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THE SUBJECTS ARE AS FOLLOWS

MOSES

CONFUCIUS

PYTHAGORAS

PLATO

KINO ALFRED

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

BOOKER T. WASHINGTON

THOMAS ARNOLD

ERASMUS

HYPATIA

ST. BENEDICT

MARY BAKER EDDY

LITTLE JOURNEYS for 1908, THE PHILIS- TINE Magazine for One Year and a De Luxe Leather Bowd ROYCROFT BOOK, ALL FOR TWO DOLLARS

Entered at postofGlce, East Aurora, N. Y.jfor transmission as second- class matter. Copyright, 1908, by Elbert Hubbard, Editor & Publisher

O T I C E

ONVENTION OF PUBLICISTS AND PRINTERS to be held at

East Aurora, June 1 st to 7th, 1 908, inclusive. The Roy croft Inn — chaser only — Headquarters. On this Joyous Jinkstide, there will be discussed the Fifty-Seven Varieties of Plans whereby the eye, cerebrum and large, furry ear of the Public can be effectively reached. The Calculi to be dissolved will include Bill-boards, Board-bills, Bull-heads, Belfry-bats, Bink-bubbles and Bank-balances. There will be two formal meetings — but not too formal — daily, when Representative Ad- vertisers will illuminate questions which are naturally opaque. C[ Incidentally, there will be a baseball game or two, walks 'cross country, passing of the Medicine Ball, a little relating betimes of tales of persiflage that are in their anecdotage; also music by Merry Villagers, and bucolic players on sweet zithem strings ^ You are invited to be present.

FELIX, Sec'y to the Committee R. S. V. P. East Aurora, New York

THE BRONCHO BOOK

;HE ROYCROFTERS have roped and hog=tied, very nixola, a volume entitled the ''THE BRONCHO BOOK, OR BUCK-JUMPS IN VERSE," by Captain Jack Crawford— done for the relief of the author and the divertisement of tenderfeet. QThe poems of Captain Jack form a genuine individual note in American Literature, a note that is soon to die away, never again to be heard, save as an echo of things that were. Captain Jack has been called this, also that, as every man has, who does not allow society to corral him and dictate his hat and haberdashery ^ But no man ever looked into Jack's face and directed an epithet at him — not for fear Jack would give a straight short arm jolt — and Jack, being Irish, might supply that if the other fellow insisted on having it — but because the whole presence of the man is one of absolute candor and simple, childlike honesty. Jack is genume. He is so genuine that he disarms criticism — he is a man ; a clean, wholesome, manly man, without sophistry, vanity or pretence. He is so natural that some have called him a poser. He lives where the hand of God is seen. Q Captain Jack enlisted in the Civil War when sixteen and fought in the same regiment with his father. He was wounded several times and once reported as a "deserter," because he ran away from the hospital to take part in an approaching battle. Those of us who have seen him at the OV Swimmin' Hole have noticed that his cosmos is covered with the marks of claws, hoofs, bullets, arrows, knives, bayonets and sabre thrusts. Yet out of all life's scrimmages he has emerged strong, buoyant, hopeful, with a soul of song, and heart of love for every living thing. Q Captain Jack was the last man, since the death of Custer in 1876, to hold the position in the United S^tates Army of * ' Chief of Scouts. ' ' He served with Generals Phil. Sheridan, Wesley Merritt, John A. Logan, John L. BuUis, Edward Hatch and H. W. Lawton. All of these men held Captain Jack in close and affectionate regard, as many letters from each attest. Q There is no stain on the war- record of Captain Jack- he was a fighter from a long ways up the creek. And as a poet he has placed his branding iron on a lot of lusty maverick thoughts. He is not only original, but aboriginal. Q A , portrait, sketched from life by Gaspard as frontispiece to the book. Bound in limp bob-cat ^ Oh, say TWO DOLLARS, prepaid, and sent suspic- iously. Give the ki-yi and the book will come a-running AAA

