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Title: Froebel's Gifts

Author: Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin
Nora Archibald Smith

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Most recently updated: January 6, 2021

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROEBEL'S
GIFTS ***

The Republic of Childhood

FROEBEL'S GIFTS
BY KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN
AND NORA ARCHIBALD SMITH

THE
REPUBLIC OF CHILDHOOD
BY
KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN
AND
NORA ARCHIBALD SMITH

I
FROEBEL'S GIFTS

The Republic of Childhood
The Kindergarten is the free republic of childhood.—Froebel

FROEBEL'S GIFTS
BY
KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN
AND
NORA ARCHIBALD SMITH

The true teacher is a student of human nature, and the student of human nature is the
pupil of God.—Horatio Stebbins

BOSTON AND NEW YORK
HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN AND COMPANY
The Riverside Press, Cambridge
1895

Copyright, 1895,
By KATE DOUGLAS RIGGS
AND
NORA ARCHIBALD SMITH.

All rights reserved.

The Riverside Press, Cambridge, Mass., U. S. A.
Electrotyped and Printed by H. O. Houghton and Company.

PREFACE
The three little volumes on that Republic of Childhood, the kindergarten, of
which this handbook, dealing with the gifts, forms the initial number, might
well be called Chips from a Kindergarten Workshop. They are the outcome
of talks and conferences on Froebel's educational principles with successive
groups of earnest young women here, there, and everywhere, for fifteen
years, and represent as much practical work at the bench as a carpenter
could show in a similar length of time. They are the result of mutual give
and take, of question and answer, of effort and experience, of the friction of
minds against one another, of ideas struck out in the heat of argument, and
of varied experience with many hundred little children of all nationalities
and conditions. They are not theories, written in the seclusion of the study;
and if perchance they have the defects, so should they have the virtues, too,
of work corrected and revised at every step by the "child in the midst." If it
is objected that many things in them have been heard before, we can but say
with Montaigne: "Truth and reason are common to every one, and are no
more his who spake them first than his who spake them after."
The various talks have been cut down here, enlarged there, condensed in
one place, amplified in another, from year to year, as knowledge and
experience have grown; many of the ideas which they advocated in the
beginning have been eliminated, as being completely reversed by the
passage of time, and much new matter has been added as the kindergarten
principle has developed. They are as much a growth as a coral reef, though
the authors have little hope that they will be as enduring.
The kindergarten of 1895 is not the kindergarten of 1880, for the science of
education has made great strides in these past fifteen years. Many things
which were held to be vital principles when we began our talks with
kindergarten students, we now find were but lifeless methods after all. It is
not that time has reversed the fundamental principles on which the
kindergarten rests,—these are as true as truth and as changeless; but the
interpretation of them has greatly changed and broadened with the passage
of years, and many of the instrumentalities of education which Froebel

devised are destined to further transformation in the future. For this reason,
the last book on the kindergarten is sometimes the best book, since it
naturally embodies the latest thought and discovery on the subject.
These talks on the kindergarten have purposely been divested of a certain
amount of technicality and detail, in the hope that they will thus reach not
only kindergarten students, but the many mothers and teachers who really
long to know what Froebel's system of education is and what it aims to do.
They will never of themselves make a kindergartner, and are not intended to
do so; but they certainly should shed some light on Froebel's theories, and
establish a basis on which they can be worked out in the home and in the
school.
We shall attempt no defense of the kindergarten here. It has passed the
experimental stage; it is no longer on trial for its life; and no longer humbly
begging, hat in hand, for a place to lay its head. As an educational idea, it is
a recognized part of the great system of child-training; and to say, in this
year of our Lord, one thousand eight hundred and ninety-five, that one does
not believe in the kindergarten is as if one said, I do not believe in
electricity, or, I never saw much force in the law of gravitation.
True, Froebel's ideas are often misinterpreted and misapplied; often
espoused by ignorant and sentimental persons; often degraded in their
practical application; true, the ideal kindergarten and the ideal kindergartner
are seldom seen—(though they are worth traveling a thousand miles to see)
—all this is true, and no one knows it better than we; but that a divine idea
is wrongly used does not invalidate its divinity.
That kindergarten principles are gaining ground everywhere; that every year
more free and private kindergartens are established, more training schools
opened, more students applying for instruction, more books written on the
subject, more educational periodicals seeking for kindergarten articles,
more cities adding it to their school systems, more normal schools giving
courses in kindergarten training, more mothers and teachers seeking for
light on Froebel's principles,—all these are matters of statistics which any
one may verify by consulting the Reports of the Commissioner of
Education and the various educational magazines.

