other, more especially
our class-teacher (_conrector_), was large-hearted and free. The first
never had any influence over his class; the second could do whatever he
pleased with us, and if he had but set his mind to it, or perhaps if he
had been aware of his power, he might have done some thoroughly good
sound work with his class. In the little town of Stadt-Ilm were two
ministers, both ephors[15] of the school. My uncle, the principal
minister, was mild, gentle, and kind-hearted, impressive in daily life
as in his sacred office or in the pulpit; the other minister was rigid
even to sternness, frequently scolding and ordering us about. The first
led us with a glance. A word from him, and surely few were so brutish as
to refuse that word admittance to their heart. The long exhortations of
the other went, for the most part, over our heads, leaving no trace
behind. Like my father, my uncle was a true shepherd of his flock; but a
gentle lovingkindness to all mankind reigned in him. My father was moved
by the conviction of the rectitude of his actions; he was earnest and
severe. Both have been dead over twenty years; but how different is the
spirit they have left behind amongst their congregations. Here, they are
glad at being released from so strict a control, and, if I am rightly
informed, unbridled license has sprung up amongst them; there, the
little town raises itself to higher and ever higher prosperity, and all
things are made to serve towards mental culture, as well as towards a
right citizen-like business activity. I permit myself this digression,
because these results were paralleled as a life-experience in my own
life.
In this manner I lived, up to my confirmation; all but a few weeks, that
is, which I spent at my parents' house during the long holidays. Here,
too, everything seemed to take a gentler turn, and the domestic, thrifty
activity which filled the place, and always struck me anew in my
periodical visits home, wrought upon me with most beneficial effect. The
copper-plate engravings in my father's library were the first things I
sought out, especially those representing scenes in the history of the
world. A table showing our (German) alphabet in its relations with many
others made a surprising impression upon me. It enabled me to recognise
the connection and the derivation of our letters from the old Phoenician
characters. This gave me a dim conception of the inner connection of all
those languages of which, as my brother had studied and was still
studying them, I often heard, and saw in print. Especially the Greek
language lost much of its strangeness in my eyes, now that I could
recognise its characters in the German alphabet. All this, however, had
no immediate consequence in my life; these things, as echoes from my
youth, produced their effect upon me at a later time.
At this time, too, I read all sorts of boys' books. The story of Samuel
Lawill impressed me most vividly; I, too, longed for such a ring, which
by its warning pressure on my finger could hinder my hand from effecting
unworthy purposes, and I was very angry with the youthful owner of the
ring in the story, who threw it away in irritation because it pressed
him right hard at a moment when he wished to commit a passionate
deed.[16]
My confirmation, and the preparation for it, all conducted by my uncle,
was over. I had received from it the most impressive and the most
far-reaching influence in my whole life, and all my life-threads found
in it their point of union and repose. I had now to be prepared for some
business calling, and the question was raised, for which? That I should
not study at the university had already been decided long before by the
express determination of my step-mother. For since two of my
brothers[17] had devoted themselves to study, she feared that the
further additional expense would be too heavy a burden upon my father's
means. It may be that this intention had already influenced and limited
my whole course of instruction; and probably only the little narrow
circle of future business aims had been considered; the eye had not
looked upon the boy as a future man. Possibly from this cause I was kept
so little to Latin; it was enough if I learnt, as our mode of expression
ran, to "state a _Casus_" (that is, to decline a noun). From my own
experience it was thus shown to me how eminently injurious it is in
education and in instruction to consider only a certain circle of future
activities or a certain rank in life. The wearisome old-fashioned
education _ad hoc_ (that is, for some one special purpose) has always
left many a noble power of man's nature unawakened.
A career in our country frequently chosen by the worthiest and most
anxious parents for their sons is that of a post in the Treasury and
Exchequer. Aspirants to such a post have two means of entering and two
starting-points in this career; either they become a clerk to one of the
minor officials in the Treasury or Exchequer, or the personal servant of
one of the highest officials. As my knowledge of writing and figures
seemed to my father satisfactory and sufficient for such a post, and as
he knew well that it might lead, not merely to a life free from
pecuniary cares, but even to wealth and fortune, he chose this career as
mine. But the minor Treasury official who might have found employment
for such a young man, showed various reasons why he could not or would
not as yet receive me as a clerk. There was something in my nature which
revolted against the second mode I have mentioned of entering this
career; something which I never afterwards experienced, but which at the
time absolutely prevented me from choosing such a mode of starting in
my future profession, and that in spite of the most alluring hopes that
were held out to me. My father meant well and honestly by me, but fate
ruled it against him. Strangely enough, it happened that in my later
capacity of schoolmaster, I became the educator and teacher of two of
the nephews of that very man into whose service my father had meant to
have sent me; and I hope to God that I have been of greater service to
that family by filling the heart and brain of these young people with
good and useful notions than if I had brushed the clothes and shoes of
their uncle, and spread his table with savoury dishes. In the latter
case, very likely an externally easy and happy existence might have been
mine, whereas now I wage a constant fight with cares and difficulties.
Suffice it to say, this career was closed to me; a second was proposed
by my mother, but from this my father delivered me by expressing a
decided disapproval.
My own desires and inclinations were now at last consulted. I wanted to
be an agriculturist in the full meaning of the word; for I loved
mountain, field, and forest; and I heard also that to learn anything
solid in this occupation one must be well acquainted with geometry and
land-surveying. From what I had learnt of the latter by snatches now and
then, the prospect of knowing more about it delighted me much; and I
cared not whether I began with forestry, with farming, or with geometry
and land-surveying. My father tried to find a position for me; but the
farmers asked too high a premium. Just at this time he became acquainted
with a forester who had also a considerable reputation as land-surveyor
and valuer. They soon came to terms, and I was apprenticed to this man
for two years, to learn forestry, valuing, geometry, and land-surveying.
I was fifteen years and a half old when I became an apprentice to the
forester, on Midsummer Day 1797.
It was two days' journey from my home to the forester's, for his
district was not in our country. The man often gave me proofs of his
thorough and many-sided knowledge; but he did not understand the art of
conveying his knowledge to others, especially because what he knew he
had acquired only by dint of actual experience.[18] Further, some work
of timber-floating[19] with which he had been entrusted hindered him
from devoting to me the stipulated time necessary for my instruction.
As soon as I saw this quite clearly, my own activity of mind urged me to
make use of the really excellent books on forestry and geometry which I
found lying to my hand. I also made acquaintance with the doctor of a
little town near by, who studied natural science for his amusement; and
this friend lent me books on botany, through which I learnt also about
other plants than just those of the forest. A great deal of my time
during the absence of the forester (when I was left quite to myself) I
devoted to making a sort of map of the neighbourhood I lived in; but
botany was my special occupation. My life as forester's apprentice was a
four-fold one: firstly, there was the homelier and more practical side
of life; then the life spent with Nature, especially forest-nature; then
also a life of the study, devoted to work at mathematics and languages;
and lastly, the time spent in gaining a knowledge of plants. My chosen
profession and the other circumstances of my position might have brought
me into contact with many kinds of men; but nevertheless my life
remained retired and solitary. My religious church life now changed to a
religious communion with Nature, and in the last half-year I lived
entirely amongst and with my plants, which drew me towards them with
fascination, notwithstanding that as yet I had no sense of the inner
life of the plant world. Collecting and drying specimens of plants was a
work I prosecuted with the greatest care. Altogether this time of my
life was devoted in many various ways to self-education,
self-instruction, and moral advancement. Especially did I love to
indulge my old habit of self-observation and introspection.
I must mention yet another event of the greatest importance from the
point of view of my inner life. An hour's walk from where I then lived
was a small country town. A company of strolling actors arrived there,
and played in the prince's castle in the town. After I had seen one of
their performances, hardly any of those which followed passed without my
attendance. These performances made a deep and lively impression upon
me, and this the more that I felt as if my soul at last received
nourishment for which it had long hungered. The impressions thus gained
lasted so much the longer, and had so much the greater influence on my
self-culture, in that after each performance my hour's walk home by dark
or in the starlight allowed me to recapitulate what I had heard, and so
to digest the meaning of the play. I remember especially how deeply a
performance of Iffland's _Huntsmen_ moved me, and how it inspired me
with firm moral resolutions, which I imprinted deep in my mind under the
light of the stars. My interest in the play made me seek acquaintance
with the actors, and especially with one of them, an earnest young man
who attracted my attention, and to whom I spoke about his profession. I
congratulated him on being a member of such a company, able to call up
such ennobling sentiments in the human soul; perhaps even expressed a
wish that I could become a member of such a company. Then the honest
fellow described the profession of an actor as a brilliant, deceitful
misery, and confessed to me that he had been only forced by necessity to
adopt this profession, and that he was soon about to abandon it. Once
again I learned by this to divide cause from effect, internal from
external things. My visits to the play brought upon me a most unpleasant
experience, for my father, when I spoke to him without concealment of my
playgoing, reproached me very bitterly for it. He looked upon my conduct
as deserving the highest punishment, which was in absolute contradiction
with my own view; for I placed the benefit I had derived from my
attendance at the play side by side with what I had received by my
attendance at church, and expressed something of the kind to my father.
As often happened in later life, so also on this occasion it was my
eldest brother who was the mediator between my father and myself.
On Midsummer Day 1799 my apprenticeship came to an end. The forester,
who could now have made my practical knowledge of service to himself,
wished to keep me another year. But I had by this time acquired higher
views; I wished to study mathematics and botany more thoroughly, and I
was not to be kept back from my purpose. When my apprenticeship was over
I left him, and returned to my father's house.
My master knew well that he had not done his duty towards me, and with
this probably humiliating consciousness before him, and in spite of the
thoroughly satisfactory testimonial that he gave me, he committed a very
mean action against me. He did not know anything about my private study;
for instance, my completely working through some elementary mathematical
books, which I had found myself quite well able to understand. Besides,
he was dissatisfied that I would not stay another year with him. He
therefore sent a letter to my father, in which he complained bitterly of
my conduct, and shifted the blame of my ignorance of my calling entirely
on to my shoulders. This letter actually arrived at home before I did;
and my father sent it on to my eldest brother, who was minister in a
village through which I had to pass on my way home. Soon after I reached
my brother's house he communicated to me the contents of this
inculpatory letter. I cleared myself by exposing the unconscientious
behaviour of my master, and by showing my private work. I then wrote a
reply to my master, clearly refuting all his accusations, and exhibiting
on the other hand his behaviour towards me; and with this I satisfied my
father and my brother. But the latter reproached me for having suffered
wrongdoing so long without complaint. To that I gave the simple answer,
that my father, at the beginning of my apprenticeship, had told me not
to come to him with any complaint, as I should never be listened to, but
should be considered as wrong beforehand. My brother, who knew my
father's severity and his views on such points, was silent. But my
mother saw in one declaration of the forester the confirmation of her
own opinion about me. The forester declared, that if ever anything was
made of me, the same good fortune might be told of the first-comer
without further trouble, and my mother assented heartily to his opinion.
Thus disappeared once more the light, the sunshine, which had gladdened
me with its warmth, especially in the more recent part of my life. The
wings of my mind, which had begun to flutter of themselves, were again
bound, and my life once more appeared all cold and harsh before me. Then
it happened that my father had to send some money to my brother
(Traugott), who was studying medicine in Jena. The matter pressed; so,
as I had nothing to do, it was decided that I should be the messenger.
When I reached Jena I was seized by the stirring intellectual life of
the place, and I longed to remain there a little time. Eight weeks of
the summer half-year's session of 1799 yet remained. My brother wrote to
my father that I could fill that time usefully and profitably in Jena,
and in consequence of this letter I was permitted to stay. I took
lessons in map and plan-drawing, and I devoted all the time I had to the
work. At Michaelmas I went home with my brother, and my step-mother
observed that I could now fairly say I had passed through the
university. But I thought differently; my intelligence and my soul had
been stimulated in many ways, and I expressed my wish to my father to be
allowed to study finance there, thus returning to my previous career. My
father was willing to give his permission if I could tell him how to
find the means. I possessed a very small property inherited from my
mother, but I thought it would be insufficient. However, after having
conferred with my brother, I talked it over with my father. I was still
a minor, and therefore had to ask the consent of my trustee to realise
my property; but as soon as I had obtained this I went as a student to
Jena, in 1799. I was then seventeen years and a half old.
A testimonial from my father attesting my capacity for the curriculum
procured me matriculation without difficulty. My matriculation
certificate called me a student of philosophy, which seemed very
strange, because I had set before me as the object of my studies
practical knowledge; and as to philosophy, of which I had so often
heard, I had formed a very high idea of it. The word made a great
impression upon my dreamy, easily-excited, and receptive nature.
Although the impression disappeared almost as soon as conceived, it
gave, however, higher and unexpected relations to my studies.
The lectures I heard were only those which promised to be useful in the
career I had now again embraced. I heard lectures on applied
mathematics, arithmetic, algebra, geometry, mineralogy, botany, natural
history, physics, chemistry, accounts, cultivation of forest trees and
management of forests, architecture, house-building, and land-surveying.
I continued topographical drawing. I heard nothing purely theoretical
except mathematics; and of philosophical teaching and thought I learnt
only so much as the intercourse of university life brought with it; but
it was precisely through this intercourse that I received in various
ways a many-sided intellectual impulse. I usually grasped what had been
taught; the more thoroughly since, through my previous life, I had
become well acquainted with the principal subjects, and already knew
their relation to practical work.
Some of the lectures were almost easy for me--for instance, those on
mathematics. I have always been able to perceive with ease and pleasure
relations of geometrical figures and of planes; so that it seemed
inexplicable to me that every farmer should not be equally capable of
understanding them. This I had said before to my brother, who tried to
give me an explanation; but I did not yet grasp it. I had expected I
don't know exactly what, but certainly something higher, something
grandiose; very likely I had expected something with more life in it.
The mathematical course, therefore, at first seemed to me unimportant;
but later on I found that I, also, could not follow every detail.
However, I did not think much of this, because I readily understood the
general meaning, and I said to myself that particular cases would not
cause me any mental fatigue if I found it necessary to learn them.
The lectures of my excellent teacher were not so useful to me as they
might have been, if I could have seen in the course of instruction and
in its progress somewhat more of necessary connection and less of
arbitrary arrangement. This want of necessary connection was the reason
of the immediate dislike I always took to every course of instruction. I
felt it even in pure mathematics, still more was it the case in applied
mathematics, and most of all in experimental physics. Here it seemed to
me as if everything were arranged in arbitrary series, so that from the
very first I found this study a fatigue. The experiments failed to
arrest my attention. I desired and sought after some inner connection
between the phenomena, deduced from and explained by some simple root
principles. But that was the very point withheld from me. Mathematical
demonstrations came like halting messengers; they only became clear to
the mind's eye when the truth to be demonstrated lay before me already
in all its living strength. On the other hand, my attention was riveted
by the study of gravitation, of force, of weight, which were living
things to me, because of their evident relation to actual facts.
In mechanics (natural philosophy) I could not understand why so many of
the so-called "mechanical powers" were assumed, and why several of them
were not reduced to cases of the inclined plane.
In mineralogy my previous education had left many gaps unfilled,
especially as regards the powers of observation. I was fond of mineral
specimens, and gave myself much trouble to comprehend their several
properties; but in consequence of my defective preparation I found
insuperable difficulties in my way, and perceived thereby that neglect
is neither quickly nor lightly to be repaired. The most assiduous
practice in observation failed to make my sight so quick and so accurate
as it ought to have been for my purpose. At that time I failed to
apprehend the fact of my deficient quickness of sight; it ought to have
taught me much, but I was not prepared to learn the lesson.
Chemistry fascinated me. The excellent teacher (Göttling) always
demonstrated the true connection of the phenomena under consideration;
and the theory of chemical affinity took strong hold upon me.
Note-taking at these lectures was a thing I never thought of doing; for
that which I understood forthwith became a part of me, and that which I
failed to understand seemed to me not worth writing down. I have often
felt sorry for it since. But as regards this point, I have always had
through my whole life the perfectly clear conviction that when I had
mastered a whole subject in its intimate relations I could go back upon,
and then understand, details which at the time of hearing had been
unintelligible to me.
In botany I had a clear-sighted, kind-hearted teacher (Batsch). His
natural system of botany[20] gave me great satisfaction, although I had
always a painful perception of how much still remained for him to
classify. However, my view of Nature as one whole became by his means
substantially clearer, and my love for the observation of Nature in
detail became more animated. I shall always think of him with gratitude.
He was also my teacher in natural history. Two principles that he
enunciated seized upon me with special force, and seemed to me valid.
The first was the conception of the mutual relationship of all animals,
extending like a network in all directions; and the second was that the
skeleton or bony framework of fishes, birds, and men was one and the
same in plan, and that the skeleton of man should be considered as the
fundamental type which Nature strove to produce even in the lower forms
of creation.[21] I was always highly delighted with his expositions, for
they suggested ideas to me which bore fruit both in my intelligence and
in my emotional nature. Invariably, whenever I grasped the
inter-connection and unity of phenomena, I felt the longings of my
spirit and of my soul were fulfilled.
I easily understood the other courses I attended, and was able to take a
comprehensive glance over the subjects of which they treated. I had seen
building going on, and had myself assisted in building, in planting,
etc.; here, therefore, I could take notes, and write complete and
satisfactory memoranda of the lectures.
My stay in Jena had taught me much; by no means so much as it ought to
have taught me, but yet I had won for myself a standpoint, both
subjective and objective. I could already perceive unity in diversity,
the correlation of forces, the interconnection of all living things,
life in matter, and the principles of physics and biology.
One thing more I have to bring forward from this period. Up till now my
life had met with no sympathetic recognition other than the esteem which
I had enjoyed of the country physician during my apprenticeship--he who
encouraged me to study natural science, and smoothed away for me many a
difficulty. But now such sympathy was destined to offer itself as a
means of education and improvement. For there were in Jena just then two
scientific associations, one for natural history and botany, the other
for mineralogy, as it was then called. Many of the young students, who
had shown living interest and done active work in natural science, were
invited to become members by the President, and this elevating pleasure
was also offered to me. At the moment I certainly possessed few
qualifications for membership; the most I could say was that my faculty
for arranging and classifying might be made of some use in the Natural
History Society, and this, indeed, actually came to pass. Although my
admission to this society had no great effect upon my later life,
because it was dissolved at the death of its founder, and I did not keep
up my acquaintance with the other members afterwards, yet it awakened
that yearning towards higher scientific knowledge which now began to
make itself forcibly felt within me.
During my residence at the university I lived in a very retired and
economical way; my imperfect education, my disposition, and the state of
my purse alike contributing to this. I seldom appeared at places of
public resort, and in my reserved way I made my brother (Traugott) my
only companion; he was studying medicine in Jena during the first year
of my residence there.[22] The theatre alone, of which I was still
passionately fond, I visited now and then. In the second year of this
first studentship, in spite of my quiet life, I found myself in an
awkward position. It began, indeed, with my entrance into the
university, but did not come to a head till my third half-year. When I
went to the university, my father gave me a bank draft for a small
amount to cover my expenses, not only for the first half-year, but for
the entire residence, I think. My brother, who, as I said, was with me
at Jena for the first year, wished me to lend him part of my allowance,
all of which I did not then require, whereas he was for the moment in
difficulties. He hoped soon to be able to repay me the money. I gladly
gave him the greater part of my little draft; but unfortunately I could
not get the money back, and therefore found myself in greater and
greater difficulties. My position became terribly urgent; my small
allowance had come to an end by the close of the first year, but I could
not bring myself to leave the university, especially now that a yearning
for scientific knowledge had seized me, and I hoped for great things
from my studies. Besides, I thought that my father might be induced to
support me at the university another half-year.
My father would hear nothing of this so far as he was concerned; and my
trustee would not agree to the conditions offered by my father (to cover
an advance); so I had to pay the penalty of their obstinacy.
Towards the end of my third half-year the urgency of my difficulties
increased. I owed the keeper of an eating-house (for meals) thirty
thalers, if I am not mistaken. As this man had caused me to be summoned
for payment several times before the Senate of the University, and I had
never been able to pay, and as he had even addressed my father, only to
receive from him a sharp refusal to entertain the matter, I was
threatened with imprisonment in the case of longer default of payment.
And I actually had to submit to this punishment. My step-mother inflamed
the displeasure of my father, and rejoiced at his inflexibility. My
trustee, who still had the disposal of some property of mine, could have
helped me, but did not, because the letter of the law was against any
interference from his side. Each one hoped by the continuance of my
sorry plight to break the stubbornness of the other. I served as
scapegoat to the caprices of the obstinate couple, and languished as
such nine weeks long in the university prison at Jena.[23] At last my
father consented to advance me money on my formally abandoning, before
the university board, all claim on his property in the shape of
inheritance; and so, in the end, I got free.
In spite of the gloom into which my position as a prisoner plunged me,
the time of my arrest was not utterly barren. My late endeavours towards
scientific knowledge had made me more and more conscious of my need of a
solid foundation in my knowledge of Latin; therefore I now tried to
supply deficiencies to the extent of my ability, and with the help of a
friend. It was extremely hard to me, this working my way through the
dead and fragmentary teaching of an elementary grammar. It always seemed
to me as if the mere outer acquisition of a language could but little
help forward my true inner desire for knowledge, which was deeply in
earnest, and was the result of my own free choice. But wherever the
knowledge of language linked itself to definite external impressions,
and I was able to perceive its connection with facts, as, for instance,
in the scientific nomenclature of botany, I could quickly make myself
master of it. This peculiarity of mind passed by me unnoticed at the
time; I knew and understood too little, nay, indeed, almost nothing of
myself as yet, even as regards the actions of my every-day life.
A second occupation of this prison period was the preparation of an
exercise (or academical thesis) in geometry, which I undertook that I
might the sooner obtain an independent position in some profession.
Thirdly, I studied Winckelmann's "Letters on Art." Through them some
germs of higher artistic feeling may have been awakened within me; for I
examined the engravings which the work contains with intense delight. I
could quite perceive the glow of pleasure that they aroused, but at the
time I took little account of this influence, and indeed the feeling
for art altogether was late in developing itself in me. When I now
glance over the earlier and later, the greater and smaller, artistic
emotions which have swayed me, and observe their source and direction, I
see that it was with arts (sculpture as well as music) as it was with
languages--I never succeeded in accomplishing the outward acquisition of
them: yet I now feel vividly that I, too, might have been capable of
something in art had I had an artistic education.
Further, there came into my hands, during the time of my imprisonment, a
bad translation of an abridgment of the Zendavesta. The discovery [in
these ancient Persian Scriptures] of similar life-truths to our own, and
yet coupled with a quite separate religious standpoint from ours,
aroused my attention, and gave some feeling of universality to my life
and thought; this, however, disappeared as quickly as it had come.
By the beginning of the summer term in 1801 I was at length set free
from arrest. I at once left Jena and my academical career, and returned
to my father's house. I was just nineteen years old. It was but natural
that I should enter my parents' house with heavy heart, overclouded
soul, and oppressed mind. But spring warmed and awakened all nature once
more, and recalled to life, too, my slumbering desire for better things.
As yet I had busied myself but little with German literature, and the
names of Schiller, Goethe, Wieland, and the rest I now, for the first
time, began to learn. In this, too, it was with me as in so many other
things; any mental influence that came before me I had either to fully
interweave with my inner life, or else altogether to forego its
acquisition.
With this peculiarity of temperament, I could master only a rather
restricted amount of mental material. My father's library was once more
ransacked. I found not much that was of any use to me, for it contained
chiefly theological works; but I seized with the greatest enjoyment on a
book which had come out some ten years before in Gotha, a general view
of all the sciences and fine arts in their various ramifications, with a
short sketch of the object of the several sciences and of the literature
of each department. The arrangement was based upon the usual division
of the faculties, but it served to give me a general outlook, long
desired, over the whole of human knowledge, and I was right glad to have
found this "Mappe du monde littéraire"--for that was its title. I
resolved to turn this book to the best advantage I could, and set about
putting my resolution into practice. In order to make a collection of
comprehensive extracts of scientific matters from the several
periodicals received by my father (who shared for that purpose in a
joint subscription with other preachers and educated people), I had
already begun a sort of diary. The form of this journal was
shapeless--everything was put down as it came, one thing after the
other; and thereby the use of it all was rendered very inconvenient.
Now, however, I perceived the value of division according to a settled
plan, and soon hit upon a scheme of procedure.
I aimed at collecting all that seemed worthy to be known, all that was
necessary for cultured men in general, and for myself in my own calling
in particular; and this rich treasure was to be brought out under
favourable circumstances, or whenever need was, from its storehouse.
Also I desired to acquire a general idea of those subjects which the
craving for knowledge, growing ever more and more sharp within my soul,
was always urging me thoroughly to work through over again. I felt happy
in my work; and I had already been chained to my task for several days,
from early morning till late at night, in my little distant chamber with
its iron-barred windows, when my father suddenly and unexpectedly walked
into the room. He looked over what I had done, and remarked the quantity
of paper used over it, which indeed was not small. Upon this cursory
inspection he held my work for a foolish waste of time and paper; and it
would have been all over with my labour of love for that time, if my
brother (Christoph), who had so often stood as protector by my side, had
not just then been on a visit with us. He had become the minister of a
place which lay a few hours' journey from Oberweissbach, and at this
moment was staying with my parents. My father at once told him of what
he considered my useless, if not indeed injurious occupation; but my
brother saw it differently. I ventured, therefore, to continue, with the
silent permission of my father. And indeed the work proved of actual
service to me, for it brought a certain order, breadth, and firmness
into my ideas which had the most beneficial effect upon me.
My father now strove to procure me a settled position in my chosen
calling; or at all events to provide some active work which would bring
me into nearer connection with it. And for this purpose a fortunate
opportunity soon offered. Some of my father's relatives had property in
the district of Hildburghausen, managed by a steward. The friendly
footing on which my father stood with these relatives permitted me to
study practical farming under this steward. There I took part in all the
ordinary farming occupations. These, however, did not attract me
greatly, and I ought to have at once discovered what an unsuitable
career I had chosen, if I had but understood my own nature.
The thing that most painfully occupied my mind at this time was the
absence of cordial understanding between me and my father. At the same
time I could not help esteeming and honouring him. Notwithstanding his
advanced age he was still as strong and as healthy in body as in mind,
penetrating in speech and counsel, vigorous in fulfilment and actual
work, earnest, nay, hard, in address. He had a firm, strong will, and at
the same time was filled with noble, self-sacrificing endeavour. He
never shirked skirmish nor battle in the cause of what he deemed the
better part; he carried his pen into action, as a soldier carries his
sword, for the true, the good, and the right. I saw that my father was
growing old and was drawing near the grave, and it made me sorry to feel
that I was yet a stranger to such a father. I loved him, and felt how
much good resulted from that love; so I took the resolution to write to
my father, and by letter to show him my true nature, so far as I could
understand myself. Long did I revolve this letter in my mind; never did
I feel strength nor courage to write it. Meanwhile a letter called me
back home in November, after I had been some months engaged on the
estate. I was called upon to help my father, now quite weak and almost
bedridden; at all events I could assist him in his correspondence.
Family and other cares and the activities of life absorbed my whole
time. What I meant to have done in my letter now happily became possible
in speech from man to man, in glances from eye to eye. My father was
occupied by cares for my future prospects up till the end. He died in
February 1802. May his enlightened spirit look down full of peace and
blessing upon me as I write; may he now be content with that son who so
loved him!
I now stood in every respect my own master, and might decide the
direction of my future life for myself, according to the circumstances
which lay around me. With this intention I once more left the paternal
roof at Easter, to undertake the post of clerk in the Office of Woods
and Forests which formed one part of the general administration (divided
into Treasury, Woods and Forests, and Tithe departments) of the as yet
episcopal territory of Bamberg.[24] My district lay amidst unusual and
lovely scenery; my duties were light, and when they were over I was free
to roam in the neighbourhood, now doubly beautiful in the springtime, to
live out my life in freedom, and gain strength for mind and soul.
Thus once again I lived much out of doors and in companionship with
Nature. My chief was proud of the possession of a considerable library,
of which I made good use; and in this manner many of the publications
then issuing from the press, and treating of matters connected with the
occupation which I had chosen, passed through my hands, as well as those
on other subjects. I was especially attracted by some volumes which
contained aphorisms, thoughts, and observations on conduct, selected
from ancient and modern writers and thinkers. My character grew upon and
entwined itself around these aphorisms, which I could easily glance
over, and as easily retain, and, more than all, which I could weave into
my own life and thoughts, and by which I could examine my conduct. I
made extracts of those which were in closest accord with my inner life,
and bore them always about my person.
Amidst these surroundings my life contained many elements of growth.
Although my chief, as well as his family, was a strong Roman Catholic,
he chose a (Protestant) private tutor recommended to him by Professor
Carus. This gentleman had many excellent qualities, so that we soon
became great friends. We had also both of us the pleasure of being
acquainted with some highly-cultured people, the families of the
physician, of the minister, and of the schoolmaster in the neighbouring
Protestant village, which was as yet still a fief of the Empire.[25] My
friend the tutor was a young man quite out of the common, with an
actively inquiring mind; especially fond of making plans for
wide-stretching travel, and comprehensive schemes of education. Our
intercourse and our life together were very confidential and open, for
the subjects he cared for were those dear to me; but we were of
diametrically opposite natures. He was a man of scholastic training, and
I had been deficiently educated. He was a youth who had plunged into
strife with the world and society; my thought was how to live in peace
with myself and all men. Besides, our outward lives bore such different
aspects that a truly intimate friendship could not exist between us.
Nevertheless our very contrasts bound us more closely together than we
deemed.
Practical land surveying at this time chiefly interested me, for it at
once satisfied my love for out-of-doors life, and fully occupied my
intelligence. But the everlasting scribbling which now fell to my share
I could not long endure, in spite of my otherwise pleasant life.
Early in the spring of 1803 I left my situation and went to Bamberg,
feeling sure that the political changes by which Bamberg had been
transferred to Bavaria, and the general survey of the district which was
therefore in contemplation, would immediately provide me with a sphere
of work suited to my capabilities. My expectations were not falsified.
In pursuance of my plan I introduced myself to the land-surveyors in
Bamberg, and at once received employment from one of them. He had had
considerable surveys in hand, and was still engaged upon them. As I
showed some proficiency in mapping, he entrusted me with the preparation
of the necessary maps which accompanied the surveys. This kept me
employed for some time on work sufficiently remunerative for my needs.
Of course the question in hand with the new Government was the
appointment of land-surveyors, and those who were resident in the town
were invited to send in maps of Bamberg as specimens of their work.
Through the instruction I had enjoyed in my youth I was not unacquainted
with such work. I therefore took pleasure in drawing a map, which I sent
in. My work was approved, and I received something for it; but being a
stranger, inexperienced, and young, and having hardly taken the best way
towards my purposed aim, I obtained no appointment.
After I had finished the work I have mentioned the survey of a small
private property was put into my hands to carry out. From this
engagement ensued consequences which were most important for me. I note
only one point here. One of the joint owners of this property was a
young doctor of philosophy, who leaned towards the new school of
Schelling. It could hardly be expected but that we should talk over
things which stirred our mental life, and so it came about that he lent
me Schelling's "Bruno, oder über die Welt-seele"[26] to read. What I
read in that book moved me profoundly, and I thought I really understood
it. The friendly young fellow, not much older than myself--we had
already met in Jena,--saw the lively interest I was taking in the book,
and, in fact, I talked it over with him many a time. One day, after we
had been to see an important picture-gallery together, he addressed me
in these words, which from his mouth sounded startlingly strange, and
which at the time seemed to me inexplicable:--
"Guard yourself against philosophy; she leads you towards doubt and
darkness. Devote yourself to art, which gives life, peace, and joy."
It is true I retained the young man's words, but I could not understand
them, for I regarded philosophy as a necessary part of the life of
mankind, and could not grasp the notion that one could be verging
towards darkness and doubt when one calmly investigated the inner life.
