rsy. In 1827 began the cruel
persecutions which eventually compelled him to leave Keilhau. Now
whenever Froebel was under the pressure of outward difficulty, he always
sought for help from within, and from his inward contemplation derived
new courage and new strength to face his troubles. Out of such musings
in the present time of adversity the long-awaited reply to Krause at
length emerged. The disputative part, interesting in itself, does not
here concern us. We pass at once to the brief sketch of his life
contained in later parts of the letter, omitting what is not
autobiographical. The earlier of these passages relate more succinctly
the events of the same period already more fully described in the letter
to the Duke of Meiningen; but we think it better to print the passages
in full, in spite of their being to a great extent a repetition of what
has gone before. Certain differences, however, will be found not
unworthy of notice.

The Krause letter succeeded the other and more important letter (to the
Duke of Meiningen) by some few months. Its immediate outcome was a warm
friendship between Krause and Froebel; the latter, with Middendorff as
his companion, journeying to Goettingen to make the philosopher's
personal acquaintance, in the autumn of 1828. Long discussions on
education took place at this interesting meeting, as we know from
Leonhardi, Krause's pupil. Krause made Froebel acquainted with the works
of Comenius, amongst other things, and introduced him to the whole
learned society of Goettingen, where he made a great, if a somewhat
peculiar, impression.

PART OF FROEBEL'S LETTER TO KRAUSE, DATED KEILHAU, 24TH MARCH, 1828.

... You have enjoyed, without doubt, unusual good fortune in having
pursued the strict path of culture. You have sailed by Charybdis without
being swallowed up by Scylla.[87] But my lot has been just the reverse.

As I have already told you in the beginning of this letter, I was very
early impressed with the contradictions of life in word and deed--in
fact, almost as soon as I was conscious of anything, living as a lonely
child in a very narrowed and narrowing circle. A spirit of
contemplation, of simplicity, and of childlike faith; a stern, sometimes
cruel, self-repression; a carefully-fostered inward yearning after
knowledge by causes and effects, together with an open-air life amidst
Nature, especially amidst the world of plants, gradually freed my soul
from the oppression of