ABSTRACT
Friedrich Froebel was born in 1782 in Oberweissbach, a small town in the Thuringian Forest in what is now Germany. His mother died when he was 8 months old and he spent a lonely, isolated early childhood, looked after by servants and his five older brothers. His father, a strict Lutheran pastor, was so occupied with his religious duties that he had little time to spend with the young Friedrich. It appears the young boy was often in trouble and could do little to please his father and stepmother. In his autobiography he refers to the ‘gloomy, lowering dawn’ of his early life (Froebel 1886: 9). His isolation was made worse by his stepmother’s indifference and eventual rejection of him. He became an introspective child, spending much time on his own in the parsonage garden, in close contact with the natural world of plants, birds and insects. Here he developed the lifelong love of nature which was to shape his educational ideas.
