*Kraus-BoeltÄ, Maria1836╨1918educatorBorn on November 8, 1836, in Hagenow in the German grand duchy of Mecklenburg╨Schwerin, Maria BoeltÄ was of a prominent family and was privately educated. As a young woman she became interested in the work of Friedrich Froebel in the education of children and spent two years studying his methods under his widow in Hamburg. She then went to London and taught in a kindergarten operated by one of Froebel╒s pupils, Bertha RongÄ. She ran the kindergarten on her own after RongÄ╒s return to Germany and initiated garden activities and nature study among her pupils. Work done by her pupils was displayed at the London International Exhibition in 1862. In 1867, after a brief period as a student in the South Kensington School of Art, she returned to Hamburg and taught in the Froebel Union training school for kindergarten teachers. Illness prevented her from joining Froebel╒s training school, but she subsequently opened a kindergarten and training courses in Lƒbeck. In 1871 she returned to London, and in 1872, at the request of Elizabeth Peabody, she came to the United States. On her arrival in New York in September she established a kindergarten and mothers╒ classes in a private school. In 1873 BoeltÄ married John Kraus, a German-born kindergartner who had come to America in 1851 and was at the time attached to the U.S. Bureau of Education; she was known thereafter by the surname Kraus-BoeltÄ. They had corresponded previously, and each had studied the other╒s work. In the autumn of 1873, John Kraus having resigned his position, they opened the New York Seminary for Kindergartners with a model kindergarten. One of the earliest and, because of Kraus-BoeltÄ╒s association with Froebel, most authoritative and influential centers of kindergarten work in America, the school trained hundreds of orthodox Froebelian teachers and taught thousands of children. Some time after its opening primary classes were added, but they were discontinued in 1890. In 1877 the two published The Kindergarten Guide in two volumes. After John Kraus╒s death in 1896 his widow continued to operate the training school. In 1899╨1900 she was president of the Kindergarten Department of the National Education Association. Largely at her urging the New York University School of Education offered a summer course in kindergarten education in 1903. Kraus-BoeltÄ taught the course, believed to be the first given under college auspices, and similar ones in 1904 and 1907. She retired in 1913 and died in Atlantic City, New Jersey, on November 1, 1918. &styl ` ! ¬ 5¬ 5¬ ( !I ╕ 5¬ ╣ !I 8 !I ▐ I !I ▌ 5¬ ▐ !I Γ 5¬ π !I ² !I !I link ` HYPR 8 I
