FROEBEL 



2341 



FROG 



Apprenticed in 1797 to a forester, he roamed 

 the Thuringian woods, acquiring a knowledge 

 of nature that tinged all his life work. Later 

 he studied architecture, and only on the in- 

 sistence of a schoolmaster friend did he turn 

 his attention to teaching. At once he showed 

 his wonderful fitness for the work, but even 

 his association with Pestalozzi, whom he fre- 

 quently visited, did not convince him that he 

 had really found his life work. In 1813 he 

 was drawn into the wars with Napoleon, which 

 were engaging all Europe, and saw active serv- 

 ice against the French. By the time the strug- 

 gle was over he had become convinced that 

 1 education was the one subject vital enough to 

 claim all his energy. 



In 1816, two years before his marriage, he 

 founded at Griesheim a school to which he 

 gave the sounding title of Universal German 

 Educational Institute. Through the next 

 twenty years, though he taught steadily and 

 conscientiously, he was far from satisfied with 

 his progress, feeling that the method was 

 wrong from the start ; but in 1836 he hit upon 

 what he called a "definite truth" an inspira- 

 tion which led to the founding of the first 

 kindergarten. [A name puzzled him for some 

 time, but when kindergarten flashed across his 

 mind it fully satisfied him.] His first kinder- 

 garten (child garden) was opened at Blanken- 

 burg, and after 1850 he lived and worked at 

 Marienthal, where he died on June 21, 1852. It 

 seems strange that in his own day he encoun- 

 tered fierce opposition, and that in 1851 a law 

 was passed in Prussia forbidding the founding 

 of kindergartens. From his own point of view 

 his life work must have seemed a failure, but 

 the best estimate of succeeding times is given 

 in the vast number of kindergartens which 

 exist in every civilized country. Educators do 

 not hesitate to declare that the kindergarten 

 was among the greatest educational develop- 

 ments of the nineteenth century, and that 

 Froebel was one of the greatest educators. 



The chief principles of Froebel's educational 

 creed, briefly stated, were that the education 

 of a child should begin at its birth; that it 

 should be conducted by the natural method 

 by the developing of impulses that come from 

 within the child; that the most can be accom- 

 plished if the child is kept happy in his work- 

 and allowed to follow the lines of his own 

 interests; and that training should be three- 

 fold, touching the physical, mental and spir- 

 itual sides of the child's nature. See KINDER- 

 GARTEN. 



The following books will be found helpful to 

 those who wish to study Froebel's life and work 

 in more detail: His Autobiography; Blow's Let- 

 ters to a Mother on the Philosophy of Froebel; 

 Bowen's Memoir in the Great Educators Series; 

 Hanschmann's Life of Froebel; White's Educa- 

 tional Ideals of Froebel. 



FROG, a little, cold-blooded, tailless animal 

 common in all parts of the world except Aus- 

 tralia, though rare in South America. The 

 chorus of frogs and their relatives, the toads 

 (see TOAD), starts soon after the ice of ponds 



"When by night the frogs are croaking, kindle 



but a torch's flre ; 

 Ha ! how soon they all are silent !" 



begins to thaw and when pussy-willows are 

 gray. It lasts throughout the summer and 

 until once again cool weather heralds the ap- 

 proach of winter's ice and cold. 



Among the hundreds of nature's wonders in 

 the vegetable and animal life in swampy places 

 and along the shores of lakes and streams, the 

 life of a frog is one of the most interesting. 

 In early spring, the mother frog lays masses 

 of tiny eggs, velvety black above, creamy 

 white beneath. So small are they that a mass 

 of five or six thousand would measure only 

 about five inches in diameter and two and a 

 half inches thick. About the eggs a jellylike 

 substance is secreted, and then away on the 

 waters they float and within a few hours begin 

 to develop. 



After wonderful growth and change, within 

 nine days the tiny black specks have changed 

 into queer little water animals, called tadpoles, 

 or pollywogs. They are not at all like the 

 parent frogs. They have neither mouths nor 

 limbs, but have branching gills and long tails 

 with which they swim. Their bodies look like 

 roundish lumps of dark jelly. Soon the mouth 

 develops, gills disappear and finally hind legs 

 begin to grow. Then come front legs and 

 teeth and lungs, and the animals rise to the 

 surface to breathe. The tails then drop away, 

 and at last, within two or three months, there 

 is a family of smooth-skinned frogs, keen of 

 sight and hearing, fine swimmers and wonder- 

 ful jumpers. 



