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Vallée de la Bruche
Alsace - Massif des Vosges - France
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Oberlin Museum

An unexpected parenthesis

The work of JF Oberlin

It was in 1769, in the most improbable corner of Alsace and well before the establishment of secular public schools that the first nursery school in France see the day…
 
In Waldersbach, in this small village in the middle Vosges mountains, a vibrant visionary and reforming pastor, Jean Frédéric Oberlin, devotes considerable energy to opening the local population, from early childhood to adulthood, to education and learning to live in society. The tools he will use are “ revolutionary »...
 
The story of Jean Frédéric Oberlin could have ended in the 19th century... Far from it... his work endures : throughout the year, workshops, conferences and fun meetings are proof that we can, even today, learn while having fun!

A story full of future

Au Oberlin Museum, we go there to take “your eyes and your head full”: in the presbytery where he lived, welcomed his parishioners and which housed the first “ knitting pan » (classroom), the collections of games and educational instruments straight from the imagination of this knowledge-loving person rub shoulders with curiosities from the four corners of the world.

As you wander through the rooms, your gaze flutters from studies of botany and zoology to “home-made” maps of geography and astronomy, to the master’s comical notations… it’s the irresistible desire to bury your nose in the drawers ... In the summer, the house's orchard vegetable garden is a real olfactory stroll through popular, little-known or forgotten plants and herbs... 

Think of things above, not of things on earth.

Other activities nearby

In the Bruche valley, family is the center of all attention. The tourist office has developed with its partners and its residents an offer of family walks, fun trails, treasure hunts, stroller circuits and orientation courses, in the valley, in the mountains or in the heart of the villages.