Free Play With Froebel

Paedagogica Historica,Vol. 42, No. 3, June 2006, pp. 299–323

ISSN 0030-9230 (print)/ISSN 1477-674X (online)/06/030299–25© 2006 Stichting Paedagogica HistoricaDOI: 10.1080/00309230600622717

Free Play with Froebel: Use and Abuse of Progressive Pedagogy in London’s Infant Schools, 1870–c.1904Jane ReadTaylor and Francis LtdCPDH_A_162252.sgm10.1080/00309230600622717Paedagogica Historica0030-9230 (print)/1477-674X (online)Original Article2006Taylor & Francis423000000June [email protected]

This article explores the process by which different elements of the material culture of educational settings,including learning tools, classroom design and other aspects of the physical environment that embody a partic-ular educational philosophy, become transmuted when taken over by those with very different pedagogicalaims. The article focuses on the adaptation of Froebel’s kindergarten pedagogy for the Babies’ Classes andInfant Schools established by the London School Board from 1870 to 1904 and opens with a brief historiographyof infant education in London in this period. The development of infant education in the UK was underpinnedby a very different approach to the education of young children from that evident in the Froebelian kindergartenand the article identifies the role played by Samuel Wilderspin in shaping practice in London’s Infant Schoolsand the control exerted by the Education Department through Her Majesty’s Inspectorate. Key aspects ofFroebel’s educational philosophy are described, suggesting how the physical environment, the learning materials(the Gifts and Occupations) and elements of the curriculum embodied his ideas. An account of the receptionof Froebel’s kindergarten pedagogy in the UK precedes an interrogation of practice in London’s Babies’ andInfant classes, demonstrating the hiatus between the aims and intentions of Froebel and those of the SchoolBoard and central government, which funded the provision of infant education. However, tensions arosebetween those infant teachers seeking to introduce less rigid methods drawing on Froebel’s pedagogy and theInspectorate. Reference to visual evidence from schools and kindergartens, together with committee minutesand logbooks, is used to support the argument. The changing emphasis in Froebel’s writings between free playand creative activity and a more prescriptive, adult-led model of practice provided grounds for differing inter-pretations of his ideas, exemplified by the revisionist debate within the Froebel movement at the turn of thecentury, which reveals dissenting voices concerning orthodox practice within the Froebel camp itself. The conclu-sion suggests that, despite the limitations in the interpretation of his educational philosophy, Froebel’s prag-matism may have led him to approve the use of his materials in London’s Babies’ Classes and Infant Schools

You may ask why should we trouble about Froebel’s philosophy when we are concernedonly with those rules of education which Froebel, from his own experience, developed? Imust answer that Froebel himself would have been extremely angry if any one had soargued to him. Whoever divorced his educational system from his philosophy would haveseemed to Froebel to have taken all the force and meaning out of his life’s work. To aphilosopher the distinction between his experience and his philosophy cannot exist.1

1 Wallas, Graham. “A Criticism of Froebelian Pedagogy.” Child Life III (1901): 184–93.

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This article focuses on the environments and the learning materials elaborated byFriedrich Froebel in his kindergarten pedagogy for pre-school children in Thuringia,Prussia from 1832 up to his death in 1852, and the subsequent adoption of elementstaken from that pedagogy by those with very different educational agendas in a distantcultural environment. The School Board for London (SBL) was the body responsibleuntil 1904 for the provision of state-funded infant education in the metropolis follow-ing the 1870 Elementary Education Act. The SBL was required to follow the prescrip-tive Codes issued by the Education Department and its schools were subject toinspections by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate (HMI). The article also interrogates the roleof practitioners in the implementation of educational philosophies and practice andtheir potential to effect change or to serve as barriers to innovation. The intention isto explore two issues: first, the relationship between Froebel’s educational philosophyand its embodiment in specific learning materials, the Gifts and Occupations, and itsrequirements for particular kinds of learning environments and practitioners, knownas Kindergartners; second, the implications for the meaning of the learning materials,as concrete representations of the philosophy, when used in settings embodying intheir architecture and pedagogic practices the alien principles of alternative philoso-phies and by practitioners with little or no knowledge of the philosophy with whichthey are imbued. Underpinning this discussion is Foucault’s paradigm of educationalenvironments and practices as sites of power in constructing the subject, both pupiland teacher. While teachers inevitably possess a set of values regarding the nature ofthe teaching process and attitudes towards their charges, at the same time they them-selves will be constrained from experimentation in thought and action by the verystructures within which they work and by top-down prescription for their practice.

The source material supporting the argument presented here is both textual andvisual, reflecting the possibility of locating the meanings that spaces and materialsembody in written articulations of the philosophy, and visually, in the architecture oflearning environments and in illustrations of the use of learning materials. The writ-ten word may continue to direct pedagogic practice for many years, as in the case ofthose Froebelians working in kindergartens who ensured that prescriptive texts by theRonges, Kraus-Boelte and others went into many editions from the 1850s to the1880s.2 An educational philosophy may also endure through the replication of partic-ular architectural structures, and pedagogic practices within those structures, as forexample in the case of the galleried schoolroom designed by Samuel Wilderspin forhis Spitalfields infants’ school in the 1820s. A perception of attitudes towardschildren and the teaching process inherent in an educational philosophy can be elic-ited from an examination of visual evidence of environments, uses of materials andrepresentations of teacher interactions with children, as well as associated prescriptivedocumentation, while acknowledging that individuals within settings may break out

2 Ronge, Johannes, and Bertha Ronge. A Practical Guide to the English Kindergarten. London,1855. This was in its 15th edition by 1884 and was reprinted as recently as 1994; Maria & JohnKrause-Boelte’s ten-volume Kindergarten Guide (New York, 1877–1892) achieved similar successin the US.

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and challenge the orthodoxies associated with them. Such challenges emerged bothfrom practitioners wedded to Froebelian philosophy working in middle-class kinder-gartens and the training colleges that supplied their staff, and from those working tothe requirements of the SBL in the infants’ schools that served the working-classpopulation.

Historiography

Apart from Froebel’s own writings and archive material pertaining to the policy andpractice of the SBL, this article draws on a range of literature on the reception ofkindergarten pedagogy in the UK and on the subsequent development of the Froebelmovement and debates within it.3 It also draws on published studies of the work ofthe SBL up to its demise in 1904 and on Maclure’s key text tracing education inLondon from 1870 to 1970.4 It is not within the remit of this article to chart in detailthe changes in the curriculum of the Board’s schools over the period under discus-sion. The SBL provided such an account in its valedictory report of 1904, whichsurveyed its achievements from its inception in 1870, including the development ofteaching methods in the infants’ schools under its Instructor in KindergartenExercises, first appointed in 1873. This report notes the continuing references to‘kindergarten’ in the Board’s documents concerning this post although its title wasaltered to Superintendent of Method in Infants’ Schools in 1878. Maclure describesthe effects of the deliberations of the Special Committee, convened in 1887 under thechairmanship of William Bousfield, to consider changes to the curriculum, with aview to fitting London’s children more closely for their subsequent working lives.‘Kindergarten teaching’ began to permeate the classes for older pupils, reflecting thepotential of the Gifts and Occupations to foster the development of the manual skillsrequired of the nation’s working-class children in the face of the challenge presented