Our modest volumes, of which the second will deal with the occupations,
the third with the educational theories of Froebel, do not claim to be deeply
philosophic, nor even to be exhaustive. They are, in a sense, what is called a
"popular" treatise on a scientific subject; and though some scientists decry
such treatises, yet there are many persons to whom a simple message carries
more conviction than a purely philosophic one.
It is hoped that the psychologic principles on which the talks rest are at least
measurably correct, though when doctors disagree on vital points, how shall
the layman know the extent of his own ignorance?
The authors have always been of a humble and docile spirit, and in the
earlier years of their work with children, looking upon all treatises on
education as inspired, tried faithfully to make the child's mind work
according to the laws therein laid down. But sometimes the child's mind
obstinately declined to follow the prescribed route; it refused to begin at the
proper beginning of a subject and go on logically to the end, as the books
decreed, but flew into the middle of it, and darted both ways, like a weaver's
shuttle. If, then, any one of the theories we enunciate does not coincide with
your particular educational creed, we can only say that ours, we fear, has
sometimes been a "rule of thumb" psychology, and that in our experience it
has occasionally been necessary to turn a psychologic law the other end
foremost before it could be made to fit the child.
We have endeavored not to be dogmatic in any of these talks, for we do not
claim to have seen and counted all the facets of the crystal of truth. We
humbly acknowledge that we have often been wrong in the past, and no
reason has latterly been given us to believe ourselves infallible; but these
disputed points in the kindergarten are, after all, of no more vital
importance than the old theologic controversy as to how many angels can
stand on the point of a needle. If the occupations are found to be based on
incorrect psychologic principles, do not use them; if a similar objection is
made to the gifts, substitute others. These are all accessories,—they are of
no more importance than the leaves to the tree; if time and stress of weather
strip them off, the life current is still there, and new ones will grow in their
places.

Kate Douglas Wiggin.
Nora Archibald Smith.
August, 1895.

CONTENTS
PAGE
Thoughts on the Gifts of Froebel 1
Froebel's First Gift 6
Froebel's Second Gift 31
The Building Gifts 54
Froebel's Third Gift 57
Froebel's Fourth Gift 76
Froebel's Fifth Gift 89
Froebel's Sixth Gift 112
Froebel's Seventh Gift 124
Froebel's Eighth Gift 142
Froebel's Ninth Gift 159
Froebel's Tenth Gift 175
General Remarks on the Gifts 189

FROEBEL'S GIFTS

THOUGHTS ON THE GIFTS OF FROEBEL
"A correct comprehension of external, material things is a preliminary to a
just comprehension of intellectual relations."
Friedrich Froebel.
"The A, B, C of things must precede the A, B, C of words, and give to the
words (abstractions) their true foundations. It is because these foundations
fail so often in the present time that there are so few men who think
independently and express skillfully their inborn divine ideas."
Friedrich Froebel.
"Perception is the beginning and the preliminary condition for thinking.
One's own perceptions awaken one's own conceptions, and these awaken
one's own thinking in later stages of development. Let us have no precocity,
but natural, that is consecutive, development."
Friedrich Froebel.
"Every child brings with him into the world the natural disposition to see
correctly what is before him, or, in other words, the truth. If things are
shown to him in their connection, his soul perceives them thus as a
conception. But if, as often happens, things are brought before his mind
singly, or piecemeal, and in fragments, then the natural disposition to see
correctly is perverted to the opposite, and the healthy mind is perplexed."
Friedrich Froebel.
"The linking together which is everywhere seen, and which holds the
Universe in its wholeness and unity, the eye receives, and thereby receives
the representation, but without understanding it except as an impression and
an image. But these first impressions are the root-fibres for the
understanding that is developed later."
Friedrich Froebel.

