e was the
keystone, and joy, unselfishness and unswerving faith in the Natural or
Divine impulses of humanity crowned the structure.

* * * * *

Froebel invented the schoolma'am. That is, he discovered the raw product
and adapted it. He even coined the word, and it struck the world as
being so very funny that we forthwith adopted it as a term of provincial
pleasantry and quasi-reproach. The original term used was "school
mother," but when it reached these friendly shores we translated it
"schoolmarm." Then we tittered, also sneezed.

Froebel died in Eighteen Hundred Fifty-two. His first Kindergarten was
not a success until he was nearly sixty years old, but the idea had been
perfecting itself in his mind more or less unconsciously for over thirty
years.

He had been thinking, writing, working, experimenting all these years on
the subject of education, and he had become well-nigh discouraged. He
had observed that six was the "school age." That is, no child could go
to school until he was six years old--then his education began.

But Froebel had been teaching in a country school and boarding 'round,
and he had discovered that long before this the child had been learning
by observing and playing, and that these were formative influences,
quite as potent as actual school.

In the big families where Froebel boarded, he noticed that the older
girls took charge of the younger ones. So, often a girl of ten, with
dresses to her knees, carried one baby in her arms and two toddled
behind her, and this child of ten was really the other-mother. The true
mother worked in the fields or toiled at her housework, and the little
other-mother took the children out to play and thus amused them while
the mother worked.

The desire of Froebel was to educate the race, but what are a few hours
a day in a schoolroom with a totally unsympathetic home environment!

To reach and interest the mother in the problem of education was
well-nigh impossible. Toil, deprivation, poverty, had killed all the
romance and enthusiasm in her heart. She was the victim of arrested
development; but the little other-mother was a child, impressionable,
immature, and she could be taught. The home must co-operate with the
school, otherwise all the school can teach will be forgotten in the
home. Froebel saw, too, that often the little other-mother was so
overworked in the care of her charges that she was taken from school.
Besides