CHAPTER XII.

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL'S IDEAL OF EDUCATION.

Dangerous enterprises were of course forbidden, but the teachers of the
institute neglected no means of training our bodies to endure every
exertion and peril; for Froebel was still alive, and the ideal of
education, for whose realization he had established the Keilhau school,
had become to his assistants and followers strong and healthy realities.
But Froebel's purpose did not require the culture of physical strength.
His most marked postulates were the preservation and development of the
individuality of the boys entrusted to his care, and their training in
German character and German nature; for he beheld the sum of all the
traits of higher, purer manhood united in those of the true German.

Love for the heart, strength for the character, seemed to him the highest
gifts with which he could endow his pupils for life.

He sought to rear the boy to unity with himself, with God, with Nature,
and with mankind, and the way led to trust in God through religion, trust
in himself by developing the strength of mind and body, and confidence in
mankind--that is, in others, by active relations with life and a loving
interest in the past and present destinies of our fellow-men. This
required an eye and heart open to our surroundings, sociability, and a
deeper insight into history. Here Nature seems to be forgotten. But
Nature comes into the category of religion, for to him religion means: To
know and feel at one with ourselves, with God, and with man; to be loyal
to ourselves, to God, and to Nature: and to remain in continual active,
living relations with God.