I took rooms for him in the neighbouring Blankenburg.[142] Long did he
rack his brains for a suitable name for his new scheme. Middendorff and
I were one day walking to Blankenburg with him over the Steiger Pass.
He kept on repeating, "Oh, if I could only think of a suitable name for
my youngest born!" Blankenburg lay at our feet, and he walked moodily
towards it. Suddenly he stood still as if fettered fast to the spot,
and his eyes assumed a wonderful, almost refulgent, brilliancy. Then he
shouted to the mountains so that it echoed to the four winds of heaven,
"_Eureka!_ I have it! KINDERGARTEN shall be the name of the new
Institution!"
Thus wrote Barop in or about the year 1862, after he had seen all his
friends pass away, and had himself become prosperous and the recipient
of many honours. The University of Jena made him a doctor, and the
Prince of Rudolstadt created him his Minister of Education. Froebel
slept in Liebenstein, and Middendorff at the foot of the Kirschberg in
Keilhau. They sowed and reaped not; and yet to possess the privilege of
sowing, was it not equivalent in itself to reaping a very great reward?
In any event, it is delightful to remember that Froebel, in the April
of 1852, the year in which he died (June 21st), received public honours
at the hands of the general congress of teachers held in Gotha.
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