THE ROYCROFTERS, EAST AURORA, NEW YORK

VER since you were a small toddler, candy has been a special hobby. Your first lemon sticks were, of course, the best of all — that's ad- mitted. But the time when Mother kept pennies in the Ginger Jar for Good Kids is now long past ; the last lemon stick you tried had somehow lost its flavor. All candy, in fact, that we buy in the Big Towns now-a- days, has a ^^ Professional Taste" that never quite satisfies e^ <^

When next your thoughts ramble back to the Maple Sugar of Childhood, ^nd you have dire longings, write a note to the

Roy croft Kandy Kitchen Girls

They make real Boy and Girl Kandy — Fresh —

for Grown-ups.

The material used by the Kandy Kitchen Girls

is right from Nature's Heart «^ Every day they

attach their pails to the Roycroft Maple Sugar

Trees, and the Sap — it comes to you in the form

of Patties J* ^

Roycroft Kandy Renews Youth ^ Address the

ROYCROFT KANDY KITCHEN GIRLS EAST AURORA, ERIE COUNTY, NEW YORK

TO THE BIBLIOZINE BLASE F you are jaded with the commonplace in maga- zines, why not surprise your cerebrum, and give your convolutions a treat? C(The Fra is printed by printers; in make-up it is strictly bosarty. The Fra will increase your will-power; help your capacity for friendship ; better your thinkery; bolster your ideals; and by adding to your health will double for you the joys of life; avert that burnt sienna taste, distance the ether cone, and send the undertaker into receiver- ship. Fra means Friend and spells Success. <|We just must have your subscription for your own good and ours. The rate is Two Dollars a Year, Twenty-five Cents a Number, Please reply abruptly and with precision

THE ROYCROFTERS, East Aurora, New York

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2b05 no. 6

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FRIEDRICH PROEBEL

FREDRIOinOEBn.

THE purpose of the Kindergarten is to provide the necessary and natural help which poor mothers require, who have to be about their work all day, and must leave their children to themselves. The occupations pursued in the Kindergarten are the following : free play of a child by itself ; free play of several children by themselves ; asso- ciated play under the guidance of a teacher; gymnastic exercises; several sorts of handiwork suited to little children ; going for walks ; learning music, both instrumental and vocal; learning the repetition of poetry; story-telling; looking at really good pictures; aiding in domestic occupations; gardening.

— FROEBEL.

LITTLE JOURNEYS

RIEDRICH FROEBEL was born in a Thuringian village, April 2ist, 1782. His father was pastor of the Lutheran Church. When scarcely a year old his mother died. Ere long a stepmother came to fill her place — but didn't J^ This stepmother was the kind we read about in the *'Six Best Sellers." Her severity, lack of love, and needlessly religious zeal served the future Kinder- gartener a dark background upon which to paint a joyous picture. Froebel was educated by antithesis. His home was the type etched so unforgetably by Col. Ed. Howe in his "Story of a Country Town," which isn*t bad enough to be one of the Six Best Sellers. At the age of ten, out of pure pity, young Friedrich was rescued from the cuckoo's nest by an uncle who had a big family of his own and love without limit. There was a goodly brood left, so little Friedrich, slim, slender, yellow, pensive and sad, was really never missed. flThe uncle brought the boy up to work, but treated him like a human being, answering his questions, even allowing him to have stick horses and little log houses and a garden of his own ^ jt

At fifteen his nature had begun to awaken, and the uncle barkening to the boy's wish, apprenticed him for two years to a forester. The young man's first work was to make a list

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of the trees in a certain tract and approximate their respec- tive ages. The night before his work began he lay awake thinking of the fun he was going to have at the job. In after years he told of this incident in showing that it was absurd to try to divorce work from play. The two years as forester's apprentice, from fifteen to seven- teen, were really better for him than any university could have been. His stepmother's instructions had mostly been in the line of prohibition. From earliest babyhood he had been warned to "look out." When he went on the street it was with a prophecy that he would get run over by a cart, or stolen by the gypsies, or fall off the bridge and be drowned Jt, The idea of danger had been dinged into his ears so that fear had become a part of the fabric of his nature. Even at fif- teen, he took pains to get out of the woods before sundown to avoid the bears. At the same time his intellect told him there were no bears there. But the shudder habit was upon him jt ^

