nly through the pure hands and full hearts of wives and mothers can the
kingdom of God become a reality."

Unfortunately, I cannot enter more comprehensively here into the details
of the kindergarten system--it is connected with Keilhau only in so far
that both were founded by the same man. Old Froebel was often visited
there by female kindergarten teachers and pedagogues who wished to learn
something of this new institute. We called the former "Schakelinen"; the
latter, according to a popular etymology, "Schakale." The odd name
bestowed upon the female kindergarten teachers was derived, as I learned
afterwards, from no beast of prey, but from a figure in Jean Paul's
"Levana," endowed with beautiful gifts. Her name is Madame Jacqueline,
and she was used by the author to give expression to his own opinions of
female education. Froebel has adopted many suggestions of Jean Paul, but
the idea of the kindergarten arose from his own unhappy childhood. He
wished to make the first five years of life, which to him had been a
chain of sorrows, happy and fruitful to children--especially to those
who, like him, were motherless.

Sullen tempers, the rod, and the strictest, almost cruel, constraint had
overshadowed his childhood, and now his effort was directed towards
having the whole world of little people join joyously in his favourite
cry, "Friede, Freude, Freiheit!" (Peace, Pleasure, Liberty), which
corresponds with the motto of the Jahn gymnasium, "Frisch, fromm,
frohlich, frei."

He also desired to utilize for public instruction the educational talents
which woman undoubtedly possesses.

As in his youth, shoulder to shoulder with Pestalozzi, he had striven to
rear growing boys in a motherly fashion to be worthy men, he now wished
to turn to account, for the benefit of the whole wide circle of younger
children, the trait of maternal solicitude which exists in every woman.
Women were to be trained for teachers, and the places where children
received their first instruction were to resemble nurseries as closely as
possible. He also desired to see the maternal tone prevail in this
instruction.

He, through whose whole life had run the echo of the Saviour's words,
"Suffer little children to come unto me," understood the child's nature,
and knew that its impulse to play must be used, in order to afford it
suitable future nourishment for the mind and soul.

The instruction, the activity, and the movements of the child should be