Friedrich Froebel, the 'father of kindergarten', is one of the most influential educationalists of the 19th century, but relatively little is known about his life, and his successes and failures. Based on his letters which have never been translated into English, this book reveals Froebel as a brilliant and flawed man who only began to receive real recognition for his work at the end of his life and then increasingly after his death.

Beginning with his childhood and the early death of his mother, and his difficult relation with his father and 'evil' stepmother, we see the early seeds of Froebel's interest in children and the training of carers. Throughout his life, including his career as a teacher, he lacked basic academic knowledge and understanding due to his poor early education. Nevertheless, he developed ground-breaking educational theories about play and pedagogy and authored multiple books including The Education of Man. The authors describe his complicated relationships with his siblings, nieces and nephews, and his relationship with the mother of one of his pupils, Caroline von Holzhausen. We learn of his early unsuccessful attempts to establish the kindergarten and how the Prussian government banned it in 1851. The final chapter and conclusion look at the global spread of Froebel's ideas, including his teachings about play, charting the spread of kindergartens throughout the world, and in the UK, the USA and Japan in particular.