"The correct perception is a preparation for correct knowing and thinking."
Friedrich Froebel.
"No new subject of instruction should come to the scholar, of which he does
not at least conjecture that it is grounded in the former subject, and how it is
so grounded as its application shows, and concerning which he does not,
however dimly, feel it to be a need of the human spirit."
Friedrich Froebel.
"The sequences which the child builds, as well as the sequence of the
kindergarten gifts, point on the one hand to physical evolution, wherein
each form 'remembers the next inferior and predicts the next higher,' and on
the other to the process of historic development, which magnifies the
present by linking with it the past and the future."
Susan E. Blow.
"Let us educate the senses, train the faculty of speech, the art of receiving,
storing, and expressing impressions, which is the natural gift of infants, and
we shall not need books to fill up the emptiness of our teaching until the
child is at least seven years old."
E. Seguin.
"As soon as we, young or old, have taken to the habit of asking the book for
what it is in our power to learn from personal observation, we dismiss our
organs of perception and comprehension from their righteous charge, and
cover the emptiness of our own minds with the patchwork of others."
E. Seguin.
"Natural geometry (taking the word in its limited sense of study of form in
space) is the object of a desire which generally precedes the artificial
curiosity for the meaning of letters."
E. Seguin.
"Without an accurate acquaintance with the visible and tangible properties
of things, our conceptions must be erroneous, our inferences fallacious, and

our operations unsuccessful."
Herbert Spencer.
"The truths of number, of form, of relationship in position, were all
originally drawn from objects; and to present these truths to the child in the
concrete is to let him learn them as the race learned them."
Herbert Spencer.
"If we consider it, we shall find that exhaustive observation is an element of
all great success."
Herbert Spencer.
"Learn to comprehend each thing in its entire history. This is the maxim of
science guided by the reason."
Wm. T. Harris.
"Geometrical facts and conceptions are easier to a child than those of
arithmetic."
Thomas Hill.
"Instruction must begin with actual inspection, not with verbal descriptions
of things. From such inspection it is that certain knowledge comes. What is
actually seen remains faster in the memory than description or enumeration
a hundred times as often repeated."
Comenius.
"Observation is the absolute basis of all knowledge. The first object, then,
in education, must be to lead the child to observe with accuracy; the second,
to express with correctness the results of his observation."
Pestalozzi.
"If in the external universe any one constructive principle can be detected, it
is the geometrical."
Bulwer-Lytton.

"The education of the senses neglected, all after-education partakes of a
drowsiness, a haziness, an insufficiency, which it is impossible to cure."
Lord Bacon.
"Of this thing be certain: Wouldst thou plant for eternity? Then plant into
the deep infinite faculties of man, his fantasy and heart. Wouldst thou plant
for year and day? Then plant into his shallow, superficial faculties, his self-
love, and arithmetical understanding, what will grow there."
Thos. Carlyle.

FROEBEL'S FIRST GIFT
"I wish to find the right forms for awakening the higher senses of the child: what
symbol does my ball offer to him? That of unity."
"The ball connects the child with nature as much as the universe connects man with
God."
Friedrich Froebel.
"Line in nature is not found, Unit and Universe are round."
"Nature centres into balls."
R. W. Emerson.
"From thy hand
The worlds were cast; yet every leaflet claims
From that same hand its little shining sphere
Of starlit dew."
O. W. Holmes.
"The Small, a sphere as perfect as the Great
To the soul's absoluteness."
Robert Browning.

