remain here. The idea for which we live seems to me to be in harmony
with the spirit of the age, and also of deep importance in itself; and I
have no doubt but that men will come to believe in us because of our
right understanding of this idea, in the same way that we ourselves
believe in the invisible." As a matter of fact, none of us have ever
swerved one instant from the fullest belief in our educational mission,
and the most critical dilemma in the times we have passed through has
never revealed one single wavering soul in this little valley.

When our distress had risen to its highest pitch, a new and unexpected
prospect suddenly revealed itself.[128] Several very influential friends
of ours spoke to the Duke of Meiningen of our work. He summoned Froebel
to him, and made inquiries as to his plans for the future. Froebel
laid before him a plan for an educational institute,[129] complete in
every particular, which we had all worked at in common to draw up, in
which not only the ordinary "learned" branches of education but also
handicrafts, such as carpentering, weaving, bookbinding, tilling the
ground and so on were used as means of culture. During half the school
hours studies were to be pursued, and the other half was to be occupied
by handiwork of one kind or another. This work was to give opportunities
for direct instruction; and above all it was so planned as to excite in
the mind of the child a necessity for explanations as well as to gratify
his desire for creativeness and for practical usefulness. The awakening
of this eager desire for learning and creative activity, was one of the
fundamental thoughts of Friedrich Froebel's mind. The object-teaching
of Pestalozzi seemed to him not to go far enough; and he was always
seeking to regard man not only as a receptive being, but a creative, and
especially as a productive one. We never could work out our ideas in
Keilhau satisfactorily, because we could not procure efficient technical
teaching; and before all things we wanted the pupils themselves. But now