Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852) has long been known as a great educational reformer and the founder of kindergartens. Most of Froebel's works deal with young children. This selection, translated from the German for this volume, shows the development of his educational doctrines. The extracts are arranged by topic, with a brief introduction to each section. The first gives Froebel's impressions during his formative years and his reasons for choosing teaching as a vocation; the second presents his basic principles from his most important work, The Education of Man; and two remaining sections record his observations of children in their early years. A general introduction appraises Froebel's main beliefs and his influence, and a bibliography is included. To those concerned with child development and the history of education, this volume offers a concise readable account of the beliefs and achievements of a remarkable nineteenth-century educator given in his own words.

Froebel-Parker's book about Friedrich Froebel and Baroness Bertha von Marenholtz-Buelow is the third in his "Ahnentafel" series. It was preceded by "Friedrich and the First Kindergarten" and "Grandma Harrington and the Queen's Wardrobe." In "The First Kindergarten: Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel & Baroness Bertha Marie von Marenholtz-Buelow" the author expands the story of the founding of Kindergarten to include Friedrich Froebel's tireless friend and advocate, Baroness von Marenholtz-Buelow. Opening the doors of cultural luminaries and European nobility to Froebel's ideas, the noblewoman from the ancient von Buelow family is often dubbed "the mother of Kindergarten" just as Froebel is referred to as "the father of Kindergarten." In this historical novel, which includes much biographical information, Froebel-Parker joins through literature the lives and contributions of two of the world's greatest proponents of children's education which are still relevant today.

Originally published in 1915, the Autobiography of Fredrich Froebel provides a detailed overview of the life of the eminent German educator Fredrich Froebel, it charts his life and looks at his significant contribution to the field of education, including his Idealist philosophy of early childhood education, and his establishment of the kindergarten, a school for four-and five-year-old children that is found worldwide. The book also looks at the community surrounding the author and includes a chapter by Madame Louise Froebel's providing a reminiscence of her husband's life.

This book considers Friedrich Froebel's work and ideas in the light of the continuing debate over methods of primary education, raising the old conflict between child-centred and traditional education; concern about the role of teacher in the classroom; and the renewed challenge of 'play' as a tool of education. To Froebel, play provided the means for a child's intellectual, social, emotional and physical development. Froebel believed that the education of a child began at birth, and that parents and teachers played a crucial role in helping children in this activity. 'Play is a mirror of life' - he wrote, leading to self discipline and respect for law and order. The events of Froebel's life are carefully documented in A Child's Work, together with their influence on his ideas and their spread. The author shows how the early death of Froebel's mother and a home lacking in love were to provide the impetus behind one of Froebel's overriding aims: the fostering of family life. The shaping of his educational thought and philosophy through contact with the ideas of other educators, especially his 'spiritual father' Pestalozzi, and philosophers such as Kant, Hegel and Krause, is examined. Froebel's continuous reassessment of the function of play in a child's life came to fruition in the concept of the Kindergarten and the creations with which he peopled it. Illustrations from original sources complement the thorough explanations of these educational innovations in the book. From the soft ball on a spring, the simplest of the Gifts, to the unravelling of more complex ideas in the Mother Songs, Froebel incorporated the various facets that he saw as important in play: the notion of the symbolic and the surmise, the tension between the known and the unknown, the development of physical dexterity and care for the environment. As we continue to shift towards an emphasis on a more formal, more restrictive and less creative mode of education, it is an appropriate time to re-examine Froebel's contribution to educational thinking, which was revolutionised by his ideas. His respect for a child as an independent, searching and creative person learning through his own actions, and for the teacher as facilitator and guide, led tomonumental changes. Froebelis legacy challenges us to examine the assumptions underlying current trends in education, and our attitude towards educating young children.