Art, on the other hand, lay much further from me than philosophy; for
except a profound enjoyment in works of art (for which I could give no
clear reason), no glimmering of an active æsthetic sense had yet dawned
upon me. This remark of my friend the doctor's called my attention to
myself, however, and to my life and its aim, and made me aware of two
very different and widely separate systems of life.
My friend, the tutor of the Government official under whom I had served
at Bamberg, had in the meantime left his situation. He told me before
leaving that he had it in his mind to go to Frankfurt, and thence into
France. I saw his departure with regret, little dreaming that life would
in a few years bring us together again, and that he would indirectly
decide my future career. But, as it so often happens in life, parting in
this instance but led up to meeting, and meeting to parting.
The occurrences I have named had little result upon my outward life,
which for the time ran its peaceful course. I pass over many
circumstances important to the uplifting and development of my character
and my moral life, and come at once to the close of my stay in Bamberg.
I had now once more earnestly to turn my attention to procuring certain
and settled employment. In truth, as regarded my future, I stood quite
alone. I had no one to lend me a helping hand, so I made up my mind to
go forward, trusting only in God and destiny. I determined to seek for a
situation by means of the _Allgemeine Anzeiger der Deutschen_,[27] a
paper then very much read, and I thought it would be good to send in to
the editor, as a proof of my assertions of competency, an architectural
design, and also a specimen of my work in practical surveying, together
with explanations of both of them. As soon as my plan was fully
conceived I set to work at it. For the architectural sketch I chose a
design of a nobleman's country mansion, with the surrounding
outbuildings. When I had finished it, with very few professional
appliances to help me, it contained a complete working out of all the
various necessary plans, and as a critical test of its accuracy and
suitability to the proposed scale of dimensions, I added a statement of
all the particulars and conditions involved in it. For the
land-surveying I chose a table of measurements compiled from the map I
had previously drawn, which I carried through under certain arbitrary
assumptions. These works, together with my advertisement, I sent in 1803
to the office of the paper I have mentioned, with the request that the
editor, after reading my testimonials and inspecting my work, would add
a few confirmatory words as to my qualifications. Work and testimonials
alike were to the satisfaction of the editor, and my request for an
editorial comment was granted. I received several offers, each one
containing something tempting about it. It was difficult to make a
choice, but at last I decided to accept a position offered me as private
secretary to the President and Privy-Councillor Von Dewitz, of
Mecklenburg-Strelitz, at this time resident on one of his estates,
Gross-Milchow.
Amongst the other offers was one from Privy-Councillor Von Voldersdorf,
who was looking out for an accountant for his estates in the
Oberpfalz.[28] This situation did not suit me so well as the other, but
I accepted a proposition to fill up the time till the arrangements for
the other post had been completed, by going down to these estates of
Herr Von Voldersdorf, and bringing into order, according to a certain
specified plan, the heavy accounts of his steward, which were at this
time much in arrear. I set off for the Oberpfalz in the first days of
1804. But I was soon called away to Mecklenburg to the situation at
Gross-Milchow which I had definitively chosen, and in the raw,
frightfully severe winter-time of February I journeyed thither by the
mail-coach. Yet, short as had been my stay in the Oberpfalz, and
continual and uninterrupted as had been my labour in order that I might
get through the work I had undertaken, the time I spent in Bavaria
yielded me much that was instructive. The men, ingenuous, lively young
fellows from Saxony and Prussia, received me very kindly, and the
variety of their different services and their readiness to talk about
them, gave me a good insight into the inner relationship between the
landed aristocracy and their retainers. In recalling these circumstances
I thankfully acknowledge how my ever-tender loving destiny took pains
kindly to prepare me for each vocation next to come. I had never before
had the opportunity to see the mode of keeping accounts used on a great
estate, to say nothing of keeping them myself, and here I had this very
work to do, and that after a plan both ample and clear, in which every
particular, down to the single details, was carefully provided for. This
was of the greatest service to me. Precisely the conduct of such
well-ordered accounts was to be my work later on; therefore, having the
general plan I have referred to firmly established in my mind, and being
well practised in its operation, I set off well prepared for my new
sphere of work. Thanks to this, I was able to satisfy most completely
not only my new employer, but also his lady, who used to examine
everything minutely with severe scrutiny.
The surroundings of Herr Von Dewitz's estate were uncommonly pretty for
that part of the country. Lakes and hills and the fresh foliage of trees
abounded, and what Nature had perhaps overlooked here and there Art had
made good. My good fortune has always led me amongst pretty natural
scenery. I have ever thankfully enjoyed what Nature has spread before my
eyes, and she has always been in true motherly unity with me. As soon as
I had gained some facility in it my new work became simple, ran its
regular course which was repeated week by week, and gave me time to
think about my own improvement.
However, my engagement on this estate was, after all, but a short one.
The bent of my life and disposition was already taken. A star had arisen
within my mind which I was impelled to follow. On this account I could
regard my employment at this time only as a sheet anchor, to be let go
as soon as an opportunity offered itself to resume my vocation. This
opportunity was not long in making its appearance.
My uncle (Hoffmann), who, like my brother, bore me always lovingly in
his thoughts, had lately died. Even on his deathbed he thought of me,
and charged my brother to do all he could to find me some settled
occupation for life, and at any rate to prevent me from leaving the post
I held at the moment before I had some reasonable prospect of a secure
and better engagement elsewhere. Providence willed it otherwise. His
death, through the small inheritance which thereby came to me, gave me
the means of fulfilling the dearest wish of my heart. So wonderfully
does God direct the fate of men.
I must mention one circumstance before I part for ever in this account
of my life from my gentle, loving second-father. On my journey to
Mecklenburg, when I saw my uncle (at Stadt-Ilm) for the last time, I had
the deep joy of a talk with him, such as a trusting father might hold
with his grown-up son, bound to him by every tie of affection. He freely
pointed out the faults which had shown themselves in my boyhood, and
told me of the anxiety they had at one time caused him, and in this way
he went back to the time when I was taken into his family, and to the
causes of that. "I loved your mother very dearly," said he; "indeed, she
was my favourite out of all my brothers and sisters. In you I seemed to
see my sister once more, and for her love I took charge of you and
bestowed on you that affection which hitherto had been hers alone." And
dear as my own mother had become to me already through the many kind
things I had heard said of her, so that I had even formed a distinct
conception of what she was like, and seemed actually to remember her,
she became even dearer to me after these reminiscences of my uncle than
before, for did I not owe to her this noble and high-minded
second-father? My conversation with my uncle first made clear to me what
in later life I have found repeatedly confirmed--that the sources,
springs or motives of one's present actions often lie far away beyond
the present time, outside the present circumstances, and altogether
disconnected with the persons with whom one is concerned at the moment
then passing. I have also repeatedly observed in the course of my life
that ties are the faster, the more enduring and the truer the more they
spring from higher, universal, and impersonal sources.
The person who in Mecklenburg stood next above me in position in the
house and in the family was the private tutor, whom I found already
there--a young doctor of philosophy of Göttingen University. We did not
come much into contact on the whole since he as a university graduate
took a far higher stand than I; but through I came into some connection
with the clergymen of the district, and this was of benefit to me. As
for the farmers the bailiffs, etc., their hospitable nature was quite
sufficient of itself to afford me a hearty welcome. Thus I lived in a
way I had for a long time felt I much needed, amidst many-sided
companionable good-fellowship, cheerful and free. Healthy as I was in
body and soul, in head and heart, my thoughts full of brightness and
cheerfulness, it was not long before my mind again felt an eager desire
for higher culture. The young tutor went away, and after his departure
my craving for culture grew keener and keener, for I missed the
intellectual converse I had been able to hold with him. But I was soon
again to receive succour.
The President,[29] besides the family at home, had two sons at the
Pädagogium in Halle.[30] They came to visit their parents, accompanied
by their special tutor, a gentleman destined to become famous later on
as the renowned scholar, Dr. Wollweide.
Dr. Wollweide was a mathematician and a physicist, and I found him
freely communicative. He was so kind as to mention and explain to me the
many various problems he had set before himself to work out. This caused
my long slumbering and suppressed love for mathematics as a science, and
for physics, to spring up again, fully awake. For some time past my
tendency had leaned more and more towards architecture, and, indeed, I
had now firmly determined to choose that as my profession, and to study
it henceforth with all earnestness. My intellectual cravings and the
choice of a profession seemed at last to run together, and I felt
continually bright and happy at the thought. I seized the opportunity of
the presence of the scholar whom I have named to learn from him what
were the best books on those subjects which promised to be useful to me,
and my first care was to become possessed of them. Architecture was now
vigorously studied, and other books, too, were not suffered to lie idle.
The following books took great hold upon me: Pröschke's "Fragments on
Anthropology" (a small unpretending book), Novalis' Works, and Arndt's
"Germany" and "Europe."[31] The first of these at one stroke drew
together, so that I could recognise in them myself as a connected whole,
my outer existence, my inner character, my disposition, and the course
of my life. I for the first time realised myself and my life as a single
entity in contrast to the whole world outside of me.[32] The second book
lay before me the most secret emotions, perceptions, and intentions of
my inmost soul, clear, open, and vivid. If I parted with that book it
seemed as if I had parted with myself; if anything happened to the book
I felt as though it had happened to me, only more deeply and with
greater pain. The third book taught me of man in his broad historical
relations, set before me the general life of my kind as one great whole,
and showed me how I was bound to my own nation, both to my ancestors and
my contemporaries. Yet the service this last book had done me was hardly
recognised at this time; for my thoughts were bent on a definite outward
aim, that of becoming an architect. But I could at all events recognise
the new eager life which had seized me, and to mark this change to
myself, I now began to use as a Christian name the last instead of the
first of my baptismal names.[33] Other circumstances also impelled me to
make this change; and, further, it freed me from the memory of the many
disagreeable impressions of my boyhood which clustered round the name I
was then called.
The time had come when I could no longer remain satisfied with my
present occupation; and I therefore sent in my resignation. The
immediate outward circumstance which decided me was this. I had kept up
a correspondence with the young man whom I had known as a private tutor
when I held a Government clerkship in Bamberg, and who left his
situation to go to Frankfurt, and then on into France.[34] He had
afterwards lived some time in Frankfurt, occupying himself with
teaching, and now was again a private tutor in a merchant's house in the
Netherlands. I imparted to him my desire to leave my present post, and
to seek a situation with an architect; and asked his opinion whether I
should not be most likely to effect my object at Frankfurt, where so
many streams of diverse life and of men intermingle. And as my friend
was accurately acquainted with the ins and outs of Frankfurt life, I
asked him to give me such indications as he could of the best road to
take towards the fulfilment of my designs. My friend entered heartily
into my project, and wrote to me that he intended himself to spend some
time in Frankfurt again in the early summer; and he suggested that if I
could manage to be there at the same time, a mutual consideration of the
whole matter on the spot would be the best way of going to work. In
consequence of this I at once firmly decided to leave my situation in
the following spring, and to join my friend at Frankfurt. But where was
I to find the money necessary for such a journey? I had required the
whole of my salary up till now to cover my personal expenses and the
settlement of some debts I had run up at Bamberg.
In this perplexity I wrote again to my eldest brother, who had up till
now understood me so well, and I asked him for assistance. I was at this
time in a peculiar dilemma. On the one hand, I felt very keenly that I
must get out of my present position, while on the other, by my
unchanging changeableness I feared to wear out the indulgence and
patience of my worthy brother. In this strait I just gave him what
seemed to me as I wrote it an exact account of my real state of mind;
telling him that I could only find my life-aim in a continual striving
towards inward perfection.
My brother's answer arrived. With a joyful tremor and agitation I held
it in my hands. For hours together I carried it about me before I
unsealed it, for days together before I read it; it seemed so improbable
that my brother would feel himself able to help me towards the
accomplishment of the desire of my soul, and I feared to find in that
letter the frustration of my life's endeavour. When, after some days of
vacillation between hope and doubt, I could bear the situation no
longer, and opened the letter, I was not a little astonished that it
began by addressing me at once in terms of the most moving sympathy. As
I read on the contents agitated me deeply. The letter gave me the news
of my beloved uncle's death, and informed me of legacies left by him to
me and my brothers. Thus fate itself, though in a manner so deeply
affecting, provided me with the means for working out my next plan.
The die was now cast. From this moment onwards my inner life received a
quite new signification and a fresh character, and yet I was unconscious
of all this. I was like a tree which flowers and knows it not. My inward
and outward vocation and endeavour, my true life-destiny and my apparent
life-aim were still, however, in a state of separation, and indeed of
conflict, of which I had not the remotest conception. My resolve held
firm to make architecture my profession; it was purely as a future
architect that I took leave of all my companions.
At the end of April 1805, with peace in my heart, cheerfulness in my
soul, an eager disposition, and a mind full of energy, I quitted my old
surroundings. The first days of an unusually lovely May (and I might
here again recall what I pointed out above, that my inner and personal
life invariably went familiarly hand in hand with external Nature) I
spent with a friend, as a holiday, in the best sense of the word. This
was a dear friend of mine, who lived on an exceedingly finely-situated
farm in the Uckermark.[35] Art had improved the beauty of the somewhat
simple natural features of the place, in the most cunningly-devised
fashion. In this beautiful, retired, and even solitary spot, I flitted,
as it were, from one flower to another like a very butterfly. I had
always passionately loved Nature in her adornments of colour and of dewy
pearls, and clung to her closely with the gladsomeness of youth. Here I
made the discovery that a landscape which we look upon in sympathetic
mood shines with enhanced brilliancy; or as I put the truth into words
at the time, "The more intimately we attach ourselves to Nature, the
more she glows with beauty and returns us all our affection." This was
the first time my mind had ventured to give expression to a sentiment
which thrilled my soul. Often in later life has this phrase proved
itself a very truth to me. My friend one day begged me to write
something in his album: I did so unwillingly. To write anything borrowed
went against me, for it jarred with the relations existing between me
and the book's owner; and to think of anything original was a task I
felt to be almost beyond my powers. However, after long thinking it over
in the open air, comparing my friend's life and my own in all their
aspects, I decided upon the following phrase:--"To thee may destiny soon
grant a settled home and a loving wife! To me, while she drives me
restless abroad, may she leave but just so much time as to allow me
fairly to discern my relations with my inmost self and with the world."
Then my thoughts grew clear, and I continued, "Thou givest man bread;
let my aim be to give man himself."
I did not even then fully apprehend the meaning of what I had said and
written, or I could not of course have held so firmly to my architecture
scheme. I knew as yet neither myself nor my real life, neither my goal
nor my life's path thither. And long afterwards, when I had for some
time been engaged upon my true vocation, I was not a little astonished
over the prophetic nature of this album-phrase of mine.
In later life I have often observed that a man's spirit, when it first
begins to stir within him, utters many a far-away prophetic thought,
which yet, in riper age, attains its realisation, its consummation.
I have especially noticed this recently in bright-minded and active
children; in fact, I have often been quite astounded at the really
deep truths expressed by them in their butterfly life. I seemed to
catch glimpses of a symbolic truth in this; as if indeed the human
soul were even already beginning to shake itself free from its
chrysalis-wrapping, or were bursting off the last fragments of the
eggshell.
In May 1805, while on my journey, I visited my eldest brother, of whom I
have so often spoken, and shall have yet so often to speak, and found
him in another district, to which he had been appointed minister. He was
as kind and full of affection as ever; and instead of blaming me, spoke
with especial approval of my new plans. He told me of projects which had
allured him in his youth, and still allured, but which he had lacked
the strength of mind to speak of. His father's advice and authority
had overawed him in youth, and now the chain of a settled position in
life held him fast. To follow the inward voice faithfully and without
swerving was the advice he offered me, and he wrote this memorandum
in my album when I left him, as a life motto:--"The task of man is a
struggle towards an end. Do your duty as a man, dear brother, with
firmness and resolution, fight against the difficulties which will
thrust themselves in your path, and be assured you will attain the end."
Thus cheered by sympathy and approval, I went my way from my brother's,
strengthened and confirmed in my determination. My road lay over the
Wartburg.[36] Luther's life and fame were then not nearly so well
appreciated and so generally understood as now, after the Tercentenary
festival of the Reformation.[37] My early education had not been of the
kind to give me a complete survey of Luther's life and its struggle; I
was hardly thoroughly acquainted indeed with the separate events of it.
Yet I had learnt in some sort to appreciate this fighter for the truth,
by having in my last years at school to read aloud the Augsburg
Confession to the assembled congregation during the afternoon service on
certain specified Sundays, according to an old-fashioned Church
custom.[38] I was filled with a deep sense of reverence as I climbed
"Luther's path," thinking at the same time that Luther had left much
behind still to be done, to be rooted out, or to be built up.
Shortly before Midsummer Day, as I had arranged with my friend, I
reached Frankfurt. During my many weeks' journey in the lovely
springtime, my thoughts had had time to grow calm and collected. My
friend, too, was true to his word; and we at once set to work together
to prepare a prosperous future for me. The plan of seeking a situation
with an architect was still firmly held to, and circumstances seemed
favourable for its realisation; but my friend at last advised me to
secure a livelihood by giving lessons for a time, until we should find
something more definite than had yet appeared. Every prospect of a
speedy fulfilment of my wishes seemed to offer, and yet in proportion as
my hopes grew more clear, a certain feeling of oppression manifested
itself more and more within me. I soon began seriously to ask myself,
therefore:--
"How is this? Canst thou do work in architecture worthy of a man's life?
Canst thou use it to the culture and the ennoblement of mankind?"
I answered my own question to my satisfaction. Yet I could not conceal
from myself that it would be difficult to follow this profession
conformably with the ideal I had now set before me. Notwithstanding
this, I still remained faithful to my original scheme, and soon began to
study under an architect with a view to fitting myself for my new
profession.
My friend, unceasingly working towards the accomplishment of my views,
introduced me to a friend of his, Herr Gruner, the headmaster at that
time of the Frankfurt Model School,[39] which had not long been
established. Here I found open-minded young people who met me readily
and ingenuously, and our conversation soon ranged freely over life and
its many-sided aspects. My own life and its object were also brought
forward and talked over. I spoke openly, manifesting myself just as I
was, saying what I knew and what I did not know about myself.
"Oh," said Gruner, turning to me, "give up architecture; it is not your
vocation at all. Become a teacher. We want a teacher in our own school.
Say you agree, and the place shall be yours."
My friend was for accepting Gruner's proposal, and I began to hesitate.
Added to this, an external circumstance now came to my knowledge which
hastened my decision. I received the news namely, that the whole of my
testimonials, and particularly those that I had received in Jena, which
were amongst them, had been lost. They had been sent to a gentleman who
took a lively interest in my affairs, and I never found out through what
mischance they were lost. I now read this to mean that Providence itself
had thus broken up the bridge behind me, and cut off all return. I
deliberated no longer, but eagerly and joyfully seized the hand held out
to me, and quickly became a teacher in the Model School of
Frankfurt-on-the-Main.[40]
The watchword of teaching and of education was at this time the name of
PESTALOZZI. It soon became evident to me that Pestalozzi was to be the
watchword of my life also; for not only Gruner, but also a second
teacher at the school, were pupils of Pestalozzi, and the first-named
had even written a book on his method of teaching. The name had a
magnetic effect upon me, the more so as during my self-development and
self-education it had seemed to me an aspiration--a something perhaps
never to be familiarly known, yet distinct enough, and at all events
inspiriting. And now I recalled how in my early boyhood, in my father's
house, I had got a certain piece of news out of some newspaper or
another, or at least that is how the matter stood in my memory. I
gathered that in Switzerland a man of forty, who lived retired from the
world,--Pestalozzi by name,--had taught himself, alone and unaided,
reading, writing, and arithmetic. Just at that time I was feeling the
slowness and insufficiency of my own development, and this news quieted
me, and filled me with the hope and trust that I, too, might, through my
own endeavour, repair the deficiencies of my bringing-up. As I have
grown older I have also found it consolatory to remark how the culture
of vigorous, capable men has not seldom been acquired remarkably late in
life. And in general I must acknowledge it as part of the groundwork
underlying my life and the evolution of my character, that the
contemplation of the actual existences of real men always wrought upon
my soul, as it were, by a fruitful rain and the genial warmth of
sunshine; while the isolated truths these lives enshrined, the
principles those who lived them had thought out and embodied in some
phrase or another, fell as precious seed-corn, as it were, or as solvent
salt crystals upon my thirsty spirit. And while on this head I cannot
help especially calling to mind how deep and lasting was the impression
made upon me in my last year at school by the accounts in the Holy
Scriptures of the lives of earnestly striving youths and men. I mention
it here, but I shall have to return to the subject later on.[41]
Now to return to the new life which I had begun. It was only to be
expected that each thing and all things I heard of Pestalozzi seized
powerfully upon me; and this more especially applies to a sketchy
narrative of his life, his aims, and his struggles, which I found in a
literary newspaper, where also was stated Pestalozzi's well-known desire
and endeavour--namely, in some nook or corner of the world, no matter
where, to build up an institution for the education of the poor, after
his own heart. This narrative, especially the last point of it, was to
my heart like oil poured on fire. There and then the resolution was
taken to go and look upon this man who could so think and so endeavour
to act, and to study his life and its work.
Three days afterwards (it was towards the end of August 1805) I was
already on the road to Yverdon,[42] where Pestalozzi had not long before
established himself. Once arrived there, and having met with the
friendliest reception by Pestalozzi and his teachers, because of my
introductions from Gruner and his colleagues, I was taken, like every
other visitor, to the class-rooms, and there left more or less to my own
devices. I was still very inexperienced, both in the theory and practice
of teaching, relying chiefly in such things upon my memory of my own
school-time, and I was therefore very little fitted for a rigorous
examination into details of method and into the way they were connected
to form a whole system. The latter point, indeed, was neither clearly
thought out, nor was it worked out in practice. What I saw was to me at
once elevating and depressing, arousing and also bewildering. My visit
lasted only a fortnight. I worked away and tried to take in as much as I
could; especially as, to help me in the duties I had undertaken, I felt
impelled to give a faithful account in writing of my views on the whole
system, and the effect it had produced upon me. With this idea I tried
to hold fast in my memory all I heard. Nevertheless I soon felt that
heart and mind would alike come to grief in a man of my disposition if I
were to stay longer with Pestalozzi, much as I desired to do so. At that
time the life there was especially vigorous; internally and externally
it was a living, moving, stirring existence, for Prince Hardenberg,
commissioned by the Austrian Government, had come to examine thoroughly
into Pestalozzi's work.[43]
The fruits of my short stay with Pestalozzi were as follows:--
In the first place, I saw the whole training of a great educational
institution, worked upon a clear and firmly-settled plan of teaching. I
still possess the "teaching-plan" of Pestalozzi's institution in use at
that time. This teaching-plan contains, in my opinion, much that is
excellent, somewhat also that is prejudicial. Excellent, I thought, was
the contrivance of the so-called "exchange classes."[44] In each subject
the instruction was always given through the entire establishment at the
same time. Thus the subjects for teaching were settled for every class,
but the pupils were distributed amongst the various classes according to
their proficiency in the subject in hand, so that the whole body of
pupils was redistributed in quite a distinct division for each subject.
The advantage of this contrivance struck me as so undeniable and so
forcible that I have never since relinquished it in my educational work,
nor could I now bring myself to do so. The prejudicial side of the
teaching-plan, against which I intuitively rebelled, although my own
tendencies on the subject were as yet so vague and dim, lay, in my
opinion, in its incompleteness and its onesidedness. Several subjects of
teaching and education highly important to the all-round harmonious
development of a man seemed to me thrust far too much into the
background, treated in step-motherly fashion, and superficially worked
out.
The results of the arithmetical teaching astounded me, yet I could not
follow it into its larger applications and wider extent. The mechanical
rules of this branch of instruction seemed to whirl me round and round
as in a whirlpool. The teacher was Krüsi. The teaching, in spite of the
brilliant results within its own circle, and in spite of the sharpness
of the quickened powers of perception and comprehension in the children
by which it attained those results, yet, to my personal taste, had
something too positive in its setting forth, too mechanical in its
reception. And Josias Schmid[45] had already, even at that time, felt
the imperfection of this branch of instruction. He imparted to me the
first ground-principles of his later work on the subject, and his ideas
at once commanded my approval, for I saw they possessed two important
properties, manysidedness and an exhaustive scientific basis.
The teaching of drawing was also very incomplete, especially in its
first commencement; but drawing from right-angled prisms with equal
sides, in various lengths, which was one of the exercises required at a
later stage, and drawing other mathematical figures by means of which
the comprehension of the forms of actual objects of every-day life might
be facilitated were much more to my mind. Schmid's method of drawing had
not yet appeared.
In physical geography, the usual school course, with its many-coloured
maps, had been left far behind. Tobler, an active young man, was the
principal teacher in this section. Still, even this branch had far too
much positive instruction[46] for me. Particularly unpleasant to me was
the commencement of the course, which began with an account of the
bottom of the sea, although the pupils could have no conception of
their own as to its nature or dimensions. Nevertheless the teaching
aroused astonishment, and carried one involuntarily along with it
through the impression made by the lightning-quickness of the answers of
the children.
In natural history I heard only the botany. The principal teacher, who
had also prepared the plan of instruction in this subject for all the
school, was Hopf, like the rest an active young man. The school course
arranged and carried out by him had much that was excellent. In each
separate instance--for example, the shape and position of leaves,
flowers, etc.--he would first obtain all the possible varieties of form
by question and answer between the class and himself, and then he would
select from the results the form which was before them in nature. These
lessons, which were in this way made so attractive, and whose merits
spoke for themselves, showed, however, when it came to practical
application, an unpractical, I had almost said, a self-contradictory
aspect.
(When, afterwards, in 1808, I visited Yverdon for the second time, I
found to my regret neither Tobler nor Hopf there.)
With the method used for the German language I could not at all bring
myself into sympathy, although it has been introduced into later school
books elsewhere. Here also the arbitrary and non-productive style of
teaching ran strongly counter to me at every step.
Singing was taught from figures.[47] Reading was taught from
Pestalozzi's well-known "A.B.C."
[Memorandum.--All this lay dark within me, its value unrecognised even
by myself. But my intellectual position tended to become more settled by
passing through these experiences. As to my state at the time, I have,
as accurately as may be, described it above, as at once exalted and
depressed, animated and dull. That Pestalozzi himself was carried away
and bewildered by this great intellectual machine of his appears from
the fact that he could never give any definite account of his idea, his
plan, his intention. He always said, "Go and see for yourself" (very
good for him who knew _how_ to look, how to hear, how to perceive); "it
works splendidly!"[48] It was at that time, indeed, surprising and
inexplicable to me that Pestalozzi's loving character did not win every
one's heart as it won mine, and compel the staff of teachers to draw
together into a connected whole, penetrated with life and intellectual
strength in every part. His morning and evening addresses were deeply
touching in their simplicity; and yet I remarked in them even already at
that time some slight traces of the unhappy dissensions afterwards to
arise.[49]]
I left Yverdon in mid-October (1805) with a settled resolution to return
thither as soon as possible for a longer stay. As soon as I got back to
Frankfurt, I received my definite appointment from the Consistorium.[50]
The work that awaited me upon my arrival from Switzerland at the Model
School (which was, in fact, properly two schools, one for boys and one
for girls) was a share in the arrangement of an entirely new educational
course and teaching-plan for the whole establishment. The school
contained four or five classes of boys and two or three of girls;
altogether about two hundred children. The staff consisted of four
permanent masters and nine visiting masters.
As I threw myself heartily into the consideration of the necessities and
the present position of the school, and of the instruction given there,
the working out of this plan was left almost wholly in my hands, under
the conditions imposed upon us. The scheme I produced not only succeeded
in winning the approbation of the authorities, but proved itself during
a long period of service beneficial in the highest degree, both to the
institution itself and to its efficiency; notwithstanding that it put
the teachers to some considerable personal inconvenience, as well as
making larger claims upon their time than was usual.
The subjects of instruction which fell to my share were arithmetic,
drawing, physical geography, and German. I generally taught in the
middle classes. In a letter to my brother I spoke of the impression made
upon me by my first lesson to a class of thirty or forty boys ranging
from nine to eleven; 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.
But before I pursue this side of the development of my life I must touch
upon another which was far more important to the evolution of my
character as man, as teacher, and as educationist, and which, indeed,
soon absorbed the first within itself.
Not long after my old friend, to meet with whom I had come to Frankfurt,
had introduced me to Gruner, he went back himself to his work as private
tutor. Afterwards he heard of a family (in Frankfurt) desiring a private
tutor for the sons. Since he could not introduce me personally to this
family he did so by letter, and several weeks before my journey to
Yverdon he had, in fact, written to them about me in very kindly terms.
It was for three sons principally that instruction and education were
required. They came to see me, and after they had gone their personal
peculiarities and their previous teaching and training, with the
results, were fully described to me, and I was then consulted as to
their future education. Now to education as an object[51] I had in truth
never yet given a thought, and the question threw me into great
perplexity. Nevertheless it required an answer, and moreover a precise
answer.
In the life and circumstances of these lads I discovered frequent
similarities with my own boyhood, which sprang to my memory as I
listened. I could therefore answer the questions which were put to me
out of the development and educational experiences of my own life; and
my reply, torn as it was from actual life, keenly felt and vigorously
expressed, bore upon it the stamp of truth. It was satisfactory to the
parents; and education--development, which hitherto had been subjective
alone for me--that is, as self-development--now took an objective form,
a change which was distinctly painful to me. Long, long it was before I
could bring this business of education into a form expressible by words.
I only knew education, and I could only educate, through direct personal
association. This, then, I cultivated to the best of my power, following
the path whither my vocation and my life now called me.
To say truth, I had a silent inward reluctance towards private
tutorship. I felt the constant interruptions and the piece-meal nature
of the work inseparable from the conditions of the case, and hence I
suspected that it might want vitality; but the trusting indulgence with
which I was met, and especially the clear, bright, friendly glance which
greeted me from the two younger lads, decided me to undertake to give
the boys lessons for two hours a day, and to share their walks. The
actual teaching was to be in arithmetic and German. The first was soon
arranged. I simply followed Pestalozzi's course. But as to the language
I encountered great difficulties. I began by teaching it from the
regular school-books then used, and indeed still in use. I prepared
myself to the best of my ability for each lesson, and worked up whatever
I felt myself ignorant of in the most careful and diligent way. But the
mode of teaching employed in these books frustrated my efforts. I could
neither get on myself nor get my pupils on with it. So I began to take
for my method Pestalozzi's "Mothers' Book." In this way we went on much
better, but still I was not satisfied; and, indeed, I may say that for a
very long time no system of instruction in German did satisfy me.
In arithmetic, by using the "Tables of Units"[52] in Pestalozzi's
pamphlet, I arrived at the same results which I had seen in
Switzerland. Very often my pupils had the answer ready when the last
word of the question had scarcely been spoken. Yet I presently found out
some defects in this method of teaching, of which I shall speak later
on.[53]
When we were out walking together, I endeavoured to my utmost to
penetrate into the lives of the children, and so to influence them for
good. I lived my own early life over again, but in a happier way, for it
now lay clear and intelligible before me in its special as well as its
general characteristics.
All my thoughts and work were now directed to the subject of the culture
and education of man. This period of my life became full of zeal, of
active development, of advancing culture, and, in consequence, of
happiness. And my life in the Model School also, with my boys and with
my excellent colleagues, unusually clever men, was very elevating and
encouraging.
Owing to the position and surroundings of the school buildings, which,
though not apparently extensive as seen from the street, contained a
considerable courtyard and a spacious garden, the scholars enjoyed
perfect freedom of exercise, and could play just as they liked in
courtyard or garden; with the result, moreover, of thereby affording a
most important opportunity to the various teachers of becoming really
intimate with the characters of the boys they taught. And there grew up
out of all this a voluntary resolution on the part of the teachers that
every teacher should take his boys for a walk once a week. Each adopted
the method he liked best; some preferred to occupy the time of the walk
over a permanent subject; others preferred leaving the subject to
chance. I usually occupied my class with botanising; and also as
geographical master, I turned these occasions to profit by leading on my
boys to think for themselves and to apprehend the relations of various
parts of the earth's surface: on these and other perceptions gained in
this way I based my instruction in physiography, making them my point of
departure.
