Friedrich Froebel was a German educator who developed the Kindergarten or “children’s garden” in the 1800s. His twenty kindergarten gifts, or tools, were arranged to develop a child’s knowledge of solids, surfaces, and lines. The gifts also developed a child’s practical ability to build, draw pictures, and weave.

The title page of The Mottoes and Commentaries of Friedrich Froebel’s Mother Play.

Froebel compared educating children to nurturing plants in a garden.