Appletons' Cyclopædia of American Biography/Frœbel, Julius

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FRŒBEL, Julius, author, b. in Griesheim, Germany, in 1806; d. in Zurich, Switzerland, 7 Nov., 1893. He was a nephew of the founder of the kindergarten system, Friedrich Frœbel. Julius was educated at the universities of Jena, Munich, and Berlin, and in 1833 became a naturalized citizen of Switzerland. He joined the extreme radical party, edited the “Swiss Republican,” and issued several scientific works and political pamphlets, many of which were suppressed in Germany. In 1848 he was elected a member of the German parliament that met at Frankfort, and afterward accompanied the radical Robert Blum to Vienna, where he was arrested and condemned to death by the court-martial that convicted Blum, but was pardoned before the date fixed for the execution. On the dissolution of the parliament he visited the United States, where he became editor of a German newspaper, lectured in New York city, and in 1850 went to Nicaragua, Santa Fé, and Chihuahua as correspondent of the New York “Tribune.” He returned to Germany in 1857, and efforts were made to expel him from Frankfort, but he was protected on the ground of his naturalization as a citizen of the United States. In 1863 he went to Vienna, and became a Federalist leader. In 1873 he was appointed consul of the German empire at Smyrna, Asia Minor, and in 1876 was transferred to Algiers. His works include “System of Social Politics” (London, 1847); “The Republican,” an historical drama (1848); “Seven Years' Travel in Central America, Northern Mexico, and the Far West of the United States” (1859); “Theory of Politics” (1861); and “Political Addresses” (1870).