For the faithfulness of translation we hope our respective nationalities
may have stood us in good stead. We would, however, add that a faithful
translation is not a verbal translation. The translator should rather
strive to write each sentence as the author would have written it in
English.
Froebel's opinions, character, and work grow so directly out of his
life, that we feel the best of his writing that a student of the
Kindergarten system could begin with is the important autobiographical
"Letter to the Duke of Meiningen," written in the year 1827, but never
completed, and in all probability never sent to the sovereign whose name
it bears. That this is the course Froebel would himself have preferred
will, we think, become quickly apparent to the reader. Besides, in the
boyhood and the earliest experiences of Froebel's life, we find the
sources of his whole educational system. That other children might be
better understood than he was, that other children might have the means
to live the true child-life that was denied to himself, and that by
their powers being directed into the right channels, these children
might become a blessing to themselves and to others, was undoubtedly in
great part the motive which induced Froebel to describe so fully all the
circumstances of his peculiar childhood.
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