The town was at once my starting-place and my centre. From it I
extended our observations to the right and to the left, on this side and
on that. I took the river Main as a base line, just as it lay; or I used
the line of hills or the distant mountains. I settled firmly the
direction of the four quarters of the compass. In everything I followed
the leading of Nature herself, and with the data so obtained I worked
out a representation of the place from direct observation, and on a
reduced scale, in some level spot of ground or sandy tract carefully
chosen for the purpose. When my representation (or map) was thoroughly
understood and well impressed on every one's mind, then we reconstructed
it in school on a black board placed horizontally. The map was first
sketched by teachers and pupils between them, and then each pupil had to
do it by himself as an exercise. These representations of the earth's
surface of ours had a round contour, resembling the circular outline of
the visible horizon.
At the next public examination of the school, I was fortunate enough,
although this first attempt was full of imperfections, to win the
unanimous approval of the parents present; and not only that, but the
especial commendation of my superiors. Every one said, "That is how
physiography[54] should be taught. A boy must first learn all about his
home before he goes further afield." My boys were as well acquainted
with the surroundings of the town as with their own rooms at home; and
gave rapid and striking answers as to all the natural peculiarities of
the neighbourhood. This course was the fountain-head of the teaching
method which I afterwards thoroughly worked out, and which has now been
in use for many years.
In arithmetic I did not take the lower, but the middle classes; and here
also my teaching received cheering encomiums.
In drawing I also taught the middle classes. My method in this subject
was to work at the thorough comprehension and the representation of
planes and solids in outline, rising from the simplest forms to complex
combinations. I not only had the gratification of obtaining good
results, which thoroughly satisfied those who tested them, but also of
seeing my pupils work with pleasure, with ardour, and with
individuality. In the girls' school I had to teach orthography[55] in
one of the elementary classes. This lesson, ordinarily standing by
itself, disconnected with anything, I based upon correct
pronunciation.[56] The teaching was imperfect, certainly; but it
nevertheless gained an unmistakable charm for both teacher and pupils;
and, finally, its results were very satisfactory.
In one of the other classes of the girls' school I taught preparatory
drawing. I took this by combinations of single lines; but the method was
wanting in a logically necessary connection, so that it did not satisfy
me. I cannot remember whether the results of this teaching were brought
to the test or not.
Such was the outcome of my first attempts as a teacher. The kind
indulgence and approval granted to me, more because of my good
intentions and the fire of my zeal than for my actual performance,
spurred me on to plunge deeper into the inquiry as to the nature of true
teaching. But the whole system of a large school must have its settled
form, with its previously-appointed teaching-course arranged as to times
and subjects; and everything must fit in like a piece of clockwork. My
system, on the other hand, called only for ready senses and awakened
intellect. Set forms could only tolerate this view of education so far
as it served to enliven and quicken them. But I have unfortunately again
and again observed during my career, that even the most active life, if
its activity and its vitality be not properly understood and urged ever
onward, easily stiffens into bony rigidity. Enough, my mind, now fully
awakened, could not suffer these set forms, necessary though they were;
and I felt that I must seek out some position in which my nature could
unfold itself freely according to the needs of the development of my
life and of my mind.
This longing endeavour of life and mind, which could not submit to the
fetters of external limitations, may have been the more exaggerated at
the time by my becoming acquainted with Arndt's "Fragments on Human
Culture,"[57] which I had purchased. This book satisfied at once my
character, my resolves, and my aspirations; and what hitherto lay
isolated within me was brought into ordered connection through its
pages, while ideas which possessed me without my perceiving them took
definite form and expression as the book brought them to light. Indeed,
I thought then that Arndt's book was the bible of education.
In those days I spoke of my life and my aims in the following words: "I
desire to educate men whose feet shall stand on God's earth, rooted fast
in Nature, while their head towers up to heaven, and reads its secrets
with steady gaze, whose heart shall embrace both earth and heaven, shall
enjoy the life of earth and nature with all its wealth of forms, and at
the same time shall recognise the purity and peace of heaven, that
unites in its love God's earth with God's heaven." In these phrases I
now see my former life and aims vividly brought before me as in a
picture.
Little by little a desire gained strength within me to free myself from
my engagement at the Model School, to which I had bound myself as
teacher for at least three years. The headmaster (Gruner), whom I have
already named, was sufficiently a student of men to have perceived that
so excitable a man as I could never work harmoniously in such an
institution as that which he directed; so I was released from my
engagement, under the condition that I should provide a suitable
successor. Fate was propitious to me once more. I found a young private
tutor with whom I had long been in friendly correspondence, and who had
all those qualities which were lacking in me. He was not only thoroughly
proficient in the grammar of his mother tongue (German), but also in the
grammar of the classical tongues; and, if I am not mistaken, in French
also. He had a knowledge of geography far beyond anything I could boast,
was acquainted with history, knew arithmetic, possessed some familiarity
with botany,--much greater, indeed, than I suspected. And what was worth
more than all this, he was full of vigour in mind, heart, and life.
Therefore the school was every way the gainer by my departure, so
greatly the gainer indeed, that from that time no further change has
been necessary. That same teacher still lives and works in that same
post.[58]
Before I begin a new chapter of my career, there are yet a few things
which need mention.
To know French was at that time the order of the day, and not to know it
stamped a man at once as of a very low degree of culture. To acquire a
knowledge of French, therefore, became one of my chief aims at the
moment. It was my good fortune to obtain instruction from an unrivalled
teacher of French, M. Perrault, a Frenchman by birth, who still, even
though an old man, diligently worked at the study of his mother tongue,
and who at the same time wrote and spoke German with elegance. I pursued
the study with ardour, taking two lessons a day, because I desired to
reach a certain proficiency by a given time. Slow, however, were my
steps, for I was far from having a sufficient knowledge of my own tongue
whereon to build a bridge that might carry me into French. I never could
properly acquire what I did not fully understand in such a way that it
had a living meaning for me; and so from all the genuine zeal and
considerable cost which I spent over this study I gained by no means a
corresponding result; but I did learn a good deal, much more even than I
then knew how to turn to account. My teacher cast on one side all the
usual grammatical difficulties of French study, he aimed at imparting
the language as a living thing. But I with my ignorance of language
could not completely follow this free method of teaching; and yet,
nevertheless, I felt that the teacher had fully grasped the meaning and
the method of his work, and I always enjoyed the lessons on this
account. He was especially successful in accustoming my ear to the
French pronunciation, always separating and reducing it to its simple
sounds and tones, and never merely saying "this is pronounced like the
German _p_, or _b_, or _ä_, or _ö_," etc. The best thing resulting from
this course of study was the complete exposure of my ignorance of German
grammar. I must do myself the justice to say that I had given myself
extraordinary trouble over the works of the most celebrated German
grammarians, trying to bring life and interconnection or even a logical
consequence into German grammar; but I only confused myself the worse
thereby. One man said one thing, another quite the reverse; and not one
of all of them, as far as I could see, had educed his theories from the
life and nature of the speech itself. I turned away a second time, quite
disheartened, from the German grammarians, and once more took my own
road. But unfortunately the dry forms of grammar had, quite against my
own will, stuck like scales over my eyes, dimming my perceptions; I
could find no means to rid myself of them, and they wrought fatally upon
me now and long afterwards. The more thoroughly I knew them the more
they stiffened and crushed me.
My departure from the school was now arranged, and I could let my mind
pursue its development free and unshackled. As heretofore, so now also,
my kindly fate came lovingly to my help: I can never speak of it with
sufficient thankfulness. The three lads to whom I had hitherto given
private instruction in arithmetic and language now needed a tutor, as
their former tutor was leaving them. The confidential charge was laid
upon me, because I of all men best knew their nature and its needs, of
seeking out some fit teacher and educator for them from amongst my
acquaintance. As for myself this tutor business lay far from my own
thoughts, and I therefore looked round me in every direction, and with
all earnestness, for some one else. Amongst others I applied to my
eldest brother, telling him my views as to the necessary requirements of
a true educator.
My brother wrote back very decidedly and simply, that he could not
propose any one to me as a teacher and educator who would fulfil the
requirements I had set forth, and further, he did not think I should
ever be able to find such a person; for if one should be found
possessing ample knowledge and experience of life in its external
aspects, he would be deficient in a vigorous inner life of his own, and
in the power to recognise and foster it in himself and his pupils; and,
on the other hand, another man who might have this power would be
deficient in the first-named (practical) qualities. I reported the
result of my labours. It caused much disappointment, indeed it could not
be otherwise, because the welfare of the children was really sought, in
all love and truth, and the highest and best obtainable at that day was
desired on their behalf. The family did not venture to press the post
upon me personally, knowing my love of freedom and independence.
So stood matters for several months. At last, moved by my earnest
affection for the lads, and by my care to deserve the confidence with
which their mother had entrusted to my hands the provision for their
education, I endeavoured to look at things from the point of view of
their parents. This brought me at last to the determination to become
myself the educator and teacher of the lads. After a hard struggle with
myself, the hardest and most exhausting I had undergone for a long time,
I made known my decision. It was thankfully received, and understood
quite in the spirit which had actuated me in forming it.
I communicated my decision to Gruner, with whom I still kept in the
friendliest relation. He looked at me with downright astonishment, and
said, "You will lose all hopes of the position you have so long sought
and waited for." I replied that I should protect myself as to my
position and my relations with others by a very definite written
contract. To which the man of experience retorted, "Certainly, and
everything will be punctually fulfilled, so that you cannot say that any
one condition of all those you stood out so firmly for has failed to be
observed; nevertheless you will find you will lose on all points." So
spake experienced shrewdness, and what had I to set against it? I spoke
of the educational necessities and wants of these children. "Good," said
he, "then you will leave your own educational necessities and your own
wants out of the question?" How it mortified me, that worldly wisdom
should be able to speak thus, and that I was unable to controvert it! We
talked no more about the matter.
And keen as was the internal conflict over this decision and this
resolve of mine, equally keen was the external contest which I had to
wage in entering on my new post.
There were, namely, two immutable conditions in our agreement. One was
that I should never be compelled to live in town with my pupils, and
that when I began my duties my pupils should be handed over entirely to
my care, without any restriction; that they should follow me into the
country, and there form a restricted and perfectly isolated circle, and
that when they returned to town life my duties as preceptor should be at
an end. The time for beginning my new career drew nigh. As the
stipulated dwelling for myself and my pupils was not yet ready, I was
expected to take up my abode, for a few days, with my pupils in their
town house. But I felt that it was clear that the least want of firmness
at the outset would endanger my whole educational plan; therefore, I
stood firm, and indeed gained my point, though at the price of being
called headstrong, self-willed, and stubborn. That my assumption of my
post was attended with a sharp contest was a very good and wholesome
discipline for me. It was the fitting inauguration of a position and a
sphere of work which was henceforth to be attended, for me, with
perpetual and never-ending strife.
But as to this family and all its members, my earnest unbending
maintenance of my resolve had a most wholesome effect upon them, even to
winning in the end their comprehension and approval, though this was
later and long after I had quitted the situation. It was ten or eleven
years afterwards--that is, four or five years after my departure--that
the mother of these lads expressed her entire approval of the adamantine
perseverance I had exhibited in my convictions.
I entered my new sphere of educational work in July 1807. I was
twenty-five years old, as far as years went, but younger by several
years in regard to the development of my character. I neither felt
myself so old as I was, nor indeed had I any conception or realisation
of my age. I was only conscious of the strength and striving of my life,
the extent of my mental culture, the circumstances of my experience in
the world, and especially of--what shall I call it?--the shiftlessness
and undeveloped state of my culture as far as its helplessness with the
external world was concerned, of my ignorance of life both as to what it
really was, and how it showed in its outer aspect. The state of my
culture was such as only to serve to plunge me into conflict, through
the contradiction and opposition in which I found myself henceforward
with all existing methods; and consequently the whole period of my
tutorial career was one continual contest.
It was a salutary thing for me that this was my appointed lot from the
very beginning. Now and later on I was therefore able to say to myself
by way of consolation and encouragement: "You knew beforehand just how
it would be." Still, unpleasantness seldom arrives in exactly the manner
expected, and the unexpected is always the hardest to bear. Thus it was
with me in this case; my situation seemed to contain insurmountable
difficulties. I sought the basis for them in imperfect culture; and the
cause of the disconnected nature of the culture I had been able to
attain, lay, so I perceived, in the interruptions which marred my
university career. Educator and teacher, however, I had determined to
become and to remain; and as far as I could know my own feelings and my
own powers, I must and would work out my profession in an independent
free fashion of my own, founded on the view of man and his nature and
relationships which had now begun to dawn upon me. Yet every man finds
it above all things difficult to understand himself, and especially hard
was it in my own case. I began to think that I must look for help
outside myself, and seek to acquire from others the knowledge and
experience I needed.
And thus there came to me once again the idea of fitting myself by
continuing my university studies to become founder, principal, and
manager of an educational establishment of my own. But the fact was to
be considered that I had turned away from the educational path on which
I had entered. Now, when the imperfection of my training pressed itself
upon me, I not only sought help from Nature as of old, that school
allotted to me by fate, but I turned also for assistance to my
fellow-men who had divided out the whole field of education and teaching
into separate departments of science, and had added to these the
assistance of a rich literature. This need of help so troubled and
oppressed me, and threw my whole nature into such confusion, that I
resolved, as soon as might be, once more to proceed to one of the
universities, and necessarily, therefore, to relinquish as speedily as
possible my occupation as an educator.
As I always discussed everything important with my brother, I wrote to
him on this occasion as usual, telling him of my plans and of my
resolve. But for this time, at least, my nature was able to work out its
difficulty without his help. I soon came to see that I had failed to
appreciate my position, and had misunderstood myself; and, therefore,
before I had time to get an answer from my brother to my first letter I
wrote to him again, telling him that my university plans had been given
up, and that my fixed resolve now was to remain at my post. He rejoiced
doubly at my decision, because this time he would have been unable to
agree with me.[59]
No sooner had I firmly come to my decision than I began to apply my
thoughts vigorously to the subjects of education and instruction. The
first thing that absorbed me was the clear conviction that to educate
properly one must share the life of one's pupil. Then came the
questions, "What is elementary education? and of what value are the
educational methods advocated by Pestalozzi? Above all, what is the
purpose of education?"
In answering the question, "What is the purpose of education?" I relied
at that time upon the following observations: Man lives in a world of
objects, which influence him, and which he desires to influence;
therefore he ought to know these objects in their nature, in their
conditions, and in their relations with each other and with mankind.
Objects have form, measurement, and number.
By the expression, "the external world," at this time I meant only
Nature; my life was so bound up in natural objects that I altogether
passed by the productions of man's art or manufacture. Therefore for a
long time it was an effort to me to regard man's handiwork, with
Pestalozzi's scholars, Tobler and Hopf, as a proper subject for
elementary culture, and it broadened my inward and outward glance
considerably when I was able to look upon the world of the works of man
as also part of the "external world." In this way I sought, to the
extent of such powers as I consciously possessed at that time, to make
clear the meaning of all things through man, his relations with himself,
and with the external world.
The most pregnant thought which arose in me at this period was this: All
is unity, all rests in unity, all springs from unity, strives for and
leads up to unity, and returns to unity at last. This striving in unity
and after unity is the cause of the several aspects of human life. But
between my inner vision and my outer perception, presentation, and
action was a great gulf fixed. Therefore it seemed to me that
everything which should or could be required for human education and
instruction must be necessarily conditioned and given, by virtue of the
very nature of the necessary course of his development, in man's own
being, and in the relationships amidst which he is set. A man, it seemed
to me, would be well educated, when he had been trained to care for
these relationships and to acknowledge them, to master them and to
survey them.
I worked hard, severely hard, during this period, but both the methods
and the aims of education came before me in such an incoherent heap, so
split up into little fragments, and so entirely without any kind of
order, that during several years I did not make much progress towards my
constant purpose of bringing all educational methods into an orderly
sequence and a living unity. As my habitual and therefore characteristic
expression of my desires then ran, I longed to see, to know, and to show
forth, all things in inter-connection.
For my good fortune, however there came out about that time certain
educational writings by Seller,[60] Jean Paul,[61] and others. They
supported and elevated me, sometimes by their concurrence with my own
views, expressed above, sometimes by the very contrary.
The Pestalozzian method I knew, it is true, in its main principles, but
not as a living force, satisfying the needs of man. What especially lay
heavy upon me at this time, however, painfully felt by myself though not
apparent to my pupils, was the utter absence of any organised connection
between the subjects of education. Joyful and unfettered work springs
from the conception of all things as one whole, and forms a life and a
lifework in harmony with the constitution of the universe and resting
firmly upon it.
That this was the true education I soon felt fervently convinced, and so
my first educational work consisted merely in being with my pupils and
influencing them by the power of my life and work; more than this I was
not at all in a position to give.
Oh, why is it that man knows so ill and prizes so little the blessings
that he possesses for the first time?
When I now seek to make myself clear as to the proper life and work of
an educator, my notes of that time rise fresh and fair to meet me. I
look back from now into that childhood of my teacher's life, and learn
from it; just as I look back into the childhood of my man's life, and
survey that, and learn from that, too. Why is all childhood and youth so
full of wealth and so unconscious of it, and why does it lose it without
knowing it only to learn what it possessed when it is for ever lost?
Ought this always to be so? Ought it to be so for every child, for every
youth? Will not a time come at last, come perhaps soon, when the
experience, the insight, the knowledge of age, and wisdom herself, shall
build up a defence, a shelter, a protection for the childhood of youth?
Of what use to mankind is the old man's experience and the greybeard's
wisdom when they sink into the grave with their possessors?
At first my life and my work with my pupils was confined within narrow
limits. It consisted in merely living, lounging, and strolling in the
open air, and going for walks. Although I was disgusted with the methods
of town education, I did not yet venture to convert life amidst Nature
into an educational course. That was taught me by my young pupils
themselves; and as from the circumstances of my own culture I eagerly
fostered to my utmost every budding sense for Nature that showed itself,
there soon developed amongst them a life-encompassing, life-giving, and
life-raising enjoyment of natural objects. In the following year[62]
this way of life was further enhanced by the father giving his sons a
piece of meadowland for a garden, at the cultivation of which we
accordingly worked in common. The greatest delight of my pupils was to
make little presents of the produce of their garden to their parents and
also to me. How their eyes would gleam with pleasure when they were
fortunate enough to be able to accomplish this. Pretty plants and little
shrubs from the fields, the great garden of God, were transplanted by us
to the children's gardens, and there carefully tended. Great was the
joy, especially of the two younger ones, when such a colonist frankly
enrolled himself amongst the citizens of the state. From this time forth
my own childhood no longer seemed wasted. I acknowledged how entirely
different a thing is the cultivation of plants, to one who has watched
them and studied them in all the stages of their own free development,
from what it is to one who has always stood aloof from Nature.
And here already, living cheerfully and joyfully in the bosom of Nature
with my first pupils, I began to tell myself that the training of
natural life was closely akin to the training of human life. For did not
those gifts of flowers and plants express appreciation and
acknowledgment of the love of parents and teacher? Were they not the
outcome of the characteristic lovingness and the enthusiastic
thankfulness of childhood? A child that of its own accord and of its own
free will seeks out flowers, cares for them, and protects them, so that
in due time he can weave a garland or make a nosegay with them for his
parents or his teacher, can never become a bad child, a wicked man. Such
a child can easily be led towards love, towards thankfulness, towards
recognition of the fatherliness of God, who gives him these gifts and
permits them to grow that he, as a cheerful giver in his turn, may
gladden with them the hearts of his parents.
That time of conflict contained within it an element of special and
peculiar meaning to myself. It brought before me my past life in its
many various stages of development; and especially the chief events
which had formed and influenced it, with their causes and their effects.
And it always seemed to me of particular importance to go back upon the
very earliest occurrences in my life. But of the actual matters of fact
of my earliest years very few traces now remained; for my mother, who
could have kept them in her memory for me, and from whom I could now
have learnt them, had died even before my life had really awakened.
Amongst the few relics remaining to me was a written address from my
godmother (the so-called Baptismal Letter), which she had sent me
immediately after my baptism, according to the Thuringian custom of the
time, as a sort of portion or dowry for my entrance into life. It had
come into my possession after the death of my father. This letter, of a
simple, Christian, tenderly religious, womanly soul, expressed in plain
and affecting terms the true relation of the young Christian to that to
which by his baptism he had become bound. Through these words the inner
life of both mind and soul, of my boyhood and of my youth, was brought
before me with all its peace and blessedness; and I could not help
seeing how much that I then longed for had since come to pass. My soul,
upon this thought, regained that original inspiriting, enlightening, and
quickening unity of which I stood so much in need. But at the same time
all the resolutions of my boyhood and youth also rushed back upon me,
and made it manifest how much more had yet to happen before they, too,
were accomplished; and with them they brought the memory of those types
and ideals with which the feeble boyish imagination had sought to
strengthen itself. But my life had been far too much an inward and
strictly personal life to have been able, or even to have dared to stand
forth in any outwardly definite form, or to take any fixed relation to
other lives, except in matters of feeling and intelligence. Indeed the
power of manifesting myself properly was a very late accomplishment with
me, and was, in fact, not gained until long after the recommencement of
my present educational work.[63] I cannot now remember, during all the
time of this educational work, that my personal life stood out in any
way from the usual ordinary existence of men; but before I can speak
with certainty upon this point I must procure information as to the
circumstances of my earlier life. This much is clear, that my life at
the time I am speaking of has remained in my memory only in its general
ordinary human aspect. It is true, however, that then, as always in my
later life, it was and ever has been very difficult to me to separate in
thought my inner life from my outer, and to give definite form and
outward expression to the inner life, especially as to religious
matters.
I dare not deny, that although the definite religious forms of the
Church reached my heart readily both by way of the emotions and by
sincere conviction, and cleansed and quickened me, yet I have always
felt great reluctance to speak of these definite religious forms with
others, particularly with pupils and students. I could never make them
so clear and living to a simple healthy soul as they were to myself.
From this I conclude that the naturally trained child requires no
definite Church forms, because the lovingly-fostered, and therefore
continuously and powerfully-developed human life, as well as the
untroubled child-life also, is and must be in itself a Christian life. I
further conclude that a child to whom the deeper truths of life or of
religion were given in the dogmatic positive forms of Church creeds
would imperatively need when a young man to be surrounded by pure and
manly lives, whereby those rigid creeds might be illuminated and
quickened into life. Otherwise the child runs great danger of casting
away his whole higher life along with the dogmatic religious forms which
he has been unable to assimilate. There, indeed, is the most elevated
faith to be found, where form and life work towards a whole, shed light
upon each other, and go side by side in a sisterly concord, like the
inward life with the outward life, or the special with the universal.
But I must return from this long digression, and resume the account of
my life and work as an educator.
Bodily exercises were as yet unknown to me in their educational
capacity. I was acquainted only with jumping over a cord and with
walking on stilts through my own boyish practice therein. As they fell
into no relation with our common life, neither with the pursuits and
thoughts of my pupils nor with my own, we regarded them purely as
childish games.
What the year brings to a man in the season when Nature lies clear and
open before him, that it does not bring to him in the season when Nature
is more often locked away from his gaze. And as the two seasons bring
diverse gifts, so do they require diverse things in return. In the
latter part of the year, when man is perforce driven more upon himself,
his occupations should take on more narrowly personal characteristics.
Just as the winter's life with nature is more fixed and narrowed, so
also is the winter's life with men; therefore, a boy's life at this time
needs material of some definite fashion, or needs fashionless material
which can be shaped into definite fashion. My pupils soon came to me,
urged by this new necessity. What life requires that life provides,
wherever life is or has been; what youth requires that youth provides,
wherever youth is or has been. And what the later man's life requires
from a man, or from men in general, that also is provided by the boy's
life and the youth's life when these have been genuinely lived through.
The demand of my pupils set me upon the following question: "What did
you do as a boy? What happened to you to satisfy that need of yours for
something to do and to express? By what, at the same period of your
life, was this need most fully met, or what did you then most desire for
this purpose?" Then there came to me a memory from out my earliest
boyhood, which yielded me all I wanted in my emergency. It was the easy
art of impressing figures and forms by properly arranged simple strokes
on smooth paper.[64] I have often made use of this simple art in my
later life, and have never found it fail in its object; and on this
occasion, too, it faithfully served my pupils and me, for our skill, at
first weak both on the part of teacher and pupil, grew rapidly greater
with use.
From these forms impressed upon paper we rose to making forms out of
paper itself, and then to producing forms in paste-board, and finally in
wood. My later experience has taught me much more as to the best shapes
and materials for the study of forms,[65] of which I shall speak in its
proper place.
I must, however, permit myself to dwell a little upon this extremely
simple occupation of impressing forms on paper, because at the proper
age it quite absorbs a boy, and completely fills and contents the
demands of his faculties. Why is this? It gives the boy, easily and
spontaneously, and yet at the same time imperceptibly, precise, clear,
and many-sided results due to his own creative power.
Man is compelled not only to recognise Nature in her manifold forms and
appearances, but also to understand her in the unity of her inner
working, of her effective force. Therefore he himself follows Nature's
methods in the course of his own development and culture, and in his
games he imitates Nature at her work of creation. The earliest natural
formations, the fixed forms of crystals, seem as if driven together by
some secret power external to themselves; and the boy in his first games
gladly imitates these first activities of nature, so that by the one he
may learn to comprehend the other. Does not the boy take pleasure in
building, and what else are the earliest fixed forms of Nature but
built-up forms? However, this indication that a higher meaning underlies
the occupation and games which children choose out for themselves must
for the present suffice. And since these spontaneous activities of
children have not yet been thoroughly thought out from a high point of
view, and have not yet been regarded from what I might almost call their
cosmical and anthropological side, we may from day to day expect some
philosopher to write a comprehensive and important book about them.[66]
From the love, the attention, the continued interest and the
cheerfulness with which these occupations are plied by children other
important considerations also arise, of quite a different character.
A boy's game necessarily brings him into some wider or fuller
relationship, into relationship with some more elevated group of ideas.
Is he building a house?--he builds it so that he may dwell in it like
grown-up people do, and have just such another cupboard, and so forth,
as they have, and be able to give people things out of it just as they
do. And one must always take care of this: that the child who receives a
present shall not have his nature cramped and stunted thereby; according
to the measure of how much he receives, so much must he be able to give
away. In fact, this is a necessity for a simple-hearted child. Happy is
that little one who understands how to satisfy this need of his nature,
to give by producing various gifts of his own creation! As a perfect
child of humanity, a boy ought to desire to enjoy and to bestow to the
very utmost, for he dimly feels already that he belongs to the whole, to
the universal, to the comprehensive in Nature, and it is as part of this
that he lives; therefore, as such would he accordingly be considered and
so treated. When he has felt this, the most important means of
development available for a human being at this stage has been
discovered. With a well-disposed child at such a time nothing has any
value except as it may serve for a common possession, for a bond of
union between him and his beloved ones. This aspect of the child's
character must be carefully noticed by parents and by teachers, and used
by them as a means of awakening and developing the active and
presentative side of his nature; wherefore none, not even the simplest
gifts from a child, should ever be suffered to be neglected.
To sketch my first attempt as an educator in one phrase, I sought with
all my powers to give my pupils the best possible instruction, and the
best possible training and culture, but I was unable to fulfil my
intentions, to attain my end, in the position I then occupied, and with
the degree of culture to which I had myself attained.
As soon as this had become fully evident to me, it occurred to my mind
that nothing else could be so serviceable to me as a sojourn for a time
with Pestalozzi. I expressed my views on this head very decidedly, and
accordingly, in the summer of 1808, it was agreed that I should take my
three pupils with me to Yverdon.
So it soon afterwards came about I was teacher and scholar, educator and
pupil, all at the same time.
If I were to attempt to put into one sentence all I expected to find at
Yverdon, I should say it was a vigorous inner life amongst the boys and
youths, quickening, manifesting itself in all kinds of creative
activity, satisfying the manysidedness of man, meeting all his
necessities, and occupying all his powers both mental and bodily.
Pestalozzi, so I imagined, must be the heart, the life-source, the
spiritual guide of this life and work; from his central point he must
watch over the boy's life in all its bearings, see it in all its stages
of development, or at all events sympathise with it and feel with it,
whether as the life of the individual, of the family, of the community,
of the nation, of mankind at large.
With such expectations I arrived at Yverdon. There was no educational
problem whose resolution I did not firmly expect to find there. That my
soul soon faithfully mirrored the life which there flowed around me, my
report for 1809 sufficiently shows.[67]
To throw myself completely into the midst, into the very heart, of
Pestalozzi's work, I wished to live in the main buildings of the
institution, that is to say, in the castle itself.[68] We would have
cheerfully shared the lot of the ordinary scholars, but our wish could
not be granted, some outside jealousies standing in the way. However, I
soon found a lodging, in immediate proximity to the institution, so that
we were able to join the pupils at their dinner, their evening meal, and
their supper, and to take part in the whole courses of their
instruction, so far as the subjects chosen by us were concerned; indeed,
to share in their whole life. I soon saw much that was imperfect; but,
notwithstanding, the activity which pressed forth on all sides, the
vigorous effort, the spiritual endeavour of the life around me, which
carried me away with it as it did all other men who came within its
influence, convinced me that here I should presently be able to resolve
all my difficulties. As far as regarded myself personally, I had
nothing more earnest to do for the time than to watch that my pupils
gained the fullest possible profit from this life which was so rich in
vigour for both body and soul. Accordingly we shared all lessons
together; and I made it my special business to reason out with
Pestalozzi each branch of instruction from its first point of connection
with the rest, and thus to study it from its very root.
The forcible, comprehensive, stimulating life stimulated me too, and
seized upon me with all its comprehensiveness and all its force. It is
true it could not blind me to many imperfections and deficiencies, but
these were retrieved by the general tendency and endeavour of the whole
system; for this, though containing several absolute contradictions,
manifest even at that time, yet vindicated on a general view its inner
connection and hidden unity. The powerful, indefinable, stirring, and
uplifting effect produced by Pestalozzi when he spoke, set one's soul on
fire for a higher, nobler life, although he had not made clear or sure
the exact way towards it, nor indicated the means whereby to attain it.
Thus did the power and manysidedness of the educational effort make up
for deficiency in unity and comprehensiveness; and the love, the warmth,
the stir of the whole, the human kindness and benevolence of it replaced
the want of clearness, depth, thoroughness, extent, perseverance, and
steadiness. In this way each separate branch of education was in such a
condition as to powerfully interest, but never wholly to content the
observer, since it prepared only further division and separation and did
not tend towards unity.
The want of unity of effort, both as to means and aims, I soon felt; I
recognised it in the inadequacy, the incompleteness, and the unlikeness
of the ways in which the various subjects were taught. Therefore I
endeavoured to gain the greatest possible insight into all, and became a
scholar in all subjects--arithmetic, form, singing, reading, drawing,
language, physical geography, the natural sciences, etc.
I could see something higher, and I believed in a higher efficiency, a
closer unity of the whole educational system; in truth, I believed I saw
this clearer, though not with greater conviction, than Pestalozzi
himself. I held that land happy, that man fortunate, by whom the means
of true education should be developed and applied, and the wish to see
this benefit conferred upon my country naturally sprang from the love I
bore my native land.[69] The result was the written record of 1809
already referred to.
Where there is the germ of disunion, where the whole is split up, even
sometimes into contradictory parts, and where an absolute reconciling
unity is wanting, where what connection there may be is derived rather
from casual outward ties than from inner necessary union, the whole
system must of necessity dig its own grave, and become its own murderer.
Now it was exactly at such a time of supreme crisis that I had the good
or the evil fortune to be at Yverdon. All that was good and all that was
bad, all that was profitable and all that was unprofitable, all that was
strong and all that was weak, all that was empty and all that was full,
all that was selfish and all that was unselfish amongst Pestalozzi and
his friends, was displayed openly before me.
