ABSTRACT
The kindergarten movement indeed became a success story. By the early 20th century, Friedrich Frobel’s small-scale experiment, more born out of despair as the last hope to save his educational legacy, had become the center of a global movement. At the time of Frobel’s death, though, such development seemed unimaginable as the kindergarten movement was facing a variety of challenges. The Frobel movement had to react to these challenges and clarify Frobel’s pedagogy to make it more attractive while simultaneously establishing kindergarten as an accepted early childhood institution. The kindergarten movement not only represented a, although vocal, minority, the governments also saw kindergarten as a part of revolutionary tendencies. In 1873, Marenholtz-Bulow founded the Dresdner Frobelstiftung in Dresden, an organization consisting of a family and people’s kindergarten, an institute for the education of kindergartners, and institutions for female professional development.
