One hundred years ago a German schoolmaster named Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel opened in Blankenburg the world's first kindergarten. Lonely, eccentric Friedrich Froebel, who had left school at a tender age to become a forester's apprentice because his teachers thought him a dunce, believed that children were "young plants needing to be nurtured carefully." In the garden of his private academy, which gave the kindergarten its name, Teacher Froebel supervised the play of his neighbors' children in a systematic manner, until his socialistic and irreligious leanings moved the Prussian authorities to close the school.
That broke Friedrich Froebel's heart, he died soon...
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