Page:A biographical dictionary of modern rationalists.djvu/172

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FEEYTAG


FKOUDE


matioal and economic works, has through out his distinguished career consistently supported the Eationalist Left.

FREYTAG, Gustav, German novelist. B. July 13, 1816. Ed. Ols Gymnasium, and Breslau and Berlin Universities. In 1839 he was appointed teacher of German literature at Berlin University, but he devoted himself to writing and became one of the most distinguished novelists of the mid-century. From 1848 to 1870 he was joint editor of Die Grenzboten. For a time he sat in the North German Eeichstag, and he became Privy Councillor in 1854. His chief novels are Soil und Haben (3 vols., 1855) and Die Verlorene Hand- schrift .(1864) ; and he wrote also dramas and a six-volume history of Germany. His Eationalism is freely expressed in his letters and essays. The collected edition of his works (1886-88) runs to twenty-two volumes. D. Apr. 30, 1895.

FRIES, Professor Jakob Friedrich,

German philosopher. B. Aug. 23, 1773. Ed. Jena. He became a teacher of philo sophy at Jena in 1801, professor in 1804, professor at Heidelberg in 1805, and he was again at Jena 1816-19. Suspended for some years on account of his political action, he went back to Jena as professor of mathematics in 1824, and he returned to the chair of philosophy in 1825. His works on philosophy are numerous and important. A Moravian Brother in early life, he abandoned the creed for Kantism. which he later combined with the mysticism of Jacobi in what he called " ^Esthetic Eationalism." Experience is the only source of knowledge, but faith reaches spiritual realities. D. Aug. 10, 1843.

FROEBEL, Friedrich, German educa tionist. B. Apr. 21, 1782. Son of a Lutheran pastor of Thuringia, he was early apprenticed to a forester, and was then employed under the Office of Woods and Forests. He became a surveyor, and later an architect. After studying educa-

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tion under Pestalozzi, he opened a school at Greisheim, and in 1826 he published his famous work on education, Die Menschener- ziehung. The Prussian Government forbade his Kindergartens, partly on the ground that he refused to teach Christianity. He was a Pantheist and non-Christian, but the hostility of the clergy to his reforms of education made him discreet in his language. See F. Froebel s Weltanschauung, by H. Goldammer (1866), and Pastor Schmeidler s Die Beligiosen Anschauungen F. Froebels (1883). Both admit that he was a Eation alist. D. July 21, 1852.

FROTHINGHAM, Octavius Brooks,

American lecturer and writer. B. Nov. 26, 1822. Ed. Harvard, and Cambridge Divinity School. He was a Unitarian minister at Salem (1847), Jersey City (1855), and New York (1859-79). Adopting the views of the Transcendentalists, he broke with the Unitarian body, and changed the name of his church to " Independent Liberal." He founded, and was first Presi dent of, the Free Eeligious Association. His later years were devoted to writing (translation of Eenan, histories of Tran scendentalism, etc.) and lecturing. D. Nov. 27, 1895.

FROUDE, James Anthony, M.A.,

historian. B. Apr. 23, 1818. Ed. West minster School and Oxford (Oriel). At Oriel he joined the Tractarians. Although he already in 1843 felt the influence of Carlyle and Goethe, he took orders in 1844, but he did not go beyond the diaconate, and his faith rapidly disappeared. In 1847 he published a novel, Shadows of the Clouds, in which he described a character, which was identified with himself, as a pure Theist, regarding all beyond as " shifting cloud " (p. 180). His outspoken Nemesis of Faith completed his breach with the Church in 1849, and he resigned his fellow ship of Exeter College. Living for a time as a tutor, he began his great History of England, on which he spent twenty years. The publication of the first two volumes in 272