1. The first gift consists of six soft woolen balls colored in the six standard
colors derived from the spectrum, namely, red, orange, yellow, green, blue,
and violet.

The balls should be provided with strings for use in the various motions.[1]
2. Froebel chose the ball as the first gift because it is the simplest shape, and
the one from which all others may subsequently be derived; the shape most
easily grasped by the hand as well as by the mind. It is an object which
attracts by its pleasing color, and one which, viewed from all directions,
ever makes the same impression.[2]
3. The most important characteristics of the gift are Unity, Activity, Color.
The various colors serve to distinguish these several playmates of the child
by special characteristics, and enable him to make his first clear analyses or

abstractions, since the color is the only point wherein the objects differ. This
contrast in color results in the abstraction of color from form.
4. Since the ball is the most mobile of inanimate shapes, it may be
considered as the "opposite equal" of the living organism. The quickness
and ease of its motion as well as its elasticity cause the child to regard it as
instinct with life, while its softness renders him able to grasp and handle it
readily.
Its material is also of great advantage in that it lessens the possibility of
startling noises which would distract the child from the contemplation of its
qualities. By its use, he is first led to observation, and then to self-
expression. As the simplest type-form as well as the most universal, it offers
a satisfactory basis for the classification of objects in general; while its
indefiniteness and adaptability make it a useful medium for the expression
of the child's vague ideas. With the ball we give first impressions of Unity,
Form, Color, Material, Mobility, Motion, Direction, and Position. The ball
songs and plays are used as the first exercises in language, singing, and
rhythm.
5. As the kindergarten gifts are designed to serve as an alphabet of form, by
whose use the child may learn to read all material objects, it follows that
they must form an organically connected sequence, moving in logical order
from an object which contains all qualities, but directly emphasizes none, to
objects more specialized in nature, and therefore more definitely suggestive
as to use.
"Each successive gift in the series must not only be implicit in, but
demanded by, its predecessor;" so Froebel selects the ball, with its
simplicity but great adaptability, for the starting-point of his series.
6. Connected contrasts of Motion, Direction, and Position are shown in the
first gift. By the use of pigments, the so-called secondary colors, purple,
orange, and green, may be produced from the opposite hues, red and blue,
red and yellow, and blue and yellow.
"The mind is aroused to attention and led to comparison by contrasts; on the
groundwork of comparison, it is enabled to do the work of classification, of

clear abstraction, of the formation of definite ideas by the connection of
these contrasts."[3]

"The presentiment of truth always goes before the
recognition of it," says Froebel; and it would seem, The Ball a
Universal
indeed, as it, in selecting the first gift, he looked far back Plaything.
into the past of humanity, and there sought the thread
which from the beginning connects all times and leads to the farthest future.
"The ball is the last plaything of men, as well as the first with children." In
Kreutzer's "Symbolik" we read that the educators of the young god Bacchus
gave him golden balls to play with, and also that the youthful princes of
Persia played with them, and alone had this privilege.
It is a significant fact that we find balls even among the remains of the Lake
Dwellers of Northern Italy and Switzerland, while small, round balls,
resembling marbles, have been found in the early Egyptian tombs. The
Teutons made ball-plays national, and built houses in which to indulge in
these exercises in all sections of Germany, as late as the close of the
sixteenth century. The ancient Aztecs used the game of ball as a training in
warfare for the young men of the nation; and that it was considered of great
importance is evident from the fact that the tribute exacted by a certain
Aztec monarch from some of the cities conquered by him consisted of balls,
and amounted to sixteen thousand annually.
The ball entered into many of the favorite games alike of the Greeks and the
Romans, the former having a special place in their gymnasiums and a
special master for it. It may be noted also that nearly all our modern sports
are based upon the effort to get possession of a ball.
Froebel considered the ball as an external counterpart of
the child in the first stages of his development, its Froebel's Ideas of
First Gift.
undivided unity corresponding to his mental condition,
and its movableness to his instinctive activity. Through its recognition he is
led to separate himself from the external world, and the external world from
himself.[4]

