Friedrich Fröbel’s conception of crystallography and the mathematical education at the 19th century kindergartens
What is the connection between crystallography and kindergarten activities? The paper aims to show the ways Friedrich Fröbel, the founder of the modern kindergarten, was influenced by crystallography at the beginning of the 19th century. This influence explicitly manifested itself not only in a transfer of concepts from the German crystallographer Weiss, but also in a transfer of images, whose source was the French crystallographer Haüy. Fröbel, having a peculiar conception of mathematics, reshaped concepts and images from crystallography already during the 1810s, and conceptualized his playful objects with them for children. Keywords: Crystallography, Mathematics at the 19th century kindergartens, Friedrich Fröbel, René-Just Haüy, Christian Samuel Weiss.