When Friedrich Froebel was born in 1782, the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation had existed for almost a thousand years . . .
After the defeat of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna created the Principalities of Central Europe, that were progressively defeated by the Kingdom of Prussia to form the German Empire
There is, in political geography, no Germany to speak of. There are Kingdoms and Grand Duchies, and Duchies and Principalities, inhabited by Germans, and each separately ruled by an independent sovereign with all the machinery of State. Yet there is a natural undercurrent tending to a national feeling and toward a union of the Germans.
– article from the New York Times published in July 1, 1866
It was during these turbulent times of transition, that Friedrich Froebel and his friends developed universal ideas about education, that empower children to be lively and free, while respecting each other and the natural world.