he great composer).

[103] Or, as we say, A is A.

[104] A great deal of Froebel's irony might all too truly be still
applied to current educational work.

[105] Empiricism--that is, _a posteriori_ investigations, based on
actual facts and not _a priori_ deductions from theories, or general
laws, did good service before Froebel's time, and will do good service
yet, Froebel notwithstanding. In Froebel's time the limits Kant so truly
set to the human understanding were overstepped on every side; Fichte,
Schelling, and Hegel were teaching, and the latter especially had
an overpowering influence upon all science. Every one constructed a
philosophy of the universe out of his own brain. Krause, the recipient
of this letter, never attained to very great influence, though had he
been in Hegel's chair he might perhaps have wielded Hegel's authority,
and there was for a long time a great likelihood of his appointment.
Meanwhile he reconstructed the university at Goettingen. Even practical
students of Nature, such as Oken, did homage to the general tendency
which had absorbed all the eager spirits of the vanguard of human
advancement, amongst them Froebel himself. We see how firmly set Froebel
was against experience-teaching, _a posteriori_ work, or, as he calls
it, empiricism. The Kantist, Arthur Schopenhauer, was not listened to,
and dwelt apart, devouring his heart in bitter silence; breaking out at
last with the dreary creed of Pessimism.

[106] Froebel is here hardly fair. How should people know much of him as
yet? He had at this time written the following works:--(1) "On the
Universal German Educational Institute of Rudolstadt" (1822); (2)
"Continuation of the Account of the Universal German Educational
Institute at Keilhau" (1823); (3) "Christmas at Keilhau: a Christmas
Gift to the Parents of the Pupils at Keilhau, to the Friends and the
Members of the Institute" (1824); (4) "The Menschen Erziehung," the full
title of which was "The Education of Man: The Art of Education,
Instruction, and Teaching, as attempted to be realised at the Universal
Educational Institute at Keilhau, set forth by the Originator, Founder,
and Principal of the Institute, Friedrich Froebel" (1826), never
completed; (5) _Family Weekly Journal of Education for Self-culture and
the Training of Others_, edited by Friedrich Froebel, Leipzig and
Keilhau. But Froebel, in his unbusiness-like way, published all these
productions privately. They came out of