I mention our “manners” especially because, as I afterwards learned, they had been the subject of sharp differences of opinion between Friedrich Froebel and Langethal, and because the arguments of the former are so characteristic that I deem them worthy of record.

There could be no lack of delicacy of feeling on the part of the founder of the kindergarten system, who had said, “If you are talking with any one, and your child comes to ask you about anything which interests him, break off your conversation, no matter what may be the rank of the person who is speaking to you,” and who also directed that the child should receive not only love but respect.  The first postulate shows that he valued the demands of the soul far above social forms.  Thus it happened that during the first years of the institute, which he then governed himself, he was reproached with paying too little attention to the outward forms, the “behaviour,” the manners of the boys entrusted to his care.  His characteristic answer was:  “I place no value on these forms unless they depend upon and express the inner self.  Where that is thoroughly trained for life and work, externals may be left to themselves, and will supplement the other.”  The opponent admits this, but declares that the Keilhau method, which made no account of outward form, may defer this “supplement” in a way disastrous to certain pupils.  Froebel’s answer is:  “Certainly, a wax pear can be made much more quickly and is just as beautiful as those on the tree, which require a much longer time to ripen.  But the wax pear is only to look at, can barely be touched, far less could it afford refreshment to the thirsty and the sick.  It is empty—­a mere nothing!  The child’s nature, it is said, resembles wax.  Very well, we don’t grudge wax fruits to any one who likes them.  But nothing must be expected from them if we are ill and thirsty; and what is to become of them when temptations and trials come, and to whom do they not come?  Our educational products must mature slowly, but thoroughly, to genuine human beings whose inner selves will be deficient in no respect.  Let the tailor provide for the clothes.”

Froebel himself was certainly very careless in the choice of his.  The long cloth coat in which I always saw him was fashioned by the village tailor, and the old gentleman probably liked the garment because half a dozen children hung by the tails when he crossed the court-yard.  It needed to be durable; but the well-fitting coats worn by Barop and Langethal were equally so, and both men believed that the good gardener should also care for the form of the fruit he cultivates, because, when ripe, it is more valuable if it looks well.  They, too, cared nothing for wax fruits; nay, did not even consider them because they did not recognize them as fruit at all.

Froebel’s conversion was delayed, but after his marriage it was all the more thorough.  The choice of this intellectual and kindly natured man, who set no value on the external forms of life, was, I might say, “naturally” a very elegant woman, a native of Berlin, the widow of the Kriegsrath Hofmeister.  She speedily opened Froebel’s eyes to the aesthetic and artistic element in the lives of the boys entrusted to his care—­the element to which Langethal, from the time of his entrance into the institution, had directed his attention.