In 1838, Friedrich Froebel published a request for families to unite to carry out the motto of this paper:
“Come, let us live with our children.”
“As this paper is designed, first of all, to explain and introduce the proposed institution, it begins immediately with the foundation of the whole. In the germ of every human being lies embedded the form of its whole future life. On the proper comprehension and care of this beginning depends solely the happy unfolding of each human being leading to perfection, and the ability to accomplish their own destiny, and thus to win the true joy and peace of life. The active and creative, living and life producing being of each person, reveals itself in the creative instinct of the child. All human education and true culture, and our understanding also, is bound up in the quiet and conscientious nurture of this instinct of activity, in the family; in the judicious unfolding of the child, to the satisfaction of the same, and in the ability of the child, true to this instinct, to be active.”
The Sonntagsblatt (1838-1840) has a special value, because Froebel published in it his play gifts (Spielgabe), explained their meaning, and described their use.
Froebel’s practical experiment in Blankenburg was received at first with doubtful smiles. But when the people saw with what joyful zeal children of every age, after a short time, pressed to the merry sports, in the invention of which Froebel was inexhaustible, and in the guidance of which he was a master; when the children took home their ornamental sewing and weaving, where, contrary to their former habits, they devoted themselves, of their own free will, to entertaining occupations, then, with their growing understanding of the system, the parents began to appreciate it, and doubt changed to true interest in Froebel’s young creation.
In the midst of this activity, full of life and experience, the idea of the Kindergarten grew clearer and fuller in Froebel’s mind. Based to these experiences, Froebel made his gifts for play as simple as possible, to enable each child to express the instinct of activity, so worthy of recognition, and to nurture in each child the desire for knowledge and learning.
In 1840, at the Guttenberg festival, which the educational institutions for children and youth in Blankenburg and Keilhau celebrated in common, Friedrich Froebel presented a new and more comprehensive plan, which he hoped to call into life with the help and participation of many people.