We must go back in time more than 125 years if we are to grasp how truly groundbreaking both the foundation of the Pestalozzi-Fröbel-Haus and founder Henriette Schrader-Breymann’s principle of ‘intellectual motherliness’ were. These developments broke the mould in a male-dominated society which had yet to accept that professional involvement with children was a matter for the public domain and that women could work independently and to professional standards as social workers and teachers. ‘Childhood’ – a concept that had not yet taken root in the minds of ‘normal’ citizens – was still viewed only as a phase on the route to adulthood and did not seem to merit special attention.

The convictions of Pestalozzi and Fröbel regarding teaching methodology were revolutionary ideas that directly challenged this orthodox mindset: despite arriving at their theories via different routes, both men considered the child to be an ‘essential link in the chain of humanity’ (Pestalozzi), which they hoped to improve through advances in children’s upbringing and education. The child’s experiences in its first years of life formed the basis for its subsequent development, and the two 19th century educationalists concluded that corresponding importance should be attached to protecting and nurturing children, promoting their development at the infant stage and encouraging a measure of independence and auto-instruction. Fröbel was convinced that the task of looking after a child, of nurturing and educating it, far from being the responsibility of private individuals alone, should be assumed in part by society. The idea of the Kindergarten was born. Kindergarten and family were to bolster one another. This was no broad-based pedagogical demand but rather one pillar of the social and educational activity running counter to the Industrial Revolution of the time. In 1874 Henriette Schrader-Breymann, a great niece of Fröbel, developed the theory further, putting Pestalozzi’s and Fröbel’s teachings into practice and creating not only kindergartens in Berlin but also a training centre for the formation of women teachers, a profession then still to be acknowledged as such. It was their intention to combine teaching theory with practical application, and thus was born the Pestalozzi- Fröbel Institute and the parallel streaming of training and hands-on experience that still exists today. This innovation of Schrader-Breymann meant: women now had an opportunity to learn a formal profession and enjoy the freedoms associated with it, and it was her wish that all young people be assisted in their development and be instructed by qualified specialists in how to interact with others and take responsibility for their own actions. Despite some internal contradictions, the creation of women’s professions in the field of social work and the ‘discovery’ that children were an interesting, significant and important phenomenon within the human genus did in fact complement each other. So it was that children could be viewed as more than just welfare recipients and women were able to extend their role in social work and teaching beyond that of charity workers.