led Gruner to praise the "fire and life" he
understood how to awaken in his pupils. He also left it to Froebel to
arrange the plan of instruction which the Frankfort Senate wanted for the
"model school," and succeeded in keeping him two years in his
institution.

When a certain Frau von Holzhausen was looking for a man who would have
the ability to lead her spoiled sons into the right path, and Froebel had
been recommended, he separated from Gruner and performed his task with
rare fidelity and a skill bordering upon genius. The children, who were
physically puny, recovered under his care, and the grateful mother made
him their private tutor from 1807 till 1810. He chose Verdun, where
Pestalozzi was then living, as his place of residence, and made himself
thoroughly familiar with his method of education. As a whole, he could
agree with him; but, as has already been mentioned, in some respects he
went further than the Swiss reformer. He himself called these years his
"university course as a pedagogue," but they also furnished him with the
means to continue the studies in natural history which he had commenced
in Jena. He had laid aside for this purpose part of his salary as tutor,
and was permitted, from 1810 to 1812, to complete in Gottingen his
astronomical and mineralogical studies. Yet the wish to try his powers as
a pedagogue never deserted him; and when, in 1812, the position of
teacher in the Plamann Institute in Berlin was offered him, he accepted
it. During his leisure hours he devoted himself to gymnastic exercises,
and even late in life his eyes sparkled when he spoke of his friend, old
Jahn, and the political elevation of Prussia.

When the summons "To my People" called the German youth to war, Froebel
had already entered his thirty-first year, but this did not prevent his
resigning his office and being one of the first to take up arms. He went
to the field with the Lutzow Jagers, and soon after made the acquaintance
among his comrades of the theological students Langethal and Middendorf.
When, after the Peace of Paris, the young friends parted, they vowed
eternal fidelity, and each solemnly promised to obey the other's summons,
should it ever come. As soon as Froebel took off the dark uniform of the
black Jagers he received a position as curator of the museum of
mineralogy in the Berlin University, which he filled so admirably that
the position of Professor of Mineralogy was offered to him from Sweden.
But