Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel Part 10

[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 Lutzow formed his famous volunteer corps in March 1813. His instructions were to hara.s.s 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 t.i.tle was "Lutzow's Wilde Verwegene Schaar" (Lutzow's Wild Bold Troop).

Amongst the volunteers were many distinguished men; for instance, the poet Korner, whose volume of war poetry, much of it written during the campaign, is still a great favourite. One of the poems, "Lutzow's Wilde Jagd" ("Lutzow'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 t.i.tle 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 t.i.tle 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 pa.s.sed 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 cla.s.sical 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, Gottingen, 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 a.s.sociation for the Advancement of Science, which at the outset was avowedly organised after his model. He died in 1851.

[87] Those acquainted with the cla.s.sical mythology will forgive us for noting that Charybdis was, and is, a whirlpool on the Sicilian sh.o.r.e of the Straits of Messina, face to face with some caverns under the rock of Scylla, on the Italian sh.o.r.e, 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 Thuringer 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 Gottingen 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 cla.s.s, 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-+-Ant.i.thesis | Synthesis.

The true synthesis is that springing from the thesis and its opposite, the ant.i.thesis. 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 formulae.

[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 a.s.sembly at Frankfurt in 1848. After the dissolution of that a.s.sembly, 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 Zurich. He left Zurich 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, Sch.e.l.ling, 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 Gottingen. 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 Inst.i.tute of Rudolstadt" (1822); (2) "Continuation of the Account of the Universal German Educational Inst.i.tute 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 Inst.i.tute" (1824); (4) "The Menschen Erziehung," the full t.i.tle of which was "The Education of Man: The Art of Education, Instruction, and Teaching, as attempted to be realised at the Universal Educational Inst.i.tute at Keilhau, set forth by the Originator, Founder, and Princ.i.p.al of the Inst.i.tute, 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 pa.s.sage may serve as a sufficient ill.u.s.tration 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 Volkstadt.