Yet by degrees the work in the woods built up his body and he grew to be at home in the forest, both day and night. His duties taught him to observe, to describe, to draw, to in- vestigate, to decide. Then it was transplantation, and per- haps the best of college life consists in taking the youth out of the home environment and supplying him new surround- ings ^ jt

Forestry in America is a brand-new science. To clear the ground has been our desire, and so to strip, bum and de- stroy, saving only such logs as appealed to us for "lumber'* 132

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was the desideratum. But now we are seriously considering the matter of tree-planting and tree-preservation, and per- haps it would be well to ask ourselves if two years at forestry, right out-of-doors, in contact with nature, wrestling with the world of wood, rock, plant and living things, would n't be better for the boy than double the time in stuffy dormitories and still more stuffy recitation rooms — listening to stuffy lectures about things that are foreign to life. I would say that a boy is a savage, but I do not care to give offense to fond mammas. To educate him in the line of his likes, as the race has been educated, seems sensible and right. How would Yellowstone Park answer for a National University, with Captain Jack Crawford, William Muldoon, John Burroughs, John Dewey, Stanley Hall and a mixture of men of these types do for a faculty? Froebel thought his two years in the forest saved him from consumption, and perhaps from insanity, for it taught him to look out, not in, and to lend a hand. At times he was a little too sentimental, as it was, and a trifle more of morbidity and sensitiveness would have ruined his life, absolutely. The woods and God's great out-of-doors, gave him balance and ballast, good digestion and sweet sleep o' nights. The two years past, he went to Jena, where he had an elder brother. This brother was a star scholar, and Friedrich looked up to him as a pleiad of pedagogy. He became a prof- fessor in a Jena preparatory school and then practiced medi- cine, but never had the misfortune to affront public opinion, and so oblivion lured and won him, and took him as her own.

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fl At Jena poor Froebel did not make head. His preparatory work hadn't prepared him. He floundered in studies too deep for one of his age, then followed some foolish advice, and hired a tutor to fetch him along. Then he fell down, was plucked, got into debt, and also into the "career," where he boarded for nine weeks at the expense of the State. In the career he didn't catch up in his studies, quite naturally, and the imprisonment almost broke his health. Had he been in the career for dueling, he would have emerged a hero J(> But debt meant that he neither had money nor friends. When he was given his release, as an economic move, he slipped away between two days and made his way to the Forestry OflEice, where he applied for a job as laborer ^He got it. In a few days he was promoted to chief of apprentices. ^ Forestry meant a certain knowledge of surveying, and this Froebel soon acquired. Then came map-making, and that was only fun ^ Jt

From map-making to architecture is but a step, and Froebel quit the woods to work as assistant to an architect at ten pounds a year and found. It was confining work, and a trifle more exacting than he had expected — it re- quired a deal of mathematics, and mathematics was FroebePs short suit. Froebel was disappointed and so was his employer — when something happened. It usually does in books, and in life, always.

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

Not skill, nor books, but life itself is the foundation of all edu- cation.

ENIUS has its prototype. Before Froebel comes Pestalozzi, the Swiss, who studied theology and law, and then abandoned them both as futile to human evolu- tion, and turned his attention to teaching. Pestalozzi was inspired by Jean Jacques Rousseau, and read his Emile religiously. To teach by natural methods and mix work and study, and make both play was his theme. Pestalozzi believed in teaching out-of-doors, because children are both barbaric and nomadic — they want to go somewhere. His was the Aristotle method, as opposed to those of the closet and the cloister. But he made the mistake of saying that teaching should be taken out of the hands and homes of the clergy, and then the clergy said a few things about him. Pestalozzi at first met with very meager encouragement. Only poor and ignorant people intrusted their children to his care, and some of the parents were actually paid in money for the services of the children. The thought that the children were getting an education and being useful at the same time was quite beyond their comprehension. Pestalozzi educated by stealth. At first he took several boys

