Froebel, FRIEDRICH WILHELM AUGUST, German educational reformer, was born at Oberweissbach in Thuringia, 21st April 1782. His studies at Jena being interrupted by the death of his father in 1802, he was compelled to shift as best he could for a living, until in 1805, at Frankfurt-on-the-Main, he found his true vocation in teaching. The next five years he spent partly at Frankfort, partly at Yverdon in Switzerland, at the latter place in close intimacy with Pestalozzi. Then for a couple of years he resumed his studies, this time chiefly in the natural sciences, at Göttingen and Berlin. But again they were interrupted: the War of Liberation broke out, and Froebel joined Lützow's corps. Two years after the conclusion of peace he got his first opportunity to realise his long-anticipated principles of education; he made a start at Griesheim in Thuringia, but in the following year (1817) transferred his school to Keilhau, where he was shortly afterwards joined by his devoted friends and disciples, Langethal and Middendorff. At this time the characteristic idea of his teaching was that the root of all educational development is action, which has for its ultimate aim not only mere physical exercise, but also the unfolding and strengthening of the mental powers; and underlying this was the conviction that the real purpose of education should be to encourage the child to grow naturally and spontaneously, unfolding all its powers according to the inner organic laws of its being, just as grow plants and animals and crystals. In 1826 he expounded his views in a work entitled Die Menschenerziehung. With the view of extending his system, Froebel in 1831 established a branch institution in the canton of Lucerne in Switzerland, which, however, could never make headway against the opposition of the Roman Catholic clergy. Hence, after starting an orphanage at Burgdorf in Bern, where also he began to train teachers for educational work, Froebel returned to the centre of Germany, and in 1836 opened at Blankenburg, not far from Keilhau, his first Kindergarten (q.v.) school. The rest of his life was spent in the advocacy of kindergarten schools and in organising them; but along with these labours he combined the training of teachers to carry on the system he had devised. He died on 21st June 1852 at Marienthal in Thuringia. Froebel's works were collected and published by Wichard Lange in 1862-63 (new ed. 1874), also by Seidel in 1883. See Autobiography of F. Froebel
(Lond. 1886); Life of Froebel, by Emily Shirreff (Lond. 1887); and his Letters, translated by Moore and Michaelis (1890).