3 Read, Jane. “Froebelian women – networking to promote professional status and educationalchange in the nineteenth century.” History of Education 32, no. 1 (2003); Dombkowski, Kristen.“Kindergarten teacher training in England and the United States 1850–1918.” History of Education31, no. 5 (2002); Brehony, Kevin J. “The Froebel Movement and State Schooling, 1880–1914: AStudy in Educational Ideology.” Ph.D. thesis, Open University. Milton Keynes, 1987; Collins, G.P. “The Contribution of the British & Foreign School Society to the Kindergarten Movement,1868–1907, With Particular Reference to Stockwell & Saffron Walden Training College.” Ph.D.dissertation, Bulmershe College, 1984; Liebschner, J. Foundations of Progressive Education: The His-tory of the National Froebel Society (Cambridge, 1991); see also articles by Jane Read on Bertha andJohannes Ronge, Beata Doreck, Caroline Bishop and Esther Lawrence in the Oxford Dictionary ofNational Biography (Oxford, 2004).

4 Final report of the School Board for London, 1870–1904. London, 1904; Maclure, Stuart. OneHundred Years of London Education 1870–1970. London, 1970; Bayley, Edric. Education in LondonBoard Schools. London, 1888; id. The Work of the School Board for London 1888–1891. London,1891; Morley, Charles. Studies in Board Schools. London, 1897; Spalding, Thomas. The Work of theLondon School Board. London, 1900; Philpott, Hugh B. London at School: The Story of the SchoolBoard, 1879–1904. London, 1904; Gautrey, Thomas. “Lux Mihi Laus”: School Board Memories.London, 193).

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by the booming German economy. These issues are touched on in a number ofcontemporary texts. Edric Bayley, a member of the School Board, produced anumber of books and pamphlets that stress the importance of manual training forLondon’s schoolchildren and trace the development of the curriculum to provide forthis. He argued that ‘the Kinder-garten is the proper ground on which to build up thetechnical instruction’ and should be extended to the third standard.5 Bayley’s aim isnot purely utilitarian – in arguing for the extension of clay work it is ‘with a view aliketo the preparation of the artisan and the discovery of the artist’.6 Further, he suggeststhat the kindergarten system ‘seeks to develop the whole nature of the child’ – anenlightened view, although Bayley’s overriding interest is in manual training ‘not tomake workmen, but to prepare children to become workmen’.7 What is lacking inBayley’s interpretation is Froebel’s spiritual vision, a failure to link the creativityinherent in the development of artistic skill with what Froebel conceived of as man’sdivine purpose. Morley provides vignettes of schools from across the range providedby the SBL and his is a richly observed collection portraying with sympathy theimpoverished lives experienced by many of London’s schoolchildren and their fami-lies. He compares Fleet Road school in Hampstead – ‘an Eton for nothing a week …the very aristocracy of the Board Schools’ where ‘[n]o-one had free dinners or tookdonated boots and clothes’ – to Lant Street in Southwark, where ‘[s]o poor, so white,so forlorn many of them look. The toys they play with have the same hopeless, joylessair’.8 Fleet Road, under the headship of Louisa Walker, was renowned for its innova-tory teaching based on modifications to Froebel’s kindergarten pedagogy designed tofoster enthusiasm for education and a desire for social advancement. Her embellish-ments of Froebelian pedagogy were not viewed favourably by orthodox Froebelians,or indeed, by many Hampstead ratepayers, who regarded the plays and concertsmounted by the school, in which the children wore a multitude of costumes, as aninappropriate use of the school grant and a diversion from the true purpose of stateeducation. At Lant Street Morley notes the zinc sand trays and wooden moulds forthe children but his description indicates a prescriptive, formulaic mode of use.Morley makes no comment on this and neither does he refer to Froebel in hisaccount. Spalding does make specific reference to Froebel in his historical survey ofthe work of the SBL, arguing that the adoption of the kindergarten by the SBL hadled to ‘striking developments in the education of infants’ whereas prior to 1870 ‘nogreat attention had been paid to the Froebelian methods of education’, despite theefforts of the Froebel Society and ‘few teachers, except those trained by the Home &Colonial Society, understood the system’.9 Spalding does not attempt to assess theinterpretation of Froebel’s pedagogy in the SBL’s infant schools; neither does he

5 Bayley. Education in London Board Schools, 4–5.6 Bayley. The Work of the School Board for London 1888–1891, 5.7 Bayley. Education in London Board Schools, 4.8 Morley. Studies in Board Schools, 107; for a full account of the school see Marsden, W. E.

Educating the Respectable: A Study of Fleet Road Board School, Hampstead, 1879–1903. London, 1991.9 Spalding. The Work of the London School Board, 93.


comment on whether the Board’s infant school teachers understood the system.Philpott, in his survey, published in the same year as the SBL’s demise, claims that:‘the history of infant schools under the London School Board has been in greatmeasure the history of the development of the kindergarten idea’, with initial lack ofunderstanding giving way to ‘the true conception of Kindergarten as a principle ofeducation, which should govern the whole life of the school, not a mere addendum tothe ordinary work’.10 However Philpott’s ‘true conception of Kindergarten’ appearsto focus on making learning ‘easy and pleasant’ and a concern that the ‘the childrenare interested, busy and happy’11 while he stresses the hand and eye training affordedby the occupations. The argument presented in this article is that Froebel’s intentionswent far beyond this utilitarian interpretation. Gautrey’s reminiscences refer to theinnovatory methods employed in the infants’ schools and the discretion given to headteachers with regard to the curriculum but this article will suggest that the criticismsof HMIs served to constrain efforts to introduce freer methods. Few HMIs were asenlightened as Marchant Williams, responsible for the Finsbury District. Gautreyquotes Williams’s attack on the teaching of reading in the infants’ schools he visited:

It would … be infinitely better for the hand, the eyes, the intelligence and even themanners of our little Finsbury children, if half the time they now spend in discussing thefate of the man whose misfortune it was to be fat, and of the crapulous rat, were devotedto the rational study of Froebel’s cubes, mats and drawing cards, and the study ofcommon objects.12

This article seeks to develop a closer analysis of the different use of the materialculture of the Froebelian kindergarten in the late nineteenth-century infant schoolsthan hitherto attempted by making specific comparisons of the use of environmentsand materials. In this respect the author acknowledges recent work that adopts a simi-lar methodological stance by Escolano, Peim, and Grosvenor, Lawn and Rous-maniere.13 In his paper on the symbolic significances inherent in the architecture ofschools Escolano notes:

The material structures of the school are, in the new cultural history of teaching, a recordfor the reconstruction of education’s past, a kind of empirical archive where the traces ofthe pedagogical culture of a particular period have been registered, and are therefore oneof the most visible exponents of the ways of conceiving and practising the workings ofteaching establishments. In the school buildings of the past, it is possible to perceive, intuitor suspect, from a historical perspective, the organisational means of a life world involving

10 Philpott. London at School, 68.11 Ibid, 69.12 Gautrey “Lux Mihi Laus”: School Board Memories, 121.13 Escolano Benito, Agustin. “The school in the city: school architecture as discourse and as text.”