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and girls of eight, ten or twelve years of age, and had them work with him in his garden. They cared for fowls, looked after the sheep, milked the cows. The master worked with them and as they worked they talked. Going to and from their duties, Pestalozzi would call their attention to the wild birds, and the flowers, plants and weeds. They would draw pictures of things, make collections of leaves and flowers and keep a record of their observations and discoveries. Through keep- ing these records they learned to read and write and acquired the use of simple mathematics. Things they did not imder- stand they would read about in the books found in the teacher's library ^ But books were secondary and quite incidental in the scheme of study. When work seemed to become irksome they would all stop and play games. At other times they would sit and just talk about what their work happened to suggest. If the weather was unpleasant, there was a shop where they made hoes and rakes and other tools they needed. They also built bird-houses, and made simple pieces of furniture, so all the pupils, girls and boys, became more or less familiar with carpenter's and blacksmith's tools. They patched their shoes, mended their clothing and at times prepared their own food.

Pestalozzi found that the number of pupils he could look after in this way was not more than ten. But to his own satis- faction, at least, he proved that children taught by his method surpassed those who were given the regular set courses of instruction. His chief diflSculties lay in the fact that the home did not co-operate with the school, and that 136

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there was always a tendency to " return to the blanket." ^Pestalozzi wrote accounts of his experiments, emphasizing his belief that we should educate through the child's natural activities, and that all growth should be pleasurable. His shibboleth was, " From within out. " He thought educa- tion was a development and not an acquirement. One of Pestalozzi's little pamphlets fell into the hands of Friedrich Froebel, architect's assistant, at Frankfort. Froebel was twenty-two years old, and fate had tossed him around from one thing to another since babyhood. All of his experiences had been of a kind that prepared his mind for the theories that Pestalozzi expressed.

Beside that, architecture had begun to pall upon him jt jt << Those who can, do ; those who can't, teach. " It was said in derision, but holds a grain of truth. Froebel had a great desire to teach. Now in Frankfort there was a Model School or a school for teachers, of which one Herr Gruner was master. This school was actually carrying out some of the practical methods suggested by Pestalozzi. Quite by accident Gruner and Froebel met. Gruner wanted a teacher who could teach by the Pestalozzi methods. Froebel straightway applied to Herr Gruner for the position. He was accepted as a combina- tion janitor and instructor and worked for his board and ten marks, or two dollars and a half a week. The good cheer and enthusiasm of Froebel won Gruner's heart. Together they discussed Pestalozzi and his works, read all that he had written, and opened up a correspondence with the great man. This led to an invitation that Froebel should

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visit him at his farm-school, near Yverdon, in Switzerland. flGruner supplied Froebel the necessary money to replace his very seedy clothes for something better, and the yoxmg man started away. It was a walk of over two hundred miles, but youth and enthusiasm count such a tramp as an enjoyable trifle. Froebel wore his seedy clothes and carried his good ones, and so he appeared before the master spick and span. ^ Pestalozzi was sixty years old at this time, and his hopes for the ** new method " were still high. He had met opposi- tion, ridicule and indifference, and had spent most of his little fortune in the fight, but he was still at it and resolved to die in harness. ^Froebel was not disappointed in Pestalozzi, and certainly Pestalozzi was delighted and a bit amused at the earnestness of the young man. Pestalozzi was working in a very economical way, but all the place lacked, Froebel in his imagination made good. Froebel found much, for he had brought much with him.

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We have to do with the principles of development of human beings, and not with methods of instruction concerning specific things «^ ^

IROEBEL returned to Frankfort from his visit to Pestalozzi, full of enthusiasm, and that is the commodity without which no teacher succeeds. Gruner al- lowed him to gravitate. And soon FroebePs room was the central point of interest for the whole school.

But trouble was ahead for Froebel.

