Frederick Froebel, the inventor of the kindergarten, had a religious view of children. Froebel believed that because God is the creator, and because we are fashioned in the image of God, that to be faithful to him we must be creative as well. Not surprisingly, Froebel saw education as a liberating process, one that let the spirit free. In his first schools for older children, students were given a great deal of freedom both in their dress and in their studies. For Froebel, nature was the true classroom and his students were encouraged to explore the surrounding woods and hills.

When Froebel turned his attention to younger children, he drew upon his early training as a crystolagrapher, to create a curriculum of twenty gifts and occupations (practice with the gifts). These gifts were meant to release the child’s creativity and in this way bring him or her closer to God. The gifts were ingenious and the forerunners of many of today’s toys. For example one gift was a set of dried pies and toothpicks from which children could create various objects. Additional gifts included colored skinny sticks, rings and slats which could be made into many different shapes of different sizes. Pricking forms in paper with a blunt needle was another gift. Pieces of colored paper cut into geometric forms were another gift with which children could create their own patterns and designs.

Froebelian kindergartens were very popular around the turn of the twentieth century and were attended by children who eventually became some of the greatest artists and architects of the time. Unfortunately, Froebel was not very concerned about either teacher training or the manufacture and use of his gifts. Because there was no systematic training in the use of the materials, they were often misused. As a result there are no longer Froebelian kindergartens, and the gifts are now made by only a few companies. Yet the spirit of Froebel lives on in those early childhood programs that emphasize play and creative activities such as block building and paper folding and cutting.

In a fascinating book, Norman Brosterman (Brosterman 1997) finds striking parallels between the patterns and designs made by children in the Froebelian kindergarten and the later achievements of architects like Frank Lloyd Wright and Le Corbusier as well as artists such as Georges Braque, Piet Mondrian and Wassily Kandinski who had attended these kindergartens. To be sure, correlation is not causation and many of the children who attended Froebelian kindergartens never became artists or architects. On the other hand, the parallels are so striking that it may also be case that for those children with artistic talent, the Froebelian kindergarten experience had a lasting and formative effect. Young children are naturally creative because they are not yet bound by adult conventions. Froebel built upon this creativity and gave it lasting consequences. The later achievements of some of those children who attended the Froebelian kindergarten are all the more reason why we should not be pushing academics on young children, and why their creative potential should be nourished and encouraged.

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Brosterman, N. (1997). Inventing Kindergarten. New York, Harry N. Abrams.