connection with the
Froebel community was further strengthened by a most happy marriage with
the daughter of Middendorff.

[1] Johann Jacob Froebel, father of Friedrich, belonged to the Old
Lutheran Protestant Church.

[2] These were four (1) August, who went into business, and died young.
(2) Christoph, a clergyman in Griesheim, who died in 1813 of the typhus,
which then overspread all central Germany, having broken out in the
over-crowded hospitals after the battle of Leipzig; he was the father of
Julius, Karl, and Theodor, the wish to benefit whom led their uncle
Friedrich to begin his educational work in Griesheim in 1816. (3)
Christian Ludwig, first a manufacturer in Osterode, and then associated
with Friedrich from 1820 onwards,--born 24th June, 1770, died 9th
January, 1851. (4) Traugott, who studied medicine at Jena, became a
medical man, and was burgomaster of Stadt-Ilm. Friedrich August Wilhelm
himself was born on the 21st April, 1782, and died on the 21st June,
1852. He had no sisters.

[3] Karl Poppo Froebel, who became a teacher, and finally a
publisher,--born 1786; died 25th March, 1824: not to be confounded with
his nephew, Karl, son of Christoph, now living in Edinburgh.

[4] This needs explanation. In Germany, even by strangers, children are
universally addressed in the second person singular, which carries with
it a certain caressing sentiment. Grown persons would be addressed
(except by members of their own family, or intimate friends) in the
third person plural. Thus, if one met a child in the street, one might
say, _Willst Du mit mir kommen_? (Wilt thou come with me?); whereas to
a grown person the proper form would be, _Wollen Sie mit mir kommen_?
(Will THEY--meaning, will YOU--come with me?). The mode of speech of
which Froebel speaks here is now almost obsolete, and even in his day
was only used to a person of markedly inferior position. Our sentence
would run in this case, _Will Er mit mir kommen_? (Will HE--meaning,
will YOU, John or Thomas--come with me?), and carries with it a sort of
contemptuous superciliousness, as if the person spoken to were beneath
the dignity of a direct address. It is evident, therefore, that to a
sensitive, self-torturing child like Froebel, being addressed in this
manner would cause the keenest pain; since, as he justly says, it has
the effect, by the mere form of speech, of _isolating_ the person
addressed. Such a one is not to be considered as of our family, or