I happened to be there precisely at the time of the great Commission of
1810. Neither Pestalozzi nor his so-called friends, neither any
individuals nor the whole community, could give me, or would give me,
what I wanted. In the methods laid down by them for teaching boys, for
the thorough education of boys as part of one great human family,--that
is, for their higher instruction,--I failed to find that
comprehensiveness which is alone sufficient to satisfy the human being.
Thus it was with natural history, natural science, German, and language
generally, with history, and above all, with religious instruction.
Pestalozzi's devotional addresses were very vague, and, as experience
showed, were only serviceable to those already in the right way.[70] I
spoke of all these things very earnestly and decidedly with Pestalozzi,
and at last I made up my mind, in 1810, to quit Yverdon along with my
pupils.
But before I continue further here, it is my duty to consider my life
and work from yet another point of view.
Amongst the various branches of education, the teaching of languages
struck me with especial force as defective, on account of its great
imperfection, its capriciousness and lifelessness. The search for a
satisfactory method for our native language occupied me in preference to
anything else. I proceeded on the following basis:--
Language is an image, a representation of our separate (subject) world,
and becomes manifest to the (object) world outside ourselves principally
through combined and ordered sounds. If, therefore, I would image forth
anything correctly, I must know the real nature of the original object.
The theme of our imagery and representation, the outside world, contains
objects, therefore I must have a definite form, a definite succession of
sounds, a definite word to express each object. The objects have
qualities, therefore our language must contain adjectives expressing
these qualities. The qualities of objects are fundamental or relative;
express what they are, what they possess, and what they become.
Passing now to singing and music, it happened very luckily for me that
just at this time Nägeli and Pfeifer brought out their "Treatise on the
Construction of a Musical Course according to the Principles of
Pestalozzi." Nägeli's knowledge of music generally, and especially of
church music, made a powerful impression upon me, and brought music and
singing before me as a means for human culture; setting the cultivation
of music, and especially of singing, in a higher light than I had ever
conceived possible. Nägeli was very capable in teaching music and
singing, and in representing their function as inspiring aids to pure
human life; and although nearly twenty years have elapsed since I heard
those lessons of his, the fire of the love for music which they kindled
burns yet, active for good, within my breast. And further, I was taught
and convinced by these two super-excellent music teachers, who
instructed my pupils, that purely instrumental music, such as that of
the violin or of the pianoforte, is also in its essence based upon and
derived from vocal music, though developed through the independent
discovery of a few simple sound-producing instruments. Not only have I
never since left the path thus opened to me at its origin, but I have
consistently traced it onwards in all care and love, and continue to
rejoice in the excellent results obtained. This course of
music-teaching, as extended and applied later on, has always enjoyed the
approbation of the thoughtful and experienced amongst music teachers.
I also studied the boys' play, the whole series of games in the open
air, and learned to recognise their mighty power to awake and to
strengthen the intelligence and the soul as well as the body. In these
games and what was connected with them I detected the mainspring of the
moral strength which animated the pupils and the young people in the
institution. The games, as I am now fervently assured, formed a mental
bath of extraordinary strengthening-power;[71] and although the sense of
the higher symbolic meaning of games had not yet dawned upon me, I was
nevertheless able to perceive in each boy genuinely at play a moral
strength governing both mind and body which won my highest esteem.
Closely akin to the games in their morally strengthening aspect were the
walks, especially those of the general walking parties, more
particularly when conducted by Pestalozzi himself. These walks were by
no means always meant to be opportunities for drawing close to Nature,
but Nature herself, though unsought, always drew the walkers close to
her. Every contact with her elevates, strengthens, purifies. It is from
this cause that Nature, like noble great-souled men, wins us to her; and
whenever school or teaching duties gave me respite, my life at this time
was always passed amidst natural scenes and in communion with Nature.
From the tops of the high mountains near by I used to rejoice in the
clear and still sunset, in the pine-forests, the glaciers, the mountain
meadows, all bathed in rosy light. Such an evening walk came indeed to
be an almost irresistible necessity to me after each actively-spent day.
As I wandered on the sunlit, far-stretching hills, or along the still
shore of the lake, clear as crystal, smooth as a mirror, or in the shady
groves, under the tall forest trees, my spirit grew full with ideas of
the truly god-like nature and priceless value of a man's soul, and I
gladdened myself with the consideration of mankind as the beloved
children of God. There is no question but that Pestalozzi's general
addresses, especially those delivered in the evening, when he used to
delight in evoking a picture of noble manliness and true love of mankind
and developing it in all its details, very powerfully contributed
towards arousing such an inner life as that just described.
Yet I did not lose myself in empty fancies; on the contrary, I kept my
practical work constantly before my eyes. From thinking about my dead
parents my thoughts would wander back over the rest of my family,
turning most often to that dear eldest brother of mine, who has now not
been referred to for some time in these pages. He had become the
faithful watchful father of several children. I shared in his unaffected
fatherly cares, and my soul was penetrated with the desire that he might
be able to give his sons such an education as I should feel obliged to
point out to him as being the best. Already, ever since I was at
Frankfurt, I had communicated to him my thoughts on education and
methods of teaching. What now occurred to me out of my new knowledge as
applicable to his case, I extracted, collected together, and classified,
so as to be able to impart it to him for his use at the first
opportunity.
One thing which greatly contributed to the better consideration and
elucidation of the Pestalozzian mode of teaching was the presence of a
large number of young men sent from various governments as students to
Yverdon. With some of these I was on terms of intimacy, and to the
exchange of ideas which went on amongst us I owe at least as much as to
my own observation.
On the whole I passed a glorious time at Yverdon, elevated in tone, and
critically decisive for my after life. At its close, however, I felt
more clearly than ever the deficiency of inner unity and
interdependence, as well as of outward comprehensiveness and
thoroughness in the teaching there.
To obtain the means of a satisfactory judgment upon the best method of
teaching the classical tongues, I took Greek and Latin under a young
German, who was staying there at that time; but I was constructing a
method of my own all the while, by observing all the points which seemed
valuable, as they occurred in actual teaching. But the want of a
satisfactory presentation of the classical tongues as part of the
general means of education and culture of mankind, especially when added
to the want of a consideration of natural history as a comprehensive and
necessary means of education, and above all the uncertain wavering of
the ground-principles on which the whole education and teaching rested
at Yverdon, decided me not only to take my pupils back to their parents'
house, but to abandon altogether my present educational work, in order
to equip myself, by renewed study at some German university, with that
due knowledge of natural science which now seemed to me quite
indispensable for an educator.
In the year 1810 I returned from Yverdon by Bern, Schaffhausen, and
Stuttgart to Frankfurt.
I should have prepared to go to the university at once, but found myself
obliged to remain at my post till the July of the following year. The
piece-meal condition of the methods of teaching and of education which
surrounded me hung heavy on my mind, so that I was extremely glad when
at last I was able to shake myself free from my position.
In the beginning of July 1811 I went to Göttingen. I went up at once,
although it was in the middle of the session, because I felt that I
should require several months to see my way towards harmonising my
inward with my outward life, and reconciling my thoughts with my
actions. And it was in truth several months before I gained peace within
myself, and before I arrived at that unity which was so necessary to me,
between my inward and my outward life, and at the equally necessary
harmony between aim, career, and method.
Mankind as a whole, as one great unity, had now become my quickening
thought. I kept this conception continually before my mind. I sought
after proofs of it in my little world within, and in the great world
without me; I desired by many a struggle to win it, and then to set it
worthily forth. And thus I was led back to the first appearance of man
upon our earth, to the land which first saw man, and to the first
manifestation of mankind, his speech.
Linguistic studies, the learning of languages, philology, etc., now
formed the object of my attack. The study of Oriental tongues seemed to
me the central point, the fountain head, whither my search was leading
me; and at once I began upon them with Hebrew and Arabic. I had a dim
idea of opening up a path through them to other Asiatic tongues,
particularly those of India[72] and Persia. I was powerfully stimulated
and attracted by what I had heard about the study of these languages,
then in its early youth--namely, the acknowledgment of a relationship
between Persian and German. Greek also attracted me in quite a special
way on account of its inner fulness, organisation, and regularity. My
whole time and energy were devoted to the two languages I have
named.[73] But I did not get far with Hebrew in spite of my genuine zeal
and my strict way with myself, because between the manner of looking at
a language congenial to my mind and the manner in which the elementary
lesson book presented it to me, lay a vast chasm which I could find no
means to bridge over. In the form in which language was offered to me, I
could find and see no means of making it a living study; and yet,
nevertheless, nothing would have drawn me from my linguistic studies had
I not been assured by educated men that these studies, especially my
work on Indian and Persian tongues, were in reality quite beside the
mark at which I aimed. Hebrew also was abandoned; but, on the other
hand, Greek irresistibly enthralled me, and nearly all my time and
energy were finally given to its study, with the help of the best books.
I was now free, happy, in good mental and bodily health and vigour, and
I gained peace within myself and without, through hard work, interrupted
only by an indisposition which kept me to my room for a few weeks. After
working all day alone, I used to walk out late in the evening, so that
at least I might receive a greeting from the friendly beams of the
setting sun. To invigorate my spirit as well as my bodily frame I would
walk on till near midnight in the beautiful neighbourhood which
surrounds Göttingen. The glittering starry sky harmonised well with my
thoughts, and a new object which appeared in the heavens at this time,
aroused my wonder in an especial degree. I knew but little of astronomy,
and the expected arrival of a large comet[74] was, therefore, quite
unknown to me; so that I found out the comet for myself, and that was a
source of special attraction. This object absorbed my contemplation in
those silent nights, and the thought of the all-embracing,
wide-spreading sphere of law and order above, developed and shaped
itself in my mind with especial force during my night-wanderings. I
often turned back home that I might note down in their freshness the
results of these musings; and then after a short sleep I rose again to
pursue my studies.
In this way the last half of the summer session passed quickly away, and
Michaelmas arrived.
The development of my inner life had meanwhile insensibly drawn me
little by little quite away from the study of languages, and led me
towards the deeper-lying unity of natural objects. My earlier plan
gradually reasserted itself, to study Nature in her first forms and
elements. But the funds which still remained to me were now too small to
permit of the longer residence at the university which that plan
necessitated. As I had nothing at all now to depend upon save my own
unaided powers, I at first thought to gain my object by turning them to
some practical account, such as literary work. I had already begun to
prepare for this, when an unexpected legacy changed my whole position.
Up to now I had had one aunt still living, a sister of my mother's, who
had spent all the best years of her life in my native village, enjoying
excellent health and free from care. By her sudden death I obtained, in
a manner I had little expected, the means of pursuing my much-desired
studies. This occurrence made a very deep impression upon me, because
this lady was the sister of that uncle of mine whose death had enabled
me to travel from Gross Milchow to Frankfurt, and so first set me upon
my career as an educator. And now again the death of a loved one made it
possible for me to attain higher culture in the service of this career.
Both brother and sister had loved with the closest affection my own
mother, dead so far too soon, and this love they had extended to her
children after her. May these two loving and beloved ones who through
their death gave me a higher life and a higher vocation, live for ever
through my work and my career.
My position was now a very pleasant one, and I felt soothing and
cheering influences such as had not visited me before.
In the autumn holidays, too, a friendly home was ready to receive me.
Besides the country-clergyman brother, who so often was a power for good
in my life, I had another brother, also older than I, who had been
living more than ten years as a well-established tradesman and citizen
in Osterode, amongst the Harz Mountains; head of a quiet,
self-contained, happy family, and father of some fine children. My
previous life and endeavours as an educator had already brought me into
connection with this circle; for I had not failed whenever I found
anything suitable to my brother's needs to let him know of it, as he was
the conscientious teacher and educator of his own children. It was in
this peaceful, active family-circle of an intellectual tradesman's home
that I passed all the vacation time during which the university
regulations released me from vigorous work. It could not prove otherwise
than that such a visit should be of the greatest service to me in my
general development, and I remember it with thankfulness even yet on
that account.
I return now to my university life. Physics, chemistry, mineralogy, and
natural history in general, were my principal studies.
The inner law and order embracing all things, and in itself conditioned
and necessitated, now presented itself to me in such clearness that I
could see nothing either in nature or in life in which it was not made
manifest, although varying greatly according to its several
manifestations, in complexity and in gradation. Just at this time those
great discoveries of the French and English philosophers became
generally known through which the great manifold external world was seen
to form a comprehensive outer unity. And the labours of the German and
Swedish philosophers to express these essentially conditioned
fundamental laws in terms of weight and number, so that they might be
studied and understood in their most exact expression, and in their
mutual interchange and connection, fitted in exactly with my own
longings and endeavours. Natural science and natural researches now
seemed to me, while themselves belonging to a distinct plane of vital
phenomena, the foundation and cornerstones which served to make clear
and definite the laws and the progress of the development, the culture,
and the education of mankind.
It was but natural that such studies should totally absorb me, occupy my
whole energies, and keep me most busily employed. I studied chemistry
and physics with the greatest possible zeal, but the teaching of the
latter did not satisfy me so thoroughly as that of the former.
What in the current half-year's term I was regarding rather from a
theoretical standpoint, I intended in the next half-year to study
practically as a factor of actual life: hence I passed to organic
chemistry and geology.[75] Those laws which I was able to observe in
Nature I desired to trace also in the life and proceedings of man,
wherefore I added to my previous studies history, politics, and
political economy. These practical departments of knowledge brought
vividly home to me the great truth that the most valuable wealth a man
can possess lies in a cultivated mind, and in its suitable exercise upon
matters growing out of its own natural conditions. I saw further that
wealth arose quite as much from vigour of production as from saving by
economical use; and that those productions were the most valuable of
all, which were the outcome and representation of lofty ideas or
remarkable thoughts; and finally, that politics itself was in its
essence but a means of uplifting man from the necessities of Nature and
of life to the freedom of the spirit and the will.
While I received much benefit from the lectures on natural history at
the university, I could not fall in with the views held there as to
fixed forms--crystallography, mineralogy, and natural philosophy. From
what I had heard of the natural history lectures of Professor Weiss in
Berlin, I felt sure that I could acquire a correct view of both these
subjects from him. And also since my means would not allow me to stay
even so long as one entire session more at Göttingen, whilst on the
other hand I might hope at Berlin to earn enough by teaching to maintain
a longer university career there, I came to the conclusion to go to
Berlin at the beginning of the next winter session to study mineralogy,
geology, and crystallography under Weiss, as well as to do some work at
physics and physical laws.
After a stay of a few weeks with my brother at Osterode, I went to
Berlin in October 1812.
The lectures for which I had so longed really came up to the needs of my
mind and soul, and awakened in me, more fervent than ever, the certainty
of the demonstrable inner connection of the whole cosmical development
of the universe. I saw also the possibility of man's becoming conscious
of this absolute unity of the universe, as well as of the diversity of
things and appearances which is perpetually unfolding itself within that
unity; and then, when I had made clear to myself, and brought fully home
to my consciousness, the view that the infinitely varied phenomena in
man's life, work, thought, feeling, and position, were all summed up in
the unity of his personal existence, I felt myself able to turn my
thoughts once more to educational problems.
To make sure of my power to maintain myself at the university, I
undertook some teaching at a private school of good reputation.[76] My
work here, beyond the sufficient support it afforded me during
residence, had no positive effect upon the endeavour of my life, for I
found neither high intelligence, lofty aims, nor unity in the course of
instruction.
The fateful year 1813 had now begun. All men grasped weapons, and
called on one another to fly to arms to defend the Fatherland. I, too,
had a home, it is true, a birthplace, I might say a Motherland, but I
could not feel that I had a Fatherland.[77] My home sent up no cry to
me; I was no Prussian,[78] and thus it came about that the universal
call to arms (in Berlin) affected me, in my retired life, but little. It
was quite another sentiment which drew me to join the ranks of German
soldiers; my enthusiasm was possibly small, but my determination was
firmly fixed as the rocks themselves.
This sentiment was the consciousness of a pure German brotherhood, which
I had always honoured in my soul as a lofty and sublime ideal; one which
I earnestly desired might make itself felt in all its fulness and
freedom all over Germany.
Besides the fidelity with which I clung to my avocation as an educator
also influenced my action in this matter. Even if I could not say truly
that I had a Fatherland, I must yet acknowledge that every boy, that
every child, who might perhaps later on come to be educated by me would
have a Fatherland, that this Fatherland was now requiring defence, and
that the child was not in a position to share in that defence. It did
not seem possible to imagine that a young man capable of bearing arms
could become a teacher of children and boys whose Fatherland he had
refused to defend with his blood and even with his life if need were;
that he who now did not feel ashamed to shrink from blows could exist
without blushing in after years, or could incite his pupils to do
something noble, something calling for sacrifice and for unselfishness,
without exposing himself to their derision and contempt. Such was the
second main reason which influenced me.
Thirdly, this summons to war seemed to me an expression of the general
need of the men, the land, and the times amidst which I lived, and I
felt that it would be altogether unworthy and unmanly to stand by
without fighting for this general need, and without taking my share in
warding off the general danger.
Before these convictions all considerations gave way, even that of my
bodily constitution, which was far too weakly for such a life.
As comrades I selected the Lützowers; and at Eastertide 1813 I arrived
at Dresden on my road to join the infantry division of Lützow's corps at
Leipzig.[79] Through the retired nature of my self-concentrated life it
came about naturally that I, although a regularly matriculated student,
had held aloof from the other students, and had gained no settled
acquaintance amongst them; thus, out of all the vigorous comrades whom I
met at Dresden, many of whom were like myself, Berlin students, I did
not find one man I knew. I made but few new friends in the army, and
these few I was fated to encounter on the first day of my entrance into
my new work of soldiering. Our sergeant at the first morning halt after
our march out from Dresden, introduced me to a comrade from Erfurt as a
Thüringer, and therefore a fellow-countryman. This was Langethal; and
casually as our acquaintance thus began, it proved to be a lasting
friendship. Our first day's march was to Meissen, where we halted. We
had enjoyed lovely spring weather during our march, and our repose was
gladdened by a still lovelier evening. I found all the university
students of the corps, driven by a like impulse, collected together in
an open place by the shores of Elbe and near a public restaurant; and
some old Meissen wine soon served us as a bond of union. We sat about
twenty strong in a jolly group at a long table, and began by welcoming
and pledging one another to friendship. It was here that Langethal
introduced me to a university friend of his at Berlin, the young
Middendorff, a divinity student from the Mark.[80] Keeping together in a
merry little society till the middle of the lovely spring night, we
united again next morning in a visit to the splendid cathedral of
Meissen. Thus from the very first did we three join fast in a common
struggle towards and on behalf of the higher life, and even if we have
not always remained in the like close outward bonds of union, we have
from that time to this, now near upon fifteen years, never lost our
comradeship in the inner life and our common endeavour after
self-education. Both Langethal and Middendorff had a third friend, named
Bauer, amongst our comrades of the camp. With him also, as I think, I
made acquaintance as early as at Meissen, but it was more particularly
at Havelberg, later on, that Bauer and I struck up a friendship
together, which has ever since endured. Even when we have not been
together in outward life, we have always remained one in our endeavours
after the highest and best. Bauer closed the narrow circle of my
friends amongst our companions in arms.[81]
I remained true to my previous way of life and thought in the manner in
which I viewed my new soldier life. My main care was always to educate
myself for the actual calling which at the moment I was following; thus,
amongst the first things I took in hand was an attempt at finding the
inner necessity and connection of the various parts of the drill and the
military services, in which, without any previous acquaintance with
military affairs, I managed, in consequence of my mathematical and
physical knowledge, to succeed very fairly and without any great
difficulty. I was able to protect myself, therefore, against many small
reprimands, which fell tolerably frequently on those who had thought
this or that instruction might be lightly passed over as too trivial to
be attended to. It came about in this way, when we were continually
drilling, after the cessation of the armistice, that the military
exercises we performed gave me genuine pleasure on account of their
regularity, their clearness, and the precision of their execution. In
probing into their nature I could see freedom beneath their recognised
necessity.
During the long sojourn of our corps in Havelberg previously alluded to,
I strengthened my inner life, so far as the military service permitted,
by spending all the time I could in the open air, in communion with
Nature, to a perception of whose loveliness a perusal of G. Forster's
"Travels in Rhineland" had newly unlocked my senses.[82]
We friends took all opportunities of meeting one another. By-and-by we
set to work to make this easier by three of us applying to be quartered
together.
In the rough, frank life of war, men presented themselves to me under
various aspects, and so became a special object of my thoughts as
regards their conduct, and their active work, and most of all as to
their higher vocation. Man and the education of man was the subject
which occupied us long and often in our walks, and in our open-air life
generally. It was particularly these discussions which drew me forcibly
towards Middendorff, the youngest of us.
I liked well our life of the bivouac, because it made so much of history
clear to me; and taught me, too, through our oft-continued and severely
laborious marches and military manoeuvres, the interchanging mutual
relations of body and spirit. It showed me how little the individual man
belongs to himself in war time; he is but an atom in a great whole, and
as such alone must he be considered.
Through the chance of our corps being far removed from the actual seat
of war, we lived our soldier life, at least I did, in a sort of dream,
notwithstanding the severe exertions caused by our military manoeuvres,
and we heard of the war only in the same sleepy way. Now and then, at
Leipzig, at Dalenburg, at Bremen, at Berlin, we seemed to wake up; but
soon sank back into feeble dreaminess again. It was particularly
depressing and weakening to me never to be able to grasp our position as
part of the great whole of the campaign, and never to find any
satisfactory explanation of the reason or the aim of our manoeuvres.
That was my case at least; others may have seen better and clearer than
I.
I gained one clear benefit from the campaign; in the course of the
actual soldier life I became enthusiastic upon the best interests of the
German land and the German people; my efforts tended to become national
in their scope. And in general, so far as my fatigues allowed, I kept
the sense of my future position always before me; even in the little
skirmishes that we had to take part in I was able to gather some
experiences which I saw would be useful to me in my future work.
Our corps marched through the Mark,[83] and in the latter part of August
through Priegnitz, Mecklenburg, the districts of Bremen and Hamburg, and
Holstein, and in the last days of 1813 we reached the Rhine. The peace
(May 30th, 1814) prevented us from seeing Paris, and we were stationed
in the Netherlands till the breaking up of the corps. At last, in July
1814, every one who did not care to serve longer had permission to
return to his home and to his former calling. Upon my entrance into
a corps of Prussian soldiers I had received, through the influence
of some good friends, the promise of a post under the Prussian
Government--namely, that of assistant at the mineralogical museum of
Berlin, under Weiss. Thither then, as the next place of my destined
work, I turned my steps. I desired also to see the Rhine and the Main,
and my birthplace as well; so I went by Dusseldorf back to Lünen, and
thence by Mainz, Frankfurt, and Rudolstadt to Berlin.
Thus I had lived through the whole campaign according to my strength,
greater or less, in a steady inner struggle towards unity and harmony
of life, but what of outward significance and worth recollection had
I received from the soldier's life? I left the army and the warlike
career with a total feeling of discontent. My inner yearning for unity
and harmony, for inward peace, was so powerful that it shaped itself
unconsciously into symbolical form and figure. In a ceaseless,
inexplicable, anxious state of longing and unrest, I had passed through
many pretty places and many gardens on my homeward way, without any of
them pleasing me. In this mood I reached F----, and entered a fairly
large and handsomely-stocked flower garden. I gazed at all the vigorous
plants and fresh gay flowers it offered me, but no flower took my fancy.
As I passed all the many varied beauties of the garden in review before
my mind, it fell upon me suddenly that I missed the lily. I asked the
owner of the garden if he had no lilies there, and he quietly replied,
_No_! When I expressed my surprise, I was answered as quietly as before
that hitherto no one had missed the lily. It was thus that I came to
know what I missed and longed for. How could my inner nature have
expressed itself more beautifully in words? "Thou art seeking silent
peacefulness of heart, harmony of life, clear purity of soul, by the
symbol of this silent, pure, simple lily." That garden, in its beautiful
variety, but without a lily, appeared to me as a gay life passed through
and squandered without unity and harmony. Another day I saw many lovely
lilies blooming in the garden of a house in the country. Great was my
joy; but, alas! they were separated from me by a hedge. Later on I
solved this symbol also; and until its solution image and longing
remained stored in my memory. One thing I ought to notice--namely, that
in the place where I was vainly seeking for lilies in the garden a
little boy of three years old came up trustfully and stood by my side.
I hastened to the scene of my new duties. How variously the different
outward circumstances of my life henceforth affected me as to the life
within, now that this had won for itself once more an assured individual
form, and how my life again resumed its true and highest aspect, I must
pass over here, since to develop these considerations with all their
connections would take me too long.
In the first days of August 1814 I arrived at Berlin, and at once
received my promised appointment. My duties busied me the greater part
of the day amongst minerals, dumb witnesses to the silent thousand-fold
creative energy of Nature, and I had to see to their arrangement in a
locked, perfectly quiet room. While engaged on this work I continually
proved to be true what had long been a presentiment with me--namely,
that even in these so-called lifeless stones and fragments of rock, torn
from their original bed, there lay germs of transforming, developing
energy and activity. Amidst the diversity of forms around me, I
recognised under all kinds of various modifications one law of
development.
All the points that in Göttingen I had thought I traced amidst outward
circumstances, confirmatory of the order of the soul's development, came
before me here also, in a hundred and again a hundred phenomena. What I
had recognised in things great or noble, or in the life of man, or in
the ways of God, as serving towards the development of the human race, I
found I could here recognise also in the smallest of these fixed forms
which Nature alone had shaped. I saw clearly, as never yet I had seen
before, that the godlike is not alone in the great; for the godlike is
also in the very small, it appears in all its fulness and power in the
most minute dimensions. And thereafter my rocks and crystals served me
as a mirror wherein I might descry mankind, and man's development and
history. These things began to stir powerfully within me; and what I now
vaguely perceived I was soon to view more definitely, and to be able to
study with thoroughness.
Geology and crystallography not only opened up 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 of
life, and a preparation for the manifestation of that knowledge. What I
thus clearly perceived in the simpler natural objects I soon traced in
the province of living Nature, in plants and growing things, so far as
these came under my observation, and in the animal kingdom as well.
Soon I became wholly penetrated and absorbed by the thought that it must
be beyond everything else vital to man's culture and development, to the
sure attainment of his destiny and fulfilment of his vocation, to
distinguish these tendencies accurately and sharply not only in their
separate ascending grades, but also throughout the whole career of life.
Moreover, I made a resolution that for some time I would devote myself
to the study of the higher methods of teaching, so as to fit myself as a
teacher in one of the higher centres of education, as, for example, one
of the universities, if that might be. But it was not long before I
found a double deficiency, which quickly discouraged me in this design.
For, firstly, I wanted a fund of specially learned and classical
culture; and next, I was generally deficient in the preparatory studies
necessary for the higher branches of natural science. The amount of
interest in their work shown by university students was, at the same
time, not at all serious enough to attract me to such a career.
I soon perceived a double truth: first, that a man must be early led
towards the knowledge of nature and insight into her methods--that is,
he must be from the first specially trained with this object in view;
and next, I saw that a man, thus led through all the due stages of a
life-development should in order to be quite sure to accomplish in all
steadiness, clearness, and certainty his aim, his vocation, and his
destiny, be guarded from the very beginning against a crowd of
misconceptions and blunders. Therefore I determined to devote myself
rather to the general subject of the education of man.
Though the splendid lectures I heard on mineralogy, crystallography,
geology, etc., led me to see the uniformity of Nature in her working,
yet a higher and greater unity lay in my own mind. To give an example,
it was always most unsatisfactory to me to see form developed from a
number of various ground-forms. The object which now lay before my
efforts and my thought was to bring out the higher unity underlying
external form in such a self-evident shape that it should serve as a
type or principle whence all other forms might be derived. But as I held
the laws of form to be fixed, not only for crystals, but also just as
firmly for language, it was more particularly a deep philosophical view
of language which eventually absorbed my thoughts. Again, ideas about
language which I had conceived long ago in Switzerland crowded before my
mind. It seemed to me that the vowels _a_, _o_, _u_, _e_, _i_, _ä_,
_au_, _ei_, resembled, so to speak, force, spirit, the (inner) subject,
whilst the consonants symbolised matter, body, the (outer) object. But
just as in life and in nature all opposites are only relatively opposed,
and within every circle, every sphere, both opposites are found to be
contained, so also in language one perceives within the sphere of
speech-tones the two opposites of subject and object. For example, the
sound _i_ depicts the absolute subject, the centre, and the sound _a_
the absolute material object; the sound _e_ serves for life as such, for
existence in general; and _o_ for individual life, for an existence
narrowed to itself alone.
Language, not alone as the material for the expression of thought, but
also as a type or epitome of all forms and manifestations of life,
appeared to me to underlie the universal laws of expression. In order to
learn these laws thoroughly, as exemplified in the teaching of the
classical languages, I now returned again to the study of these latter,
under the guidance of a clever teacher; and I began to strike out the
special path which seemed to me absolutely necessary to be followed in
their acquisition.
From this time onwards I gave all my thoughts to methods of education,
whereto I was also further incited by some keen critical lectures on the
history of ancient philosophy. These again afforded me a clear
conviction of the soundness of my views of Nature and of the laws of
human development.
Through my work at the dynamical, chemical, and mathematical aspects of
Nature I came once more upon the consideration of the laws of number,
particularly as manifested through figures; and this led me to a
perfectly fresh general view of the subject--namely, that number should
be regarded as horizontally related.[84] That way of considering the
subject leads one to very simple fundamental conceptions of arithmetic,
which, when applied in practice, prove to be as accurate as they are
clear. The connection of these (dynamical and arithmetical) phenomena
was demonstrably apparent to me; since arithmetic may be considered,
firstly, as the outward expression of the manifestation of force,
secondly (in its relationship to man), as an example of the laws of
human thought.
On all sides, through nature as well as through history, through life as
well as through science (and as regards the latter through pure science
as well as through the applied branches), I was thus encountered and
appealed to by the unity, the simplicity, and the unalterably necessary
course, of human development and human education. I became impelled by
an irresistible impulse towards the setting forth of that unity and
simplicity, with all the force, both of my pen and of my life, in the
shape of an educational system. I felt that education as well as science
would gain by what I may call a more human, related, affiliated,
connected treatment and consideration of the subjects of education.
I was led to this conviction on another ground, as follows:--Although my
friends Langethal, Middendorff, and Bauer served with me all through the
war in the same corps, and even in the same battalion, we were a great
deal apart towards the close of the campaign, especially at the time we
were quartered in the Netherlands, so that I, at all events, at the
disbanding of the corps, knew not whither the others had gone. It was,
therefore, an unexpected pleasure when, after a while, I found them all
at Berlin again. My friends pursued their theological studies with
earnestness, and I my natural science; therefore, at first we came
little into contact with one another.
So passed several months, when suddenly life threw us closer together
again. This came about through the call to arms in 1815. We all enlisted
again together as volunteers. On account of our previous service, and by
royal favour, we were at once promoted to officer's rank, and each one
was appointed to a regiment. However, there was such a throng of
volunteers that it was not necessary for any State officials to be
called upon to leave their posts, or for students to interrupt their
studies, and we therefore received counter-orders commanding us to stay
at home. Middendorff, who felt sure of his speedy departure for the
army, preferred not to take lodgings for the short time of his stay in
Berlin, and as there was room enough in mine for us both, he came and
stayed with me. Yet we still seemed to draw very little closer together
at first, because of the diversity of our pursuits; but soon a bond of
union wove itself again, which was all the stronger on that very
account. Langethal and Middendorff had endeavoured to secure a
sufficiency for their support at the university by taking private
tutorships in families, making such arrangements as that their
university studies should not be interfered with. In the beginning of
their work all seemed simple and easy, but they soon came upon
difficulties both as regards the teaching and the training of the
children entrusted to them. As our former conversations had so often
turned upon these very subjects they now came to me to consult me,
especially about mathematical teaching and arithmetic, and we set apart
two hours a week, in which I gave them instruction on these matters.
