Where does the word kindergarten come from?
Quick answer
Kindergarten comes from German, where it means “children’s garden” (Kinder = children, Garten = garden). German educator Friedrich Fröbel coined the word in 1840 for the play-based school he opened in Bad Blankenburg. He pictured children as young plants that grow best with care, play and freedom.
Key facts
- Language
- German
- Literal meaning
- Children’s garden
- Coined by
- Friedrich Fröbel, 1840
Fröbel believed small children learn best through play, songs, movement and hands-on activity, not by sitting still and memorizing. His classrooms often had real gardens where each child could tend a small plot.
Fröbel’s “gifts”
He designed a series of simple educational toys he called gifts: soft balls, wooden cubes, cylinders and building blocks. Children used them to explore shape, number and pattern. Architect Frank Lloyd Wright later said his childhood play with Fröbel blocks shaped his thinking about design.
How kindergarten reached English
| Year | Event |
|---|---|
| 1837 | Fröbel opens a play and activity institute in Bad Blankenburg |
| 1840 | He names it a Kindergarten |
| 1851 | Prussia bans kindergartens, suspecting them of radical ideas (lifted 1860) |
| 1856 | Margarethe Schurz opens the first US kindergarten, German-speaking, in Watertown, Wisconsin |
| 1860 | Elizabeth Peabody opens the first English-language kindergarten in Boston |
| 1873 | Susan Blow opens the first public-school kindergarten in St. Louis |
German immigrants brought the idea to the US and Britain, and English simply kept the German word. Today it names the year before first grade in the US, while many other countries use it for preschool.
Other German words English borrowed
| Word | Original meaning |
|---|---|
| Wanderlust | Desire to wander |
| Angst | Fear, anxiety |
| Doppelgänger | “Double-goer” |
| Zeitgeist | Spirit of the age |
| Hamburger | Something from Hamburg |
For more about the history of schooling, see who invented school.
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