Fröbels ‘Tageblätter’

Abstract

The German‐born educator Friedrich Froebel (1782–1852) is well known worldwide as the founder of the kindergarten system. His writings on educational play and games as well as his main work – the Menschenerziehung (1826) – have been translated and widely read. Froebel wrote educational texts as well as more than 1700 letters and journal entries or ‘Tageblätter’. Froebel’s formal writings have been published, as have about half of his letters. But most of Froebel’s journals have not been published, even though they are very important for the understanding of his theory of education. The present report intends to fill this gap. The text will present the research problem and reconstruct the history of the research on Froebel’s journals. The structure of the archival conservation of the journals is described and, finally, some of the journals are mentioned with the focus on autobiography. These journal entries reflect Froebel’s self‐image and an extensive spectrum of formal quality. As a whole, the article provides a broad view of this third sector of Froebel’s intellectual work.