Froebel's intention was that the first gift should be used in the nursery,[5] but
as this is for the most part neglected, or imperfectly and unwisely done, we
begin the series of kindergarten play-lessons with it, illustrating its qualities
and asking questions concerning them, always diversifying the exercises
with rhymes, games, and songs. We must remember that to the young child,
as to primitive man, the activity of an object is more pleasing than its
qualities, and we should therefore devise a series of games with the
fascinating plaything which will lead the child to learn these qualities by
practical experience.
Before beginning any exercise we should fully decide in
our own minds the main point or points to be brought Manner of
Introduction.
out,—Color, Form, or Direction, for example; then, and
only then, will the child gain a clear, definite impression, and have a distinct
remembrance of what we have been trying to teach. By way of diversion,
every song or rhyme in which the ball can play a symbolic part in action,
and illustrate the point we wish to make, is of use in the lessons.[6]
With this dainty colored plaything we begin our first bit of education,—not
instruction, mere pouring in, but true education, drawing out, developing.
The balls should be kept in a pretty basket, as the beautiful should be
cultivated in every way in the true kindergarten; and when they are given to
the class, it should be with some little song sung by the kindergartner or one
of the older children. At the close of the lesson, as the basket is passed, each
child may gently drop his ball into it, saying simply, "Thank you for my
ball," or naming its color. At other times they may be called by the names of
fruits or flowers, the child saying, "I will give you a cherry," or, "I will give
you a violet."
The qualities of the ball must of course be brought
before the child's observation in some more or less Method of
Introduction.
definite order, and it will be profitable to consider the
relative claims of Form and Color to the first place.
We might say, correctly, that to illustrate the ball, we should begin with its
essential qualities.[7] The essential quality is Unity. Unity depends on Form,
and the ball's form never changes; therefore we might conclude that this
should be the first subject under consideration, since we always treat of the

universal properties of objects before special ones, proceeding from
homogeneous to heterogeneous. This view of the subject is supported by
Ratich's important maxim, "First the thing, and then its properties."
On the other hand, Conrad Diehl says: "Color is the first
sensation of which an infant is capable. With the first ray Conrad Diehl.
of light that enters the retina of the eye, the presence of
color forces itself on the mind.... When light is present, color is present. The
first impression which the eye receives of an object is its color; its form is
revealed by the action of light upon its surfaces. We recognize at a distance
the color of a leaf, an apple, a flower or berry, long before we are able
distinctly to make out their forms. In the absence of light, neither the color
nor the form of an object can be seen."[8]

Spencer says:[9] "The earliest impressions which the
mind can assimilate are those given to it by the Herbert Spencer.
undecomposable sensations, resistance, light, sound, etc.
Manifestly decomposable states of consciousness cannot exist before the
states of consciousness out of which they are composed. There can be no
idea of form until some familiarity with light in its gradations and qualities,
or resistance in its different intensities, has been acquired; for, as has long
been known, we recognize visible form by means of varieties of light, and
tangible form by means of varieties of resistance. Similarly, no articulate
sound is cognizable until the inarticulate sounds which go to make it up
have been learned. And thus must it be in every other case."[10]
The balance of authority seems to be, on the whole,
upon the side of presenting color first to the young child, Froebel.
as we appeal to the emotions at this age rather than to
the intellect; and while the senses revel in color, form follows more the law
of use. Let us hear, however, what the "great pioneer of child study" says
upon this point. Froebel says, as distinct and different as color and form
may be in themselves, they are to the young child indivisible, as inseparable
as body and life. Nay, the idea of color seems to come to the child, as
perhaps to mankind in general, through the forms; so, on the other hand, the
forms gain prominence and impressiveness by the colors. Hence ideas of
colors must at first be coupled with ideas of form, and vice versa; color and
form are in the beginning an undivided unity.[11]

The color and form of the ball being indissolubly blended in the child's
eyes, we can scarcely teach them separately at first. We may, however,
consider each by itself, in order to present the subject more clearly.

