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Philanthropy

Friedrich Froebel took on his share in solving social problems, because of his understanding of Christian responsibility.

He described the development of each person as the unification of existence.

Each individual is created in the image of God, and is responsible for consciously expressing this inner nature.

Froebel created a “living memorial” for the 300th anniversary of the Reformation by educating two descendants of Martin Luther in his school at Keilhau.

Georg Luther went on to study theology. Ernst Luther made the sphere, cylinder and cube as the gravestone for Frobel, designed by Wilhelm Middendorf.

Froebelsruh-bei-Bad-Liebenstein
Made in 1852 by Ernst Luther

As a devout man and a philanthropist, Friedrich Froebel created ways for individuals to live together in peace and harmony with each other and nature.

living together makes our life “a sacred pilgrimage”

As we relate to persons from different cultures, how can we enable each person to say freely what he or she thinks, to be accepted with his or her particular gifts, and to become fully co-responsible?

Families

At the end of 1835, Fröbel wrote a publication entitled The Year 1836 Demands the Renewal of Life, which begins with these words:

It is the announcement and proclamation of a new spring of life and mankind which rings so loudly in my ears in and through all the manifestations of my own life, and the lives of others. It is you, the renewal and rejuvenation of all life, who speak out, through everything and in everything within and around me, so actively and clearly to my spirit. This time has been so long awaited by mankind and for so long promised to it as its golden age (Lange, 1863, p. 499)

This ‘golden age’ sees the family become ‘sacred’. The family heals the relations between parents and children and between siblings through an improved atmosphere, through shared play.

Fröbel now set his sights on the family and developed play materials to improve the atmosphere in families.

He wished to help found associations of parents, who might exercise a stimulus on others through their experiences of play.

Fröbel’s play, which was originally to take place within the family, became the basis for Kindergarten, which was launched on 28 June 1840, in the town hall at Blankenburg within the framework of the Gutenberg memorial celebrations.

In Fröbel’s day the kindergarten, including his own establishment at Bad Blankenburg, involved three activities.

  • It centered on play with the ‘gifts’ and ‘occupations’.
  • Alongside these, ‘movement games’ were played involving running, dancing, games played in the round and acting. The children’s play group developed forms of movement without game material.
  • The third area was ‘garden care’. Here the kindergarten pupil was to learn about the development of plants, their growth and blossoming, and to see how careful tending can influence their development. Here the young child could see a mirror image in nature of his/her own growth.

source: PROSPECTS: the quarterly review of comparative education (Paris, UNESCO: International Bureau of Education), vol. XXIII, no. 3 / 4, 1993, p. 473–91. ©UNESCO: International Bureau of Education, 1999. This document may be reproduced free of charge as long as acknowledgement is made of the source.

Ball and cube

The first exposition of the ball and cube was printed by Froebel in the Sonntagsblatt of 1838, Nos. 8 — 12.

The meaning and use of play gifts were explained by Froebel in the Sonntagsblatt (1838-1840).

His fundamental law of the connection of contrasts was formulated in the Education of Man in 1826.

“It is well to call the attention of each child to one great law, which dominates in nature and thought. Between two things or two ideas relatively different there always exists a third which unites the two others in itself, and is found between them with a certain equilibrium.”

Already in 1838, Froebel already gives himself to the search for an intermediary form between the ball and the cube, the cylinder.

denkmal_froebel_spielgaben
source: Papers on Froebel’s kindergarten

The emotional framework of the family already serves as a way of penetrating and understanding the structure of reality. The family supplies this transparency indirectly and in a situational manner.

School education as ‘conscious’ education goes beyond education provided within the family because the functionality of family life is taken further and deepened, rationally and continuously, by teaching and analysis of the structure of things. Thus Fröbel is able to define his educational practice as a ‘conscious’ family life.

When each person understands their living potential through thought, they practise self reflection and make this potential conceptually accessible within themselves, through the process of thought.

Acting according to this insight gives expression to this relationship that is understood within, and so brings together the ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ factors of the life of each person.

Each person not merely reflects and acts according to the insight acquired, but also grasps external reality, by understanding the fundamental laws and structure of the ‘external’.

‘Internalizing the external and externalizing the internal means seeking the unity of both in the general external form through which the purpose of of each person is manifested’

Happy birthday

In 1893, Mildred and Patty Hill created the song “Good Morning to All.” This original melody was later modified to create “Happy Birthday to You.”

In 1935, the Clayton F. Summy Company registered the copyrights, working with the Hill Sisters. Yet, as the court concluded, it appears that these copyrights involved only the melody, not the lyrics. And the melody has been in the public domain for decades!

So for now, go on and sing “Happy Birthday” as you please!

Source: Why the ‘Happy Birthday’ Song’s Copyright Has Finally Been Ruled Invalid

While teaching at the Louisville Experimental Kindergarten School, the Hill sisters wrote the song “Good Morning to All”; Mildred wrote the melody, and Patty the lyrics. The song was first published in 1893 in Song Stories for the Kindergarten as a greeting song for teachers to sing to their students. This kindergarten was an early experiment in modern educational methods, and was honored, along with the Hill sisters, at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893.

