gentlemen can only be produced by fostering in the boy the qualities
that make for health, strength and a manly desire to bless, benefit and
serve the race."

[Illustration: FRIEDRICH FROEBEL]

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

The purpose of the Kindergarten is to provide the necessary and
natural help which poor mothers require who have to be about their
work all day, and must leave their children to themselves. The
occupations pursued in the Kindergarten are the following: free
play of a child by itself; free play of several children by
themselves; associated play under the guidance of a teacher;
gymnastic exercises; several sorts of handiwork suited to little
children; going for walks; learning music, both instrumental and
vocal; learning the repetition of poetry; story-telling; looking at
really good pictures; aiding in domestic occupations; gardening.

--_Froebel_

FRIEDRICH FROEBEL

Friedrich Froebel was born in a Thuringian village, April Twenty-first,
Seventeen Hundred Eighty-two. His father was pastor of the Lutheran
Church. When scarcely a year old his mother died. Erelong a stepmother
came to fill her place--but didn't. This stepmother was the kind we read
about in the "Six Best Sellers."

Her severity, lack of love, and needlessly religious zeal served the
future Kindergartner a dark background on which to paint a joyous
picture. Froebel was educated by antithesis. His home was the type
etched so unforgetably by Colonel Ed. Howe in his "Story of a Country
Town," which isn't bad enough to be one of the Six Best Sellers.

At the age of ten, out of pure pity, young Friedrich was rescued from
the cuckoo's nest by an uncle who had a big family of his own and love
without limit. There was a goodly brood left, so little Friedrich, slim,
slender, yellow, pensive and sad, was really never missed.

The uncle brought the boy up to work, but treated him like a human
being, answering his questions, even allowing him to have stick horses
and little log houses and a garden of his own.

At fifteen his nature had begun to awaken, and the uncle, harkening to
the boy's wish, apprenticed him for two years to a forester. The young
man's first work was to make a list of the trees in a certain tract and
approximate their respective ages. The night before his work began he
lay awake thinking of the fun he was going to have at the job. In
after-years he told of this inc