He had no college degrees. His pedagogic pedigree was very short. He hoped to live down his university record, but it followed him. Gruner*s school was under government inspection, and the gentlemen with double chins, who came from time to time to look the place over, asked who this enthusiastic young person was, and why had the worthy janitor and ex-forester been so honored by promotion ^ ^

In truth, during his life Froebel never quite escaped the taunt that he was not an educated man. That is to say, no college had ever supplied him an alphabetic appendage. He had been a forester, a farmer, an architect, a guardian for boys and a teacher of women, but no institution had ever said officially

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he was fit to teach men. ^Gruner tried to explain that there are two kinds of teachers — people who are teachers by nature, and those who have acquired the methods by long study. The first, having little to learn, and a love for the child, with a spontaneous quality of giving their all, succeed best jt ji

But poor Gruner's explanations did not explain. Then the matter was gently explained to Froebel, and he saw that in order to hold a place as teacher he must acquire a past. ** Time will adjust it," he said, and started away on a second visit to Pestalozzi. His plan was to remain with the master long enough so he could secure a certificate of pro- ficiency Jk Jt>

Again Pestalozzi welcomed the young man, and he slipped easily into the household and became both pupil and teacher. His willingness to work — to do the task that lay nearest him — his good nature, his gratitude, won all hearts. At this time the plan of sending boys to college with a tutor, who was both a companion and a teacher, was in vogue with those who could afford it. It will be remembered that William and Alexander von Humboldt received their early education in this way — going with their tutor from university to university, teacher and pupils entering as special students, getting into the atmosphere of the place, soaking themselves full of it and then going on.

And now behold, through Gruner or Pestalozzi or both, a woman with wealth with three boys to educate applied to Froebel to come over into Macedonia and help her. 140

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It was in 1807 that Froebel became tutor in the von Holz- hausen family. He was twenty-five years old, and this was his first interview with wealth and leisure. That he was hungry enough to appreciate it, need not be emphasized. He got goodly glimpses of Gottingen, Berlin, and was long enough at Jena to rub the blot off the 'scutcheon. A stay at Weimar, in the Goethe country, completed the four years' course ,^ J^

The boys had grown to men, and proved their worth in after years, but whether they had gotten as much from the migra- tions as their teacher is very doubtful. He was ripe for oppor- tunity— they had had a surfeit of it.

Then came war. The order to arms and the rush of students to obey their country's call caught Froebel in the patriotic vortex, and he enlisted with his pupils. His service was honorable, even if not brilliant, and it had this advantage : the making of two friends, companions in arms, who caught the Pestalozzian fever, and lived out their lives preaching and teaching " the new method." These men were William Middendorf and Henry Langenthal. This trinity of brothers evolved a bond as beautiful as it is rare in the realm of friendship.

Forty years after their first meeting, Middendorf gave an oration over the dead body of Froebel that lives as a classic, breathing the love and faith that endure «^ And then Middendorf turned to his work, and dared prison and dis- grace by upholding the Kindergarten System and the life and example of his dear, dead friend. The Kindergarten Idea

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would probably have been buried in the grave with Froebel— interred with his bones — were it not for Middendorf and Langenthal j^ J>

We grow through the three fundamental principles of human existence — Feeling, Thinking, Doing.

[HE first Kindergarten was es- tablished in 1836, at Blanken- burg, a little village, near Keil- hau. Froebel was then fifty-four years old, happily married to a worthy woman who certainly did not hamper his work, even if she did not inspire it. He was childless that all children might call him father.

The years had gone in struggles to found Normal Schools in Ger- many after the Pestalozzian and Gruner methods. But dis- appointment, misunderstanding and stupidity had followed Froebel. The set methods of the clergy, accusations of revolu- tion and heresy, tilts with pious pedants as to the value of dead languages, all combined with his own lack of business shrewdness, had wrecked his various ventures. Froebers argument that women were better natural teachers 142

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL,

than men on account of the mother-instinct, brought forth a retort from a learned monk to the effect that it was indelicate if not sinful for an unmarried female, who was not a nun, to study the natures of children.

