Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel Part 13

1859. Miss Eleonore Heerwart (pupil of Middendorff and Madame Luise Froebel), and the Baroness Adele von Portugall (pupil of Madame von Marenholtz-Bulow 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-Bulow 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 a.s.sist 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 Praetorius) 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 princ.i.p.al 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 a.s.sociation (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 _soiree_ 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 cla.s.ses 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 circ.u.mstances.