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passing that way:

the town we are? a moment?"

"Would you kindly tell me in what part of And could you perhaps lend me your stick for

"Indeed," angrily replied the person addressed, "those are very suspicious questions. I want my stick myself at night. Who are you, sir? » The stranger approached the professor mena. cingly.

"I am peaceable," replied Raschke, "and by no means inclined to violent attacks. A quarrel has arisen between me and the animal on this seat for the possession of a coat, and I should be much obliged to you if you would drive the dog away from the coat. But I beg you not to hurt the animal any more than is absolutely necessary."

"Is that your coat there?" asked the man.

"Unfortunately I cannot give you an affirmative answer,” replied Raschke conscientiously.

"There must be something wrong here," exclaimed the stranger, again eyeing the professor suspiciously.

"There is, indeed,” replied Raschke. "The dog is out of his mind; the coat is exchanged, and I do not know where we are." "Close to the valley gate, Professor Raschke," answered the voice of Gabriel, who hastily joined the group. "Excuse me, but what brings you here?"

"Capital!" exclaimed Raschke joyously. "Pray take charge of this coat and this dog."

Gabriel gazed in amazement at Speihahn, who was now lying on the coat and bending his head before his friend. Gabriel threw down the dog and seized the coat. "Why, that is our greatcoat!" exclaimed he.

"Yes, Gabriel," said the professor, "that was my mistake, and the dog has shown marvelous fidelity to the coat."

"Fidelity!" exclaimed Gabriel indignantly, as he drew a par cel out of the coat pocket. "It was greedy selfishness, sir; there must be some food in this pocket."

"Yes, true," exclaimed Raschke; "it is all the chicken's fault. Give me the parcel, Gabriel; I must eat the fowl myself; and we might bid each other good-night now with mutual satisfaction, if you would just show me my way a little among these trees.»

"But you must not go home in the night air without an overcoat," said Gabriel considerately. "We are not far from our

house; the best way would really be for you to come back with me, sir."

Raschke considered and laughed.

"You are right, Gabriel; my departure was awkward; and today an animal's soul has restored a man's soul to order."

"If you mean this dog," said Gabriel, "it would be the first time he ever did anything good. I see he must have followed you from our door; for I put little bones there for him of an evening."

"Just now he seemed not to be quite in his right mind,” said the professor.

"He is cunning enough when he pleases," continued Gabriel mysteriously; but if I were to speak of my experiences with this dog-»

"Do speak, Gabriel," eagerly exclaimed the philosopher. "There is nothing so valuable concerning animals as a truthful statement from those who have carefully observed them."

"I may say that I have done so," confirmed Gabriel, with satisfaction; "and if you want to know exactly what he is, I can assure you that he is possessed of the devil, he is a thief, he is embittered, and he hates all mankind."

"Ah, indeed!" replied the professor, somewhat disconcerted. "I see it is much more difficult to look into a dog's heart than into a professor's."

1

Speihahn crept along silent and suppressed, and listened to the praises that fell to his lot; while Professor Raschke, conducted by Gabriel, returned to the house by the park. Gabriel opened the sitting-room door, and announced:

«Professor Raschke. »

Ilse extended both her hands to him.

"Welcome, welcome, dear Professor Raschke!" and led him to her husband's study.

"Here I am again," said Raschke cheerfully, "after wandering as in a fairy tale. What has brought me back were two animals, who showed me the right way, -a roast fowl and an embittered dog. "

Felix sprang up; the men greeted one another warmly, shaking hands, and after all misadventures, spent a happy evening.

When Raschke had gone home late, Gabriel said sadly to his mistress, "This was the new coat; the fowl and the dog have put it in a horrible plight."

6022

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

(1782-1852)

BY NORA ARCHIBALD SMITH

T WAS Froebel who said, "The clearer the thread that runs through our lives backward to our childhood, the clearer will be our onward glance to the goal;" and in the fragment of autobiography he has left us, he illustrates forcibly the truth of his own saying. The motherless baby who plays alone in the village pastor's quiet house, the dreamy child who wanders solitary in the high-walled garden; the thoughtful lad, neglected, misunderstood, who forgets the harsh realities of life in pondering the

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FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

mysteries of the flowers, the contradictions of existence, and the dogmas of orthodox theology; who decides in early boyhood that the pleasures of the senses are without enduring influence and therefore on no account to be eagerly pursued;- these presentments of himself, which he summons up for us from the past, show the vividness of his early recollections and indicate the course which the stream of his life is to run.

