=The School at Keilhau.=--While at Berlin, he met his lifelong assistants, Langethal and Middendorf, and took them with him when he undertook the education of his five young nephews at Keilhau. Here he founded (1816) ‘The Universal German Institute of Education,’ in which self-expression, free development, and social participation were ruling principles. Much of the training was obtained through play, and, except that the pupils were older, the germ of the kindergarten was already present. There was much practical work in the open air, in the garden about the schoolhouse, and in the building itself. The children built dams and mills, fortresses and castles, and searched the woods for animals, birds, insects, and flowers. To popularize the institute, Froebel published a complete account of the theory practiced at Keilhau in his famous _Education of Man_ (1826). While this work is compressed, repetitious, and vague, and its doctrines had afterward to be corrected by experience, it contains the most systematic statement of his educational philosophy that Froebel ever made. [Sidenote: In Switzerland he began to devise playthings, games, and songs.] [Sidenote: First kindergarten at Blankenburg.] [Sidenote: Later works.] =Development of the Kindergarten.=--But the school at Keilhau was too radical for the times, and soon found itself in serious straits. Froebel then went to Switzerland, and for five years (1832-1837) continued his educational experiments in various locations there. While conducting a model school at Burgdorf, it became obvious to him that “all school education was yet without a proper initial foundation, and that, until the education of the nursery was reformed, nothing solid and worthy could be attained.” The _School of Infancy_ of Comenius (see p. 171) had been called to his attention, and the educational importance of play had come to appeal to him more strongly than ever. He began to study and devise playthings, games, songs, and bodily movements that would be of value in the development of small children, although at first he did not organize his materials into a system. Then, two years later, he returned to Germany, and established a school for children between the ages of three and seven. This institution was located at Blankenburg, two miles from Keilhau, one of the most romantic spots in the Thüringian Forest, and was, before long, appropriately christened ‘Kindergarten’ (i. e., garden in which children are the unfolding plants). Here he put into use the material he had invented in Switzerland, added new devices, and developed his system. The main features of this were the ‘play songs’ for mother and child and the series of ‘gifts’ and ‘occupations’ (see pp. 358 f.). During his seven years in Blankenburg, he constantly expanded his material, and the accounts of these additions have been collected in the works known generally as _Pedagogics of the Kindergarten_,