Paedagogica Historica XXXIX, nos 1/2 (2003): 53–64; Peim, Nick. “The history of the present: to-wards a contemporary phenomenology of the school.” History of Education 30, no. 2 (2001): 177–90; Grosvenor, Ian, Martin Lawn, and Kate Rousmaniere, eds. Silences and Images: The Social His-tory of the Classroom. New York, 1999; Rousmaniere, Kate. “Questioning the visual in the history ofeducation,” History of Education 30, no. 2 (2001): 109–16.

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teachers and students as well as the norms which supported the educational sociability ofthe agents intervening in the instructional process.14

Peim’s exploration of the continuities between contemporary primary schools andtheir elementary school forebears argues:

Clearly, the general institution that emerges in the form of the state-funded elementaryschool was developed from and in reaction to some of the existing models, ideas and prac-tices and comprised the bits and pieces of ready-to-hand human technologies.

He too notes the significance of ‘the “architectural” organization of the social spacesof the school – along with the clarification of their symbolic social functioning’.15

Grosvenor, Lawn and Rousmaniere, in separate works, note the value of photo-graphic evidence for the educational historian, while at the same time sounding a noteof caution:

Was that photograph … a realistic image of a Victorian classroom or not? Was it a tempo-rary classroom created for the purpose of image creation? Was it an inauthentic piece ofdata about Victorian science pedagogy or an authentic piece of data on constructed imag-inaries of schooling? Was it just an assembly hall with a contained costume drama?16

With these methodological reflections and caveats in mind I now turn to the originsof infant education in the UK.

Samuel Wilderspin and Infant Education in the UK

Robert Owen’s monument in Kensal Green cemetery famously announces: ‘He orig-inated and organised infant schools’. This was no mere tombstone hyperbole for,despite the subsequent excision of his name from the record for much of the nine-teenth century,17 Owen (1771–1858) nevertheless opened the first infant school in theUK at his New Lanark mills in 1816. In this school key features included a focus onactivity and play, the fostering of children’s interest and curiosity and a strong empha-sis on the natural world as a central topic for study.18 However, it was another contem-porary, Samuel Wilderspin (1791–1866), who effectively shaped the development ofinfant schools for working-class children in the UK over the following decades.Figure 1. Wilderspin’s Galleried Infant Schoolroom at Spitalfields.Source: Froebel Archive for Childhood Studies, Roehampton University.Wilderspin’s design of a galleried infant schoolroom19 was adopted as a modelby the SBL although it was not directly associated with Wilderspin by Board

14 Escolano. “The school in the city,” 53.15 Peim. “The history of the present,” 178.16 Grosvenor, Ian, and Martin Lawn. “Ways of seeing in education and schooling: emerging

historiographies.” History of Education 30, no. 2 (2001): 106; see also Rousmaniere. “Questioningthe visual in the history of education.”

17 See Harold Silver’s account of the reworking of the history of infant schools to exclude thecontribution of Owen in Education as History. London, 1983.

18 See the description of the school by Robert Dale Owen in Robert Owen on Education, edited byHarold Silver. London, 1969: 149–64.

19 Wilderspin, Samuel. The Infant System for Developing the Intellectual and Moral Powers of allChildren from One to Seven Years of Age. London, 1840: frontispiece.


administrators, having been widely copied by other proponents of infant schools,amongst them David Stow. Wilderspin overtly stated his preoccupation with socialcontrol and the inculcation of good behaviour by ‘a system of gentle and benevolentcoercion’. Here Wilderspin describes the public exhibition of 120 children in Lincoln:

[The onlookers] could scarcely help noticing that appearance of cheerful and happy subor-dination which is the very soul of the system. Indeed, this pervading feature of a promptand willing submission to rule … is one of the most prominent evidences of superiority inwhat is called the Infant System.20 (emphasis in the original)

Wilderspin’s galleried schoolroom, capable of containing up to a hundred children,ensured all focus was on the central authoritative figure of the master and both servedhis socializing agenda and facilitated the delivery of his teaching method, which incor-porated a considerable body of rote-learning. In this setting architecture and teachingmethod combined to function as a powerful mode of containment of the pupilsubjects. Wilderspin was undoubtedly influenced by existing models of schooling forolder pupils in the monitorial schools of the National Society and British & ForeignSchools Society, which similarly featured large schoolrooms with a single teacher,assisted by monitors. Wilderspin’s gallery focused attention more effectively on theteacher than in the existing schoolrooms. Although Wilderspin identified the need toarouse the children’s curiosity and to foster a questioning attitude he fell into the trapof imposing memorizing of spellings and mathematical formulae on his pupils tosatisfy the sponsors who came to inspect the recipients of their benefaction. The 1931

20 Wilderspin, Samuel. Early Discipline Illustrated. London, 1832: 242–3.

Figure 1 Wilderspin’s Galleried Infant Schoolroom at Spitalfields.Source: Froebel Archive for Childhood Studies, Roehampton University.

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Consultative Committee Report on the Primary School ascribes to Wilderspin ‘amistaken zeal for the initiation of children at too early an age to formal instruction’,21

albeit from a kindly and benevolent teacher. Wilderspin identified the qualities hesought for teachers of the young as ‘a tenor voice, a good deal of vivacity and a pleas-ant countenance’22 and ‘much patience, gentleness, perseverance, self-possession,energy, knowledge of human nature, and, above all, piety’.23 The reference to a ‘tenorvoice’ denotes Wilderspin’s belief that men were the best teachers of infant children,with women playing a supporting role. The representation of the Spitalfieldsplayground24 depicts the children dancing happily around a male teacher (presum-ably intended to depict Wilderspin) who appears aloof if tolerant of the activity takingplace at his feet while in the background a female assistant (his wife) supervises otheractivities.

Froebel’s Kindergarten: an Alternative Vision

Froebel’s view of the learning experience appropriate for young children, encapsu-lated in his famous motto ‘Kommt, lasst uns unsern Kindern leben’, which is foundon the flyleaf of the Mutter- und Kose-Lieder of 1844, embodied a stark contrast tothat of Wilderspin. Equally stark is the difference in the depiction of the teacher’smode of interaction with pupils. A nineteenth-century print depicts Froebel sittingin a circle with a small group of children to whom he is introducing the sphere, theform that embodied his central philosophical tenet of unity. His educational philos-ophy emerged from a world-view that incorporated both his political and religiousbeliefs and aspirations and he invested his learning materials, the Gifts and Occupa-tions, and his learning environments with these; consequently little of his pedagogicpractice is free of symbolism. Just like his contemporary, Wilderspin, and, later, theofficials of the SBL, Froebel had the shaping of the child at the forefront of hiseducational agenda and the role of the kindergarten was to serve as a crucible for theearly socialization of the young child in a setting reflecting the domestic ethos ofthe German home. Froebel intended practice within his kindergarten to open up theminds of young children to the tenets of German nationalism, to an understandingof the symbiotic harmonious interconnection between all men and women, howeverhumble their social status, with the world, the universe and ultimately with God,and to an intuition of the complex relationship between our inner and outer livesand the possibility of resolving the oppositions evident all around us. If this soundsambitious – even ludicrous – we should not take Froebel to mean that young chil-dren can understand, can rationally comprehend, these issues but that they can

21 Board of Education. Report of the Consultative Committee on the Primary School. London, 1931: 3.22 Wilderspin 1835, cited in Stewart, W. A. C., W. P. and McCann. The Educational Innovators.

