Friedrich Froebel was a German educator who became known as the Founder of the Kindergarten. Froebel based his theory of human growth on the dialectic process. Friedrich Froebel was born in 1782, the youngest of five to a Lutheran pastor in Oberweissbach, Germany. His mother died 9 months after his birth and he felt rejected by his father's second wife. She had her own child which made him feel lonely, isolated and of low self-esteem. His father thought village boys were ruffians and his slow son could get better treatment at the girls' school where he sent him. His uncle Hoffman rescued the unhappy boy at age 10 and sent him to the town school at Stadt-Ulm where he first made friends with other children. He apprenticed as surveyor and forester before attending the University of Jena at 17. He did not finish there but got an inheritance from his uncle to study architecture in Frankfurt where he taught in a Pestalozzi school.