AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF FRIEDRICH FROEBEL ***

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AUTOBIOGRAPHY

OF

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

TRANSLATED AND ANNOTATED BY

EMILIE MICHAELIS,

_Head Mistress of the Croydon Kindergarten and Preparatory School_,

AND

H. KEATLEY MOORE, MUS. BAC., B.A.,

_Examiner in Music to the Froebel Society and Vice-Chairman of the Croydon Kindergarten Company._

*"Come, let us live for our children."*

SYRACUSE, N.Y.: C.W. BARDEEN, PUBLISHER. 1889.

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7. _Fröbel._ Pädagogische Schriften. Herausgegeben von SEIDEL. 3 vols. Price $7.00.

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11. _Lexikon der Pädagogik._ Von SANDER. Price $3.50.

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PREFACE TO THE AMERICAN EDITION.

It will be long before we have a biography of Froebel to compare with DeGuimp's _Pestalozzi_, of which an English translation has just appeared. Meantime we must content ourselves with two long autobiographical letters contained in this volume, which, though incomplete, have yet the peculiar charm that comes from the candid record of genuine impressions.

The first of these letters, that to the Duke of Meiningen, has already appeared in English, in a translation by Miss Lucy Wheelock for Barnard's _American Journal of Education_, since reprinted in pp. 21-48 of his _Kindergarten and Child Culture_, (see p. 146), and in a small volume under the title _Autobiography of Froebel_ (see p. 146). While a faithful attempt to reproduce the original, this translation struggled in vain to transform Froebel's rugged and sometimes seemingly incoherent sentences into adequate and attractive English, so that the long letter has proved to most English readers formidable and repellant. But in the original it is one of the most charming productions in literature, candid and confidential in tone, and detailing those inner gropings for ideas that became convictions which only an autobiography can reveal. These qualities are so admirably preserved in the translation by Miss Emily Michaelis and H. Keatley Moore that it seemed to leave nothing to be desired. They have not only given a faithful rendering, but they have impressed upon it the loving touch of faithful disciples. Accordingly I purchased from the English publishers the American rights to this translation; and have reproduced not only this letter, but that to the philosopher Krause, with Barop's "Critical Moments," and the "Chronological Abstract," all from duplicates of the English plates.

The rest of the volume appears for the first time. The Bibliography seemed desirable, and is confined to attainable books likely to be of value to American teachers. The Index is full, but not fuller than the fragmentary character of the material seemed to require. The Table of Contents will also serve to make reference easy to the principal 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.