Autobiography of Friedrich Froebel Part 7

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 a.s.serted 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 t.i.tle of "German," or "Universal German" education; and, indeed, I struck that out from one of my ma.n.u.scripts, although it was precisely the name required to start with as it expressed the broad nature of my proposed inst.i.tution. 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 inst.i.tute altogether differently, had I offered to train a special cla.s.s, body-servants, footmen or housemaids, shoemakers or tailors, tradesmen or merchants, soldiers or even n.o.blemen, then should I have gained fame and glory for the great usefulness and practical nature of my inst.i.tution, 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 n.o.ble 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 a.n.a.lysis 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 const.i.tuted 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 inst.i.tute 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 G.o.d.

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 a.s.sociation, and of our harmonious circle. In April 1813 Jahn led me and other Berlin students to meet my future comrades in arms, Lutzow'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 sh.o.r.es 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 pa.s.s over the s.p.a.ce 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 s.p.a.ce 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 a.s.sist 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 a.s.sociation 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 Inst.i.tute, his particular work being to teach instrumental music and singing. He lives and works in the true spirit of the Inst.i.tute, and is bound up heart and soul with its fortunes.[121] Of other teachers, who have a.s.sisted us in the Inst.i.tute for greater or less time, I need not speak; they never properly belonged to our circle. Amongst all the specially a.s.sociated 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 a.s.sociation; 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 n.o.ble 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 att.i.tude 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 ent.i.tled "Critical Moments in the Froebel Community;" written for Dr. Lange's edition by Barop (then the princ.i.p.al 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 Inst.i.tution.[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 a.s.sistance whatever. Mistrust surrounded us on all sides in these early years of our work; open and concealed enmities a.s.sailed 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 inst.i.tution blossomed quick and fair; but later on, through the well-known persecution directed against a.s.sociations 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 n.o.ble 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 pa.s.sed 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 inst.i.tute,[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 pa.s.sing 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 a.s.sailed 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.