The coldness and injustice of the new mother who assumed control of the household when he was four years oid, his isolation from other children, the merely casual notice he received from the busy father absorbed in his parish work, all tended to turn inward the tide of his mental and spiritual life. He studied himself, not only because it was the bent of his nature, but because he lacked outside objects of interest; and to this early habit of introspection we owe many of the valuable features of his educational philosophy. Whoever has learned thoroughly to understand one child, has conquered a spot of firm ground on which to rest while he studies the world of children; and because the great teacher realized this truth, because he longed to give to others the means of development denied to himself, he turns for us the heartleaves of his boyhood.

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It would appear that Froebel's characteristics were strongly marked and unusual from the beginning. Called by every one "a moon-struck child" in Oberweissbach, the village of his birth, he was just as unanimously considered "an old fool" when, crowned with the experience of seventy years, he played with the village children on the green hills of Thuringia. The intensity of his inward life, the white heat of his convictions, his absolute blindness to any selfish idea or aim, his enthusiasm, the exaltation of his spiritual nature, all furnish so many cogent reasons why the people of any day or of any community should have failed to understand him, and scorned what they could not comprehend. It is the old story of the seers and the prophets repeated as many times as they appear; for "these colossal souls,» as Emerson said, "require a long focal distance to be seen." At ten years old the sensitive boy was fortunately removed from the uncongenial atmosphere of the parental household; and in his uncle's home he spent five free and happy years, being apprenticed at the end of this time to a forester in his native Thuringian woods. Then followed a year's course in the University of Jena, and four years spent in the study of farming, in clerical work of various kinds, and in land-surveying. All these employments, however, Froebel himself felt to be merely provisional; for like the hazel wand in the diviner's hand, his instinct was blindly seeking through these restless years the well-spring of his life.

In Frankfort, where he had gone intending to study architecture, Destiny touched him on the shoulder, and he turned and knew her. Through a curious combination of circumstances he gained employ. ment in Herr Gruner's Model School, and it was found at once that he was what the Germans love to call "a teacher by the grace of God." The first time he met his class of boys he tells us that he felt inexpressibly happy; the hazel wand had found the waters and was fixed at last. From this time on, all the events of his life were connected with his experience as a teacher. Impelled as soon as he had begun his work by a desire for more effective methods, he visited Yverdon, then the centre of educational thought, and studied with Pestalozzi. He went again in 1808, accompanied by three pupils, and spent two years there, alternately studying and teaching.

There was a year of lectures at Göttingen after this, and one at the University of Berlin, accompanied by unceasing study and research both in literary and scientific lines; but in the fateful year 1813 this quiet student life was broken in upon, for impelled by strong moral conviction, Froebel joined Baron von Lützow's famous volunteer corps, formed to harass the French by constant skirmishes and to encourage the smaller German States to rise against Napoleon.

No thirst for glory prompted this action, but a lofty conception of the office of the educator. How could any young man capable of bearing arms, Froebel says, become a teacher of children whose Fatherland he had refused to defend? how could he in after years incite his pupils to do something noble, something calling for sacrifice and unselfishness, without exposing himself to their derision and contempt? The reasoning was perfect, and he made practice follow upon the heels of theory as closely as he had always done since he became master of his fate.

After the Peace of Paris he settled down for a time to a quiet life in the mineralogical museum at the University of Berlin, his duties being the care, arrangement, and investigation of crystals. Surrounded thus by the exquisite formations whose development according to law is so perfect, whose obedience to the promptings of an inward ideal so complete, he could not but learn from their unconscious ethics to look into the depths of his own nature, and there recognize more clearly the purpose it was intended to work out.

In 1816 he quietly gave up his position, and taking as pupils five of his nephews, three of whom were fatherless, he entered upon his life work, the first step in which was the carrying out of his plan for a "Universal German Educational Institute." He was without money, of course, as he had always been and always would be,- his hands were made for giving, not for getting; he slept in a barn on a wisp of straw while arranging for his first school at Griesheim; but outward things were so little real to him in comparison with the life of the spirit, that bodily privations seemed scarcely worth considering. The school at Keilhau, to which he soon removed, the institutions later established in Wartensee and Willisau, the orphanage in Burgdorf, all were most successful educationally, but, it is hardly necessary to say, were never a source of profit to their head and founder.

Through the twenty succeeding years, busy as he was in teaching, in lecturing, in writing, he was constantly shadowed by dissatisfaction with the foundation upon which he was building. A nebulous idea for the betterment of things was floating before him; but it was not until 1836 that it appeared to his eyes as a "definite truth." This definite truth, the discovery of his old age, was of course the kindergarten; and from this time until the end, all other work was laid aside, and his entire strength given to the consummate flower of his educational thought.

The first kindergarten was opened in 1837 at Blankenburg (where a memorial school is now conducted), and in 1850 the institution at Marienthal for the training of kindergartners was founded, Froebel remaining at its head until his death two years after.

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