FORM.

To teach form in an interesting manner, to make it plain
to the child without giving him any terms, but rather Form.
coaxing him by ingenuity to formulate his own
knowledge, is a difficult thing to do, and should not be attempted at all with
very young children. It seems unnecessary to say that Froebel did not intend
the ball should be made a medium of object lessons for babies, although
this distorted view of his idea seems to have entered the minds of some
critics.
The child, when old enough to enter a kindergarten, will generally know
round objects, and be somewhat familiar with the ball already in his home
plays. We should let him roll and grasp it in his tiny fingers, till gradually,
in comparison with other objects handled in the same way, he notices the
absence of corners, edges, or any obstructions which would meet his touch
or eye. Then we may ask him if he could make a ball out of a rough block
of wood which we show. Some bright little one will guess that a carpenter
could do it with his tools. "What would he have to do?" "Plane it off," will
perhaps be the answer. "Where and how is he to plane?" may be the next
inquiry, and the child often answers, "All the rough parts and the parts that
stick out." "Why does he like to play ball?" He does not know exactly.
"Would he like to play ball with the scissors?" "Why not?" "Then why does
he like to feel the ball in his hand?"
After such preliminary conversations upon the form of the ball, we may
lead the children first to note other round things in the room, and then to
recall what they have at home of a similar shape and what they may have
seen in the streets. These exercises are always delightful to the little ones,
and are invaluable to the kindergartner, as they furnish a thorough test of
the child's comprehension of the subject she has been handling.[12] We
should notice slight divergences from the spherical form in the objects the

children name, and speak of them. They will soon be able to tell in every
case where the egg or cobblestone is not "just round."
They will of course mention stove-lids, dinner-plates, etc., as round objects,
and the attempt to give a clear and definite understanding of the difference
between solids and planes is difficult at first, but they very soon
discriminate between rounding objects that possess thickness and those that
are flat but have curved edges. A ball of putty or one of dough is a good
thing with which to illustrate this difference.
We must remember that any abstract teaching on Form is too difficult at this
time, much more difficult than Color. Let the children, during these first
few weeks, draw circles on the blackboard and on paper, and sew, and draw
pictures of balls, peaches, or round fruits; they may also make balls of wax,
dough, or clay. Rousseau says, "A child may forget what he sees, and
sooner still what is said to him, but he never forgets what he has made."

COLOR.

"The comprehension of the single tone of color
gradually leads to the comprehension of the full chord; Color.
the recognition of single colors leads to the recognition
of shades and their harmonious connections: thus, step by step, the capacity
of comprehending nature in its beauty and with its treasures is developed."
[13]

Again, suppose the play-lesson for the day to be upon Color. Of course, the
subject may be handled in a dozen different ways and serve for a dozen
different lessons; a few hints only are here given, as in matters of detail it is
better that each teacher should be free and unguided in the use of her own
ingenuity.

We may take, perhaps, the red[14] ball, and, holding it high in the air, ask,
"Who has a ball exactly like mine? Look carefully, now, and then show
me." A volley of balls, comprising every color in the rainbow, will be shot
into the air, and then becomes necessary the task of discrimination. We may
find the red ones, and gratify the children by naming those who possess
them, as it seems a great honor in their eyes. Now they should be led to find

