Delano Herald Journal

Serving the communities of Delano, Loretto, Montrose, MN, and the surrounding area

Myron Heuer Column 04/20/98



The very first American kindergarten had five students
and was located right here in Watertown, Wisc.

Kindergarten is a German word, translated it means children’s
garden. Margarethe Meyer Schurz was passionate about a garden for a crop
called children.

Meyer was born in Hamburg, Germany in 1833 to a prominent
family. Her education was in the arts and education. As a teenager, she
was exposed to the teachings of kindergarten founder and advocate Friedrich
Froebel. When Meyer came to America, married to Carl Schurz, she carried
Froebel’s ideas with her.

They settled in Watertown in 1856. Her husband would gain
fame as a political activist in Wisconsin. There she employed Froebel’s
philosophy while caring for her daughter and four neighbor children, leading
them in games and songs and group activities that channeled their energy
while preparing them for school at the same time.

Other parents were so impressed at the results that they
asked Schurz to help their children. So she opened a small kindergarten,
the first in the United States.

The idea began to spread, in part because Schurz would
accompany her husband on his political travels and preach about kindergarten’s
benefits.

Her work certainly gained an audience; kindergarten became
an accepted and integral part of American education and an accepted course
of study for elementary teachers.

Margarethe was troubled with poor health her entire life.
She died at 42 years old in 1876 at her family’s home in New York.

In Watertown, the building that housed her first kindergarten
has been restored, and today it is identified by a historical marker.

I’ve always wondered, how do they get the deer to cross
the road at that yellow road sign?

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