London, 1967: 257.23 Wilderspin 1824, cited in Stewart & McCann. The Educational Innovators, 259.24 Reproduced in McCann, Philip. Samuel Wilderspin and the Infant School Movement. London,

1982.


come to an intuition about them – to what Froebel referred to as a surmise. Thesequence of the Gifts and Occupations and the carefully elaborated instructions fortheir use signifies Froebel’s intentions to guide the child towards these understand-ings. Taking three examples from the sequence, in Gift One Froebel presents thechild, a baby, with a set of six soft, coloured balls. The child is thus introduced tothe sphere, the form which signifies his central guiding principle of unity, of harmo-nious interconnectedness, a philosophical tenet elaborated in the SPHAIRA, anunpublished treatise of 1811. In Gift Three, a cube made up of eight componentcubes, the concept of wholeness is elaborated further as the child is presented firstwith the cuboid box before inverting the box, removing the lid and then the boxitself to expose the whole undivided cube within. After exploring its componentparts by making constructions using all of the eight pieces the child finally recon-structs the whole cube before returning it to its box. Gift Two illustrates in concreteform another guiding principle, the possibility of resolving oppositions. The Giftconsists of a sphere, a cube and a cylinder, each made of wood. Through the spherea connection is made with Gift One but presents an opposition to it as it is hard.The cube is then introduced, the opposite of the sphere but connecting to it in thisGift as it is likewise made of wood. The cylinder resolves the opposition in formbetween the sphere and the cube as it is both round and can roll but has edges andcan stand; it links with both as it is made of wood. This view of the possibility ofresolving oppositions permeated Froebel’s philosophy and extended to his view ofgender relations and of the potential of human beings to bring their inner and outerselves into harmony.

The Function of Outdoor Environments: a Signifier of Difference

For Wilderspin and for Froebel a variety of environments, inside and out, were crucialfor young children; however, they served different functions for each. Taking theoutdoor environment as an example, Wilderspin saw the outdoor play space asproviding opportunities for exercise but also for learning – as the children dancedaround the trees, each class having its own, they chanted the alphabet, recited arith-metic tables and sang hymns: ‘Thus the children are gradually improved anddelighted, for they call it play, and it matters little what they call it, as long as they areedified, exercised, pleased and made happy.’25 Playground activities were also anopportunity for inculcating moral codes. The children learnt self-discipline – in learn-ing to take turns on the maypole and wait in an orderly manner – and courage anddexterity in using the equipment. They were encouraged not to pick the fruit orflowers out of respect for the property of others. In contrast, Froebel’s conception ofthe potential of the outdoor environment was imbued with his philosophical beliefsand his visionary aspirations for children. The surrounding countryside providedopportunities for direct observation of the natural world with the potential for that

25 Wilderspin 1823, cited in McCann. Samuel Wilderspin and the Infant School Movement, 24.

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observation to foster religious and spiritual insights. Practical activities also took place– for example the damming of streams – which gave a demonstration of the laws ofcause and effect. In the kindergarten at Blankenburg the garden was used for individ-ual and communal activity. A contemporary print indicates that each child had itsown plot to grow whatever he/she wished – and also to look after it or not, the lessonbeing learnt if his/her plants died while the carefully tended plot of their neighbourflourished.Figure 2. Garden Area at Froebel’s Kindergarten at Blankenburg, 1840s.Source: Froebel Archive for Childhood Studies, Roehampton University.In the communal ethos that Froebel fostered, such careless use of naturalresources was not without a moral dimension. The layout of the Blankenburggarden, where the individual plots were enclosed within the communal area, wasnot arbitrary – it reflected Froebel’s view of the symbiotic relationship between theindividual and the community. Just as the child in the kindergarten is protected bythe caring adults, so the individual citizen is part of a wider and protective commu-nity. In return for the benefit of such protection the citizen has a moral responsibil-ity to fulfil his/her role within the community, however humble. This theme is a keyorganizing principle of the Mutter- und Kose-Lieder, evident in songs such as ‘Pat acake’ and ‘Mowing Grass’, depicting a baker and a farm labourer respectively, eachsurrounded by other members of the community utilizing the products of theirlabour.

Figure 2 Garden Area at Froebel’s Kindergarten at Blankenburg, 1840s.Source: Froebel Archive for Childhood Studies, Roehampton University.


Reception of Froebelian Pedagogy in the UK

The early reception of Froebelian pedagogy in the UK and its subsequent develop-ment over the nineteenth century has been documented by Read, Dombkowskiet al.26 Bertha and Johannes Ronge, the initiators of kindergarten pedagogy in theUK, had close links with the expatriate German community, both in London and inManchester, which initially rivalled the capital as the centre for the development ofthe kindergarten movement. A further key association was with the Unitariancommunity, with whom Johannes found, or perhaps sought, an affinity of sectarianinterest. Certainly it was an important connection, given the educational interests ofthe Unitarians.27 An interest in kindergarten pedagogy also developed within theliberal Jewish community, notably in the involvement of Claude GoldsmidMontefiore. Montefiore became a member of the Froebel Society in 1884, soontaking on the role of Secretary and then serving as its Chairman until his death in1938. He adopted a similar nurturing role, as Treasurer and, from 1917, asChairman, to the Froebel Educational Institute in London, also maintaining thesepositions until his death. In these roles Montefiore served as a guardian angel, bothorganizations experiencing recurrent financial crises. Esther Lawrence also played asignificant role after qualifying as a kindergarten teacher in 1883 until her retirementin 1931 following 30 years as Principal of the Froebel Educational Institute inLondon. The reception of kindergarten pedagogy was thus closely associated fromthe outset with a liberal middle-class group with shared political but diverse sectarianaffiliations and a keen interest in innovative educational initiatives for their children,which they supported in a variety of private fee-paying enterprises.

Babies’ Classes and Infant Schools 1870–1904

In contrast, the children of the working class attended the babies’ classes andinfants’ schools which, from 1870, were the responsibility of the newly foundedschool boards, with attendance compulsory from the age of five. From the outset theSBL claimed elements from the kindergarten system as part of its model for practicein their babies’ classes and infant schools28 but how, or rather, were Froebel’scomplex and ambitious aspirations fostered in the children of London’s workingclass? The philosophy that underpinned Wilderspin’s advocacy of infant educationfor working-class children in the 1820s and 1830s was echoed by T. H. Huxley,Chair of the Board’s Committee on the Scheme of Education, some five decadeslater:

We cannot too strongly insist upon the importance of schools for children under 7 yearsof age. In a properly conducted Infant School, children are not only withdrawn from evil

26 Read. “Froebelian women”; Dombrowski. “Kindergarten teacher training in England and theUnited States 1850–1918”; for other references see note 3 above.

27 Fretwell, J. “Johannes Ronge and the English Protestants.” Unitarian Review (1888): 3–16.28 School Board for London [SBL] Minutes, vol. 1. London, 1870–1871.