“Happy Birthday to You” first appeared in print in 1912 using the melody of “Good Morning to All” with different lyrics. Its popularity continued to grow, with no author identified for the new lyrics, nor credit given for the melody from “Good Morning to You”. Based on 1935 copyright registrations by the Summy Company, and a series of court cases (which all settled out of court), the sisters became known as the authors of “Happy Birthday to You”

Source: Copyright and the World’s Most Popular Song

Their parents were passionate people who instilled in Patty and her siblings the importance of education, the value of play, and the necessity of advocating for others. Her father, William Wallace Hill, was born in Bath, Kentucky, graduated from Centre College in Danville, Kentucky in 1833, and earned a doctorate of Theology from Princeton University in 1838. He dedicated his entire life to ministry and education.

Rudolstädter Elle

Before the introduction in 1872 of the metric system in the German Empire, almost every town had its own definitions of the units of measurement.

Often towns posted the local definitions on a wall of the city hall. The smallest known Elle is 402.8 mm (15.86 in), the longest 811 mm (31.9 in).

elle1872The front wall of the old city hall,  built in in 1524 in late Gothic style, shows the “Rudolstädter Elle”. It was a standard length for cloth and canvas merchants.

Charlemagne (800 – 814 AD) brought a consistent system of measures across the entire empire, which were derived from ancient Roman measures. After his death many rulers within the empire introduced their own variants of the units of measure.

Charlemagne had been also been faced with a variety of currencies at the start of his reign. He standardized a system based on a pound of silver. The denarius was minted with a value of 240 to a pound of silver. A second value, the solidus, was also created as an accounting device with a value of one twentieth of a pound of silver.

Volkswagen

A former kindergarten teacher, Ursula Piëch was elected in 2012 to the company’s supervisory board.

Ursula Piëch with Ferdinand, her husband the former chairman of Volkswagen and grandson of Ferdinand Porsche, and Wolfgang Porsche. Credit Kai Pfaffenbach/Reuters

Volkswagen employed nearly 600,000 people last year to produce about 10 million vehicles. By comparison, Toyota employed 340,000 to produce just under nine million vehicles.

A policy known as co-determination, or “Mitbestimmung”, requires company boards to be equally divided between workers and members elected by shareholders.

Although Ferdinand Porsche developed the first petroleum electric hybrid vehicle, the Volkswagen board has been slow to move on environmental issues, investing less in electric and hybrid engine technology than industry leaders.

“If you have electric cars and a coal fired plant producing the electricity, you gain nothing.”

Such attitudes are hardly confined to Volkswagen, and a willingness to circumvent environmental regulations may emerge at other automakers.

Source: Problems at Volkswagen Start in the Boardroom

Ferdinand Porsche designed an electric vehicle, that caused a sensation at the Paris World Exhibition in 1900. This was soon followed by the first all wheel drive passenger car and marked the automotive engineering debut of four-wheel brakes. In 1900 he combined his battery-powered wheel hub drive with a petrol engine, thus creating the serial hybrid drive principle.
Ferdinand Porsche designed an electric vehicle, that caused a sensation at the Paris World Exhibition in 1900. This was soon followed by the first all wheel drive passenger car and marked the automotive engineering debut of four-wheel brakes. In 1900 he combined his battery-powered wheel hub drive with a petrol engine, thus creating the serial hybrid drive principle.

Two Cultures

Few literary phrases are as enduring as “two cultures”, coined by C P Snow to describe what he saw as a dangerous schism between science and literary life.

Charles Percy Snow 1905-1980 began his career as a research scientist in the Cavendish laboratory at Cambridge. He became a top civil servant. On 7th May 1959, he delivered the annual Rede Lecture in the Senate House of the University of Cambridge.

“The Two Cultures and the Scientific Revolution” presented the contrast between the responses of scientific and literary cultures to the industrial and technological revolutions. Academic and intellectual specialization had proceeded to the point that the sciences and humanities had become mutually incomprehensible.

“The intellectual life of the whole of western society is increasingly being split into two polar groups; literary intellectuals at one pole, at the other scientists. Between the two a gulf of incomprehension.”

This gulf between two cultures was not merely an obstacle to scientific progress, but even represented a threat to the survival of western civilisation.

Snow suggested humanities graduates, who ruled western societies, did not appreciate what science had to offer.

Snow identified three pressing issues, where “literary intellectuals” failed to see that solutions might come from “natural scientists”; the existence of nuclear weapons, over-population, and the gap between rich and poor nations.

Sources:
C. P. Snow – The Two Cultures debate controversy Rede Lecture 1959
Our Two Cultures
The Two Cultures, Then and Now
The Two Cultures, Then and Now

Grace in action

The defining date of the Reformation is considered to be when Luther nailed the theses to the church door on 31 October 1517. It initiated a process of modernisation the effects of which are still reflected today.

Germany will be the focal point for Christians from all over the world during the 500th anniversary of this event in 2017.

Luther 2017

Luther’s preference for Erfurt rather than Leipzig to study law was due to the fine international reputation of the University of Erfurt, which was founded in 1392.

Source: Luther 2017 – 500 Years Reformation