366 INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF EDUCATION. 
means of doing so. Whether the same causes operate to hinder Froebel’s 
nfluence among them I know not. But I dare to trust that England will 
not, in the end, be found backward in the race ; that she will be neither 
lower in her ideals nor less zealous in pursuing them. 
THE KINDERGARTEN IN AUSTRIA. 
BY MRS. OTTILIA BONDY, OF VIENNA. 
Our kindergarten, like many good and great creations, took root in a 
simple work of charity, in the old system of day nurseries, the first of 
which was opened at Vienna, 1830, on the birthday of Emperor Francis L 
Two noble-hearted men are to be mentioned as the promoters of this good 
work—one, an old Catholic priest, Reverend Lindrer ; the other, a young 
man in the prime of his years, one of those philanthropic pupils of Moses 
Mendelssohn, who knew how to extract the purest gems of philanthropy 
out of the Mosaic creed—Josef Wertheimer, who, in later years, was 
knighted by his sovereign, the present emperor. Wertheimer had learned 
to appreciate the infant schools for the poor two years before, on a tour 
shrough Great Britain, where he found three hundred schools established 
by the Infant Schools Society. It was a strange thing to bring home to 
his country for a young man of rich means, of high spirits and great 
personal gifts. When Wertheimer died, an octogenarian, almost his last 
words were about his creations, the kindergarten and the orphan’s asylum. 
New ideas used to meet with opposition in all parts of the Old World. 
This was especially the case in Austria before the vivifying and invig- 
orating movement of 1798. The clergy, the bureaucracy, and the popu- 
lace itself were against the idea of the day nurseries. Wertheimer would 
not have succeeded in getting them sanctioned by government if he had 
not obtained for them the patronage of the Empress Karolina Augusta, 
she emperor’s fourth wife, of whom the monarch used to say that in her 
ae had at length found his life’s greatest blessing—a frue wife. This 
noble and truly pious lady helped to overcome all difficulties, and in a 
short time many day nurseries were opened in districts crowded by the 
poor, where the mothers, as breadwinners. have to be away from home 
the best part of the day. 
All these institutions had no higher aim than the one to keep children 
trom getting into mischief. It was their purpose to keep—zu bewahren—as 
-heir name Bewahranstalten indicated. Their management was intrusted 
to elderly people, good for nothing else, with no pedagogic experience, 
with no insight into the wants of developing minds. Girls were taught 
to knit ; boys were left to their own devices as far as the first rule, to keep 
quiet, permitted it. They were taucht some Bible verses. When the