Bradley’s Kindergarten Material. Springfield, Massachusetts: Milton Bradley Company, ca. 1930.

The modern kindergarten grew from the ideas of the German philosopher and pedagogue, Friedrich Fröbel. Fröbel believed that there was unity in all realms of existence. Beauty, science, nature and humanity, he felt, were all interconnected. He developed a system of kindergarten "gifts," or lessons, during which children used the same materials every day to construct different projects. Fröbel's abstract views of the universe are often identified as a major influence in the modernist movement; Frank Lloyd Wright, Piet Mondrian, and Vasily Kandinsky all attended kindergartens. These "gifts"are part of the American adaptation of Fröbel's ideas.

 

 

 

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