From this moment our mutual interchange of thought again became animated
and continuous.
* * * * *
Here the autobiography breaks off abruptly. Herr Wichard Lange had some
trouble in deciphering it from Froebel's almost unreadable rough draft,
and here and there he had even to guess at a word or so. Froebel had
intended to present this letter to the Duke of Meiningen at the close of
1827, when the negotiations began to be held about a proposed National
Educational Institution at Helba, to be maintained by the duke, after
the similar proposal made to the Prince of Rudolstadt for Quittelsdorf
earlier in the year had broken down. It is not known whether the present
draft was ever finished, properly corrected, and polished into permanent
form, nor whether it was ever delivered to the duke. It is highly
probable that we have here all that Froebel accomplished towards it. It
may be added that soon after Froebel's repeated plans and drafts for the
Helba Institution had culminated in the final extensive well-known plan
of the spring of 1829, the whole scheme fell through, from the jealousy
of the prince's advisers, who feared Froebel's influence too much to
allow him ever to get a footing amongst them.
Another fragment of autobiography, going on to a further period of his
life, occurs in a long letter to the philosopher Krause,[85] dated
Keilhau, 24th March, 1828, in reply to an article written by Krause five
years before (1823) in Oken's journal, the well-known _Isis_[86] in
which article Krause had found fault with Froebel's two explanatory
essays on Keilhau, written in 1822, separately published, and appearing
also in the _Isis_, because Keilhau was there put forward as "an
educational institution for all Germany" (Allgemeine Deutsche
Erziehungs-Anstalt), whereas Krause desired it should rather style
itself "a German institution for universal culture" (Deutsche Anstalt
für Allgemeine menschliche Bildung). The rapid growth of Keilhau gave
Froebel at the time no leisure for controversy. In 1827 began the cruel
persecutions which eventually compelled him to leave Keilhau. Now
whenever Froebel was under the pressure of outward difficulty, he always
sought for help from within, and from his inward contemplation derived
new courage and new strength to face his troubles. Out of such musings
in the present time of adversity the long-awaited reply to Krause at
length emerged. The disputative part, interesting in itself, does not
here concern us. We pass at once to the brief sketch of his life
contained in later parts of the letter, omitting what is not
autobiographical. The earlier of these passages relate more succinctly
the events of the same period already more fully described in the letter
to the Duke of Meiningen; but we think it better to print the passages
in full, in spite of their being to a great extent a repetition of what
has gone before. Certain differences, however, will be found not
unworthy of notice.
The Krause letter succeeded the other and more important letter (to the
Duke of Meiningen) by some few months. Its immediate outcome was a warm
friendship between Krause and Froebel; the latter, with Middendorff as
his companion, journeying to Göttingen to make the philosopher's
personal acquaintance, in the autumn of 1828. Long discussions on
education took place at this interesting meeting, as we know from
Leonhardi, Krause's pupil. Krause made Froebel acquainted with the works
of Comenius, amongst other things, and introduced him to the whole
learned society of Göttingen, where he made a great, if a somewhat
peculiar, impression.
PART OF FROEBEL'S LETTER TO KRAUSE, DATED KEILHAU, 24TH MARCH, 1828.
... You have enjoyed, without doubt, unusual good fortune in having
pursued the strict path of culture. You have sailed by Charybdis without
being swallowed up by Scylla.[87] But my lot has been just the reverse.
As I have already told you in the beginning of this letter, I was very
early impressed with the contradictions of life in word and deed--in
fact, almost as soon as I was conscious of anything, living as a lonely
child in a very narrowed and narrowing circle. A spirit of
contemplation, of simplicity, and of childlike faith; a stern, sometimes
cruel, self-repression; a carefully-fostered inward yearning after
knowledge by causes and effects, together with an open-air life amidst
Nature, especially amidst the world of plants, gradually freed my soul
from the oppression of these contradictions. Thus, in my tenth and
eleventh years, I came to dream of life as a connected whole without
contradictions. Everywhere to find life, harmony, freedom from
contradictions, and so to recognise with a keener and clearer perception
the life-unity after which I dimly groped, was the silent longing of my
heart, the mainspring of my existence. But the way thither through the
usual school course, all made up of separate patches, considering things
merely in their outward aspect, and connected by mere arbitrary
juxtaposition, was too lifeless to attract me; I could not remember
things merely put together without inner connection, and so it came
about that after two of my elder brothers had devoted themselves to
study, and because my third brother showed great capacity for study
also, my own education was narrowed; but so much the more closely did a
loving, guiding providence bind my heart in communion with Nature.[88]
In silent, trustful association with Nature and my mathematics, I lived
for several years after my confirmation. In the latter part of the time
my duties led me towards the study of natural laws, and thus towards the
perception of the unity so often longed for in soul and spirit, and now
at last gradually becoming clear from amidst the outwardly clashing
phenomena of Nature.[89]
At last I could no longer resist the craving for knowledge which I felt
within me. I thrust on one side all the ordinary school-learning which I
utterly failed to appropriate in its customary disconnected state (it
was meant only to be learned by rote, and this I never could recognise
as the exclusive condition of a really comprehensive culture of the
human mind), and I went up in the middle of my eighteenth year to the
University of Jena. As I had been for two years past living completely
with Nature and my mathematics, and dependent upon myself alone for any
culture I might have arrived at, I came to the university much like a
simple plant of nature myself. I was at this time peculiarly moved by a
little knowledge I had picked up about the solar system, including
particularly a general conception of Kepler's laws, whereby the laws of
the spheres appealed to me on the one hand as an all-embracing,
world-encircling whole, and on the other as an unlimited
individualisation into separate natural objects. My own culture had been
hitherto left to myself, and so also now I had to select my own studies
and to choose my courses of lectures for myself. It was to be expected
that the lectures of the professors would produce a singular effect
upon me, and so they did.
I chose as my courses natural history, physics, and mathematics, but I
was little satisfied. I seldom gained what I expected. Everywhere I
sought for a sound method deriving itself from the fundamental principle
lying at the root of the subject in hand, and afterwards summing up all
details into that unity again; everywhere I sought for recognition of
the quickening interconnection of parts, and for the exposition of the
inner all-pervading reign of law. Only a few lectures made some poor
approach to such methods, but I found nothing of the sort in those which
were most important to me, physics and mathematics. Especially repugnant
to me was the piece-meal patchwork offered to us in geometry, always
separating and dividing, never uniting and consolidating.
I was, however, perfectly fascinated with the mathematical rules of
"combination, permutation, and variation," but unhappily I could not
give much time to their study, which I have regretted ever since.
Otherwise, what I learned from the lectures was too slight for what I
wanted, being, unluckily, altogether foreign to my nature, and more
often a mere getting of rules by heart rather than an unfolding of
principles. The theoretical and philosophical courses on various
subjects did not attract me either, something about them always kept me
at a distance; and from what I heard of them amongst my fellow-students,
I could gather that here, too, all was presented in an arbitrary
fashion, unnaturally divided, cut up, so to speak, into lifeless
morsels; so that it was useless for my inner life to seek for
satisfaction in those regions of study. But as I said above, there were
some of the lectures which fostered my interest in the inner connection
of all vital phenomena, and even helped me to trace it with some
certainty in some few restricted circles.
But my financial position did not permit me to remain long at the
university; and as my studies were those which fitted the student for
practical professional life, though they were regarded from a higher
point of view by myself in the privacy of my own thoughts, I had to
return to ordinary every-day work, and use them as a means to earn my
living. Yet, though I lived the outward business life to all appearance,
it remained ever foreign to my nature; I carried my own world within
me, and it was that for which I cared and which I cherished. My
observation of life (and especially that of my own life, which I pursued
with the object of self-culture), joined with the love of Nature and
with mathematics to work creatively upon me; and they united to fill my
little mental world with many varied life-forms, and taught me at the
same time to regard my own existence as one member of the great
universal life. My plan of culture was very simple: it was to seek out
the innermost unity connecting the most diverse and widely-separated
phenomena, whether subjective or objective, and whether theoretical or
practical, to learn to see the spiritual side of their activity, to
apprehend their mutual relations as facts and forms of Nature, or to
express them mathematically; and, on the other hand, to contemplate the
natural and mathematical laws as founded in the innermost depths of my
own life as well as in the highest unity of the great whole, that is
indeed to regard them in their unconditioned, uncaused necessity, as
"absolute things-in-themselves." Thus did I continue without ceasing to
systematise, symbolise, idealise, realise and recognise identities and
analogies amongst all facts and phenomena, all problems, expressions,
and formulas which deeply interested me; and in this way life, with all
its varied phenomena and activities, became to me more and more free
from contradictions, more harmonious, simple, and clear, and more
recognisable as a part of the life universal.
After I had lived for some years the isolated life I have described,
though I was engaged the whole time in ordinary professional pursuits,
all at once there broke upon my soul, in harmony with the seasons of
nature, a springtime such as I had not before experienced; and an
unexpected life and life-aim budded and blossomed in my breast. All my
inner life and life-aims had become narrowed to the circle of
self-culture and self-education. The outer life, my profession, I
carried on as a mere means of subsistence, quite apart from my real
inner self, and my sphere of operation was limited. I was driven
perforce from pillar to post till at last I had arrived where the Main
unites herself with the Rhine.[90] Here there budded and opened to my
soul one lovely bright spring morning, when I was surrounded by Nature
at her loveliest and freshest, this thought, as it were by
inspiration:--That there must exist somewhere some beautifully simple
and certain way of freeing human life from contradiction, or, as I then
spake out my thought in words, some means of restoring to man, himself,
at peace internally; and that to seek out this way should be the
vocation of my life. And yet my life, to all appearance, my studies and
my desires, belonged to my purely external vocation,[91] and to its
external citizenlike relations; and by no means to mankind at large,
either regarded in itself or in its educational needs. Therefore this
idea of mine was in such violent contrast with my actual life that it
utterly surprised me. In fact, and perhaps greatly because of this
contrast, the idea would undoubtedly have been quite forgotten, had not
other circumstances occurred to revive it. On myself and on my life at
the time it seemed to have not the slightest effect, and it soon passed
from my memory. But later on in this same journey,[92] as I climbed down
from the Wartburg, and turned round to look at the castle, there rushed
upon me once more this thought of a higher educational vocation as my
proper life-work; and again, being so far removed from my actual
external life, it only flashed upon me with a momentary effulgence an
instant, and then sank. This, unconsciously to me, and therefore quite
disregarded by me, was the real position of my inner life when I arrived
at the goal of my journey, Frankfurt, from whence my life was so soon to
develop so largely. My energies at the moment were devoted towards
attaining some definite professional position for myself.[93] But in
proportion as I began to examine my profession more closely in its
practical aspect, so did it begin to prove insufficient of itself to
satisfy me as the occupation of my life. Then there came to me the
definite purpose of living and working at my profession rather to use it
as a means to win some high benefit for mankind.[94]
The restlessness of youth, nay, that chance, rather, which has always
lovingly guided me, threw me unexpectedly into relations with a man
whose knowledge of mankind, and whose penetrating glance into my inner
being turned me at our very first interview from the profession of an
architect to that of a teacher and an educator, two spheres of work
which had, never previously occurred to me, still less had appeared to
me as the future objects of my life.[95] But the very first time I found
myself before thirty or forty boys from nine to eleven years old, for
that was the class allotted to me to teach, I felt thoroughly at home.
In fact, I perceived that I had at last found my long-missed life
element; and as I wrote to my brother at the time, I was as well pleased
as the fish in the water, I was inexpressibly happy. Yet here from the
very first moment (and what a number of sacrifices had to be made, what
a wealth of activity was poured out!) I had to give information, advice,
and decisions on matters which hitherto I had not thought it necessary
seriously to consider, and so also here, in my new position, I soon came
to feel myself isolated, to stand alone.
I sought counsel where I had so often found it. I looked within myself
and to Nature for help. Here my plan of culture, hitherto followed only
for my own needs, came opportunely to my assistance. When I was
consulted by others, I looked to Nature for the answer, and let Nature,
life, spirit, and law speak for themselves through me; then the answer
was not merely satisfactory. No! its simple, unhesitating confidence and
youthful freshness gladdened and quickened the inquirer.
This was all well enough when universal human interests were concerned,
but how about matters of instruction? I could, in fact, fairly confess
that in many respects I had no title to call myself a cultured man, for
hitherto all my culture had been fragmentary or imaginative.
Once again I found myself in conflict with my environment; for I could
not possibly torture my scholars with what I myself had refused to be
tortured with--namely, the learning by heart of disconnected rules. I
was therefore compelled to strike out fresh paths for myself, which
indeed my post rendered a delightful task; because I not only had full
liberty accorded me in this matter, but was even urged onwards in that
direction by my duty, since the institution was a model school for the
higher development of teaching. My past self-culture, self-teaching, and
self-development, and my study of Nature and of life now stood me in
good stead.
But this letter is not intended to contain the whole history of the
development of my mind; and I will therefore pass quickly forward, just
mentioning that from this time for six years onwards, during which I
thrice completely changed the conditions of my life,[96] I held most
earnestly by this same temper of mind and this same endeavour; and
although I still always lived in isolation as to my personal inner life,
yet I was at many points in full contact with the brisk mental effort
and activity of that stirring time (1805 to 1810), as regards teaching,
philosophy, history, politics, and natural science.[97]
But the nobler, the more varied, the more animating was the life
surrounding me, and the more I found all without me, as also all within
me, striving and tending towards harmony and unity, by so much the less
could I longer be restrained from seeking out this unity, even should it
be at the sacrifice of all that was dear to me, if need were for that. I
was impelled to seek to develop this unity all bright and living within
my own soul, and to contemplate it in definite, clear, and independent
form, so that finally I might be able to set it forth in my actual life
with sureness and certainty.
After nine years' interval I visited the university a second time; first
(spring of 1810) at Göttingen, and then a year and a half later (autumn
of 1811) at Berlin.[98]
I now began to pursue the study of languages. The linguistic treasures
which recent discoveries had brought us from Asia excited my deepest
interest wherever I came into contact with them.
But in general the means of acquiring languages were too lifeless, too
wanting in connection to be of any use to me; and the effort to work
them out afresh in my own way, soon led me to a renewed study of Nature.
Nature held me henceforth so fast that for years I was chained
uninterruptedly to her study, though truly languages went on as a
side-study during the time. Yet it was not as separate entities that I
considered the phenomena I was working at; rather was it as parts of the
great whole of natural life, and this also I regarded as reposing in one
supreme unity together with all mankind; Nature and man, the two
opposite mutually casting light upon each other and mirroring each
other.
After the German war of the spring of 1813 had interrupted my studies at
Berlin, and I had made acquaintance with a soldier's life, its need, and
its habits in Lützow's corps, I returned in 1814 to my studies and to a
scientific public post in Berlin. The care, the arrangement, and in part
the investigation and explanation of crystals were the duties of my
office. Thus I reached at last the central point of my life and
life-aim, where productiveness and law, life, nature, and mathematics
united all of them in the fixed crystalline form, where a world of
symbols offered itself to the inner eye of the mind; for I was
appointed assistant to Weiss at the mineralogical museum of the Berlin
University.[99]
For a long time it was my endeavour and my dearest wish to devote myself
entirely to an academical career, which then appeared to me as my true
vocation and the only solution of the riddle of my life; but the
opportunities I had of observing the natural history students of that
time, their very slight knowledge of their subject, their deficiency of
perceptive power, their still greater want of the true scientific
spirit, warned me back from this plan. On the other hand, the need of
man for a life worthy of his manhood and of his species pressed upon me
with all the more force, and, therefore, teaching and education again
asserted themselves vigorously as the chief subjects occupying my
thoughts. Consequently I was only able to keep my mind contented with
the duties of my post for two years; and, meanwhile, the stones in my
hand and under my eyes turned to living, speaking forms. The
crystal-world, in symbolic fashion, bare unimpeachable witness to me,
through its brilliant unvarying shapes, of life and of the laws of human
life, and spake to me with silent yet true and readable speech of the
real life of the world of mankind.
Leaving everything else, sacrificing everything else,[100] I was driven
back upon the education of man, driven also to my refuge in Nature,
wherein as in a mirror I saw reflected the laws of the development of
being, which laws I was now to turn to account for the education of my
race. My task was to educate man in his true humanity, to educate man
in his absolute being, according to the universal laws of all
development.[101] Therefore, leaving Berlin, and laying down my office,
I began late in the autumn of 1816 that educational work which, though
it still takes its impulse from me and exists under my leadership, yet
in its deepest nature is self-sufficient and self-conditioned.
Although I was not perhaps then capable of putting my convictions into
words, I at once realised this work in my own mind as comprehensive and
world-embracing in its nature, as an everlasting work to be evermore
performed for the benefit of the whole human race; yet I nevertheless
linked it, and for this very reason, to my own personal life; that is,
since I had no children of my own, I took to me my dear nephews whom I
most deeply loved, in order through them and with them to work out
blessings for my home and my native land, for Schwarzburg and Thuringia,
and so for the whole wide Fatherland itself.[102] The eternal
principles of development, as I recognised them within me, would have
it thus and not otherwise.
Timidly, very timidly, did I venture to call my work by the title of
"German," or "Universal German" education; and, indeed, I struck that
out from one of my manuscripts, although it was precisely the name
required to start with as it expressed the broad nature of my proposed
institution. An appeal to the general public to become thorough _men_
seemed to me too grandiose, too liable to be misunderstood, as, indeed,
in the event, it only too truly proved; but to become thorough Germans,
so I thought, would seem to them something in earnest, something worth
the striving for, especially after such hard and special trials as had
recently been endured by the German nation.
With your penetrating judgment you quarrelled with that term "German
education;" but, after all, even the appeal to be made thorough Germans
proved to be too grandiose and liable to be misunderstood. For every one
said "German? Well, I _am_ German, and have been so from my birth, just
as a mushroom is a mushroom;[103] what, then, do I want with education
to teach me to be a thorough German?" What would these worthy people
have said, had I asked them to train themselves to become thorough men?
Now had I planned my educational institute altogether differently, had I
offered to train a special class, body-servants, footmen or housemaids,
shoemakers or tailors, tradesmen or merchants, soldiers or even
noblemen, then should I have gained fame and glory for the great
usefulness and practical nature of my institution, for certain; and
surely all men would have hastened to acknowledge it as an important
matter, and as a thing to be adequately supported by the State. I should
have been held as the right man in the right place by the State and by
the world; and so much the more because as a State-machine I should have
been engaged in cutting out and modelling other State-machines. But I--I
only wanted to train up free, thinking, independent men! Now who wants
to be, or who cares to suffer another to be, a free-thinking,
independent man? If it was folly to talk about educating persons as
Germans, what was it to talk about educating them as men? The education
of Germans was felt to be something extraordinary and farfetched; the
education of men was a mere shadow, a deceitful image, a blind
enthusiasm.[104]
From this digression I now return, to continue my attempt at making
myself known to you, as far as is possible, in a letter; by which I mean
my real inner self, as manifested in my endeavours and my hopes.
Permit me, therefore, to go a step nearer towards what lies deepest in
my soul, at least that of it which is communicable to another person. I
have started by stating my position from the side of knowledge, now let
me state it also from another side. My experience, especially that
gained by repeated residences at the university, had taught me beyond a
doubt that the method of education hitherto in use, especially where it
involved learning by rote, and where it looked at subjects simply from
the outside or historically, and considered then capable of
apprehension by mere exercise work, dulled the edge of all high true
attainment, of all real mental insight, of all genuine progress in
scientific culture, of self-contemplation, and thus of all real
knowledge, and of the acquisition of truth through knowledge. I might
almost go further, and say that its tendency was towards rendering all
these worthy objects impossible.
Therefore, I was firmly convinced, as of course I still am, that the
whole former educational system, even that which had received
improvement, ought to be exactly reversed, and regarded from a
diametrically opposite point of view--namely, that of a system of
development. I answered those who kept asking what it was that I really
did want after all, with this sentence: "I want the exact opposite of
what now serves as educational method and as teaching-system in
general." I was, and am, completely convinced, that after this fashion
alone genuine knowledge and absolute truth, by right the universal
possessions of mankind, shall find once again, not alone single students
here and there, but the vast majority of all our true-hearted young men
and of our professors spreading far and wide the elements of a noble
humanised life. To bring this into a practical scheme I held to be my
highest duty, a duty which I could never evade, and one which I could
never shake off, since a man cannot shake off his own nature.
Our greatest teachers, even Pestalozzi himself not excepted, seemed to
me too bare, too empirical,[105] and arbitrary, and therefore not
sufficiently scientific in their principles--that is, not sufficiently
led by the laws of our being; they seemed to me in no wise to recognise
the Divine element in science, to feel its worth, and to cherish it.
Therefore I thought and hoped, with the courage and inexperience of
youth, that all scientific and learned men, that the universities, in
one word, would immediately recognise the purport of my efforts, and
would strive with all their might to encourage me by word and deed.
In this I was egregiously mistaken; nevertheless I am not ashamed of the
error. But few persons raised their voices for me or against me; and,
indeed, your article in the _Isis_ is the single sun-ray which really
generously warmed and enlightened my life and lifework. Enough! the
Universities paid no heed to the simple schoolmaster.[106] As to the
"able editors," they, in their reviews, thought very differently from
me; but why should I trouble myself further with remembering their
performances, which were written simply with the object of degrading me
and my work? They never succeeded in shaking my convictions in the
least.
I regard the simple course of development, proceeding from analysis to
synthesis, which characterises pure reasoned thought, as also the
natural course of the development of every human being. Such a course of
development, exactly opposite to the path taken by the old-fashioned
methods of education, I now see mankind about to enter upon; nay, it has
been actually entered upon already in a few single cases, though these
cases are almost unknown and therefore unregarded; and with this new
course of development a new period is to begin, a new age for all
mankind, and therefore in the higher inner sense a new world; a world,
perceiving and understanding, perceived and understood; a world of
crystal clearness, creating an altogether new life for science, and
carrying onward therefore the true science, that is, the science of
being, and all that is founded upon this and conditioned by this.[107]
I may image forth the position of my educational establishment with
regard to the universities, under the figure of family life.
In a healthily constituted family it is the mother who first cares for,
watches over, and develops the child, teaches him to "read, mark, learn,
and inwardly digest," deriving everything she teaches from its central
unity, and gathering up her teaching into that unity again.
The father receives his son from the hand and the heart of the mother;
with his soul already full of true active life, of desire for the
knowledge of causes and effects, for the understanding of the whole and
its ramifications; with his mind open to the truth and his eyes to the
light, and with a perpetually nourished yearning for creative activity,
able to observe while building up, and to recognise while taking apart;
such in himself and his surroundings, always active, creative, full of
thought and endeavour, does the father receive his son in his home, to
train and teach him for the wider life outside. Thus should it be with
my educational institute and the universities; as regards the growth and
development of man I only desire to take the place of the silently
working, tenderly cherishing mother.
The life, the will, the understanding, these three must form the common
chord or triad of the harmony of human life, now one tone, now another,
now two of the three, rising powerfully above the rest. But where these
tones are separate and inharmonious there they work to discord, as we
see but too clearly in daily life:--
"Wrestling with life and with death, suspended between them we
hang."
In whatever family this chord is from the first set sweetly in tune, its
pure concords uniting to form the fundamental harmony of existence,
there all the hobgoblins of ordinary life, which even yet often unite to
annoy us, will be driven far away, there will joy and peace perpetually
inhabit, there will heaven descend to earth and earth rise up to heaven;
to a heaven, moreover, as full of contentment, as responsive to every
yearning of the soul as ever the Church has painted.
But since all true and earnest life must arise from and return to the
ideal life, to life in itself, so must a school of development, which is
to lead men, by means of their ordinary life, towards that higher life,
be itself a true school of religious training in the most comprehensive
sense of the word.
Man ought not to be contented with teaching merely directed to satisfy
his needs as a child of earth, but must demand and receive from
education a true foundation, a creative, satisfying preparation for all
the grades of development of nature and the world which mankind
encounters, and for the everlasting here and beyond of each new moment
of existence, for the everlasting rest, the everlasting activity, the
everlasting life in God.
As, however, it is only as a Christian, be he consciously or
unconsciously so, baptised or unbaptised, taking the Christian name or
rejecting it, that he can think and act after this fashion, you can see
at once the reason why my system of education feels itself to be, and in
fact claims to be, an education after the true spirit, and following the
precepts of Jesus Christ.
Through love, mutual faith, and a common aim towards acquiring,
manifesting, and acting out knowledge, there has grown up round me a
little company of men bound together by beautiful human bonds, the like
of which you would with difficulty find elsewhere. In your last letter
you desired to have some account of these friends and members of my
household. I will describe them for you.
But if my account is to be anything more than a lifeless list of names,
and if, though it cannot be the closely-branched tree of life which
actually exists, it is at least to come as near it as a garland or a
nosegay to the tree, you must permit me to go back a little into my past
life; for out of the self-same spirit, whence arose my own endeavours
and which gave its direction to my own life, arose also the circle of
those friends who are now so closely united with me.
The German war of 1813, in which so much seed-corn was sowed that
perhaps only the smaller part of it has yet sprung up, to say nothing of
blossoming and fruitage, sowed also the seed whence sprang the first
beginnings of our association, and of our harmonious circle. In April
1813 Jahn led me and other Berlin students to meet my future comrades in
arms, Lützow's "Black Troop;" we went from Berlin to Dresden, and thence
for the most part to Leipzig. On this march Jahn made me acquainted
before we reached Meissen with another Berlin student, Heinrich
Langethal, of Erfurt, as a fellow-countryman of mine; and Langethal
introduced me to his friend and fellow-student in theology, Middendorff,
of Brechten, near Dortmund.[108]
A wonderfully lovely spring evening spent together by the friendly
shores of Elbe, and a visit to the magnificent Cathedral of Meissen,
brought me nearer to these and other comrades; but it was the pleasant
banks of Havel at Havelberg, the charming situation of the grand
cathedral, the "Rhine Travels" of Georg Forster, a common love for
nature, and above all a common eager yearning for higher culture that
bound us three for ever together.[109]
The war in all its exhilaration and depression, its privation and
pleasure, its transient and its permanent aspects, flowed on; sometimes
nearer to us, sometimes further away. In August 1814 I was released from
service, and returned to Berlin, there to enter upon the post[110] at
the University Museum, which I have already mentioned.
Soon after, quite unexpectedly, I ran against my friends again, who had
come back to Berlin to finish their studies. After being somewhat
separated by the nature of our work, they as eagerly studying theology
as I did natural science, our common need and inner aspiration brought
us once more together. They had taken some private teaching, and were
frequently driven to seek my counsel and instruction by the difficulties
of their new position. When the war broke out afresh in 1815,
Middendorff had been living for several months previously with me as
room companion. Thus had life thrown us closely together, so that I
could see each one exactly as he was, in all his individuality, with his
qualities and his deficiencies, with what he could contribute, and what
he would have to receive from others.
In October 1816 I left my post, and quitted Berlin, without as yet
confiding to any one exactly what outward aim I had in view, simply
saying that I would write and give some account of myself as soon as I
had found what I set out to seek. In November of the same year my dearly
loved brother,[111] the eldest now living, whom I made my confidant so
far as that was possible, and who was at that time a manufacturer at
Osterode in the Harz district, gave me his two sons to educate. They
were his only sons, though not his only children; two boys of six and
eight years old respectively. With these boys I set out for a village on
the Urn called Griesheim, and there I added to my little family, first
two, then a third, that is, altogether three other nephews, the orphan
sons of my late dearest brother,[112] he who had always best sympathised
with me through life. He had been minister at Griesheim, and his widow
still lived there. He had died of hospital fever in 1813, just after the
cessation of the war. I reckon, therefore, the duration of my present
educational work from November 16th, 1816.
Already I had written from Osterode to Middendorff at Berlin, inviting
him and Langethal to join me and help in working out a system of life
and education worthy of _man_. It was only possible for Middendorff to
reach me by April 1817, and Langethal could not arrive until even the
following September. The latter, however, sent me, by Middendorff, his
brother, a boy of eleven years old;[113] so that I now had six pupils.
In June of the same year (1817) family reasons caused me to move from
Griesheim to this place, Keilhau.[114] Next came other pupils also, with
Langethal's arrival in September. My household was growing fast, and yet
I had no house of my own. In a way only comprehensible to Him Who knows
the workings of the mind, I managed by November to get the school that I
now occupy built as a frame-house, but without being in possession of
the ground it stood on.
I pass over the space of a year, which was nevertheless so rich in
experiences of trouble and joy, of times when we were cast down, and
other times when we were lifted up, that its description would easily
fill many times the space even of this long letter. In June of the
following year I became in the most remarkable way possessor of the
little farm which I still hold, in Keilhau, and thus for the first time
possessor also of the land upon which the schoolhouse had already been
erected.[115] As yet there were no other buildings there.
In September 1818 I brought to the household, still further increased,
and now so rich with children and brothers, its _housewife_, in the
person of a lady whom a like love of Nature and of childhood with my
own, and a like high and earnest conception of education, as the
preparation for a life worthy of man, had drawn towards me. She was
accompanied by a young girl whom she had some time before adopted as a
daughter, and who now came with her to assist her in the duties of the
household.[116]
We had now a severe struggle for existence for the whole time up to
1820. With all our efforts we never could get the school house enlarged;
other still more necessary buildings had to be erected first, under
pressing need for them.[117] In the year 1820, on Ascension Day, my
brother from Osterode, whose two sons were already my pupils, came to
join me with his whole family and all his possessions; urged by his
love for his boys, and a wish to help in the advancement of my life's
purpose. As my brother, beyond the two sons I have mentioned, had three
daughters, my family was increased by five persons through his
arrival.[118]
The completion of the school-house was now pushed on with zeal; but it
was 1822 before we got it finished. Our life from this point becomes so
complex that it is impossible to do more than just mention what applies
to the Association formed by our still united members.
In 1823, Middendorff's sister's son Barop, till then a divinity
student in Halle, visited us; and he was so impressed by the whole
work that he was irresistibly driven soon afterwards to join us in our
life-task.[119] Since 1823, with the exception of such breaks as his
work in life demanded, he has been uninterruptedly one of our community,
sharing in our work. At this moment[120] he is in Berlin, serving his
one year with the colours as a volunteer, and devoting what time he has
to spare, to earnest study, especially that of natural science. We hope
to have him back with us next spring. In the autumn of 1825 Langethal
became engaged to my wife's adopted daughter, who had come with her from
Berlin; and Middendorff became engaged to my brother's eldest daughter.
Ascension Day 1826 was the wedding-day for both couples. Heaven blessed
each marriage with a daughter, but took back to itself the little one of
Langethal.
Still another faithful colleague must I remember here, Herr Carl from
Hildburghausen, who has been since New Year's Day 1825 a member of our
Institute, his particular work being to teach instrumental music and
singing. He lives and works in the true spirit of the Institute, and is
bound up heart and soul with its fortunes.[121] Of other teachers, who
have assisted us in the Institute for greater or less time, I need not
speak; they never properly belonged to our circle. Amongst all the
specially associated members of our little band, not one breach has
occurred since the beginning of our work. I would I could feel that I
had accomplished what I have aimed at in this letter--namely, to make
you acquainted with the inner deep seated common life which really
binds together the members composing our outwardly united association;
although it has only been feasible rather to suggest by implication the
internal mental phenomena of the external bonds of union than properly
to indicate them and to set them clearly forth.
* * * * *
This ends the autobiographical part of the Krause letter. Here and
there in the footnotes the present editors, profound admirers of the
great master, have ventured to criticise frankly the inordinate belief
in himself which was at once Froebel's strength, and his weakness.
On the one hand, his noble and truly gigantic efforts were only made
possible by his almost fanatical conviction in his principles and in
his mission. On the other hand, this dogmatic attitude made it very
difficult to work with him, for persons of any independence of mind.
