restraint and penalty, aim at the accomplishment
of far too little, and by checking natural
development even do positive mischief, Froebel
determined upon the devotion of his
entire energy, throughout his life, to a strong
effort for the establishment of schools that
should do justice and honour to the
nature of a child. He resigned his appointment
at Berlin, and threw himself with
only the resources of a fixed will, a full
mind, and a right purpose, on the chances of
the future.

At Keilhau, a village of Thuringia, he took
a peasant's cottage, in which he purposed to
establish his first school: a village boys'
school. It was necessary to enlarge the
cottage; and, while that was being done, Froebel
lived on potatoes, bread, and water. So
scanty was his stock of capital on which his
enterprise was started, that, in order honestly
to pay his workmen , he was forced to carry
his principle of self-denial to the utmost.
He bought each week two large rye-loaves,
and marked on them with chalk each
day's allowance. Perhaps he is the only
man in the world who ever, in so literal
a. way, chalked out for himself a scheme of
diet.

After labouring for many years among the
boys at Keilhau, Froebel — married to a wife
who shared his zeal, and made it her labour
to help to the utmost in carrying out the idea
of her husband's life—felt that there was
more to be accomplished. His boys came to
him with many a twist in mind or temper,
caught by wriggling up through the bewilderments
of a neglected infancy. The first
sproutings of the human mind need thoughtful
culture; there is no period of life, indeed,
in which culture is so essential. And yet, in
nine out of ten cases, it is precisely while the
little blades of thought and buds of love are
frail and tender, that no heed is taken to
maintain the soil about them wholesome, and
the air about them free from blight. There
must be INFANT GARDENS, Froebel said; and
straightway formed his plans, and set to work
for their accomplishment.

He had become familiar in cottages with
the instincts of mothers, and the faculties
with which young children are endowed by
nature. He never lost his own childhood
from memory, and being denied the blessing
of an infant of his own, regarded all the little
ones with equal love. The direction of his
boys' school—now flourishing vigorously—
he committed to the care of a relation,
while he set out upon a tour through parts
of Germany and Switzerland to lecture upon
Infant training and to found Infant
Gardens where he could. He founded them at
Hamburg, Leipsic, Dresden, and elsewhere.
While labouring in this way he was always
exercising the same spirit of self-denial that
had marked the outset of his educational
career. Whatever he could earn was for the
children, to promote their cause. He would
not spend upon himself the money that would
help in the accomplishment of his desire, that
childhood should be made as happy as God in
his wisdom had designed it should be, and
that full play should be given to its energies
and powers. Many a night's lodging he took,
while on his travels, in the open fields, with
an umbrella for his bedroom and a knapsack
for his pillow.

So beautiful a self-devotion to a noble
cause won recognition. One of the best
friends of his old age was the Duchess Ida of
Weimar, sister to Queen Adelaide of England,
and his death took place on the twenty-first
of June, three years ago, at a country seat of
the Duke of Meiningen. He died at the age
of seventy, peaceably, upon a summer day,
delighting in the beautiful scenery that lay
outside his window, and in the flowers
brought by friends to his bedside. Nature,
he said, bore witness to the promises of
revelation. So Froebel passed away.

     And Nature's pleasant robe of green,
    Humanity's appointed shroud, enwraps
    His monument and his memory.

Wise and good people have been endeavouring
of late to obtain in this country a hearing
for the views of this good teacher, and a trial
for his system. Only fourteen years have
elapsed since the first Infant Garden was
established, and already infant gardens have
been introduced into most of the larger towns
of Germany. Let us now welcome them with
all our hearts to England.

The whole principle of Froebel's teaching
is based on a perfect love for children and a
full and genial recognition of their nature, a
determination that their hearts shall not be
starved for want of sympathy, that since they
are by infinite wisdom so created as to find
happiness in the active exercise and
development of all their faculties, we, who have
children round about us, shall no longer
repress their energies, tie up their bodies, shut
their mouths, and declare that they worry us
by the incessant putting of the questions
which the Father of us all has placed in their
mouths, so that the teachable one for ever
cries to those who undertake to be its guides
—" What shall I do ? " To be ready at all
times with a wise answer to that question,
ought to be the ambition of every one upon
whom a child's nature depends for the means
of healthy growth. The frolic of childhood
is not pure exuberance and waste. " There
is often a high meaning in childish play,"
said Froebel. Let us study it, and act upon
hints—or more than hints—that nature gives.
They fall into a fatal error who despise all
that a child does, as frivolous. Nothing is
trifling that forms part of a child's life.

    That which the mother awakens and fosters,
        When she joyously sings and plays;
    That which her love so tenderly shellers,
        Bears a blessing to future days.