Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel

Friedrich Wilhelm August Fröbel (April 21, 1782 – June 21, 1852) was a German educator.

In 1840 he created the word kindergarten for the Play and Activity Institute he had founded in 1837 at Bad Blankenburg for young children. One of his educational tools, popularly known as Froebel Gifts, or Fröbel Gaben, included geometric blocks that could be assembled in various combinations to form three dimensional compositions. The famous American architect Frank Lloyd Wright was admittedly influenced through playing with the Froebel blocks. A book entitled Inventing Kindergarten by Norman Brosterman, examines the influence of Fröbel on Wright and modern art.

Fröbel's great insight was to recognise the importance of the activity of the child in learning. Activities in the first kindergarten included singing, dancing, gardening and playing with the Froebel Gifts.

Fröbel was born at Oberweissbach near Rudolstadt in Thuringia. The village had been known for centuries throughout Europe for its herbal remedies trade. The herbalists had long established routes throughout Europe which were handed down within the various families. His father, who died in 1802, was the pastor of the orthodox Lutheran parish there. The church, now renovated, has the largest pulpit of any church in Europe in which twelve men can fit. Shortly after Fröbel's birth, his mother's health began to fail. She died when he was nine months old, profoundly influencing his life. After Fröbel's father remarried, he felt neglected by both his father, who was busy with his work, and his stepmother. A family legend accounts that his stepmother once locked him in the cellar without any dinner, but forgot to let him out. Apparently, when she opened the door in the morning she was shocked that little Fröbel was neat and his hair combed. When she asked him how he could be so tidy after a night in the cellar, he replied, "After you locked me in the cellar, my real mother came and spent the night with me. She combed my hair and straightened my clothes in the morning." The stepmother was so shaken by the incident that she allowed Fröbel to go to Stadt-Ilm to visit his mother's uncle, who was also a Lutheran pastor. As the Virgin Mary figures often in Fröbel's thoughts and Marian flowers and herbs appear in his Mutter und Koselieder (Mother Songs), many believe that he referred to her when he said "real mother."

In 1792, Fröbel went to live in the small town of Stadt-Ilm with his uncle, a gentle and affectionate man. At the age of 15 Fröbel, who loved nature, became the apprentice to a forester. In 1799, he decided to leave his apprenticeship and study mathematics and botany in Jena. He later worked with Pestalozzi in Switzerland where his ideas further developed. The promulgation of Fröbel's ideas and activities must be attributed to a profitable friendship with Baroness Bertha Marie von Marenholtz-Buelow, who arranged for leading educators, government officials, and nobility to hear Fröbel's lectures. She simplified and clarified his often complicated talks to make them universally understandable. Fröbel's early adherents were the Dutchess Maria Pavlona (Romanova) von Sachsen-Weimar, the Duke of Sachsen-Meiningen, and the Royal Family of the Netherlands, among others. After his death, the Baroness continued to promote Fröbelianism until her death. She is buried in Dresden.

Through her intercession with the Duke of Sachsen-Meiningen, Fröbel was able to use the Jagdschloesschen (Little Hunting Castle) of the duke in the Thuringian village of Bad Liebenstein near Schweina. In that institution he was the first to give women in Europe a professional degree, that of "Kindergaertnerin" or kindergarten teacher. He was said to have died on the second floor so peacefully that those around him were almost unaware that he had passed. Over his bed hung a print of his favorite painting, Raphael's painting of the Madonna and Child Enthroned with Saints on her lap. The Virgin Mary is surrounded by Sts. Peter and Paul. The martyred virgins, Cecilia and Catherine, are also depicted. It is surmised that Fröbel found symbolic value in the saints who correlated to his trusted companions and fellow educators, Middendorff and Langenthal, whereas the Cecilia and Catherine related to his wife, Luise Levin, and the Baroness von Marentholtz-Buelow.

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Alternative education | German educationists | 1782 births | 1852 deaths

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