FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

1. Comenius. Grosse Unterrichtslehre. Mit einer Einleitung, "J. Comenius, sein Leben und Werken," von LINDNER. Price $1.50.
2. Helvetius. Von Menschen, seinen Geisteskraften und seiner Erziehung. Mit einer Einleitung, "Cl. Adr. Helvetius, 1715-1771. Ein Zeit- und Lebensbild," von LINDNER. 12mo, pp. 339. Price $1.50.
3. Pestalozzi. Wie Gertrud ihre Kinder lehrt. Mit einer Einleitung, "J.H. Pestalozzi's Leben, Werke, und Grundsätze," von RIEDEL. Price $1.25.
4. Niemeyer. Grundsätze die Erziehung und des Unterrichtes. Mit einer Einleitung "Aug. Herm. Niemeyer, sein Leben und Werken," von LINDNER. 2 vols. Price $3.00.
5. Diesterweg. Rhenische Blätter. Mit einer Einleitung, "F.A.W. Diesterweg," von JESSEN. Price $1.25.
6. Jacotot. Universal Unterricht. Mit einer "Darstellung des Lebens und der Lehre Jacotot's," von GOERING. 12mo, pp. 364. Price $3.75.
7. Fröbel. Pädagogische Schriften. Herausgegeben von SEIDEL. 3 vols. Price $7.00.
8. Fichte. Pädagogisch Schriften und Ideen. Mit "biographischer Einleitung und gedrängter Darstellung von Fichte's Pädagogik," von KEFERSTEIN. Price $2.00.
9. Martin Luther. Pädagogische Schrifte. Mit Einleitung von SCHUMANN. Price $1.50.
10. Herder als Pädagog. Von MORRES. Price 75 cts.
11. Geschichte der Pädagogik. in Biographen, Uebersichten, und Proben aus pädagogischen Hauptwerken. Von NIEDERGESAESS. Price $2.50.
12. Lexikon der Pädagogik. Von SANDER. Price $3.50.

For sale by

C.W. BARDEEN, Publisher, Syracuse, N.Y.

It will be long before we have a biography of Froebel to compare with DeGuimp's Pestalozzi, of which an English translation has just appeared. Meantime we must content ourselves with two long autobiographical letters contained in this volume, which, though incomplete, have yet the peculiar charm that comes from the candid record of genuine impressions.

The first of these letters, that to the Duke of Meiningen, has already appeared in English, in a translation by Miss Lucy Wheelock for Barnard's American Journal of Education, since reprinted in pp. 21-48 of his Kindergarten and Child Culture, (see p. 146), and in a small volume under the title Autobiography of Froebel (see p. 146). While a faithful attempt to reproduce the original, this translation struggled in vain to transform Froebel's rugged and sometimes seemingly incoherent sentences into adequate and attractive English, so that the long letter has proved to most English readers formidable and repellant. But in the original it is one of the most charming productions in literature, candid and confidential in tone, and detailing those inner gropings for ideas that became convictions which only an autobiography can reveal. These qualities are so admirably preserved in the translation by Miss Emily Michaelis and H. Keatley Moore that it seemed to leave nothing to be desired. They have not only given a faithful rendering, but they have impressed upon it the loving touch of faithful disciples. Accordingly I purchased from the English publishers the American rights to this translation; and have reproduced not only this letter, but that to the philosopher Krause, with Barop's "Critical Moments," and the "Chronological Abstract," all from duplicates of the English plates.

The rest of the volume appears for the first time. The Bibliography seemed desirable, and is confined to attainable books likely to be of value to American teachers. The Index is full, but not fuller than the fragmentary character of the material seemed to require. The Table of Contents will also serve to make reference easy to the principal evens of Froebel's history.

In the lives of Pestalozzi and of Froebel many resemblances may be traced. Both were sons of clergymen. Both were half-orphans from their earliest recollections. Both were unhappy in childhood, were misunderstood, companionless, awkward, clumsy, ridiculed. Both were as boys thrown into the almost exclusive society of women, and both retained to the last strongly feminine characteristics. Both were throughout life lacking in executive ability; both were financially improvident. Both were dependent for what they did accomplish upon friends, and both had the power of inspiring and retaining friendships that were heroic, Pestalozzi's Krüsi corresponding with Froebel's Middendorf. Both became teachers only by accident, and after failure in other professions. Both saw repeated disaster in the schools they established, and both were to their last days pointed at as visionary theorists of unsound mind. Both failed to realize their ideas, but both planted their ideas so deeply in the minds of others that they took enduring root. Both lacked knowledge of men, but both knew and loved children, and were happiest when personally and alone they had children under their charge. Both delighted in nature, and found in solitary contemplation of flowers and woods and mountains relief from the disappointments they encountered among their fellows.

But there were contrasts too. Pestalozzi had no family ties, while Froebel maintained to the last the closest relations with several brothers and their households. Pestalozzi married at twenty-three a woman older than himself, on whom he thereafter relied in all his troubles. Froebel deferred his marriage till thirty-six and then seems to have regarded his wife more as an advantage to his school than as a help-meet to himself.

Pestalozzi was diffident, and in dress and manner careless to the point of slovenliness; Froebel was extravagant in his self-confidence, and at times almost a dandy in attire. Pestalozzi was always honest and candid, while Froebel was as a boy untruthful. Pestalozzi was touchingly humble, and eager to ascribe the practical failure of his theories to his personal inefficiency; Froebel never acknowledged himself in the wrong, but always attributed failure to external causes. On the other hand, while Froebel was equable in temperament, Pestalozzi was moody and impressionable, flying from extreme gaiety to extreme dejection, slamming the door if displeased with a lesson a teacher was giving, but coming back to apologize if he met a child who smiled upon him. Under Rousseau's influence Pestalozzi was inclined to skepticism, and limited religious teaching in school to the reading of the gospels, and the practice of Christianity; Froebel was deeply pious, and made it fundamental that education should be founded plainly and avowedly upon religion.

Intellectually the contrast is even stronger. While Froebel had a university education, Pestalozzi was an