ABSTRACT
Friedrich Frobel was not the first one to come up with the idea of extra-familial early childhood education. In 1840, when Frobel opened the first kindergarten nearby Bad Blankenburg, a variety of such institutes existed long-since, not only in Germany but all over Europe. The founding of the first kindergarten in 1840, however, corresponded to the needs of the time. Kindergartens and Johannes Folsing’s infant schools were exceptions, though. Frobel’s kindergarten was part of the latter, but not the only of its kind; another example was the Infant School for Higher Classes established by Johannes Folsing in Darmstadt. Contrary to kindergarten, such institutions were almost solely attended by children from the lower class. They were established mainly to cope with the alleged physical, cognitive, and especially moral-religious neglect of the young children of the lower class. Frobel increasingly worked on his kindergarten pedagogy and the dissemination of his ideas, often in the form of letters that consisted of theoretical explanations.