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and corrupting influences, and disciplined in habits of order, attention and cleanliness butthey receive such an amount of positive instruction as greatly facilitates their progress inthe more advanced schools.29

In line with Huxley’s views of the purpose of infant education we should not besurprised at the order of priority for the subjects to be taught:

The subjects in which we recommend that instruction should be given in Infant Schoolsare: a) Morality and Religion, b) Reading, writing and arithmetic, c) Object lessons of asimple character, with some such exercises of the hands and eyes as is given in the ‘Kinder-Garten’ system.30 (emphasis added)

The reference here to ‘the ‘Kinder-Garten’ system’ as offering opportunities for‘exercises of the hands and eyes’ reflects a narrow conception of what kindergartenpedagogy could offer, essentially amounting to manual exercises with the Gifts andOccupations and sense-training. There is nothing of Froebel’s wider vision here, noindication of any intention to foster in the children of London’s working class hiscomplex and ambitious aspirations. The approach of the SBL may well have been apragmatic approach to a practical problem – how to provide an education for thesechildren within financial limits acceptable to middle-class ratepayers. Yet Froebel’svision of education was comprehensive. The opening of his key text, Die Menschen-erziehung, asserts uncompromisingly: ‘It is the destiny and life-work of all things tounfold their essence, hence their divine being, and, therefore, the Divine Unity itself– to reveal God in their external and transient being…. Education consists in leadingman, as a thinking, intelligent being … to a pure and unsullied, conscious and freerepresentation of the inner law of Divine Unity, and teaching him ways and meansthereto.’31 Whether a reflection of misunderstanding or pragmatism, the SBL’sconception of its responsibilities had been a feature of some of the earliest kindergar-ten training offered to future infant school teachers. Raymont (1937) notes that thekindergarten training offered at the British and Foreign School Society’s StockwellCollege in the 1860s stressed the opportunities for manual training presented by theGifts and Occupations. He quotes the Society’s 1866 Annual Report, whichdescribed them as:

… not only an interesting variety to the school employment but a valuable means oftraining to the eye and hand …the portion of time allotted to it is anticipated with specialpleasure, and is used as a healthy stimulus to attention, and (the italics are ours) a recogn-ised mode of punishing inattention.32

Similarly, the environments provided by the SBL paid no regard to the importanceplaced by Froebel on free access to a variety of spaces.

29 Ibid.30 Ibid.31 Froebel, Friedrich. The Education of Man. New York, 1887.32 Raymont, T. A History of the Education of Young Children. London, 1937: 237–8.


The Indoor Environment

As far as the indoor environment is concerned, an opportunity to provide a moreappropriate and flexible environment arose in 1872 when the SBL decided to buildseparate infant schools but the lack of understanding of the needs of young childrenon the part of its architect, E. R. Robson, resulted in a design that simply reproducedthe existing gallery form. The children were given room for indoor marching and apartially roofed playground but otherwise were seated en masse for formal work. Onlythe Babies were to be given a room where ‘they can be simply amused’ – an indicationof the failure to recognize the importance which Froebel gave to this period for foster-ing early propensities for intuition.33 The gallery classroom could hardly provide forthe kind of experience that Spalding identified as essential:

The little ones must live through their stage of early childhood in an atmosphere of affec-tion, of cheerfulness, of reasonable freedom, and of constant and joyous activity.34

Figure 3. Gallery Classroom, Oratory School, Chelsea, 1905.Source: Corporation of London, London Metropolitan Archives.

33 Robson, E. R. School Board Chronicle, 6 July 1872: 241.34 Spalding. The Work of the London School Board, 189.

Figure 3 Gallery Classroom, Oratory School, Chelsea, 1905.Source: Corporation of London, London Metropolitan Archives.

312 J. Read

The photographic collection at the London Metropolitan Archive holds a numberof prints illustrating infant children trapped in their galleries, although in slightlysmaller groupings, some thirty years later – for example the Oratory School, Chelseain 1905 with its class of 25 children and Daubeny Road, Hackney in 1908 with 35children.35 The early German kindergartens were fairly small enterprises, for exam-ple the Rudolstadt kindergarten, founded in December 1840, took a maximum of26 children. Although this number equates to the Oratory School’s Babies’ class theenvironment was very different and Froebel wrote to his cousin: ‘Its development ona large scale, as a great institution, does not attract me in the least, for I know that alarge undertaking … often carries with it much that is empty and lifeless.’36

Froebel’s concern was fully justified given the visual evidence from the SBL’s infantclasses.

The Outdoor Environment

When Froebel’s great-niece and pupil Henriette Schrader Breyman visited an InfantSchool in Stepney in July 1883 she wrote to a friend in Germany:

I was much struck with the contrast between the arrangements made in Cambridge for thephysical development of the students and the meagre provision made for the physical careof the young of the working classes. The poor little ones have not a small bit of earth wherethey can dig, or plant, not even a heap of sand, where they can make sand pies; thecourtyard like the building was ‘grey in grey’, cold and hard and stony.37

The Minutes of the SBL’s School Management Committee’s Sub-Committee onKindergarten document the efforts of the Board’s Superintendent of Method inInfants’ Schools, Mary Lyschinka, to introduce gardening into the Infant Schoolcurriculum. Her attempts to provide borders for the children to dig in were frustratedby Caretakers and the School Board’s own Works Departments, which refused tocarry out the work. Complaints included the need to remove ‘a nice Border of Shrubs’and the need for the care of plants during school holidays. Further, at one school itwas noted that ‘it has become necessary to tar-pave the borders provided in the play-ground for flowers and shrubs, as they have been trampled upon by the children, andthe earth and mould carried into the school’.38 The Repairs Sub-Committee weremore amenable and approved the suggestion of the Kindergarten Sub-Committee‘that permission may be given to the Infants’ Teacher to make use of a small portionof the flower border in the playgrounds (say about 10 yards in length), for the use of

35 London Metropolitan Archive, Photographic Collection, [LMA PC] ref. 76/7165 and 74/15601.

36 Froebel, Friedrich. Letters on the Kindergarten. London, 1891: 49.37 Henriette Schrader Breymann, Letter to Frau Louise Jessen, London W., 31 July 1883.

Unpublished translation from Lyschinska, Mary J. Henriette Schrader Breymann. Ihr Leben. Berlin/Leipzig, 1922.

38 SBL, School Management Committee [SMC], Sub-Committee on the Kindergarten, Minutes.London, 1889.


teachers and children’.39 However, photographic evidence, for example of the outdoorarea of Southfields Infants School in 1906, demonstrates the lack of imagination inthe provision of garden areas in comparison with Froebel’s vision at his Blankenburgkindergarten.40 Schools were provided with a narrow strip along the edge of the tarmacplayground that provided little opportunity for the individual and joint initiativesproposed by Froebel, which signified far more than a resource for nature study.

