and so on were used as means of culture.  During half the school hours studies were to be pursued, and the other half was to be occupied by handiwork of one kind or another.  This work was to give opportunities for direct instruction; and above all it was so planned as to excite in the mind of the child a necessity for explanations as well as to gratify his desire for creativeness and for practical usefulness.  The awakening of this eager desire for learning and creative activity, was one of the fundamental thoughts of Friedrich Froebel’s mind.  The object-teaching of Pestalozzi seemed to him not to go far enough; and he was always seeking to regard man not only as a receptive being, but a creative, and especially as a productive one.  We never could work out our ideas in Keilhau satisfactorily, because we could not procure efficient technical teaching; and before all things we wanted the pupils themselves.  But now by the help of the Duke of Meiningen our keenest hopes seemed on the point of gratification.  The working out of the plan spoken of above, led us to many practical constructions in which already lay the elements of the future Kindergarten occupations.  These models are now scattered far and wide, and indeed are for the most part lost; but the written plan has been preserved.

The Duke of Meiningen was much pleased with Froebel’s explanations of this plan, and with the complete and open-hearted way in which everything was laid before him.  A proposition was now made that Froebel should receive the estate of Helba with thirty acres of land, and a yearly subsidy of 1,000 florins.[130] In passing it may be noticed that Froebel was consulted by the duke as to the education of the hereditary prince.  Froebel at once said outright that no good would be done for the future ruler if he were not brought up in the society of other boys.  The duke came to his opinion, and the prince was actually so taught and brought up.

When Froebel came back from Meiningen[131] the whole community was naturally overjoyed; but their joy did not last very long.  A man of high station in Meiningen who was accustomed to exercise a sort of dictatorship in educational matters, as he was the right-hand man of the prince in such things, a man also who had earned an honourable place in literature (of which no one surely would seek to deprive him), feared much lest the elevation of Froebel should injure his own influence.  We were therefore, all of a sudden, once again assailed with the meanest and most detestable charges, to which our unfortunate position at Keilhau lent a convenient handle.  The duke received secret warnings against us.  He began to waver, and in a temporising way sent again to Froebel, proposing that he should first try a provisional establishment of twenty pupils as an experiment.  Froebel saw the intention in the duke’s mind, and was thrown out of humour at once; for when he suspected mistrust he lost all hope, and immediately cast from his mind