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 Kruesi 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