The Gifts and Occupations in London’s Infant Schools

The inclusion of the Froebelian learning materials in the School Board’s RequisitionList can be traced by examining School Board Minutes. Soon after the appointmentof Caroline Bishop as Instructor in Kinder Garten [sic] exercises in 1873 the FroebelGifts began to appear in the Board’s infant classrooms and by the time of herresignation in 1877 they were in use in nearly all of the London Board’s infant schools.The Occupations appeared more slowly. Under Bishop’s successor, Mary Lyschinska,modelling clay, perforated cards with wooden or horn needles, wooden trays for sandand clay work, paper strips for weaving, perforating needles and plaiting frames wereall introduced in 1889. Just two years after her appointment Lyschinska introduced a‘Form and Number’ syllabus that used Froebel’s kindergarten materials – sticks, beadsand rings – for counting and cardboard pieces for forming capital letters.41 It wasadopted for trial use in two London Divisions initially but there is no record of its widerimplementation. In 1883 Robert McWilliams spoke approvingly of Lyschinska’s workin his report to the Board: ‘I am sure that the infants’ schools, where Miss Lyschinska’splans are most thoroughly carried out, are the pleasanter and more successful for it.’42

But how were Froebel’s materials put to use in the classrooms where Lyschinska’s planswere not ‘thoroughly carried out’? Spalding noted the importance of the kindergarten’sinfluence on the development of a ‘more humane conception of the place of an infants’school in the educational scheme … in spite of most unwise and injudicious applica-tions and conceptions of the system, which have necessarily brought it, in some places,into disrepute’.43 For many children in the Board’s infant schools ‘Kindergarten’ mani-fested itself as a slot in the timetable, squeezed in between formal lessons on the threeRs, prayers and scripture and other activities. An Infant School timetable included inthe 1886 Cross Commission report demonstrates that the ‘Babies’ spent three hourstwenty minutes on kindergarten occupations each week compared with five hours forprayers and scripture, seven and a quarter hours on reading, writing and mentalarithmetic and one and a half hours on that essential activity, needle-threading.44

Figure 4. Froebel’s Gift Four in Use in a Galleried Classroom, c.1900.Source: Corporation of London, London Metropolitan Archives.

39 Ibid.40 LMA PC, refs 67/5012, 67/5015.41 SBL, SMC, Minutes, 16 May 1879, London, 1879: 138.42 SBL, Minutes XX. London, 1883: 194.43 Spalding. The Work of the London School Board, 189.44 Royal Commission to Inquire into the Working of the Elementary Acts. London, 1886. PP

1886, xxv, p. 452–3.

314 J. Read

Photographs provide ample evidence that the spirit of creativity was also sadlylacking in the use of the Gifts in the infant school classroom – or, indeed, the otheractivities with the Gifts that Froebel believed could lead children to that surmise ofthe interconnectedness between all things, in this world and beyond.45 For Froebel,creativity was a crucial human activity as it embodied the association between man,made in God’s image, and God, the great Creator, yet infant school teachers providedactivities with the Gifts that were the antithesis of this vision. They created structureswith the blocks for the children to copy – not, however, in their own time and in theirown way but according to a sequence of orchestrated movements that took awayautonomy, demanding instead the responses of an automaton. Morley’s descriptionof the use of the sand tray at Lant Street infants’ school illustrates this point. Follow-ing a song the teacher issues her instructions: ‘“One” says the teacher. “Fill up themoulds with sand”. Now, when I say Two, press the sand down into the moulds – areyou ready? – attention – TWO! And sixty little thumbs pressed the sand down intothe moulds.’46 Visual evidence dating from 1907–190847 demonstrates that when the

45 See for example LMA PC, “Old Gallery Class”, c.1900, ref. 79/1712.46 Morley Studies in Board Schools, 150.47 LMA PC, e.g. refs. 67/5013 [number work with mat-weaving], 76/15841 [number work with

sticks, 78/4507 [number work with clay], 68/4961 [copying a flower design with clay].

Figure 4 Froebel’s Gift Four in Use in a Galleried Classroom, c.1900.Source: Corporation of London, London Metropolitan Archives.


architecture of the classroom space underwent transformation with the replacementof the gallery by desks, teaching methods still largely remained as rigid as before.Figure 5. Pupils using Froebel’s Gift Three Under Direction, c.1907.Source: Corporation of London, London Metropolitan Archives.The regimented use of the Gifts and Occupations continued while the gallery’sconstraints on the use of space were perpetuated by the fixing of the desks to the floor,indicative of the stages that preceded the opening up of the classroom space, and themind of the teacher, to the possibilities of free movement and creative activity.

The Teacher

School Board Inspectors, such as George Ricks, recognized that kindergarten teach-ing required trained adult teachers, rather than the pupil teachers who werefrequently employed in the Babies’ Classes, and in 1874 the SBL established classesin Froebelian theory and practice under its new Instructor in Kindergarten Exerciseswith an examination in each part.48 Results indicated greater success in the practical

48 SBL, Minutes. London, 1873–74: 1053, 1128.

Figure 5 Pupils Using Froebel’s Gift Three Under Direction, c.1907.Source: Corporation of London, London Metropolitan Archives.

316 J. Read

work than in the theoretical examination and occasionally candidates soughtexemption from resitting the theory examination, a request refused in all the casesrecorded in the Minutes. By the time of Bishop’s resignation in 1877 the Board hadadopted a policy of requiring each Infant School to have at least one teacher trainedin Kindergarten methods and SBL Inspectors were to report on schools where theexercises had not been introduced or were inadequately presented. However,Bishop’s successor, Mary Lyschinska, noted in her quarterly report in September1879 that many schools still had no kindergarten-trained staff. Citing as examplesinfant schools in the Finsbury and Lambeth Divisions, she pointed out that 10schools (out of 31) in Finsbury and 12 (out of 46) in Lambeth had no trainedteacher.49 The consequences of this failure on the part of teachers to take up thekindergarten training on offer was summed up in the critique Lyschinska offered ofthe prevalent interpretation of Froebel’s methods by many Board teachers. Shefocused her criticism on the loss of the creative and imaginative use of the variousmaterials through the imposition of mechanical copying of elaborate designs:

Children exercise little ingenuity and no thought in copying the productions of anotherperson’s brain, and the attitude of mind induced by such exercises cannot be but hurtful.50

However, despite the efforts of Bishop and Lyschinska many teachers either did notunderstand the nature of Froebel’s educational philosophy or could not see a way ofintroducing his methods into their teaching, given the constraints of large classes inthe rigid classroom architecture of the late nineteenth century. Many, indeed, maynot have found it easy to accept the notion of permitting the young working-classchild to think and problem-solve, or to be creative. The philosophy of the SBL withregard to its function in providing mass education for working-class children was longentrenched and many infant school teachers were themselves products of its schools.In 1897, two years after Lyschinska’s resignation, Sharpe made the followingcomment on Infant Schools in his General Report:

… we need more free, spontaneous action; the children play too much to order; thegestures that accompany their songs are provided for them…. Again, it is much to bedeplored that some teachers seem unable to shake off the old fashion of a rigid syllabus,according to which each little child between three and seven years of age was required toswallow a fixed dose of knowledge week by week…. I fear that many years will elapsebefore little children under the age of six are delivered from the tyranny of books andslates.51

Sharpe’s fears were justified – five years later the Babies at St Luke’s Parochial Schoolin Finsbury were still required to read capital and small letters, to write the elementsof letters, to count to 50, to recite their twice times table and to add up to six.52

49 SBL, SMC. Report for the half year ended 26 September 1879. London, 1879: 156–7.50 Lyschinska, Mary. The Kindergarten Principle, 6th ed. London, 1886: 3; see LMA PC, “Old

Gallery Class”, c.1900, ref. 79/1712, for an example of the kind of copying Lyschinska is referring to.51 Committee of Council on Education. Report. London, 1897–1898: 281–2.52 SBL, St Luke’s Infant School. London, 1900–1913: 14 [LMA: O/DIV3/St.LUK/LB/3].