He could scarcely brook discussion, never contradiction. This is most
characteristically shown by a fragment of Froebel's dated 1st April,
1829, as follows:--
"I consider my own work and effort as _unique_ in all time, as
_necessary_ in itself, and as the _messenger of reformation_ for all
ages, working forwards and backwards, offering and giving to mankind all
that it needs, and all that it perpetually seeks on every side. I have
no complaint to make if others think otherwise about it; I can bear with
them;[122] I can even, if need be, live with them, and this I have
actually done; but I can share no life-aim with them, they and I have no
_unity_ of purpose in life. It is not I, it is they who are at fault
herein; I do not separate myself from them, they withdraw themselves
from me."
To get a view of Froebel's work from the practical side, so as to
supplement the account we have received from Froebel himself as to the
origination and development of the principles upon which that work was
based, we have selected a sketch by Barop entitled "Critical Moments in
the Froebel Community;" written for Dr. Lange's edition by Barop (then
the principal and proprietor of Keilhau) about the year 1862.
CRITICAL MOMENTS IN THE FROEBEL COMMUNITY.
Under this heading Barop writes as follows:--
About 1827 we were in an unusually critical position. You know how
little means we had when we began to create our Institution.[123]
Middendorff had sacrificed his entire inheritance from his father, but
the purchase of the ground and the erection of necessary buildings
called for considerable sums, so that Middendorff's addition to the
capital had disappeared like drops of water falling on a hot stone.
My father-in-law, Christian Ludwig Froebel, had later on come forward
and placed his entire fortune unconditionally in the hands of his
brother,[124] but even this sacrifice was not sufficient to keep away
care and want from the door. My own father was a man of means, but he
was so angry at my joining the Froebel community at Keilhau[125] that he
refused me any assistance whatever. Mistrust surrounded us on all sides
in these early years of our work; open and concealed enmities assailed
us both from near and far, and sought to embitter our lot and to nip our
efforts in the bud. None the less for this, the institution blossomed
quick and fair; but later on, through the well-known persecution
directed against associations of students, it was brought to the verge
of ruin, for the spirit of 1815 was incarnate within it, and it was this
spirit which at the time (about 1827) was the object of the extremest
irritation.[126] It would carry me too far were I to attempt to give a
complete account of these things. At times it really seemed as if the
devil himself must be let loose against us. The number of our pupils
sank to five or six, and as the small receipts dwindled more and more,
so did the burden of debt rise higher and higher till it reached a giddy
height. Creditors stormed at us from every side, urged on by lawyers who
imbrued their hands in our misery. Froebel would run out at the back
door and escape amongst the hills whenever dunning creditors appeared.
Middendorff, and he alone, generally succeeded in quieting them, a
feat which might seem incredible to all but those who have known the
fascination of Middendorff's address. Sometimes quite moving scenes
occurred, full of forbearance, trustfulness, and noble sentiment, on the
part of workmen who had come to ask us for their money. A locksmith, for
instance, was strongly advised by his lawyer to "bring an action against
the scamps," from whom no money was to be got, and who were evidently on
the point of failure. The locksmith indignantly repudiated the insult
thus levelled against us, and replied shortly that he had rather lose
his hard-earned money than hold a doubt as to our honourable conduct,
and that nothing was further from his thoughts than to increase our
troubles. Ah! and these troubles were hard to bear, for Middendorff had
already married, and I followed his example. When I proposed for my
wife, my future father-in-law and mother-in-law[127] said, "You surely
will not remain longer in Keilhau?" I answered, "Yes! I do intend to
remain here. The idea for which we live seems to me to be in harmony
with the spirit of the age, and also of deep importance in itself; and I
have no doubt but that men will come to believe in us because of our
right understanding of this idea, in the same way that we ourselves
believe in the invisible." As a matter of fact, none of us have ever
swerved one instant from the fullest belief in our educational mission,
and the most critical dilemma in the times we have passed through has
never revealed one single wavering soul in this little valley.
When our distress had risen to its highest pitch, a new and unexpected
prospect suddenly revealed itself.[128] Several very influential friends
of ours spoke to the Duke of Meiningen of our work. He summoned Froebel
to him, and made inquiries as to his plans for the future. Froebel
laid before him a plan for an educational institute,[129] complete in
every particular, which we had all worked at in common to draw up, in
which not only the ordinary "learned" branches of education but also
handicrafts, such as carpentering, weaving, bookbinding, tilling the
ground and so on were used as means of culture. During half the school
hours studies were to be pursued, and the other half was to be occupied
by handiwork of one kind or another. This work was to give opportunities
for direct instruction; and above all it was so planned as to excite in
the mind of the child a necessity for explanations as well as to gratify
his desire for creativeness and for practical usefulness. The awakening
of this eager desire for learning and creative activity, was one of the
fundamental thoughts of Friedrich Froebel's mind. The object-teaching
of Pestalozzi seemed to him not to go far enough; and he was always
seeking to regard man not only as a receptive being, but a creative, and
especially as a productive one. We never could work out our ideas in
Keilhau satisfactorily, because we could not procure efficient technical
teaching; and before all things we wanted the pupils themselves. But now
by the help of the Duke of Meiningen our keenest hopes seemed on the
point of gratification. The working out of the plan spoken of above, led
us to many practical constructions in which already lay the elements of
the future Kindergarten occupations. These models are now scattered far
and wide, and indeed are for the most part lost; but the written plan
has been preserved.
The Duke of Meiningen was much pleased with Froebel's explanations
of this plan, and with the complete and open-hearted way in which
everything was laid before him. A proposition was now made that Froebel
should receive the estate of Helba with thirty acres of land, and a
yearly subsidy of 1,000 florins.[130] In passing it may be noticed that
Froebel was consulted by the duke as to the education of the hereditary
prince. Froebel at once said outright that no good would be done for the
future ruler if he were not brought up in the society of other boys. The
duke came to his opinion, and the prince was actually so taught and
brought up.
When Froebel came back from Meiningen[131] the whole community was
naturally overjoyed; but their joy did not last very long. A man of
high station in Meiningen who was accustomed to exercise a sort of
dictatorship in educational matters, as he was the right-hand man of the
prince in such things, a man also who had earned an honourable place in
literature (of which no one surely would seek to deprive him), feared
much lest the elevation of Froebel should injure his own influence. We
were therefore, all of a sudden, once again assailed with the meanest
and most detestable charges, to which our unfortunate position at
Keilhau lent a convenient handle. The duke received secret warnings
against us. He began to waver, and in a temporising way sent again to
Froebel, proposing that he should first try a provisional establishment
of twenty pupils as an experiment. Froebel saw the intention in the
duke's mind, and was thrown out of humour at once; for when he suspected
mistrust he lost all hope, and immediately cast from his mind what a
few hours before had so warmly encouraged him. Therefore Froebel at
once broke off all negotiations, and set out for Frankfurt, to discuss
the work at Keilhau with his friends; since after so many troubles he
had almost begun to lose faith in himself. Here by chance he met the
well-known musical composer Schnyder, from Wartensee. He told this
gentleman of the events which had just occurred, talked to him of
his plans and of our work at Keilhau, and exercised upon him that
overpowering influence which is the peculiar property of creative
minds. Schnyder saw the value of his efforts, and begged him to set
up an educational establishment in his castle on the Wartensee, in
Switzerland.[132] Froebel hurriedly seized with joy the hand thus held
out to him, and at once set off for Wartensee with his nephew, my
brother-in-law Ferdinand.
There Friedrich and Ferdinand Froebel had already been living and
working some little time when I was asked by the rest of the community
who still remained at Keilhau to go and see for myself exactly how they
were getting on in Switzerland. With ten thalers[133] in my pocket, and
in possession of one old summer coat, which I wore, and a threadbare
frock-coat, which I carried over my arm, I set off on "Shanks's
mare"[134] to travel the whole way. If I were to go into details as to
what I went through on that journey, I should probably run the risk of
being charged with gross exaggeration. Enough, I got to my destination,
and when I asked in the neighbourhood about my friends and their doings,
I learned from every one that there was nothing further to say against
"the heretics," than that they were heretics. A few peasant children
from the neighbourhood had found their way to them, but no one came to
them from any distance, as had been reckoned upon from the first by
Froebel as a source of income. The ill-will of the clergy, which began
to show itself immediately the institution was founded, and which became
stronger as the footing of our friends grew firmer, was able to gather
to itself a following sufficient to check any quick growth of our
undertaking. Besides, the basis for such an establishment was not to be
found at Wartensee. Schnyder had, indeed, with a generosity never too
greatly to be admired and praised, made over to us his castle and all
its furniture, his plate, his splendid library,--in short, all that was
in or around the castle was fully at our disposition; but he would
permit no new buildings or alterations of any sort, and as the rooms
assigned to us were in no way suitable for our use, it was evident that
his generous support must be regarded as only a temporary and passing
assistance. We perceived the evil of our situation in all its keenness,
but we saw no way out of the difficulty.
In a most remarkable way there dawned upon us a new prospect at the very
moment when we least expected it. We were sitting one day in a tavern
near Wartensee, and talking of our struggles with some strangers
who happened to be there. Three travellers were much interested in
our narrative. They gave themselves out as business people from
Willisau,[135] and soon informed us that they had formed the notion of
trying to get some assistance for us, and our enterprise for their
native town. This they actually did. We received an invitation from
twenty associated well-to-do families in Willisau to remove our
school there, and more fully to work out our plans amongst them. The
association had addressed the cantonal authorities, and a sort of castle
was allotted provisionally to us. About forty pupils from the canton at
once entered the school, and now we seemed at last to have found what we
had so long been seeking. But the priests rose up furiously against us
with a really devilish force. We even went in fear of our lives, and
were often warned by kind-hearted people to turn back, when we were
walking towards secluded spots, or had struck along the outlying paths
amongst the mountains. To what abominable means this spirit of bigotry
resorted, the following example may serve to show.
In Willisau a church festival is held once a year, in which a
communion-wafer is shown, miraculously spotted with blood. The drops of
blood were believed by the people to have been evoked from the figure
of Jesus by the crime of two gamblers; who, having cursed Jesus, flung
their sword at him, whereupon the devil appeared. As "God be with
us"[136] seized the villains by the throat, a few drops of blood
trickled from Jesus' wounds. To prevent others, therefore, from
falling in a like way into the power of the arch-deceiver, a yearly
commemorative festival is held at Willisau. The wafer is shown as a
warning to devout people, who flock in crowds from all parts of the
neighbourhood to join in the procession which closes the ceremony. We
felt of course compelled to attend, and as we wished to take our part,
we offered to lead the singing. I feared an outbreak, and I earnestly
implored my friends to keep quiet under any circumstances, and whatever
happened, to give no pretext for any excitement. Our singing was
finished, when in the place of the expected preacher, suddenly there
appeared a blustering, fanatical Capuchin monk. He exhausted himself in
denunciations of this God-forsaken, wicked generation, sketched in
glaring colours the pains of hell awaiting the accursed race, and then
fell fiercely upon the alarmed Willisauers, upbraiding them, as their
worst sin, with the fostering of heretics in their midst, the said
"heretics" being manifestly ourselves. Fiercer and fiercer grew
his threats, coarser and coarser his insults against us and our
well-wishers, more and more horrible his pictures of the flames of hell,
into grave danger of which the Willisauers, he said, had fallen by their
awful sin. Froebel stood as if benumbed, without moving a muscle, or
changing a feature, exactly in face of the Capuchin, in amongst the
people; and we others also looked straight before us, immovable. The
parents of our pupils, as well as the pupils themselves, and many
others, had already fled midway in the monk's Jeremiad. Every one
expected the affair to end badly for us; and our friends, outside the
church, were taking precautions for our safety, and concerting measures
for seizing the monk who was thus inciting the mob to riot. We stood
quite still all the time in our places listening patiently to the close
of the Capuchin's tirade: "Win, then, for yourselves an everlasting
treasure in heaven." shouted he, "bring this misery to an end, and
suffer the wretched men to remain no longer amongst you. Hunt the wolves
from the land, to the glory of God and the rage of the devil. Then will
peace and blessing return, and great joy in heaven with God, and on
earth with those who heartily serve Him and His saints. Amen." Hardly
had he uttered the last word than he disappeared through a side door
and was no more seen. As for us, we passed quietly through the staring
and threatening mob. No hand was raised against us at that moment, but
danger lay about us on every side, and it was no pleasure to recognise
the fact that the sword of Damokles always hung by a hair over our
head. Feeling very uneasy at our insecure condition, I was sent, on the
part of the rest, to the authorities of the canton, especially to Abbe
Girard,[137] and the mayor, Eduard Pfyffer, to beg that they would
provide for our safety with all the means in their power. On my way I
was recognised by a priest for one of the newly-introduced "heretics" as
I rested a moment in an inn. The people there began to talk freely about
me, and to cast looks of hatred and contempt at me. At last, the priest
waxing bolder and bolder, accused me aloud of abominable heresy. I arose
slowly, crossed with a firm step over to the black-frocked one, and
asked him, "Do you know, sir, who Jesus Christ was, and do you hold Him
in any particular esteem?" Quite nonplussed by my firm and quiet address
he stammered out, "Certainly, He is God the Son, and we must all honour
Him and believe on Him, if we are to escape everlasting damnation." I
continued, "Then perhaps you can tell me whether Christ was a Catholic
or a Protestant?"
The black-frock was silenced, the crowd stared, and presently began to
applaud. The priest made off, and I was left in peace. My question had
answered better than a long speech.
In Eduard Pfyffer I found an estimable sterling man of humane and firm
character. He started from the fundamental principle that it was of
little use freeing the people from this or that special superstition,
but that we should do better by working for the future against sloth
of thought and want of independent mental character from the very
bottom--namely, by educating our young people. Therefore, he set
great store by our undertaking. And when I told him of our downcast
spirits and the absolute danger in which we lived at the moment, he
replied:--"There is only one way to ensure your safety. You must win
over the people. Work on a little longer, and then invite them all from
far and near to a public examination. If this test wins over the crowd
to your side, then, and only then, are you out of harm's reach." I went
home, and we followed this counsel. The examination was held on a lovely
day in autumn. A great crowd from several cantons flocked together, and
there appeared delegates from the authorities of Zürich, of Bern, and
other cantons. Our contest with the clerical party, which had been
commented upon in most of the Swiss journals, had drawn all eyes upon
us. We scored a great victory with our examination. The children
developed so much enthusiasm, and answered so readily, that all were
agreeably surprised, and rewarded us with loud applause. From seven in
the morning till seven in the evening lasted this examination, closing
with games and gymnastic exercises performed by the whole school. We
rejoiced within ourselves; for our undertaking might now be regarded as
fairly floated. The institution was spoken of in the great Council of
the Canton, and most glowing speeches were delivered in our favour by
Herr Pfyffer, Herr Amrhyn, and others. The Council decided that the
castle and its outbuildings should be let to us at a very cheap rate,
and that the Capuchin who had openly incited to riot against us should
be expelled from the canton.
A little time after this examination a deputation from Bern came
to invite Froebel to undertake the organisation of an Orphanage at
Burgdorf. Froebel suggested that he should not be restricted to teach
orphans alone in the new establishment; his request was granted, and he
then accepted the invitation.
With this, it seemed to me, my mission in Switzerland was at an end, and
I began to long to return to Keilhau; my eldest son was now a year old,
and I had never yet seen him. Middendorff left his family, and replaced
me at Willisau, living there for four years far away from wife and
child.[138] At Keilhau I found things had improved, and the numbers had
increased most cheeringly. I determined to throw all my strength into
the work of raising the mother institution from her slough of debt. I
began by a piece of honourable swindling: and borrowed of Peter to pay
Paul, covering one debt with another, but at the same time making it
appear that we were paying our way. In this fashion our damaged credit
was restored, and as the receipts grew happily greater and greater, I
began to gain ground. Eventually I was able to send help to the other
branches of our community, to increase my help as time went on, and to
prepare a place of refuge for them if anything went wrong elsewhere.
In Switzerland our enterprise did not develop as rapidly as we desired,
in spite of the sanction of the Council of the Canton. The institution
at Willisau gained unlimited confidence there; but the malevolent
opposition of the clerical party secretly flourished as before, and
succeeded in depriving it of all aid from more distant places. Under
these circumstances we could not attain that prosperity which so much
activity and self-sacrificing work on the part of our circle must
otherwise infallibly have brought.
Ferdinand Froebel and Middendorff remained in Willisau. Froebel and his
wife went to Burgdorf, to found and direct the proposed Orphanage.[139]
In his capacity as Director, Froebel had to give what was called a
Repetitive Course to the teachers. In that Canton, namely, there was an
excellent regulation which gave three months' leave to the teachers once
in every two years.[140] During this leave they assembled at Burgdorf,
mutually communicated their experiences, and enriched their culture with
various studies. Froebel had to preside over the debates and to conduct
the studies, which were pursued in common. His own observations and the
remarks of the teachers brought him anew to the conviction that all
school education was as yet without a proper foundation, and, therefore,
that until the education of the nursery was reformed nothing solid and
worthy could be attained. The necessity of training gifted capable
mothers occupied his soul, and the importance of the education of
childhood's earliest years became more evident to him than ever. He
determined to set forth fully his ideas on education, which the tyranny
of a thousand opposing circumstances had always prevented him from
working out in their completeness; or at all events to do this as
regards the earliest years of man, and then to win over the world of
women to the actual accomplishment of his plans. Pestalozzi's "Mothers'
Book" (_Buch der Mütter_) Froebel would replace by a complete
theoretical and practical system for the use of women in general. An
external circumstance supervened at this point to urge him onwards.
His wife grew alarmingly ill, and the physicians prescribed complete
absence from the sharp Swiss mountain air. Froebel asked to be permitted
to resign his post, that he might retire to Berlin. The Willisau
Institution, although outwardly flourishing, was limited more and more
narrowly by the bigotry of the priests, and must evidently now be soon
given up, since the Government had passed into the hands of the Jesuit
party. Langethal and Ferdinand Froebel were nominated Directors of
Burgdorf.[141] Middendorff rejoined his family at Keilhau. Later on,
Langethal split off from the community and accepted the direction
of a girls' school in Bern (that school which, after Langethal, the
well-known Fröhlich conducted); but Froebel never forgave him this step.
Ferdinand Froebel remained, till his sudden and early death, Director of
the Orphanage at Burgdorf. A public funeral, such as has never found its
equal at Burgdorf, bore witness to the amount of his great labours, and
to the general appreciation of their value.
When Friedrich Froebel came back from Berlin, the idea of an institution
for the education of little children had fully taken shape in his mind.
I took rooms for him in the neighbouring Blankenburg.[142] Long did he
rack his brains for a suitable name for his new scheme. Middendorff and
I were one day walking to Blankenburg with him over the Steiger Pass.
He kept on repeating, "Oh, if I could only think of a suitable name for
my youngest born!" Blankenburg lay at our feet, and he walked moodily
towards it. Suddenly he stood still as if fettered fast to the spot,
and his eyes assumed a wonderful, almost refulgent, brilliancy. Then he
shouted to the mountains so that it echoed to the four winds of heaven,
"_Eurêka!_ I have it! KINDERGARTEN shall be the name of the new
Institution!"
Thus wrote Barop in or about the year 1862, after he had seen all his
friends pass away, and had himself become prosperous and the recipient
of many honours. The University of Jena made him a doctor, and the
Prince of Rudolstadt created him his Minister of Education. Froebel
slept in Liebenstein, and Middendorff at the foot of the Kirschberg in
Keilhau. They sowed and reaped not; and yet to possess the privilege of
sowing, was it not equivalent in itself to reaping a very great reward?
In any event, it is delightful to remember that Froebel, in the April
of 1852, the year in which he died (June 21st), received public honours
at the hands of the general congress of teachers held in Gotha. When
he appeared that large assembly rose to greet him as one man; and
Middendorff, too, who was inseparable from Froebel, so that when one
appeared the other was not far off, had before his death (in 1853) the
joy of hearing a similar congress at Salzungen declare the system of
Froebel to be of world-wide importance, and to merit on that account
their especial consideration and their most earnest examination.
A few words on Middendorff, culled from Lange's account, may be
serviceable. Middendorff was to Froebel as Aaron was to Moses. Froebel,
in truth, was "slow of speech and of a slow tongue" (Exod. iv. 10), and
Middendorff was "his spokesman unto the people" (v. 16). It was the
latter's clearness and readiness of speech which won adherents for
Froebel amongst people who neither knew him nor could understand him. In
1849 Middendorff had immense success in Hamburg; but when Froebel came,
later on, to occupy the ground thus conquered beforehand, he had to
contend against much opposition, for every one missed the easy eloquence
of Middendorff, which had been so convincing. Dr. Wichard Lange came to
know Froebel when the latter visited Hamburg in the winter of 1849-50.
At this time he spent almost every afternoon and evening with him, and
held the post of editor of Froebel's _Weekly Journal_. Even after this
close association with Froebel, he found himself unable thoroughly
to go with the schemes for the education of little children, the
Kindergarten, and with those for the training of Kindergarten teachers.
"Never mind!" said Froebel, out of humour, when Lange told him this; "if
you cannot come over to my views now, you will do so in ten years' time;
but sooner or later, _come you must_!" Dr. Lange nobly fulfilled the
prophecy, and the edition of Froebel's collected works (Berlin 1862),
from which we derive the present text (and much of the notes), was his
gift of repentance to appease the wrath of the Manes of his departed
friend and master. Nor was he content with this; but by his frequent
communications to _The Educational Journal_ (_Die Rheinischen Blätter_),
originally founded by Diesterweg, and by the Froebelian spirit which he
was able to infuse into the large boys'-school which he long conducted
at Hamburg, he worked for the "new education" so powerfully and so
unweariedly that he must be always thankfully regarded as one of the
principal adherents of the great teacher. His connection with the
Froebel community was further strengthened by a most happy marriage with
the daughter of Middendorff.
[1] Johann Jacob Froebel, father of Friedrich, belonged to the Old
Lutheran Protestant Church.
[2] These were four (1) August, who went into business, and died young.
(2) Christoph, a clergyman in Griesheim, who died in 1813 of the typhus,
which then overspread all central Germany, having broken out in the
over-crowded hospitals after the battle of Leipzig; he was the father of
Julius, Karl, and Theodor, the wish to benefit whom led their uncle
Friedrich to begin his educational work in Griesheim in 1816. (3)
Christian Ludwig, first a manufacturer in Osterode, and then associated
with Friedrich from 1820 onwards,--born 24th June, 1770, died 9th
January, 1851. (4) Traugott, who studied medicine at Jena, became a
medical man, and was burgomaster of Stadt-Ilm. Friedrich August Wilhelm
himself was born on the 21st April, 1782, and died on the 21st June,
1852. He had no sisters.
[3] Karl Poppo Froebel, who became a teacher, and finally a
publisher,--born 1786; died 25th March, 1824: not to be confounded with
his nephew, Karl, son of Christoph, now living in Edinburgh.
[4] This needs explanation. In Germany, even by strangers, children are
universally addressed in the second person singular, which carries with
it a certain caressing sentiment. Grown persons would be addressed
(except by members of their own family, or intimate friends) in the
third person plural. Thus, if one met a child in the street, one might
say, _Willst Du mit mir kommen_? (Wilt thou come with me?); whereas to
a grown person the proper form would be, _Wollen Sie mit mir kommen_?
(Will THEY--meaning, will YOU--come with me?). The mode of speech of
which Froebel speaks here is now almost obsolete, and even in his day
was only used to a person of markedly inferior position. Our sentence
would run in this case, _Will Er mit mir kommen_? (Will HE--meaning,
will YOU, John or Thomas--come with me?), and carries with it a sort of
contemptuous superciliousness, as if the person spoken to were beneath
the dignity of a direct address. It is evident, therefore, that to a
sensitive, self-torturing child like Froebel, being addressed in this
manner would cause the keenest pain; since, as he justly says, it has
the effect, by the mere form of speech, of _isolating_ the person
addressed. Such a one is not to be considered as of our family, or even
of our rank in life.
[5] The Cantor would combine the duties of precentor (whence his title),
leading the church singing and training the choristers, with those of
the schoolmaster of the village boys' school. In large church-schools
the Cantor is simply the choir-master. The great Bach was Cantor of the
Thomas-Schule, Leipzig.
[6] It will be remembered that this letter is addressed to the Duke of
Meiningen.
[7] "Arise, my heart and spirit," and "It costs one much (it is a
difficult task) to be a Christian."
[8] Christoph Froebel is here meant. He studied at the University of
Jena.
[9] In this case Froebel's usually accurate judgment of his own
character seems at fault; his opinions being always most decided, even
to the point of sometimes rendering him incapable of fairly appreciating
the views of others.
[10] Froebel is alluding to his undertaking the education of his brother
Christoph's sons, in November 1816, when he finally decided to devote
his life to the cause of education.
[11] At the time Froebel was writing this autobiographical letter
(1827), and seeking thereby to enlist the Duke of Meiningen's sympathies
in his work, in order to found a fresh institution at Helba, he was
undergoing what was almost a persecution at Keilhau. All associations of
progressive men were frowned upon as politically dangerous, and Keilhau,
amongst the rest, was held in suspicion. Somewhat of this is seen in the
interesting account by Barop further on ("Critical Moments at Keilhau").
[12] Herr Hoffmann, a clergyman, representing the State in Church matter
for the district of Stadt-Ilm; a post somewhat analogous to that of our
archdeacon.
[13] Equal to an English middle-class school.
[14] The Ilm, flowing through Thuringia into the Saale, a tributary of
the Elbe. Oberweissbach is upon the Schwarza, also flowing into the
Saale. Weimar stands upon the Ilm, Jena upon the Saale.
[15] Superintendents. The _ephors_ of ancient Sparta amongst their
duties had that of the superintendence of education, whence the German
title.
[16] This story is not now popular, but its nature is sufficiently
indicated in the text.
[17] Christoph and Traugott.
[18] In Germany a _Forstmann_, or forester, if he has studied forest
cultivation in a School of Forestry, rises eventually to the position of
supervisor of forests (_Forst-meister_). The forester who does not study
remains in the inferior position.
[19] In the German State forests, the timber, when cut down, is
frequently not transported by road, but is made to slide down the
mountain-sides by timber-shoots into the streams or rivers; it is then
made up into rafts, and so floated down to its destination.
[20] Jussieu's natural system of botany may possibly be here alluded
to. The celebrated "Genera Plantarum" appeared in 1798, and Froebel was
at Jena in 1799. On the other hand, A.J.G. Batsch, Froebel's teacher,
professor at the university since 1789, had published in 1787-8 his
"Anleitung zur Kentniss und Geschichte der Pflanzen," 2 vols. We have
not seen this work. Batsch also published an "Introduction to the Study
of Natural History," which reached a second edition in 1805.
[21] In justice to Froebel and his teacher, it must be remembered that
the theory of evolution was not as yet formed, and that those who dimly
sought after some explanation of the uniformity of the vertebrate plan,
which they observed, were but all too likely to be led astray.
[22] The text (Lange, Berlin, 1862) says _meinen ältesten Bruder_, that
is, "of my eldest brother;" but this is quite an error, whether of
Froebel or of Herr Lange we cannot at present say. As we have already
said in a footnote on p. 3, August was the eldest brother of Friedrich,
and Christoph was the eldest then living. Traugott, who was at Jena with
Friedrich, was his next older brother, youngest of the first family,
except only Friedrich himself. It is Traugott who is meant in this
passage.
[23] "In carcer;" that is, in the prison of the university, where in the
last resort students who fail to comply with university regulations are
confined. The "carcer" still exists in German universities. It has of
course nothing to do with the ordinary prison of the town.
[24] The Prince-Bishop of Bamberg shared in the general Napoleonic
earthquake. The domain of the bishopric went to Bavaria ultimately, the
title alone remaining to the Church.
[25] Shared the fate of the Bamberg possessions, and of many other
principalities and small domains at that time existent; namely,
absorption under the Napoleonic _régime_ into the neighbouring States.
This went to Bavaria; see the text, later on.
[26] Bruno, or the Over-Soul.
[27] "General Intelligencer of the German people."
[28] Upper Palatinate, a province in the north of Bavaria.
[29] Herr Von Dewitz, his employer.
[30] The Pädagogium in Halle answered somewhat to our grammar schools
with a mixture of boarders and day-scholars. It was founded by Francke
in 1712, after the ideas of the famous Basedow, and was endowed by means
of a public subscription.
[31] These were two pamphlets by the famous patriot and poet Ernst
Moritz Arndt (1769-1860), published in 1805.
[32] That is, Froebel realised the distinction of the subject-world from
the object-world.
[33] That is, he signed Wilhelm Froebel instead of Friedrich Froebel,
for a time. It cannot have been for long, however.
[34] The young man mentioned on page 39.
[35] The pretty district bordering the river Ucker, in pleasing contrast
with the sandy plains of Brandenburg; it lies at no great distance from
Berlin, so that it forms the favourite goal for a short excursion with
the people of that arid city.
[36] Whither Luther fled for refuge after the Diet of Worms in 1521; and
where, protected by the Elector of Saxony, he lay concealed for a year.
During this year he translated the Bible.
[37] Held all over Protestant Germany in 1817.
[38] Our children still in like manner "say their catechism" at
afternoon church in old-fashioned country places.
[39] This school, still in existence up to 1865 and later, but now no
longer in being, had been founded under Gruner, a pupil of Pestalozzi,
to embody and carry out the educational principles of the latter.
[40] There is a smaller town called Frankfurt, on the Oder. "Am Main,"
or "An der Oder," is, therefore, added to the greater or the smaller
Frankfurt respectively, for distinction's sake.
[41] He never does, for this interesting record remains a fragment.
[42] Situate at the head of the lake of Neuchatel, but in the canton of
Vaud, in Switzerland.
[43] Austria was not the only country alive to the importance of this
new teaching. Prussia and Holland also sent commissioners to study
Pestalozzi's system, and so did many other smaller states. The Czar
(Alexander I.) sent for Pestalozzi to a personal interview at Basel.
[44] _Wandernde Classen._ Some of our later English schools have adopted
a similar plan.
[45] One of Pestalozzi's teachers, to whom especially was confided the
arrangement of the arithmetical studies.
[46] By positive instruction Froebel means learning by heart, or by
being told results; as distinguished from actual education or
development of the faculties, and the working out of results by pupils
for themselves.
[47] This must mean the system invented by Rousseau, a modern
development of which is the Chevé system now widely used on the
Continent. In England the tonic-sol-fa notation, which uses syllables
instead of figures, but which rests fundamentally on the same
principles, is much more familiar.
[48] _"Geht und schaut, es geht ungehür (ungeheuer)."_
[49] The miserable quarrels between Niederer and Schmid, which so
distressed the later years of Pestalozzi, are here referred to.
[50] A Consistorium in Germany is a sort of clerical council or
convocation, made up of the whole of the Established clergy of a
province, and supervising Church and school matters throughout that
province, under the control of the Ministry of Religion and Education.
No educator could establish a school or take a post in a school without
the approval of this body.
[51] That is, the education of other minds than his own; something
beyond mere school-teaching.
[52] _Einertabelle_; tables or formulas extending to units only; a
system embodied to a large extent in Sonnenschein's "ABC of Arithmetic,"
for teaching just the first elements of the art.
[53] Like other matters, this, too, has been left undone, as far as the
present (unfinished) letter is concerned.
[54] _Erdkunde._
[55] _Recht schreiben._
[56] _Recht sprechen._
[57] One of Arndt's pamphlets, then quite new.
[58] 1827.
[59] He would have refused to countenance Froebel's throwing up his
engagement.
[60] Georg Friedrich Seller (1733-1807), a Bavarian by birth, became a
highly-esteemed clergyman in Coburg. He wrote on religious and moral
subjects, and those amongst the list of his works, the most likely to be
alluded to by Froebel, are "A Bible for Teachers," "Methods of Religious
Teaching for Schools," "Religious Culture for the Young," etc.
[61] Jean Paul Friedrich Richter (1763-1825). No doubt the celebrated
"Levana," Richter's educational masterpiece, which was published in this
same year, 1807, is here alluded to.
[62] 1808.