Parents with children old enough to go to school would not entrust their darlings with the teaching-experimenter, this on the advice of their pastors.

Middendorf and Langenthal were still with him, partners in the disgrace or failure, for none were willing to give up the fight for education by the natural methods. A great thought and a great word came to them, all at once — out on the mountain side!

Begin with children before the school age, and call it the Kindergarten ! ^Hurrah ! They shouted for joy, and ran down the hill to tell Frau Froebel.

The schools they had started before had been called, " The Institution for Teaching according to the Pestalozzi Method and the Natural Activities of the Child," "Institution for the Encouragement and Development of the Spontaneous Activities of the Pupil," and " Friedrich Froebers School for the Growth of the Creative Instinct which makes for a Use- ful Character."

A school with such names, of course, failed. No one could remember it long enough to send his child there — it meant nothing to the mind not prepared for it. What *s in a name? Everything. Books sell or become dead stock on the name. Commodities the same. Railroads must have a name people are not afraid to pronounce.

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FRIEDRICH FROEBEL,

The oflScers of the law came and asked to see Froebers license for manufacturing. Others asked as to the natiire of his wares, and one dignitary called and asked, "Is Herr Pestalozzi in?" ^ The Kindergarten I The new name took. The children remembered it. Overworked mothers liked the word and were glad to let the little other-mothers take the children to the Kindergarten, certainly.

Froebel had grown used to disappointments — he was an optimist by nature. He saw the good side of everything, including failure.

He made the best of necessity. And now it was very clear to him that education must begin " a hundred years before the child is born." He would reach the home and the mother through the children. " It will take three generations to prove the truth of the Kindergarten Idea," he said. And so the songs, the gifts, the games — all had to be invented, defended, tried and tried again. Pestalozzi had a plan for teaching the youth ; now a plan had to be devised to teach the child. Love was the keystone, and joy, unselfishness and unswerving faith in the Natural or Divine impulses of humanity crowned the structure.

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Stand far away from the tender blossoms of childhood, and brush not off the flower-dust with your rough fist.

^ROEBEL invented the school- ma'am. That is, he discovered the raw product and adapted it. He even coined the word, and it struck the world as being so very f imny that we forthwith adopted it and used it as a term of pro- vincial pleasantry and quasi- reproach. The original term used was " school-mother," but when it reached these friendly shores we translated it "school-marm." Then we tittered, also sneezed.

Froebel died in 1852. His first Kindergarten was not a success until he was nearly sixty years old, but the idea had been per- fecting itself in his mind more or less unconsciously for over thirty years.

He had been thinking, writing, working, experimenting all these years on the subject of education, and had become well- nigh discouraged. He had observed that six was the " school age." That is, no child could go to school until he was six years old — then his education began. But Froebel had been teaching in a country school and board- ing 'round, and he had discovered that long before this the child had been learning by observing and playing and that

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these were formative influences, quite as potent as actual school e^t J,

In the big families where Froebel boarded he noticed that the older girls took charge of the younger ones. So, often a girl of ten, with dresses to her knees, carried one baby in her arms and two toddled behind her, and this child of ten was really the other-mother. The true mother worked in the fields or toiled at her housework, and the little other-mother took the children out to play and thus amused them while the mother worked Ji> J^

The desire of Froebel was to educate the race, but what are a few hours in a schoolroom a day with a totally unsym- pathetic home environment!

To reach and interest the mother in the problem of education was well-nigh impossible. Toil, deprivation, poverty had killed all the romance and enthusiasm in her heart. She was the victim of arrested development, but the little other- mother was a child, impressionable, immature, and she could be taught. The home must co-operate with the school, other- wise all the school can teach will be forgotten in the home. Froebel saw, too, that often the little other-mother was so overworked in the care of her charges that she was taken from school. Beside, the idea was abroad that education was mostly for boys, anyway.

