FROEBEL, Friedrich. - Pedagogue, founder of modern "kindergartens," b. at Oberweisbach (Thuringia) on 21 Apr. 1782; d. at Marienthal (St.-Meiningen) on 21 June 1852. The son of a Protestant father, an enthusiast of the Pestalozzian method, which he had observed several times at Yverdon, after some unsuccessful attempts to realize his plan of educating the German maiden and the German child in the art of educating their children, he finally opened his first "kindergarten" for children aged 3 to 7 at Blankenburg (1837). However, this type of school, though conducted with enthusiasm and supported by press conferences, subscriptions, etc., failed financially; but through the interest of the Baroness Berta Marenholtz-Bulow, an enthusiast of the Froebelian idea, it was reopened at Marienthal Castle, granted by the Duke of Saxony. At Froebel’s death, the duchess, whom he had called the "mother of the idea," succeeded him in its direction; and to her is due the multiplication and spread of "kindergartens" throughout Europe and America.
It is not easy to grasp the philosophical presuppositions of Froebel’s pedagogy, since he did not elaborate them systematically; they can, however, be reconstructed from his writings. His pedagogy is based on mystical-aesthetic premises, derived from Romanticism and especially from Schelling, and which smack of immanent and dialectical monism: nature is a single principle, God the Creator who merges with it and which it manifests through the harmony of the most varied forms, all the more complex the more closely it is linked to the inanimate and the living. Now, the manifestation of the divine in the human occurs through the drive to creative activity, by means of which man reproduces, as much as possible, the work of God. Education, therefore, must not impose some external model to which to conform, but rather, so to speak, assist the internal model, God, the active Creator, and supervise the development of man’s spiritual tendency to act; in other words, while supervising, it requires free self-education and self-formation. And since the divine that is in man is also at the root of all the nature that surrounds him, this nature must not only be considered in its physical materiality but rather penetrated in its intimate life to grasp there the symbol of a spiritual idea. In this too, education does not impose but supervises the child’s tendency to spiritualize nature and to reach it with his imagination.
Now, the divine in the child, the spontaneous tendency toward creative activity, is essentially manifested in play, not considered merely as distraction or amusement but also—and more—as work, inasmuch as it imitates and reproduces some fact or object (the movement of the peasant sowing grain, the train puffing, the horse trotting). And since the earth exerts a powerful attraction on the child, this play-work is realized by putting him in contact with it, making him dig, sow, cultivate, and make flowers. He will learn to love the products of nature, the physical effort to obtain them, the beauty and greatness of God who created nature. For this play-work, with its symbolic value of recall, Froebel designed a series of six "gifts" (the ball, the sphere, the cube and the cylinder, the cube divided into eight small and equal cubes, the cube divided horizontally into eight bricks, the cube divided into equal cubes, but some cut along one or two diagonals; the cube divided into equal bricks, but some subdivided lengthwise; hence the ideas of equality, movement, geometric figures, etc.; sometimes wooden boxes, strips of paper, and other suitable materials are added to weave variously and produce the most varied objects). This is followed by the so-called "occupations": reproducing designs and decorative ornaments with cardboard and strips; forming figures with beads, buttons, pieces of cloth; working with sand in various ways; digging tunnels, forming puppets, etc.
The Froebelian method admirably corresponds to child psychology: it indeed follows the three tendencies so alive in the child: the pleasure of observing, the need for activity, and the sense of personality, favoring these tendencies without substituting others for them. For Froebel, the center of the school is not the teacher but the pupil—a maxim now at least common in pedagogical theory but then unrecognized and bold. One may reproach him for an excessive geometrism in the formation of the gifts and for an erroneous religious and philosophical conception; but since the method in its application does not necessarily require these presuppositions, it can find much nourishment in the facts of Scripture and the lives of the saints, and can be admirably applied not so much in the material execution as in the spirit that animates II. Thus, one must recognize in the Froebelian idea something very felicitous, which has exerted everywhere a vast and well-deserved influence and is even today a source of splendid successes for those who know how to implement it well; indeed, many applications of activism (v.) have drawn inspiration from II.
Among Froebel’s writings are: *Die Menschenerziehung* (Keilhau 1826; Italian trans. with writings and notes by A. Salani, Turin 1939; by M. Brivio Claretta, Padua 1937); *Die erziehenden Familien, Wochenblatt für Selbstbildung und Bildung Anderer* (Leipzig 1826); *Mutter- und Koselieder, Ein Familienbuch* (Blankenburg 1843); G. Palm, *Der Mensch, Denker und Erzieher, Selbstzeugnisse* (ibid. 1940).
FROBEN, Johann (Frobenius). - German printer and publisher, b. at Hammelburg (a town in Lower Franconia, Bavaria) in 1460; d. at Basel in 1537.
Having already worked in the printing house of Johann Amerbach, he began his own printing activity with the publication of a *Biblia integra* dated Basel, 27 June 1491. This was followed by numerous other biblical, patristic, and miscellaneous works, also in Greek and Hebrew, renowned for the beauty of their editions and the correctness of their texts, which earned him the title of "princeps typographiae Basiliensis." He was on friendly terms with Johann Hausschein, known in Latin as Oecolampadius, and especially with Erasmus of Rotterdam, whose works he printed, including the *Adagia* (1531) and the rare first edition of his New Testament in Greek (1516). For the abundant illustrations in his editions, he employed the work of Urs Graf and Hans Holbein. After his death, the printing business was continued by his son Hieronymus (1501–63) and his son-in-law Nikolaus Bischoff, called Episkopius (1501–1564).