Just as the illustrations of Wilderspin’s infant school master and of Froebel, notedearlier, suggest the view of the teacher–pupil relationship as central to each philoso-phy, so photographs from the London Metropolitan Archive indicate the BoardSchool teachers’ perception of their role. Early photographs may have required thesubjects to remain still but by this time ‘action’ photographs were being made, albeitwith some blurring. However, pose was still a matter of choice and photographsdemonstrate that over 30 years after the introduction of kindergarten training forLondon’s infant school teachers many still remained aloof from their charges.53

Figure 6. Teacher Supervising Class Using Froebel’s Gift Three, c.1907.Source: Corporation of London, London Metropolitan Archives.Such photographs form a stark contrast to photographs of those working in the freekindergartens that catered for the poorest children in London and other cities, suchas the Michaelis Free Kindergarten, which opened in Notting Dale in 1908.54 Inthese the teachers sit among the children on low chairs in the garden working with the

53 See, for example LMA PC, ref. 68/4961 [teacher with clay modelling class] & 69/6842 [teacherwith reading class]. A contrast can be seen in an image from Southfields School in 1906, where theteacher is seated on the floor with c.50 children in a ring, each with a set of Gift Two, LMA PC, ref.68/4956.

54 The surviving archives of the Michaelis Free Kindergarten, including photographs, are held inthe Froebel Archive for Childhood Studies, Roehampton University, London, UK.

Figure 6 Teacher Supervising Class Using Froebel’s Gift Three, c.1907.Source: Corporation of London, London Metropolitan Archives.

318 J. Read

Gifts and join in the ring games, hand in hand with their young charges, their posesconveying engagement and interaction, just as Froebel was described by those whosaw him with the children at Liebenstein in 1849.Figure 7. Michaelis Free Kindergarten, Notting Dale, London, c.1908.Source: Froebel Archive for Childhood Studies, Roehampton University.

The Inspector

A further factor that teachers had to contend with was the visitations of HMIs and theall too frequent criticisms levelled at both their performance and those of their youngpupils. The power wielded by Inspectors, who at this point were all male and who,with a few notable exceptions, had little understanding of the needs of youngchildren, was tangible. Lyschinska (1886) quoted a number of Inspectors, noting thefrequent allusion to the benefit of the Infant School as a training ground for the workof the upper departments. This in itself was a claim also made by Froebelians but themethodology proposed was somewhat different. For example, HMI Stewart

Figure 7 Michaelis Free Kindergarten, Notting Dale, London, c.1908.Source: Froebel Archive for Childhood Studies, Roehampton University.


commented in 1877 on children under seven: ‘their attainments might be advanta-geously raised without putting any undue pressure upon them; there is a tendency togive these schools a good deal of the character of nurseries’.55 Log-books provideevidence of how teachers responded to criticisms by adapting their curricula. In 1876the abilities of Miss Fisher, Headmistress of Central Street Infants’ School, werequestioned HMI Hamilton Pollock: ‘The mistress appears kind and willing but it maybe doubted whether she really is equal to the charge of so large a school.’56 A yearlater Fisher had substituted reading for the Kindergarten Lesson and was rewardedwith far more favourable reports. Ironically this school was one of the four infantschools in which Bishop had introduced a model kindergarten in 1874. Lyschinskareported to the School Management Committee in 1890 on the changes made by anHMI to a revised schedule of object lessons drawn up by the Head Mistress ofKenmont Gardens Infants School. She noted that the HMI’s alterations:

… tend to substitute logical generalities for realities and particulars; I cannot think thatH.M. Inspector has vividly realised how very slow are the first steps in self-acquired knowl-edge when suggesting that four lessons on the ‘Bee’ should be rolled into one lesson on‘Bees’; that generalities like ‘Seasons’ can (in half-an-hour) become a discipline of thesenses, for children under eight years of age.57

The Head Teacher in question had attended the Board’s own Kindergarten course andhad subsequently utilized her newly acquired knowledge to effect change in the practiceof her school. However, those Inspectors who continued to insist on the formulaicteaching of the three Rs were themselves increasingly out of touch with the views ofthe Education Department given that just three years after this incident Circular 322was issued. This circular, Instruction of Infants, under the signature of George Kekewich,Secretary to the Department, expressed its desire to give ‘further encouragement to theemployment of Kindergarten methods’ and encouraged teachers to employ:

… two leading principles … as a sound basis for the education of early childhood: 1. Therecognition of the child’s spontaneous activity. 2. The harmonious and complete develop-ment of the whole of a child’s faculties…. It will be found that the Elementary Subjectswhen taught on right methods can be treated with greater variety; Reading becomes aKindergarten lesson through pictures and word-building; Writing becomes a variety ofKindergarten drawing; elementary exercises in number are associated with many of theKindergarten occupations.58

Kekewich went so far as to record in the Circular that:

… it is the experience of many good teachers that by the adoption of such methods it isfound to be unnecessary before the sixth year is passed to employ books for Reading,except occasionally for a change of occupation, or perform any exercise in Writing exceptthe element of letters, or do any formal Arithmetic work on slates.59

55 Lyschinska. Kindergarten Principle, 48–9.56 SBL. Central Street Log Book. London, 1874–1907: 8 [LMA: EO/DIV3/CEN/LB/6].57 SBL, SMC. Sub-Committee on Kindergarten, Minutes. London, 1890: 87.58 Education Department, Circular 322, Instruction of Infants. London, 1892.59 Ibid.

320 J. Read

This framing of the curriculum in terms of kindergarten pedagogy suggests that theFroebel Society’s efforts over nearly 20 years to convince central government of theutility of the methods for teaching the three Rs to young children had at last reachedfruition.

The appropriation by the SBL of Froebel’s kindergarten pedagogy was notconfined to its infant schools and babies’ classes. Subsequently the Board againappropriated elements from Froebel’s kindergarten pedagogy for use in the specialschools it established from the 1890s for children from seven upwards with physicaldisabilities or classified as ‘feeble-minded’.60 An examination of the rationale under-pinning this decision reveals a similarly pragmatic approach to using the materialsmost suitable for the Board’s intentions, regardless of the meanings invested in themby their originator. But did it matter? Those orthodox Froebelian practitioners whostuck to the letter of Froebel’s prescriptions and invested the Gifts with symbolicsignificance themselves came under fire from revisionists within and outside the Soci-ety at the turn of the century, as did those who subjected children to endless routineswith the Occupations.