[63] This is in 1827. But the expression of his thought remained a
difficult matter with Froebel to the end of his life, a drawback to
which many of his friends have borne witness; for instance, Madame von
Marenholtz-Bülow.
[64] Probably done with the point of a knitting needle, etc. The design
is then visible on the other side of the paper in an embossed form.
[65] This account is dated 1827, it is always necessary to remember.
[66] After all, the work was left to Froebel himself to do. These words
were written in 1827. The "Menschen Erziehung" of Froebel ("Education
of Man"), which appeared the year before, had also touched upon the
subject. It was further developed in his "Mutter und Koselieder"
("Mother's Songs and Games"), in which his first wife assisted him. That
appeared in 1838. In the same year was also founded the _Sonntags-Blatt_
(_Sunday Journal_), to which many essays and articles on this subject
were contributed by Froebel. The third volume ("Pädagogik") of Dr.
Wichard Lange's complete edition of Froebel's works is largely made up
of these _Sonntags-Blatt_ articles. The whole Kindergarten system rests
mainly on this higher view of children's play.
[67] A report that Froebel drew up for the Princess Regent of Rudolstadt
in 1809, giving a voluminous account of the theory and practice pursued
at Yverdon (Wichard's "Froebel," vol. i., p. 154).
[68] The castle of Yverdon, an old feudal stronghold, which Pestalozzi
had received from the municipality of that town in 1804, to enable him
to establish a school and work out his educational system there.
[69] Froebel desired to see in Rudolstadt, or elsewhere in Thuringia
(his "native land"), an institution like that of Pestalozzi at Yverdon;
and he sought to interest the Princess Regent of Rudolstadt by the full
account of Yverdon already mentioned.
[70] This would scarcely seem probable to those who admire and love
Pestalozzi. But we must remember that religious teaching appeals so
intimately to individual sympathies that it is quite possible that what
was of vital service to many others was not of so much use to Froebel,
who was, as he frankly admits, out of harmony on many points with his
noble-hearted teacher.
[71] That the boys' characters were immersed in an element of
strengthening and developing games as the body is immersed in the water
of a strengthening bath, seems to be Froebel's idea.
[72] Sanskrit is here probably meant.
[73] Hebrew and Arabic.
[74] The comet of 1811, one of the most brilliant of the present
century, was an equal surprise to the most skilled astronomers as to
Froebel. Observations of its path have led to a belief that it has a
period of 300 years; so that it was possibly seen by our ancestors in
1511, and may be seen by our remote descendants in 2111. The appearance
of this comet was synchronous with an unusually fine vintage harvest,
and "wine of the great Comet year" was long held in great esteem.
[75] _Geognosie._
[76] The Plamann School, an institution of considerable merit. Plamann
was a pupil of Pestalozzi. One of the present writers studied
crystallography later on with a professor who had been a colleague of
Froebel's in this same school, and who himself was also a pupil of
Pestalozzi.
[77] Froebel is here symbolically expressing the longing which pervaded
all noble spirits at that time for a free and united Germany, for a
great Fatherland. The tender mother's love was symbolised by the ties of
home (Motherland), but the father's strength and power (Fatherland) was
only then to be found in German national life in the one or two large
states like Prussia, etc. It needed long years and the termination of
this period of preparation by two great wars, those of 1866 and of 1870,
to bind the whole people together, and make Germany no longer a
"geographical expression" but a mighty nation.
[78] In the beginning of this great contest it was Prussia who declared
war against the common enemy and oppressor, Napoleon. The other German
powers, for the most part, held aloof.
[79] The Baron von Lützow formed his famous volunteer corps in March
1813. His instructions were to harass the enemy by constant skirmishes,
and to encourage the smaller German states to rise against the tyrant
Napoleon. The corps became celebrated for swift, dashing exploits in
small bodies. Froebel seems to have been with the main body, and to have
seen little of the more active doings of his regiment. Their favourite
title was "Lützow's Wilde Verwegene Schaar" (Lützow's Wild Bold Troop).
Amongst the volunteers were many distinguished men; for instance, the
poet Körner, whose volume of war poetry, much of it written during the
campaign, is still a great favourite. One of the poems, "Lützow's Wilde
Jagd" ("Lützow's Wild Chase"), is of world-wide fame through the musical
setting of the great composer Weber. In June 1813 came the armistice of
which Froebel presently speaks. During the fresh outbreak of war after
the armistice the corps was cut to pieces. It was reorganised, and we
find it on the Rhine in December of the same year. It was finally
dissolved after Napoleon's abdication and exile to Elba, 20th April, and
the peace of Paris 30th May, 1814.
[80] _Die Grafschaft Mark._ The Mark of Brandenburg (so called as being
the mark or frontier against Slavic heathendom in that direction during
the dark ages) is the kernel of the Prussian monarchy. It was in the
character of Markgraf of Brandenburg, that the Hohenzollern princes
were electors of the German Empire; their title as king was due not to
Brandenburg, but to the dukedom of Prussia in the far east (once the
territory of the Teutonic military order), which was elevated to the
rank of an independent kingdom in 1701. The title of the present Emperor
of Germany still begins "William, Emperor of Germany, King of Prussia.
Markgraf of Brandenburg," etc., etc., showing the importance attached to
this most ancient dignity. The Mark of Brandenburg contains Berlin.
Middendorff seems to have been then living in the Mark. Froebel cannot
have forgotten that by origin Wilhelm Middendorff was a Westphalian.
[81] Of Bauer little further is to be known. He was afterwards professor
in the Frederick-William Gymnasium (Grammar School) in Berlin, but has
no further connection with Froebel's career. On the other hand, a
few words on Langethal and Middendorff seem necessary here. Heinrich
Langethal was born in Erfurt, September 3rd, 1792. He joined Froebel at
Keilhau in 1817. He was a faithful colleague of Froebel's there, and
at Willisau and Burgdorf, but finally left him at the last place, and
undertook the management of a girls' school at Bern. He afterwards
became a minister in Schleusingen, returning eventually to Keilhau. One
of the present writers saw him there in 1871. He was then quite blind,
but happy and vigorous, though in his eightieth year. He died in 1883.
Wilhelm Middendorff, the closest and truest friend Froebel ever had,
without whom, indeed, he could not exist, because each formed the
complement of the other's nature, was born at Brechten, near Dortmund,
in Westphalia, September 20th, 1793, and died at Keilhau November 27th,
1853, a little over a year after his great master. (Froebel had passed
away at Marienthal July 21st, 1852.)
[82] "Ansichten vom Nieder Rhein, Flandern, Holland, England, Frankreich
in April, Mai, und Juni 1790" ("Sketches on the Lower Rhine, Flanders,"
etc.). Johann Georg Forster (1754-1794), the author of this book,
accompanied his father, the naturalist, in Captain Cook's journey round
the world. He then settled in Warrington (England) in 1767; taught
languages, and translated many foreign books into English, etc. He left
England in 1777, and served many princes on the Continent as librarian,
historiographer, etc., amongst others the Czarina Catherine. He was
librarian to the Elector of Mainz when the French Revolution broke out,
and was sent as a deputation to Paris by the republicans of that town,
who desired union with France. He died at Paris in 1794. His prose is
considered classical in Germany, having the lightness of French and
the power of English gained through his large knowledge of those
literatures.
[83] The Mark of Brandenburg.
[84] It is to be regretted that Froebel has not developed this
point more fully. He speaks of "die Betrachtung des Zahlensinnes in
horizontaler oder Seiten-Richtung," and one would be glad of further
details of this view of number. We think that the full expression
of the thought here shadowed out, is to be found in the Kindergarten
occupations of mat-weaving, stick-laying, etc., in their arithmetical
aspect. Certainly in these occupations, instead of number being built up
as with bricks, etc., it is laid along horizontally.
[85] Carl Christian Friedrich Krause, an eminent philosopher, and the
most learned writer on freemasonry in his day, was born in 1781. at
Eisenberg, in Saxony. From 1801 to 1804 he was a professor at Jena,
afterwards teaching in Dresden, Göttingen, and Munich, at which latter
place he died in 1832.
[86] Lorenz Oken, the famous naturalist and man of science, was born at
Rohlsbach, in Swabia, 1st August, 1779. (His real name was Ockenfuss.)
In 1812 Oken was appointed ordinary professor of natural history at
Jena, and in 1816 he founded his celebrated journal, the _Isis_, devoted
chiefly to science, but also admitting comments on political matters.
The latter having given offence to the Court of Weimar, Oken was called
upon either to resign his professorship or suppress the _Isis_. He
chose the former alternative, sent in his resignation, transferred the
publication of the _Isis_ to Rudolstadt, and remained at Jena as a
private teacher of science. In 1821 he broached in the _Isis_ the idea
of an annual gathering of German _savants_, and it was carried out
successfully at Leipzig in the following year. To Oken, therefore, may
be indirectly ascribed the genesis of the annual scientific gatherings
common on the Continent, as well as of the British Association for the
Advancement of Science, which at the outset was avowedly organised after
his model. He died in 1851.
[87] Those acquainted with the classical mythology will forgive us for
noting that Charybdis was, and is, a whirlpool on the Sicilian shore of
the Straits of Messina, face to face with some caverns under the rock of
Scylla, on the Italian shore, into which the waves rush at high tide
with a roar not unlike a dog's bark.
[88] The peculiar dreamy boy, who by his nature was set against much of
his work, and therefore seemed but an idle fellow to his schoolmaster,
was thought to be less gifted than his brothers, and on that account
fitted not so much for study as for simple practical life. In
Oberweissbach he was set down as "moonstruck." All this is more fully
set forth in the Meiningen letter, and the footnotes to it.
[89] This was the time when he was apprenticed to the forester in
Neuhaus, in the Thüringer Wald, and necessarily studied mathematics,
nature, and the culture of forest trees. Eyewitnesses have described him
as extremely peculiar in all his ways, even to his dress, which was
often fantastic. He was fond of mighty boots and great waving feathers
in his green hunter's-hat, etc.
[90] _i.e._, Frankfurt.
[91] Architecture, etc., at this time.
[92] From Mecklenburg to Frankfurt.
[93] _i.e._, as an architect.
[94] His plan evidently was to use architecture, probably Gothic
architecture, as a means of culture and elevation for mankind, and not
merely to practise it to gain money.
[95] It was in 1805 that Froebel was appointed by Gruner teacher in the
Normal School at Frankfurt.
[96] 1. Teacher in the Model School. 2. Tutor to the sons of Herr von
Holzhausen near Frankfurt. 3. A resident at Yverdon with Pestalozzi.
[97] Froebel was driven to Yverdon by the perusal of some of
Pestalozzi's works which Gruner had lent him. He stayed with Pestalozzi
for a fortnight, and returned with the resolve to study further with the
great Swiss reformer at some future time. In 1807, he became tutor to
Herr von Holzhausen's somewhat spoilt boys, demanded to have the entire
control of them, and for this object their isolation from their family.
The grateful parents, with whom Froebel was very warmly intimate, always
kept the rooms in which he dwelt with his pupils exactly as they were at
that time, in remembrance of his remarkable success with these boys.
Madame von Holzhausen had extraordinary influence with Froebel, and he
continued in constant correspondence with her. In 1808 Froebel and his
pupils went to Yverdon, and remained till 1810. But the philosophic
groundwork of Pestalozzi's system failed to satisfy him. Pestalozzi's
work started from the external needs of the poorest people, while
Froebel desired to found the columns supporting human culture upon
theoretically reasoned grounds and upon the natural sciences. A
remarkable difference existed between the characters of the two great
men. Pestalozzi was diffident, acknowledged freely his mistakes, and
sometimes blamed himself for them bitterly; Froebel never thought
himself in the wrong, if anything went amiss always found some external
cause for the failure, and in self-confidence sometimes reached an
extravagant pitch.
[98] Either Froebel or his editor has made a blunder here. Froebel went
to Göttingen in July 1811 (see p. 84), and to Berlin in October 1812
(see p. 89).
[99] At this time, however, the symbols of the inorganic world did not
appeal to Froebel with the same force as those of the organic world. In
a letter to Madame von Holzhausen. 31st March, 1831, he writes: "It is
the highest privilege of natural forms or of natural life that they
contain agreement and perfection within themselves as a whole class,
while differing and filled with imperfection in particular individuals;
for look at the loveliest blooming fruit-tree, the sweetest rose, the
purest lily, and your eye can always detect deficiencies, imperfections,
differences in each one, regarded as a single phenomenon, a separate
bloom; and, further, the same want of perfection appears also in every
single petal: on the other hand, wherever mathematical symmetry and
precise agreement are found, _there is death_".
[100] Not a figure of speech altogether; for Froebel did really decline
a professorship of mineralogy which was offered him at this time, in
order to set forth on his educational career.
[101] That is, putting development into a formula--
Thesis-+-Antithesis
|
Synthesis.
The true synthesis is that springing from the thesis and its opposite,
the antithesis. Another type of the formula is this--
Proposition-+-Counter-proposition
|
Compromise.
Understanding by "Compromise" (_Vermittlung_) that which results from
the union of the two opposites, that which forms part of both and which
links them together. The formula expressed in terms of human life, for
example, is--
Father-+-Mother
|
Child.
Philosophic readers acquainted with Hegel and his school will recognise
a familiar friend in these formulæ.
[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).
[103] Or, as we say, A is A.
[104] A great deal of Froebel's irony might all too truly be still
applied to current educational work.
[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.
[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.
[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.
[108] See the previous footnote, p. 93.
[109] These events and situations are fully set forth in the letter to
the Duke of Meiningen, _ante._
[110] As mineralogist.
[111] Christian Ludwig Froebel.
[112] Christoph.
[113] This younger Langethal afterwards became a Professor in the
University of Jena.
[114] The minister's widow lost her widow's privilege of residence at
Griesheim by the death of her father, and bought a farm at Keilhau.
[115] Froebel told his sister-in-law that he "desired to be a father to
her orphaned children." The widow understood this in quite a special and
peculiar sense, whereof Froebel had not the remotest idea. Later on,
when she came to know that Froebel was engaged to another lady, she made
over to him the Keilhau farm, and herself went to live at Volkstädt.
[116] This young girl, the adopted daughter of the first Madame Froebel,
was named Ernestine Chrispine, and afterwards married Langethal.
Froebel's first wife, Henrietta Wilhelmine Hoffmeister, was born at
Berlin 20th September, 1780, and was therefore thirty-eight at the time
of her marriage. She was a remarkable woman, highly cultured, a pupil of
Schleiermacher and of Fichte. Before her marriage with Froebel she had
been married to an official in the War Office, and had been separated
from him on account of his misconduct. Middendorff and Langethal knew
the family well, and had frequently spoken with Froebel about this lady,
who was admired and respected by both of them. Froebel saw her once in
the mineralogical museum at Berlin, and was wonderfully struck by her,
especially because of the readiness in which she entered into his
educational ideas. When afterwards he desired to marry, he wrote to the
lady and invited her to give up her life to the furtherance of those
ideas with which she had once shown herself to be so deeply penetrated,
and to become his wife. She received his proposal favourably, but her
father, an old War Office official, at first made objections. Eventually
she left her comfortable home to plunge amidst the privations and
hardships of all kinds abundantly connected with educational struggles.
She soon rose to great honour with all the little circle, and was deeply
loved and most tenderly treated by Froebel himself. In her willingness
to make sacrifices and her cheerfulness under privations, she set them
all an example. She died at Blankenburg in May 1839.
[117] The expected dowry was never forthcoming, which made matters
harder.
[118] Christian had already assisted his brother at Griesheim, and
before that, to the utmost of his power. The three daughters were (1)
Albertine, born 29th December, 1801, afterwards married Middendorff; (2)
Emilie, born 11th July, 1804, married Barop, died 18th August, 1860, at
Keilhau; (3) Elise, born 5th January, 1814, married Dr. Siegfried
Schaffner, one of the Keilhau colleagues, later on.
[119] Johannes Arnold Barop, Middendorff's nephew, was born at Dortmund,
29th November, 1802. He afterwards became proprietor and principal of
Keilhau.
[120] March 1828.
[121] This excellent man was drowned in the Saale while bathing, soon
after this letter was written.
[122] He always regarded himself as perfectly tolerant.
[123] Froebel moved from Griesheim to Keilhau in 1817.
[124] In 1820.
[125] It was in 1828 that Barop formally and definitely joined the
Froebel community.
[126] The long turmoil of the Napoleonic wars, the outcome of the French
Revolution, ceased in 1815; and the minds of the students and the other
youths of the country, set free from this terrible struggle for liberty,
turned towards the reformation of their own country. Many associations
were formed: perhaps here and there wild talk was indulged in. The
Government grew alarmed, and though the students had invariably acted
with perfect legality, all their associations were dispersed and
forbidden.
[127] Christian Froebel and his wife.
[128] This was 1827-29.
[129] This is the interesting plan of the Public Educational Institution
and Orphanage in Helba, with which admirers of Froebel are probably
already well acquainted. It is given in full in Lange's "Froebel," vol.
i., p. 401.
[130] Say £100.
[131] In 1829.
[132] The Wartensee is a small lake in the canton Luzern, not far from
Sempach.
[133] About 30s.
[134] Auf Schuster's Rappen,--_i.e._, on foot. (This was in 1832.)
[135] A small town not far away, still in the canton Luzern.
[136] This was a familiar name for the devil, till a few years back, in
Germany; surprisingly recalling the term "Eumenides" for the Greek
Furies, since it originated in a desire to speak of so powerful an enemy
in respectful terms, lest he should take offence.
[137] A Swiss educational writer of great power and charm. His school
books, "Sur la langue maternelle," are really valuable.
[138] The editors venture to call attention to these little facts as a
sample of the extraordinary devotion and sacrifice which Froebel knew
how to inspire in his colleagues. This exchange of Barop and Middendorff
took place in 1833.
[139] In 1833.
[140] This regulation is still happily in force.
[141] In 1836.
[142] Blankenburg lies on the way from Schwarzburg to Rudolstadt, about
two hours' walk away from Keilhau.
CHRONOLOGICAL ABSTRACT OF THE PRINCIPAL EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF FROEBEL,
AND THE FROEBEL COMMUNITY.
* * * * *
1770. June 24th.--Birth of Christian Ludwig Froebel.
1780. Sept. 17th.--Birth of Friedrich Froebel's first wife, Henriette
Wilhelmine Hoffmeister, at Berlin.
Christian Froebel's wife, Johanna Caroline Mügge, was also born
in 1780, on August 28th.
1782. April 21st.--_Birth of Friedrich Froebel_, at Oberweissbach,
Thuringia.
1792. Froebel is sent to Superintendent Hoffman in Stadt Ilm.
Sept. 3rd.--Birth of Heinrich Langethal, at Erfurt.
1793. Sept. 20.--Birth of Wilhelm Middendorff, at Brechten, near
Dortmund, in Westphalia.
1797. Froebel is sent to Neuhof in the Thuringian Forest to learn
forestry.
1799. Froebel returns home; goes thence as student to Jena.
1801. He leaves Jena (having closed his career there with nine weeks'
imprisonment for debt), and soon afterwards begins to study
farming with a relative of his father's at Hildburghausen.
Dec. 29th.--Birth of Albertine Froebel (Madame Middendorff),
eldest daughter of Christian Froebel.
1802. Death of Froebel's father. Froebel becomes Actuary to the
Forestry Department of the Episcopal State of Bamberg.
Nov. 29th.--Birth of Johannes Arnold Barop, at Dortmund, in
Westphalia.
1803. Froebel goes to Bamberg, and takes part in the governmental land
survey, necessary upon the change of government, Bamberg now
passing to Bavaria.
1804. He takes, one after the other, two situations as secretary and
accountant of a large country estate, first, that of Herr von
Völdersdorf in Baireuth, afterwards that of Herr von Dewitz in
Gross Milchow, Mecklenburg.
July 11th.--Birth of Emilie Froebel (Madame Barop), second
daughter of Christian Froebel.
1805. Death of Froebel's maternal uncle, Superintendent Hoffman.
Froebel determines to become an architect, and sets out for
Frankfurt to study there. Becomes, however, teacher in the Model
School at Frankfurt, on Gruner's invitation. Visits Pestalozzi,
at Yverdon, for a short time.
1807. He becomes tutor in the family of Herr von Holzhausen in the
suburbs of Frankfurt.
1808. He goes to Pestalozzi at Yverdon with his pupils.
1809. He draws up an account of Pestalozzi's work for the Princess of
Rudolstadt.
1810. Froebel returns to Frankfurt from Yverdon.
1811. He goes to the University of Göttingen.
1812. He proceeds thence to the University of Berlin.
1813. Froebel, Langethal, and Middendorff enlist in Lützow's regiment
of Chasseurs, a volunteer corps enrolled to take part in the
resistance to Napoleon's invasion of Prussia.
1814. Jan. 5th.--Birth of Elise Froebel (Madame Schaffner), Christian's
youngest daughter.
After the Peace of Paris (May 30th, 1814) Froebel is appointed
assistant in the Mineralogical Museum of the University of
Berlin, and takes his post there in August.
1816. Nov. 13th.--Froebel founds his "Universal German Educational
Institute" in Griesheim.
1817. Transference of the School to Keilhau. Arrival of Langethal and
Middendorff.
1818. First marriage of Froebel.
1820. Christian Froebel arrives at Keilhau with his wife and daughters
Froebel writes "To the German people."
1821. Froebel publishes (privately) "Principles, Aims, and Inner Life
of the Universal German Educational Institute in Keilhau," and
"Aphorisms."
1822. He publishes the pamphlets "On German Education, especially as
regards the Universal German Educational Institute at Keilhau,"
and "On the Universal German Educational Institute at Keilhau."
1823. He publishes "Continuation of the Account of the Educational
Institute at Keilhau."
1824. He publishes the pamphlet "Christmas at Keilhau."
1826. Marriages of Langethal and Middendorff. Froebel publishes the
"Education of Man" ("Menschen Erziehung"). Later he founds the
weekly _Family Journal of Education_.
1827. Letter to the Duke of Meiningen (translated in this present
work), uncompleted, probably never sent to the duke.
1828. Letter to Krause (partly translated in the present work). Barop
formally becomes a member of the Educational Community at
Keilhau.
1829. Plan for a National Educational Institute in Helba, under the
auspices of the Duke of Meiningen, now completed, the whole
Keilhau community having worked upon it under Froebel's
direction.
1830. Death of Wilhelm Carl, one of the Keilhau community, by drowning
in the Saale.
1831. Froebel breaks with the Duke of Meiningen, and gives up the Helba
project.
Visit to Frankfurt, and meeting with Schnyder.
Acceptance of Schnyder's offer of his Castle at Wartensee.
Opening of the Institution at Wartensee by Froebel and his nephew
Ferdinand.
1832. Barop goes to Wartensee. Transference of the School from
Wartensee to Willisau. Froebel pays a short visit to Keilhau.
1833. Froebel brings his wife to Willisau. The Bernese Administration
invites him to consider a plan for the foundation of an Orphanage
at Burgdorf. He is appointed lecturer for the Repetitive Courses
for young teachers held there. Langethal comes from Keilhau to
Willisau, Barop returns to Keilhau.
1835. Froebel, his wife, and Langethal undertake the foundation of the
Orphanage for Bern, in Burgdorf. Middendorff and Elise Froebel go
from Keilhau to Willisau and join Ferdinand Froebel there.
Froebel writes "The New Year 1836 demands a Renewal of Life."
1836. Froebel and his wife leave Burgdorf for Berlin. Ferdinand Froebel
and Langethal take over the direction of the Orphanage.
1837. Opening of the first Kindergarten in Blankenburg.
1838. Commencement of Froebel's _Sunday Journal_.
1839. Froebel and Middendorff go to Dresden. Death of Madame Froebel.
1840. Guttenberg Festival (400th anniversary of the invention of
printing). Opening of the Universal German Kindergarten at
Blankenburg, as a joint-stock company. Froebel and Middendorff in
the following years make several journeys from Keilhau to various
parts of Germany endeavouring to promote the erection of
Kindergartens.
1848. General Congress of Teachers, called by Froebel, at Rudolstadt.
Second journey of Froebel to Dresden in the autumn.
1849. Froebel settles at Liebenstein intending to train Kindergarten
teachers there. Work at Hamburg, first by Middendorff, then by
Froebel.
1850. Froebel returns to Liebenstein. Through the influence of Madame
von Marenholtz-Bülow he receives the neighbouring country seat of
Marienthal from the Grand Duke of Weimar for the purposes of his
Training College. Foundation of a new _Weekly Journal of
Education_ by Froebel, edited by Lange. Marriage of Elise Froebel
to Dr. Siegfried Schaffner.
1851. Jan. 9th.--Death of Christian Ludwig Froebel.
July.--Second marriage of Froebel, with Luise Levin. First
appearance of the _Journal for Friedrich Froebel's Educational
Aims_.
1852. April.--Froebel is called to join the Educational Congress at
Gotha, under the presidency of Theodor Hoffman.
June 21.--_Death of Froebel._ His educational establishment at
Marienthal is removed to Keilhau, under the superintendence of
Middendorff. Madame Luise Froebel also assists to train students
in the methods of the Kindergarten at Keilhau.
1853. Middendorff enthusiastically received at the Congress at
Salzungen, when addressing it on the Froebelian methods.
Nov. 27th.--Death of Middendorff. Madame Luise Froebel, for a
time, directs Keilhau.
1854. Madame Luise Froebel goes in the spring to Dresden, to assist Dr.
Marquart in his Kindergarten and training establishment for
Kindergarten teachers. Madame Marquart had been a pupil of
Froebel. Keilhau ceases to be a training school for Kindergarten
teachers.
In the autumn Madame Luise Froebel accepts the directorship of
the Public Free Kindergarten in Hamburg, and trains students
there. (She is still actively employed at Hamburg in the cause of
the Kindergarten; 1886.)
First introduction of the Kindergarten system into England by
Miss Prætorius, who founds a Kindergarten at Fitzroy Square.
Madame von Marenholtz Bülow, who was the support of Froebel's
latest years, whose influence with the Grand Duke of Weimar
procured him Marienthal, and whose whole leisure and power was
devoted to his service, and to the interpretation of his ideas,
comes to England to lecture and write in support of the cause of
the Kindergarten. Publishes a pamphlet on "Infant Gardens," in
English.
Madame Ronge introduces the Kindergarten system at Manchester;
and shortly afterwards the Manchester Kindergarten Association is
founded.
1859. Miss Eleonore Heerwart (pupil of Middendorff and Madame Luise
Froebel), and the Baroness Adèle von Portugall (pupil of Madame
von Marenholtz-Bülow and of Madame Schrader, the great niece of
Froebel), come to England, and are both engaged at Manchester as
Kindergarten teachers, but not in the same establishment.
1860. August 18th.--Death of Madame Barop (Emilie Froebel).
1861. The Baroness Bertha Von Marenholtz-Bülow promotes the foundation
of the Journal _The Education of the Future_, and Dr. Carl
Schmidt of Coethen undertakes the editorship.
1874. April.--Madame Michaelis comes to England to assist the
Kindergarten movement. Is appointed in the summer to lecture to
the school-board teachers at Croydon. Founds Croydon
Kindergarten, January 1875, with Mrs. Berry.
Nov.--The London School Board appoint Miss Bishop (pupil of Miss
Prætorius) as their first lecturer on the Kindergarten System to
their teachers of infant schools. About the same time Miss
Heerwart (who had left Manchester to found a Kindergarten of her
own in Dublin in 1866) is appointed principal of the Kindergarten
Training College established at Stockwell by the British and
Foreign School Society.
The Froebel Society of London is formed by Miss Doreck, Miss
Heerwart, Miss Bishop, Madame Michaelis, Professor Joseph Payne,
and Miss Manning; Miss Doreck being the first president. Very
soon these were joined by Miss Shireff (president since 1877,
when Miss Doreck died), by her sister Mrs. William Grey, by Miss
Mary Gurney, and by many other well-known friends of educational
progress.
1879. Autumn.--The London Kindergarten Training College is founded by
the Froebel Society, but as a separate association (dissolved
1883).
1880. May.--The Croydon Kindergarten Company (Limited), is founded to
extend Madame Michaelis's work in teaching and training, Madame
Michaelis becoming the Company's head mistress.
1882. Langethal died. Celebration of the Centenary of Froebel's birth
by a concert, given at Willis's Rooms, London, on the part of the
Froebel Society, to raise funds for a memorial Kindergarten at
Blankenburg, by a fund raised at Croydon for the same purpose,
and by a _soirée_ and conversazione, presided over by Mr. W.
Woodall, M.P., given at the Stockwell Training College by the
British and Foreign School Society.
1883. January.--The Bedford Kindergarten Company (Limited) founded,
mainly upon the lines of the Croydon Company. First (and present)
head mistress, Miss Sim.
Miss Heerwart goes to Blankenburg to found the memorial
Kindergarten there.
1884. International Exhibition, South Kensington (Health and
Education). A Conference on Education was held in June, the
section devoted to Infant Education being largely taken up with
an important discussion of Froebel's principles, in which
speakers of other nations joined the English authorities in
debate.
The British and Foreign Society organised a complete exhibition
of Kindergarten work and materials, to which all the chief London
Kindergarten establishments (including Croydon) contributed; and
most establishments gave lessons in turn, weekly, to classes of
children, in order to show publicly the practical application of
Kindergarten methods. These lessons were given gratuitously in
the rooms devoted to the Kindergarten section of the exhibition.
In October this section was closed by a conference of
Kindergarten teachers from all England, held in the Lecture
Theatre of the Albert Hall.
Autumn.--Dr. Wichard Lange, the biographer of Froebel, and
collector of Froebel's works (from whose collection the present
translation has been made), and by his numerous articles one of
the best friends to the advocacy of Froebel's educational
principles, died, under somewhat painful circumstances.
BIBLIOGRAPHY OF FROEBEL.
* * * * *
WALTER, L. Die Froebel-Literatur. 8vo, pp. 198. Dresden. $1.00
* * * * *
GESAMMELTE PAEDAGOGISCHE SCHRIFTEN, hrsg. W. Lange. 8vo, 3 vols.
[I. Autobiographie; II. Menschenerziehung; III. Pädagogik des
Kindergartens]. Berlin, 1862.
PAEDAGOGISCHE SCHRIFTEN, hrsg. Friedrich Seidel. 12mo, 3 vols. [I.
Menschen-Erziehung, pp. 330; II. Kindergarten-Wesen, pp. 463; III.
Mutter- und Kose-Lieder, pp. 228]. Wien, 1883. 6.50
MENSCHEN-ERZIEHUNG. Erziehungs-, Unterrichts-, und Lehrkunst.
12mo, pp. 330. Wien, 1883. 2.00
THE EDUCATION OF MAN. Translated by Josephine Jarvis. 12mo, pp.
273. New York, 1885. 1.30
---- The same, translated and annotated by W.N. Hailmann. 12mo,
pp. 332. New York, 1887. 1.50
L'EDUCATION DE L'HOMME. Traduit de l'allemand par la baronne de
Crombugghe. 12mo, pp. 394. Paris, 1881.
MUTTER- UND KOSE-LIEDER. Dichtung und Bilder zur edlen Pflege des
Kindheitlebens. Ein Familien-buch. 12mo, pp. 228. Wien, 1883. 2.00
MOTHER'S SONGS, Games and Stories. Froebel's "Mutter- und
Kose-Lieder" rendered in English by Frances and Emily Lord.
Containing the whole of the original illustrations, and the music,
rearranged for children's voices, with pianoforthe accompaniment.
8vo, pp. 289. London, 1885. 3.00
MOTHER-PLAY, and Nursery Songs. Illustrated by Fifty Engravings.
With Notes to Mothers. By Friedrich Froebel. Translated from the
German. 4to, pp. 192. Boston, 1878. 2.00
THE MOTHER'S BOOK of Song. Two-part Songs for Little Singers, on
the Kindergarten System. The music composed by Lady Baker; edited
by G.A. Macfarran. 16mo. New York.
AUTOBIOGRAPHIE. Berlin, 1862.
THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FRIEDRICH FROEBEL. Translated by H. Keatley
Moore and Emilie Michaelis. 12mo, pp. 180. Syracuse, 1889. 1.50
[This contains the "Letter to the Duke of Meiningen," never completed, a
shorter account of his life in a letter to the philosopher Krause, a
sketch of Barop's, and a chronology extended from Lange.]
AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FROEBEL. Materials to aid a Comprehension of the
Work of the Founder of the Kindergarten. 16mo, pp. 128. New York,
1887. .30
[This contains the "Letter to the Duke of Meiningen," Miss Lucy
Wheelock's translation, taken from Barnard's _Journal of Education_.]
FROEBEL'S EXPLANATION of the Kindergarten System. London, 1886. .20
* * * * *
HAUSCHMANN, A.B. Fr. Froebel: die Entwicklung s. Erziehungs-idee
in s. Leben. 8vo, pp. 480. Eisenach, 1874. 2.00
KRIEGE, Matilda H. The Founder of the Kindergarten. A Sketch.
12mo, pp. 29. New York.
[See also MARENHOLZ-BUELOW, in next list below.]
MARENHOLZ-BUELOW, Baroness B. von. Reminiscences of Friedrich
Froebel. Translated by Mrs. Horace Mann. With a sketch of the life
of Friedrich Froebel, by Emily Shirreff. 12mo, pp. 359. Boston,
1877. 1.50
[See also GOLDAMMER, MARENHOLZ-BUELOW.]
PHELPS, Wm. F. Froebel (Chautauqua Text-Book, No. 15). 32mo, pp.
54. .10
SHIRREFF, Emily. Froebel: a Sketch of his Life, with Letters to
his Wife. 12mo. London, 1877. 1.00
[See also MARENHOLZ-BUELOW, above, and SHIRREFF, below.]
* * * * *
BAILEY'S Kindergarten System. Boston. .20
BARNARD, Henry. Papers on Froebel's Kindergarten, with suggestions
on principles and methods of Child Culture in different countries.
8vo, pp. 782. Hartford, 1881. 3.50
BEESAU, Amable. The Spirit of Education. Translated by Mrs. E.M.
McCarthy. 16mo, pp. 325. Syracuse, 1881. 1.25
BERRY, Ada, and Emily MICHAELIS. Kindergarten Songs and Games.
12mo. London. .75
BUCKLAND, Anna. The Use of Stories in the Kindergarten. 12mo, pp.
17. New York. .20
---- The Happiness of Childhood. 12mo, pp. 21, in one volume with
the above. New York. .50
[The two are reprinted in "Essays on the Kindergarten." below.]
CARPENTER, Harvey. The Mother's and Kindergartner's Friend. 12mo.
Boston, 1884. 1.00
CHRISTIE, Alice M. See MARENHOLZ-BUELOW, PEREZ, below.
DOUAI, Adolf. The Kindergarten. A manual for the introduction of
Froebel's System of Primary Education into Public Schools; and for
the use of Mothers and Private Teachers. With 16 plates. 12mo, pp.
136. New York, 1871. 1.00
DUPANLOUP, Monseigneur. The Child. Translated, with the author's
permission, by Kate Anderson. 12mo, pp. 267. Dublin, 1875. 1.50
ECKHART, T. Die Arbeit als Erziehungsmittel. 8vo, pp. 23. Wien,
1875.
ESSAYS ON THE KINDERGARTEN: being a selection of Lectures read
before the London Froebel Society. 12mo, pp. 149. Syracuse, 1889. 1.00
[See Buckland, Heerwart, Hoggan, Shirreff.]
FELLNER, A. Der Volkskindergarten und die Krippe. 12mo, pp. 130.
Wien, 1884.
FRYE, Alex. E. The Child and Nature, or Geography Teaching with
Sand Modelling. 12mo, pp. 216. Hyde Park, 1888. 1.00
GOLDAMMER, H. The Kindergarten. A Handbook of Froebel's Method of
Education, Gifts, and Occupations. With Introduction, etc., by
Baroness B. von Marenholtz-Bülow. Translated by William Wright.
8vo. Berlin, 1882. 4.00
---- Gymnastische Spiele und Bildungsmittel für Kinder von 3-8
Jahren. 8vo, pp. 195. Berlin, 1875.
GURNEY, Mary. See KOEHLER, below.
HAILMANN, W.N. Primary Helps, or Modes of making Froebel's Methods
Available in Primary Schools. 2d Ed. 8vo, pp. 58, with 15
full-page illustrations. Syracuse, 1889. 1.00
---- Four Lectures on Early Child Culture. 16mo, pp. 74.
Milwaukee. .50
---- Kindergarten Culture in the Family and Kindergarten. A
Complete Sketch of Froebel's System of Early Education, adapted to
American Institutions. For the use of Mothers and Teachers. 12mo,
pp. 119, and 12 plates. Cincinnati, 1873. .75
---- The Kindergarten Messenger and The New Education. Vols. V,
VI, [completing the series]. 8vo, 2 vols., pp. 146, 188. Syracuse,
1882, 83. 4.00
---- Primary Methods. A complete and methodical presentation of
the use of Kindergarten Material in the work of the Primary
School, unfolding a systematic course of Manual Training in
connection with Arithmetic, Geometry, Drawing, and other School
Studies. 12mo, pp. 166. New York, 1888. 1.00
HAILMANN, E.L. Songs, Games, and Rhymes for the Kindergarten.
12mo. Springfield. 1.75
HEERWART, Eleonore. Music for the Kindergarten. 4to. London, 1877. 1.25
---- Froebel's Mutter- und Kose-lieder. 12mo, pp. 18
[The last is reprinted in "Essays on the Kindergarten," above.]
HOFFMANN, H. Kindergarten Toys, and How to Use Them. Toronto. .20
---- Kindergarten Gifts. New York. .15
HOGGAN, Frances E. On the Physical Education of Girls. 12mo, pp. 24.
[This is reprinted in "Essays on the Kindergarten," above.]
HOPKINS, Louisa P. How Shall My Child be Taught? Practical
Pedagogy, or the Science of Teaching. Illustrated, 12mo, pp. 276.
Boston, 1887. 1.50
---- Educational Psychology. A Treatise for Parents and Educators.
24mo, pp. 96. Boston, 1886. .50
HUBBARD, Clara. Merry Songs and Games, for the use of the
Kindergarten. 4to, pp. 104. St. Louis, 1881. 2.00
HUGHES, James. The Kindergarten: its Place and Purpose. New York. .10
JACOBS, J.F. Manuel pratique des Jardins d'Enfants. 4to. Brussels,
1880.
JOHNSON, Anna. Education by Doing, or Occupations and Busy Work
for Primary Classes. 16mo, pp. 109. New York, 1884. .75
KINDERGARTEN and the School, by Four Active Workers. 12mo, pp.
146. Springfield, 1886. 1.00
KOEHLER, A. Die Praxis des Kindergartens. 4to, 3 Vols., with more
than 60 Plates. Weimar, 1878.
---- The Same, translated by Mary Gurney. Part I [First Gifts].
12mo, Ill. London, 1877. 1.25
KRAUS-BOELTE, Maria, and JOHN KRAUS. The Kindergarten Guide,
illustrated. Vol. I [The Gifts]. New York, 1880. 2.75
---- The Kindergarten and the Mission of Women. New York. .10
KRIEGE, A.L. Rhymes and Tales for the Kindergarten and Nursery.
12mo, New York. 1.00
LAURIE'S Kindergarten Manual. New York. .50
---- Kindergarten Action Songs and Exercises. London. .15
LYSCHINSKA, Mary. Principles of the Kindergarten. Ill., 4to,
London, 1880. 1.80
MANN, Mrs. Horace. See MARENHOLZ-BUELOW, above, and PEABODY,
below.
MARENHOLZ-BUELOW, Baroness B. von. The Child and Child-Nature.
Translated by Alice M. Christie. 12mo, pp. 186. Syracuse, 1889. 1.00
---- The same, translated as "a free rendering of the German" by
Matilda H. Kriege, under the title "The Child, its Nature and
Relations; an elucidation of Froebel's Principles of Education."
12mo, pp. 148. New York, 1872. 1.00
---- The School Work-Shop. Translated by Miss Susan E. Blow. 16mo,
pp. 27. Syracuse, 1882. .15
---- Hand-work and Head-work: their relation to one another.
Translated by Alice M. Christie. 12mo. London, 1883. 1.20
MAUDSLEY, H. Sex in Mind and Education. 16mo, pp. 42. Syracuse,
1882. .15
MEIKLEJOHN, J.M.D. The New Education. 16mo, pp. 35. Syracuse, 1881. .15
MEYER, Bertha. Von der Wiege his zur Schule. 12mo, pp. 180.
Berlin, 1877.
---- Aids to Family Government, or From the Cradle to the School,
according to Froebel. Translated from the second German Edition.
To which has been added an essay on The Rights of Children and The
True Principles of Family Government, by Herbert Spencer. 16mo,
pp. 208. New York, 1879. 1.50
MOORE, N.A. Kindergartner's Manual of Drawing Exercises for Young
Children upon Figures of Plane Geometry. 4to, pp. 16, and 17
Plates. Springfield. .50
MORGENSTEIN, Lina. Das Paradies der Kindheit. Eine ausfuhrliche
Anleitung fur Mütter und Erzieherinnen. F. Froebel's
Spiel-Beschäftigungen in Haus und Kindergarten. 2d ed. 8vo, pp.
292. Leipzig, 1878.
MULLEY, Jane, and M.E. TABRAM. Songs and Games for our Little
Ones. 12mo. London, 1881. .40
NOA, Henrietta. Plays for the Kindergarten: music by C.J. Richter.
18mo. New York. .30
PAYNE, Joseph. Froebel and the Kindergarten System. 3d ed. London,
1876.
[Now rare, but printed in "Lectures on Education," Syracuse, 1884,
$1.00.]
---- A Visit to German Schools. London, 1876.
PEABODY, Elizabeth P. Moral Culture of Infancy, and Kindergarten
Guide, with Music for the Plays. By Mrs. Horace Mann, and
Elizabeth P. Peabody. 12mo, pp. 216. Boston, 1863. 2.00
---- The Education of the Kindergartner. Pittsburgh, 1872.
---- The Nursery: a Lecture.
---- The Identification of the Artisan and Artist the Proper
object of American Education.
---- Froebel's Kindergarten, with a letter from Henry Barnard.
12mo, pp. 16.
---- Lectures in the Training Schools for Kindergartners. 12mo,
pp. 226.
[Includes those on "The Education of the Kindergartner" and "The
Nursery," named above.]
---- Education in the Home, the Kindergarten, and the Primary
School. With an Introduction by E. Adelaide Manning. 12mo, pp.
224. London, 1887. 1.50
[A reprint of the "Lectures in the Training Schools."]
---- and Mary MANN. After Kindergarten, what? A primer of Reading
and Writing for the Intermediate Class, and Primary Schools
generally. 12mo. New York. .45
PEREZ, Bernard. The First Three Years of Childhood. Edited and
translated by Alice M. Christie, with an introduction by James
Sully. 12mo, pp. 294. Syracuse, 1889. 1.50
PLAYS AND SONGS, for Kindergarten and Family. Springfield. .50
POLLOCK, Louisa. National Kindergarten Manual. 12mo, pp. 180.
Boston, 1889. .75
---- National Kindergarten Songs and Plays. 12mo, pp. 77. Boston. .50
---- Cheerful Echoes: from the National Kindergarten for children
from 3 to 10 years of age. 16mo, pp. 76. Boston, 1888. .50
PREYER, W. The Mind of the Child. 12mo, 2 Vols. New York, 1888. 3.00
RICHARDS, B.W. Learning and Health. 16mo, pp. 39. Syracuse, 1882. .15
RICHTER, K. Kindergarten und Schule. Leipzig.
RONGE, Johann and Bertha. A Practical Guide to the English
Kindergarten (Children's Garden), for the use of Mothers,
Governesses, and Infant Teachers: being an exposition of Froebel's
system of Infant Training: accompanied by a variety of Instructive
and Amusing Games, Industrial and Gymnastic Exercises, also
Numerous Songs set to Music, 11th ed. 4to, pp. 80, and 71 plates.
London, 1878. 2.10
SHIRREFF, Emily. Essays and Lectures on the Kindergarten.
Principles of Froebel's System, and their bearing on the Higher
Education of Women, Schools, Family, and Industrial Life. 12mo,
pp. 112. Syracuse, 1889. 1.00
---- Progressive Development according to Froebel's Principles.
12mo, pp. 14.
---- Wasted Forces. 12mo, pp. 17.
---- The Kindergarten in Relation to Schools. 12mo, pp. 18. New
York. .30
---- The Kindergarten in Relation to Family Life. 12mo, pp.17. New
York. .20
[The last four are given in "Essays on the Kindergarten," above]
---- Home Education and the Kindergarten. 12mo. London, 1884. .75
---- The Kindergarten at Home. 12mo. London, 1884. 1.75
---- Claim of Froebel's System to be called "The New Education."
New York, 1882. .10
---- Essays and Lectures in the Kindergarten. New York. .75
SINGLETON, J.E. Occupations and Occupation Games. 12mo, London,
1865. 1.00
STEELE'S Kindergarten Handbook. New York. .60
STEIGER'S Kindergarten Tracts. 24 nos. New York. .10
STRAIGHT, H.H. Aspects of Industrial Education. 8vo, pp. 12.
Syracuse, 1883. .15
THOMPSON, Mrs. Elizabeth. Kindergarten Homes, for Orphans and
other Destitute Children; a new way to ultimately Dispense with
Prisons and Poor-Houses. 12mo, pp. 128. New York, 1882. 1.00
WEBER, A. Die vier ersten Schuljahre in Vorbindung mit e.
Kindergarten. 8vo, pp. 70. Gotha. .50
---- Die Geschichte der Volksschulpädagogik und der
Kleinkindererziehung. 12mo, pp. 339. Dresden, 1877.
WIEBE, E. The Paradise of Childhood. A Manual for Instruction in
F. Froebel's Educational Principles, and a Practical Guide to
Kindergartners. 4to, pp. 78 and 74 plates. Springfield. 2.00
---- The Paradise of Childhood: a manual of instruction and a
practical guide to Kindergartners. 4to, 74 plates. London, 1888. 4.00
---- Songs, Music, and Movement Plays. Springfield. 2.25
WIGGINS'S Kindergarten Chimes. Springfield. 1.50
WILTSIE'S Stories for Kindergartens and Primary Schools. Boston. .30
All books of which prices are given may be had of the publisher of this
volume.
INDEX.
Aaron to Froebel's Moses 138
Activity at Yverdon 78
Actor, life of an 26
Adventists, doctrine of 12
Æsthetic sense 41
Agriculturalist, life of an 24, 140
Aim of educational work 11
Albums, sentiments in 49, 50
Alexander I. sends for Pestalozzi 54
Amrhyn, Herr 135
Ante-Darwinian theories 31
"Aphorisms" 141
Arabic, study of 85
Architecture as a profession 45, 46, 48, 50, 51, 108, 141
Architectural efforts 41
Arithmetic, teaching of 20, 55, 59, 61, 99, 106
---- philosophy of 100
Arndt, Ernest Moritz 45
---- "Fragments of Culture" 62
Art, study of 34, 40
Art of teaching 24
Astronomy 86, 105
Attire, peculiarities of 105
Augsburg Confession 50
Austria interested in Pestalozzi 54
Bach a Cantor 7
Baireuth 42, 140
Bamberg, life at 38, 47, 140
Barop, Johannes Arnold 2, 16, 124, 138, 140, 141, 142
---- "Critical Moments" 127-137
Batsch, A.J.G. 31
Bauer, Herr 92, 93, 100
Belief in himself 126
Berlin, life at 89, 95, 100, 111, 121, 141, 142
Bern 93
---- Langethal's school at 137
Berry, Mrs. 143, 147
Best friend, Froebel's 93, 94
Bible biographies 53
---- in schools 8
"Bible of Education" 63
Birth of Froebel 3, 4, 140
Bishop, Miss, appointed London lecturer 143
Bivouac life agreeable 94
Blankenburg 137, 142, 144
Boarding-school life 18
Book-keeping 43
Botany, love of 25, 27, 31, 56, 60
Brandenburg, Mark of 92
British and Foreign School Society 143, 144
Brothers of Froebel. [See Froebel, below.]
Burgdorf, Orphanage at 93, 135, 136, 137, 142
Cantor 7
Carl, Herr 124, 142
Carus, Professor 38
Characteristics in boyhood 7
Chemistry 30, 87, 88
---- organic 88
Chevé system of singing 56
Child's need of construction 77
Crispine, Ernestine 123
Christian education essential 120
---- family life 7
---- forms 74
"Christmas at Keilhau" 141
Church and school 8, 19
---- attendance 10
Class divisions elastic 54
Classical education 84
---- teaching 99
"Come let us live _with_ them" 69
Comenius 103
Comet of 1811 86
Commission of 1810 80
Companionship 44
Comprehensiveness essential 80
Conditions of tutorship 66
Confinement in boyhood 6
Confirmation 22
Congress of teachers at Rudolstadt 142
---- at Gotha 142
---- at Salzungen 143
Construction essential to a child 77
"Continuation of the account of Keilhau" 141
Contradiction, life freed from 108
Cosmical development 89
Crisis at Yverdon 80
Croydon Kindergarten 143
Crystals a witness of life 112
Crystallography 89, 97
Culture, Froebel's plan of 107
---- his own insufficient 109
Death of Froebel 93, 143
---- of his father 38
---- of his first wife 142
Development, analysis to synthesis 118
---- of being, laws of 112
---- vs. memorizing 116
Devotes himself to study of education 98
Dewitz, Herr von 42, 43, 45, 140
Diary begun 36
Diesterweg 139
Divine worship at home 7, 10
Doreck, Miss 144
Drawing, study of 28, 55, 61, 62
Dresden 91, 142, 143
Duration of the world 13
Earlier and later life compared 16
Early education 3
---- mental struggles 14, 16
Education _ad hoc_ 23
---- aim of 11
---- as an object 58
---- at Jena 28
---- in relationships 70
---- purpose of 69
---- reaches beyond life 119
"Education of Man" 1, 76, 117, 141, 145
Educator and teacher 68
Energy in play 21
---- in rocks 97
England, first kindergarten in 143
Ephors 21
Escape from creditors 128
"Exchange classes" 54
Expression of thought difficult 73
Eyes, deficient power of 30
"Family Journal of Education" 117, 141, 142
Family ties 44, 83
Father of Froebel. [See Froebel, Johann Jacob.]
---- and mother 118
Fatherland vs. motherland 90
Fichte 116, 123
Financial difficulties 33, 47, 106, 127, 128
First consciousness of self 9
---- grasp of the word KINDERGARTEN 137
---- idea of a school of his own 68
---- work as a teacher 57
Following Nature in geography 61
Foresight of vocation as a teacher 108
Forestry-apprentice 24
Form-development 98
Form fixed for language 98
Forms, study of 75, 76
Forster, Johann Georg 94
---- "Rhine Travels" 94, 121
Francke's Pädagogium 55
Frankfurt, life at 47, 50, 57, 141, 142
---- Model School 57
French, study of 64
Froebel, temporary change of name 46
---- family
---- Johann Jacob, the _Father_ 3, 4, 6, 17, 19,
21, 26, 27, 28, 33, 34, 30, 37, 38, 43, 140
_Brothers._
---- Augustus 3, 32
---- Christoph 3, 12,
13, 15, 23, 26, 27, 32, 36, 47, 49, 65, 68, 83, 87, 113, 122
---- His widow misunderstands Froebel 122
---- Julius Karl Theodor 3, 4
---- Christian Ludwig 4, 87, 113, 121, 124, 127, 128, 140, 141, 142
---- Traugott 4, 23, 28, 32, 33
---- Karl Poppo 4, 104
_Nephews._
---- Ferdinand 113, 121, 131, 136, 137, 142
---- Wilhelm 113, 121
---- Julius 114, 122
---- Karl 114, 122
_Nieces._
---- Albertine [Middendorf] 124, 140
---- Emilie [Barop] 124, 140, 143
---- Elise [Schaffner] 124, 141, 142
---- Luise, Madame 143
Froebel Society 1, 144
Froebel's style as an author 1, 117
Fröhlich 137
Games 135
---- a mental bath 82
Gardening 6, 71
Geography, teaching of 60
Geology 88, 97
Geometry 24, 25, 29, 35
German brotherhood 90
---- land and people 95
---- language teaching 56
---- literature 35
"German education" 114
Gifts, first suggestion of 75
Girard, Abbe 134
Girls' school at Oberweissbach 8, 9
Godlike not alone in the great 97
Godmother of Froebel 73
Goethe 35
Gotha, congress of teachers at 142
Göttingen, life at 84, 97, 103, 111, 141
Göttling 30
Government offices 23, 38, 95
Grammar, study of 64
Grammarians at odds 64
Greek, study of 84, 85
Grey, Mrs. William 144
Griesheim 122, 124, 141
Gross-Milchow 42, 140
Gruner, Herr 51, 53, 58, 63, 66, 109, 141
---- book on Pestalozzian methods 52
Gurney, Mary 144, 147, 149
Gymnastic Exercises 135
Halie 45
Hamburg 138, 142, 143
Hardenburg, Prince 54
Harmonious development 55
Harnisch 118
Havelberg 92, 93, 121
Hazel-buds the clue of Ariadne 12
Hebrew, study of 85
Heerwart, Eleonore 143, 144, 147
Hegel 116
---- his formulae adopted 113
Helba, National Institution at 16, 102, 129, 141
Hell, belief in 11, 133
Hermes 7
Higher methods of teaching 98
Hildburghausen 37, 140
History 88
Hoffmann, Herr 17, 21, 43, 44, 140, 141
Hoffman, Thedor 142
Hoffmeister, Henrietta Wilhelmine 123, 140
Holzhausen, Herr von 110, 141
---- Madame von 110, 112
Home of Froebel 6, 22, 27, 28
---- abandoned 15, 35
---- life 21, 22
Hopf 56, 69
Identities and analogies sought out 107
Iffland's "Huntsman" 26
Illusions have a true side 13
Impressions of Pestalozzi 54
Imprisoned for debt 33, 140
Individual life key to the universal 16
Inner meaning of the vowels 99
Inner law and order 87
Instrumental music derived from vocal 82
Introspection a characteristic 4,
11, 25, 46, 49, 56, 72, 103, 104, 109, 115
"Isis" 102, 117
Isolation of Froebel 4, 5, 91, 107
Jahn 120
Jena, life at 28, 105, 138, 140
Jesus Christ, education based on 120
"Journal of Education" 117, 141, 142
"Journal for Froebel's Educational Aims" 142
Joy of teaching 58
Jussieu's Botany 31
Kant 116
Keilhau, life at 16, 102, 103, 117, 135, 141, 143
Kindergarten occupations 129
Knowledge of self through objects 97
Körner in the "Wilde Schaar" 91
Krause, Carl C.F. 102, 103, 116
---- letter to 2, 103-125, 141
Krüsi 55
Lange, Wichard 102, 138, 144, 145
---- editor of "Family Journal" 138
---- editor of Froebel's Works 3, 32, 138
Langethal, Heinrich 91,
93, 100, 101, 120, 122, 123, 124, 137, 140, 141, 142, 144
Language, philosophy of 81, 99
---- teaching of 59, 64, 81, 84, 85
Latin, study of 20, 23, 34, 84
Legacies 86, 123
Leipzig 91
Leonhardi 103
Lessons from Nature's training 72
Letter to the Duke of Meiningen 2, 3-101, 141
---- to Krause 102-125, 141, 146
"Levana" 70
Liebenstein, life at 142
Life as a connected whole 104
"Life, will, understanding" 118
Lilies, vain search for 96
London Kindergarten College 144
Love of Nature. [See Nature, love of.]
Luther, Martin 50
Lützow, Baron von 91, 141
Manchester Kindergarten Association 143
Mankind as one great unity 84
Manner in teaching 21
Manning, Miss 144
Manual training at Helba 121
Map-drawing 39, 61
"Mappe du Monde Litteraire" 36
Marenholz-Bülow, Baroness von 73, 142, 143, 146, 149
Marienthal 142, 143
Marquart, Dr. 143
---- Madame 143
Master of the girls' school 7
Mathematics 27
Matrimony 11
Mechanical powers, the 30
Mecklenburg 42, 44
Meiningen, Duke of 102, 129, 130
---- Letter to 2, 3-101, 141, 142, 146
Meissen 92, 120
Memorizing of rules vs. development 55, 109, 116
"Menschen Erziehung" 1, 76, 117, 141, 145
Mental struggles 65
Metaphysics 40, 118
Methods of Education 99
Michaelis, Mme. 143, 146, 147
Middendorf, Wilhelm 92, 93, 94, 100, 101, 103, 120, 121, 122, 123,
124, 127, 128, 135, 136, 137, 138, 139, 140, 141, 142, 143
Mineralogy 30, 87, 89
---- professorship declined 112
Misapprehension of Froebel's motives 16
Model School at Frankfurt 51
"Moonstruck," Froebel so considered 105
Moral influence of the teacher 60, 83
---- pride 5
Mother of Froebel 3, 44, 72
"Mothers' Songs" 76, 145
Mugge, Johanna Caroline 140
"Mutter- and Koselieder" 76, 145
Nägeli 81
---- and Pfeifer's "Musical Course" 81
Name temporarily changed 46
Napoleonic wars 91, 141
---- reaction from 127
Natural history 31, 32, 56, 87
Natural History Society at Jena 32
Nature, communion with 19
---- love of 24, 31, 38, 43, 48, 71, 74, 82, 80, 94, 96, 104, 105, 107
---- as an educator 71
Nature's work vs. man's 69
Nature-Temple 12
Nephews of Froebel. [See Froebel, Ferdinand, etc.]
Netherlands, Froebel in the 95
Neuhof 24, 140
Nieces of Froebel. [See Froebel, Albertine, etc.]
Niederer 57
Note-taking 30
Novalis's Works 45
Number horizontally related 99
Oberfalz 42
Oberweissbach 3, 105
Object-teaching 69
Oken, Lorenz 102, 116
---- "Isis" 102
"On German Education" 141
"On the Universal German Education at Keilhau" 141
Oriental tongues, study of 85
Orphanage at Burgdorf 93, 135, 136, 137, 142
Orthodox theology 10, 11, 13, 14
Orthography 62
"Pädagogik" 76
Pädagogium at Halle 45
Paper, pricking of, suggested 75, 76
Payne, Joseph 144, 150
Permutations of numbers 106
Perrault, M. 64
Persian language, study of 85
Personal characteristics of Froebel 13, 14, 15, 63, 67, 104, 111, 126
---- of Pestalozzi 111
Pestalozzi 20, 51-54, 57, 59, 69,70, 77-81, 83, 89, 141
---- aims contrasted with Froebel's 111, 116, 129, 136
---- "Buch der Matter" 136
---- "Einertabelle" 59
---- general addresses 83
---- school. [See Yverdon.]
Pfyffer, Eduard 81, 134, 135
Philology, study of 22, 85, 98, 111
Philosophy, danger of 40
Physical backwardness 18
---- constitution 91
---- education 74
---- geography 20, 55
Physics 29, 87, 88, 89
Physiography 60, 61
Plamann school 89
Plans for life-work 23
Play a subject of study 82
---- for school boys 60
---- influence of 76
Political economy 85
Politics 88
Portugall, Baroness Adele von 143
"Positive instruction" 55
Praetorious, Miss 143
Pricking paper suggested 75
---- philosophy of 76
"Principles, Aims, and Inner Life" 141
Private tutorship 59
Professorship declined 112
Pronunciation 63, 64
Prophetic sentiments 49
Pröschke's "Fragments" 45
Prussian, Froebel not a 90
Public school-examination 134
Purpose of education 69
Quittelsdorf 102
Reaction from Napoleonic wars 126
Reading, teaching of 7, 56
Recognition by others 32
Relationship, education in 70
Religious experiences 8, 9, 19, 21, 25, 35, 74
---- instruction 74, 80, 119
---- persecution 133
Repulsion to menial service 23
"Rhenische Blätter" 139
Rhine, Froebel crosses the 95
Richter, Jean Paul 70
Rigidity in teaching 62
Rocks a mirror of mankind 97
Ronge, Madame 143, 151
Rousseau's system of singing 56
Rudolstadt 117, 142
---- Prince of 102, 138
---- Princess Regent of 78, 80, 141
"Samuel Lawhill" 22
Sanskrit, study of 85
Schaffner, Siegfried 124
Schelling 116
---- school of 40
Schiller 35
Schleiermacher 123
Schmidt, Carl 143
Schmidt, Josias 55
---- quarrels with Niederer 57
Schnyder 130, 142
Schopenhauer, Arthur 117
Schrader, Madame 143
Schwartzburg-Rudolstadt 3
Scientific extracts 36
Scribbling distasteful 36
Self-consciousness 5, 11
Self-development becomes objective 59
Self-discipline 21
Seiler, George Frederick 70
Senses exercised 10
Set forms in teaching 62
Sex-life in plants 12
Sexual conditions 11, 12
Shirreff, Emily 144, 146, 151, 152
Singing 56, 81
Skeleton of man as type 31
Soldier, Froebel as a 91-96, 111, 144
"Sonntags-Blatt," articles in 76
Soul-cultivation 7
---- emerging from chrysalis 49
Sound method from fundamental principle 106
Special education 23, 115
Speech-tones 98
Spelling, teaching of 20
Spiritual endeavor at Yverdon. [See Religious experiences.]
---- experiences 19
Stadt-Ilm 18, 44
Step-brother of Froebel 15
Step-mother of Froebel 4, 5, 27, 33
Stimulation at Yverdon 79
Stockwell Kindergarten College 143
"Stone-language" 10
Sturm 7
Style of Froebel's writing 1, 117
Subject vs. object 46
"Sunday Journal" 142
Surveying, study of 39, 40, 41
Symbols to the inner eye 111
Taking sides 13
Teacher in the Plamann School 89
---- requirements of a 65
Teachers' institutes at Burgdorf 136
Teaching suggested 51
"Teaching-plan" of Pestalozzi 54
"The Education of the Future" 143
"The New Education" an antithesis 116
"The New Year 1836 demands a Renewal of Life" 142
Theatrical performances 26, 33
Theological disputations 13
Third person in address 5
"Thou," the German 5
Thuringian forest, the 3
"To the German People" 141
Tobler 56, 69
Translators, aims of the 1
Trustee of Froebel's property 28, 33
Uckermark, the 48
Uncle of Froebel. [See Hoffman, Herr.]
Unconscious tuition 9
---- wealth of youth 71
Unity 69, 70
---- from clashing phenomena 105
---- in Nature 98
---- lacking at Yverdon 79
---- of natural objects 86
---- of the universe 89
"Universal German" education 114, 141
Universities neglect Froebel 117
Vivacity of early impulses 7
Voldersdorf, Herr von 42, 140
Von Dewitz 42, 43, 45, 140
---- Holzhausen, Madame 110, 112, 141
---- Lützow, Baron 91, 141
---- Marenholz-Bülow 73, 142, 143
---- Portugall, Baroness Adéle 143
---- Voldersdorf 42, 140
Vowels, inner meaning of 99
---- vs. consonants 98
Walks with pupils 60, 82
Wartburg, the 50, 108
Wartensee, the 130, 131, 142
Was Christ Catholic or Protestant? 134
Weber's "Wilde Jagd" 91
Weimar, Grand Duke of 142, 143
Weiss, Prof. 89, 95
Wichard's "Froebel" 78
Wieland 35
Wife [first] of Froebel 123, 141
Willisau, school a 93, 135-137, 142
Winckelmann's "Letters on Art" 34
Wollweider, Dr. 45
Works written by Froebel 117, 141, 145, 146
Yverdon, Pestalozzi's school at 20, 53-57, 77-84, 141
---- lack of unity, etc 83
---- wavering of ground principles 84
Zendavista 35
Zollikofer 7
