[106] Froebel is here hardly fair.  How should people know much of him as yet?  He had at this time written the following works:—­(1) “On the Universal German Educational Institute of Rudolstadt” (1822); (2) “Continuation of the Account of the Universal German Educational Institute at Keilhau” (1823); (3) “Christmas at Keilhau:  a Christmas Gift to the Parents of the Pupils at Keilhau, to the Friends and the Members of the Institute” (1824); (4) “The Menschen Erziehung,” the full title of which was “The Education of Man:  The Art of Education, Instruction, and Teaching, as attempted to be realised at the Universal Educational Institute at Keilhau, set forth by the Originator, Founder, and Principal of the Institute, Friedrich Froebel” (1826), never completed; (5) Family Weekly Journal of Education for Self-culture and the Training of Others, edited by Friedrich Froebel, Leipzig and Keilhau.  But Froebel, in his unbusiness-like way, published all these productions privately.  They came out of course under every disadvantage, and could only reach the hands of learned persons, and those to whom they were really of interest, by the merest chance.  Further, Froebel, as has already abundantly appeared, was but a poor author.  His stiff, turgid style makes his works in many places most difficult to understand, as the present translators have found to their cost, and he was therefore practically unreadable to the general public.  In his usual self-absorbed fashion, he did not perceive these deficiencies of his, nor could he be got to see the folly of private publication.  Indeed, on the contrary, he dreamed of fabulous sums which one day he was to realise by the sale of his works.  It is needless to add that the event proved very much the reverse.  As to criticism, it was particularly the “able editor” Harnisch who pulled to pieces the “Menschen Erziehung” so pitilessly on its appearance, and who is probably here referred to.

[107] This passage may serve as a sufficient illustration of Froebel’s metaphysical way of looking at his subject.  It is scarcely our habit at the present day to regard the science of being (ontology) as a science at all, since it is utterly incapable of verification; but it is not difficult to trace the important truth really held by Froebel even through the somewhat perplexing folds of scholastic philosophy in which he has clothed it.

[108] See the previous footnote, p. 93.

[109] These events and situations are fully set forth in the letter to the Duke of Meiningen, ante.

[110] As mineralogist.

[111] Christian Ludwig Froebel.

[112] Christoph.

[113] This younger Langethal afterwards became a Professor in the University of Jena.

[114] The minister’s widow lost her widow’s privilege of residence at Griesheim by the death of her father, and bought a farm at Keilhau.

[115] Froebel told his sister-in-law that he “desired to be a father to her orphaned children.”  The widow understood this in quite a special and peculiar sense, whereof Froebel had not the remotest idea.  Later on, when she came to know that Froebel was engaged to another lady, she made over to him the Keilhau farm, and herself went to live at Volkstaedt.