ass
to study his theories. Although Froebel did not remain long in
Switzerland, that land proved congenial to his ideas, and the
kindergarten has flourished there from his time to the present. Great
credit is due to this country, which extended its hospitality to the two
great educational modern reformers, Pestalozzi and Froebel!

=The Kindergarten.=--Mr. Herford says of Froebel's institution at
Burgdorf, that, "Here we recognize the rise of the kindergarten, not yet
so named."[153] The name came to Froebel a few years later as an
inspiration. He had returned to Keilhau and opened a school in the
neighboring town of Blankenburg. For a long time he had been pondering
over a suitable name for the new institution. "While taking a walk one
day with Middendorff and Barof to Blankenburg over the Steiger Pass,
Froebel kept repeating, 'Oh, if I could only think of a good name for my
youngest born!' Blankenburg lay at our feet, and he walked moodily
toward it. Suddenly he stood still as if riveted to the spot, and his
eyes grew wonderfully bright. Then he shouted to the mountain so that it
echoed to the four winds, 'Eureka! _Kindergarten_ shall the institute be
called!'"

But, like Pestalozzi, Froebel was wholly incapable of financial
management, and the institution at Blankendorf had to be closed. He
devoted the remainder of his life to lecturing upon his theories in
different parts of Germany. He appealed to mothers, and endeavored to
instruct them in the duty of training young children. He taught that the
mother is the natural teacher of the child, and that it is her duty to
fit herself for the sacred responsibility that God has placed upon her.
Froebel's greatest discovery was that education comes only through
self-activity, though he never clearly formulated his discovery. The
Baroness Bertha von Marenholtz-Buelow has published one of the best
accounts of his life and work.[154]

=The "Education of Man."=--Froebel gives his philosophy of education in
his "Education of Man," but his most popular work is "Songs for Mother
and Nursery." His chief contribution to the work of educational reform
is the kindergarten, an institution that has been ingrafted upon the
school systems of many lands, and that is destined to become ever
increasingly potent for good. In no country in the world has the
kindergarten taken so strong a hold and made so great progress as in
America. The purpose of the kindergarten, according to Froebel himse