And here Froebel stepped in and proved himself a law- breaker, just as Ben Lindsey was when he inaugurated the juvenile court and waived the entire established legal pro- cedure, even to the omission of swearing his witnesses, and 146

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

believed in the little truant even though he lied. Froebel told the little other-mothers to come to school anyway and bring the babies with them. And then he set to work showing these girls how to amuse, divert and teach the babies. And he used to say the babies taught him.

Some of these half -grown girls showed a rare adaptability as teachers. They combined mother-love and the teaching instinct. Froebel utilized their services in teaching others in order that he might teach them. He saw that the teacher is the one who gets most out of the lessons, and that the true teacher is a learner. These girl teachers he called school- mothers, and thus was evolved the word and the person. Froebel founded the first normal and model school for the education of women as teachers, and this was less than a hundred years ago.

The years went by and the little mothers had children of their own, and these children were the ones that formed the first actual, genuine kindergarten. Also these were the mothers who formed the first mothers* clubs. And it was the success of these clubs that attracted the attention of the authorities, who could not imagine any other purpose for a club than to hatch a plot against the government.

Anyway, a system which taught that women were just as wise, just as good and just as capable as men — just as well fitted by nature to teach — would upset the clergy. If women can break into the school, they will also break into the church. Moreover, the encouragement of play was atrocious. Mein Gott, or words to that effect, play in a schoolroom!

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Why, even a fool would know that that is the one thing that stood in the way of education, the one fly in the pedagogic ointment. If Meinheer Froebel wotild please invent a way to do away with play in schoolrooms, he would be given a pension j/t> jf>

The idea that children were good by nature was rank heresy. Where does the doctrine of regeneration come in and how about being bom again 1 The natural man is at enmity against God. We are conceived in sin and born in iniquity. The Bible says it again and again. And here comes a man and thinks he knows more than all the priests and scholars who have ever lived, and fills the heads of fool women with the idea that they are bom to teach instead of to work in the fields and keep house and wait on men.

Mein Gott in Himmel, the women know too much, already I If this thing keeps on, men will have to get off the face of the earth and women and children will run the world, and do it by means of play. Aha! What does Solomon say? Spare the rod and spoil the child. Aber nicht, say these girls. This thing has got to stop before Germany becomes the joke of mankind — the cat-o-nine-tails for anybody who uses the word kindergarten I

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FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

God creates through us : we are the instruments of Divinity: to work in joy is the Divine Will.

lUFFER little children to come unto me, and forbid them not, for of such is the Kingdom of Heaven." Had the man who uttered these words been given a little encouragement he probably would have inaugurated a child- garden and provided a place and environment where little souls could have bloomed and blos- somed. He was by nature a teacher, and his best pupils were women and children. Male men are apt to think they already know and so are immtme from ideas.

Jerusalem, nineteen hundred years ago, was about where Berlin was in 1850. In both instances the proud priest and aristocrat-soldier were supreme. And both were quite satis- fied with their own mental attainments and educational methods. They were sincere. It was a very similar combina- tion that crucified Jesus to that which placed an interdict on Friedrich Froebel, making the Kindergarten a crime, and causing the speedy death of one of the gentlest, noblest, purest men who has ever blessed this earth. Froebel was just seventy when he passed out. "His eye was not dimmed nor his natural force abated" — he was filled

149

FRIEDRICH FROEBELr

with enthusiasm and hope as never before. His ideas were spreading — success, at last, was at the door, he had inter- ested the women and proved the fitness of women to teach — his mothers' clubs were numerous — love was the watch- word. And in the midst of this flowering time, the official order came, without warning, apology or explanation, and from which there was no appeal. The same savagery, chilled with fear, that sent Richard Wagner into exile, crushed the life and broke the heart of Friedrich Froebel. But these names now are the glory and pride of the land that scorned them. Men who govern should be those with a reasonable doubt concerning their own infallibility, and an earnest faith in men, women and children. To teach is better than to rule. We are all children in the Kindergarten of God.

150

HOW TO TEACH

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