_Education by Development_, and _Mother Play and Nursery Songs_. [Sidenote: Final work at Liebenstein, and the Baroness von Bülow.] While the kindergarten attracted considerable attention, Froebel’s want of financial ability eventually compelled him to close the institution. After lecturing with much success for five years upon his system, he settled for the rest of his life near the famous mineral springs at Liebenstein in Saxe-Meiningen. During this period he obtained the friendship and support of the Baroness von Marenholtz-Bülow, who brought a large number of people of distinction in the political and educational world to see his work in operation, and wrote most interesting _Reminiscences_ of Froebel’s activities during the last thirteen years of his life. But owing to a confusion of his principles with the socialistic doctrines of his nephew, Karl, a decree was promulgated in Prussia by the minister of education, closing all kindergartens there. Froebel never recovered from this unjust humiliation, and died within a year. [Sidenote: Developed from Pestalozzi and even Rousseau,] [Sidenote: but largely a resultant of his university environment.] [Sidenote: Reiterations and subsidiary concepts.] =Froebel’s Fundamental Concept of ‘Unity.’=--While Froebel’s underlying principles go back to the developmental aspect of Pestalozzi’s doctrines and even to Rousseau’s naturalism, his conception of them, his imagery, and statement, seem to be a product of the idealistic philosophy, romantic movement, and scientific attitude of the day. These tendencies seem to have been assimilated by Froebel largely through his residence in Jena and Berlin. His conclusions as to educational theory and practice would have been possible as inferences from a very different point of view, but as he developed them logically and consistently with his metaphysical position, it may be of value to consider briefly the groundwork of the Froebelian philosophy. He regarded the ‘Absolute,’ or God, as the self-conscious spirit from which originated both man and nature, and he consequently held to the unity of nature with the soul of man. His fundamental view of this organic unity appears in his general conception of the universe: “In all things,” says he, “there lives and reigns an eternal law. This all-controlling law is necessarily based on an all-pervading, energetic, living, self-conscious, and hence eternal Unity. This Unity is God. All things have come from the Divine Unity, from God, and have their origin in the Divine Unity, in God alone. All things live and have their being in and through the Divine Unity, in and through God. The divine effluence that lives in each thing is the essence of each thing.” This fundamental mystic principle Froebel constantly reiterates in various forms, and from it derives a number of subsidiary conceptions. These, however, play but a small part in his actual practice, and scarcely require consideration here.