Critiques of the Middle-class Kindergarten

Graham Wallas, Chair of the School Board’s School Management Committee from1894, presented a robust critique of Froebelian pedagogy in his paper given at the1901 Froebel Society annual conference.61 Wallas had been invited to speak at theconference by Claude Montefiore, Chair of the Society’s Council, who, in introduc-ing Wallas to the delegates, acknowledged that Wallas was not an adherent of Froebelalthough he was careful to stress ‘or to some of the systems which are produced in hisname at the present time’.62 Wallas’s critique did not go unchallenged with respon-dents representing not just the Froebel Society but also a range of training colleges,including Blackheath, Southlands and the Froebel Educational Institute. Maria GreyCollege produced two – Miss K. M. Clarke and its Principal, Alice Woods. This wasappropriate given that, as Bishopsgate Training College, it had taken over the FroebelSociety’s own training establishment in 1883 when its financial viability had seriouslydeclined. One focus of criticism lay in Wallas’s view that Froebel’s belief in the law ofinner development resulted in children being left to their own devices in kindergar-tens, without adult intervention, in order to facilitate the pursuit of spontaneousexpressions of interest. Furthermore, he argued that a prevailing sentimentality led tochildren who were ‘soft’ and unable to fit into the routines of the elementary schools.He summed this up in the following rhyme:

We are but little toddlekinsAnd can’t do much, we know;

60 Read, Jane. “Fit for What? Special education in London, 1890–1914.” History of Education 33,no. 3 (2004): 283–98.

61 Wallas. “A Criticism of Froebelian Pedagogy,” 184–208.62 Ibid., 184.


But still we think we must be niceFor people love us so.

This came from Action Songs, arranged by Wilhemina Rooper, who was not herself aholder of the Froebel Society or National Froebel Union Certificate. This situationwas symptomatic of the problems facing the Froebel Society. Manuals on theprecise use of the Gifts and Occupations and versions of the Mutter- und Kose-Liederwere published providing the unimaginative with the tools for a superficial under-standing of Froebel’s educational philosophy and leading to the kind of practicedeplored by Wallas. This aspect of Wallas’s attack was not out of keeping with thatmade by Murray and others in the Froebel Society, notably Maria Findlay and H.Courthope Bowen. On this occasion Adelaide Wragge (Blackheath TrainingCollege) and Alice Woods addressed these criticisms. Woods conceded that therewere ‘spurious Kindergartens, in which profession is made of Froebelianism, butwhich would be enough to make Froebel’s hair stand on end could he see what isdone in his name’.63 Esther Lawrence (Froebel Educational Institute) put it equallystrongly:

Many so-called Kindergarten teachers are totally unacquainted with Froebelian pedagogyat first hand; the letter, and not the spirit, has been handed down to them, and they havedistorted and perverted Froebel’s meaning to such an extent that, were he suddenly tocome amongst us, he would fail to recognize his own work.64

Clearly free play with Froebel was by no means confined to the School Board’s infantschools.

At this conference Elsie Riach Murray presented a paper on kindergarten gamesin which she bemoaned the false public perception of kindergarten activities arisingfrom the practice in those which were, in reality, ‘a miserable sham’.65 Murray’sdiscussion focused on the question ‘what is work and what is play?’ and sheaccused some kindergartens of making games into ‘the very dullest of drudgery’, inimposing adult-led activities instead of allowing children free scope: ‘the game maynot be as graceful as spectacular, as when planned by the teacher; but it will be agame, and not a show’. Two years later Murray published a further critique underthe provocative title ‘That Symmetrical Paper-folding and Symmetrical Work withthe Gifts are a Waste of Time for both Students and Children’.66 In this articleMurray presents a forceful, albeit veiled, critique of Wallas, describing ‘a publicattack on Froebel’s teaching which was unjust and unfair’ based on a superficialreading of Froebel and ‘illustrated by examples taken from teachers who did not

63 Ibid., 197.64 Ibid., 208.65 Murray, Elsie Riach. “On Kindergarten Games.” Child Life III (1901): 169–84.66 Murray, Elsie Riach. “That Symmetrical Paper-folding and Symmetrical Work with the Gifts

are a Waste of Time for both Students and Children.” Child Life V (1903): 14–18; see also Brehony,Kevin. “English Revisionist Froebelians and the Schooling of the Urban Poor.” In Practical Vision-aries: Women, Education and Social Progress 1790–1930, edited by Mary Hilton and Pam Hirsch.Harlow, 2000: 183–99.

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even call themselves Froebelians’. Murray noted that Froebel had to be defendedfrom his friends as well as his enemies and she cited the kind of laborious workrequired of both trainee kindergarten teachers and young children, which openedup Froebelian practice to criticism. Trainee teachers had to produce ‘piles andpiles of mats for the sake of mats, papercutting for the sake of papercutting,sewing for the sake of sewing…’ instead of pieces of work of which they could beproud and which had a real practical value – photograph frames, writing cases,bicycle baskets, and the like. She quoted a teacher who used symmetrical workextensively with her class, who had told her, revealingly, ‘Of course I don’t keepthem at it all the time – I let them build for the last ten minutes’. Murray’s argu-ment was that children did not need to be ‘kept at’ activities that were meaningfulto them and that appealed to their interests, activities which would make them cry‘“Oh, don’t ring the bell!” – “Oh, couldn’t you stop the clock?” – “Surely it isn’ttime to go home yet!”’ 67

Conclusion

Froebel’s elaboration of his educational philosophy was not without contradictions,particularly in his descriptions of the use of his learning materials, which underwentchange in response to the advice of the women who experimented with his Gifts intheir homes and in the earliest kindergartens, of which they were the pioneers.Froebel sought their views because he wanted his materials to work for those he caredfor – the children – but these contradictory messages opened up subsequent under-standings and practice to a range of interpretations, within the private kindergartens,in the training colleges that claimed to teach Froebel’s principles and, as explored inthis paper, the infant schools of London. The arguments of the revisionistsdemonstrate the diverse range of interpretation prevalent within the circle of Froebeladvocates, particularly as the numbers of those training by private study or withcolleges not within the National Froebel Union increased and private kindergartensopened that did not seek registered status from the Froebel Society, or failed to meetits criteria. However, it was in the infant schools and babies’ classes that the disso-nance with Froebel’s aims and intentions was particularly marked. Here SchoolBoard policy dictated that the Gifts and Occupations were to be used as a device toteach the basics of handwork as preparation for the manual training appropriate forworking-class children. The spiritual significance invested in them by Froebel wasignored. Neither were those teachers who attempted to introduce more imaginativeuse of Froebel’s materials concerned with fostering the children’s spirituality. In thisrespect the School Board and its teachers had taken a pragmatic stance in its adoptionof Froebel’s kindergarten materials – but did this matter? Although the quote fromWallas at the beginning of this paper undoubtedly carries conviction, I would arguethat Froebel’s own pragmatism suggests the answer, and that even in the unfriendly

67 Murray. “That Symmetrical Paper-folding,” 18.


environs of the galleried classrooms and when presented in the most uninspiring andregimented manner, Froebel would have preferred the children to have the use of hisGifts and Occupations rather than simply to be constantly learning by rote – for whocould know when and where and how that enlightening moment of intuition, thatsurmise, might arise?

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Free Play With Froebel