The character of the two men is admirably described in the following passage from a letter of “the oldest pupil”: 

“Both had seen much of the serious side of life, and returned from the war with the higher inspiration which is hallowed by deep religious feeling.  The idea of devoting their powers with self-denial and sacrifice to the service of their native land had become a fixed resolution; the devious paths which so many men entered were far from their thoughts.  The youth, the young generation of their native land, were alone worthy of their efforts.  They meant to train them to a harmonious development of mind and body; and upon these young people their pure spirit of patriotism exerted a vast influence.  When we recall the mighty power which Froebel could exercise at pleasure over his fellowmen, and especially over children, we shall deem it natural that a child suddenly transported into this circle could forget its past.”

When I entered it, though at that time it was much modified and established on firm foundations, I met with a similar experience.  It was not only the open air, the forest, the life in Nature which so captivated new arrivals at Keilhau, but the moral earnestness and the ideal aspiration which consecrated and ennobled life.  Then, too, there was that “nerve-strengthening” patriotism which pervaded everything, filling the place of the superficial philanthropy of the Basedow system of education.

But Froebel’s influence was soon to draw, as if by magnetic power, the man who had formed an alliance with him amid blood and steel, and who was destined to lend the right solidity to the newly erected structure of the institute—­I mean Heinrich Langethal, the most beloved and influential of my teachers, who stood beside Froebel’s inspiring genius and Middendorf’s lovable warmth of feeling as the character, and at the same time the fully developed and trained intellect, whose guidance was so necessary to the institute.

The life of this rare teacher can be followed step by step from the first years of his childhood in his autobiography and many other documents, but I can only attempt here to sketch in broad outlines the character of the man whose influence upon my whole inner life has been, up to the present hour, a decisive one.

The recollection of him makes me inclined to agree with the opinion to which a noble lady sought to convert me—­namely, that our lives are far more frequently directed into a certain channel by the influence of an unusual personality than by events, experiences, or individual reflections.