every bit of red in the room,—Andrew's stockings, Mary's ribbon, the tiny
pipings on Katie's apron, Jim's necktie, your belt, the flowers on the wall,
etc. The scene will become intensely exciting; the bright eyes will begin
searching in every corner of the room, and the transport which will greet us
when anything far out of sight and of the right color is discovered is truly
refreshing.
All the children, as far as possible, should be engaged in this diversion,
while the most timid and backward should be kept near and encouraged
with word and smile. The name of the color should not be asked for, or
given, till it can be matched by all, and found in surrounding objects.
We may ask what flowers they have seen which were like the color they are
studying, and show them some of the more familiar kinds; also speak of the
action of the sun in making certain fruits red,—the raspberries and
strawberries, for instance. Some rosy-faced little urchin in the class may be
chosen and asked how he keeps such red cheeks, and from this the idea of
red as the color of warmth and life may be developed. We may proceed with
blue and yellow, then with violet, orange, and green, in like manner,
constantly diversifying the exercises with plays, songs, and appropriate
stories.
The formation of the so-called secondary colors will not
be very obvious to the younger children, nor is the fact Hints on Additional
to be taught scientifically or learned by them; they will, Color Exercises.
however, be greatly interested in the mixing of paints in small dishes, or the
blending of different colored crayons on the blackboard.
Red and Yellow into Orange.
Yellow and Blue into Green.
Blue and Red into Purple.
Pieces of glass are serviceable objects with which to show the same thing,
or we can buy the "gelatine films" from any kindergarten supply store.
Holding the red and yellow, one on the other, for instance, the piece nearer
the eye will, of course, determine the shade; if the red piece be next the eye,
the orange color will be deeper than if the yellow were in the same position.
None of these experiments, however, will produce pure colors, the green
and purple being especially unsatisfactory.

Among the devices with which to teach color may be recommended a color
quilt made of various shades and shapes of woolens and silks or ribbons.
This may be used as a sort of chart, to the great delight of the children, and
is one of the valuable aids in teaching, because it calls out both individual
and general action. We may also make a clothes-line of twine and suspend it
from door to door, or between any two suitable points, attaching to it pieces
of all colors, and, after a while, of various tints and shades of worsted,
letting the children touch the ones designated, or find bits of the same color
as their balls.
Cards wound with different tints and shades of the same color are also
useful when the children have developed greater powers of discrimination,
and a chart or map may be made by pasting colored squares, triangles,
oblongs, or circles on a ground of gray Bristol board.
Then, too, we may have a box of tablets of the simple geometrical figures,
and, giving a quantity to the children, let them arrange the different colors
in separate rows.
Children of all ages will be fascinated by the spectrum, "Nature's palette of
pure colors," which the sunlight streaming through a prism shows upon the
wall; and as it can be supplemented by a spectrum chart for cloudy days,
they will delight to arrange their colored papers to imitate it. The older
children will gain much valuable knowledge by experimenting with the
color tops, and if a color wheel with the accompanying Maxwell disks can
be obtained, the materials for color education will be quite complete.
It must not be forgotten that the purpose of all these exercises is that the
child may learn to know the six standards, and subsequently their
intermediates, and may in time learn to use and combine them
harmoniously. It is, therefore, essential that the colors supplied him shall be
fresh and pure,[15] and that he not only have freedom to make his own
experiments, but materials to preserve them in permanent form when they
prove successful.
When the children are just making friends with the teacher and with each
other, it is very interesting and profitable for them to formulate their mite of
knowledge into a sentence, each one holding his ball high in the air with the
right hand, and saying:—

My ball is red like a cherry.
My ball is yellow like a lemon.
My ball is blue like the sky.
My ball is orange like a marigold.
My ball is green like the grass.
My ball is violet like a plum.
We should not, however, allow this to degenerate into mere recitation, but
let the child find his own objects of comparison, and change them when he
chooses for any others that occur to him. This prevents parrot repetition,
and gives room for individuality and real self-expression.

MOTION; DIRECTION; POSITION.

The child of three or four years has seldom any
conception of the terms:— Motion; Direction;
Position.
Right —— Left. Here —— There.
Up —— Down. Near —— Far.
Over —— Under. Front —— Back.

Even if he has a dim idea of direction, he cannot express himself regarding
it, nor is he certain enough of his knowledge to be able to move or place the
ball according to dictation.
Motion is always easy and delightful to the child, and therefore he will
move his ball in different directions, as the words and music suggest, when
he would be too timid to express a thought, and is willing and happy to do
in unison what he would hesitate to do by himself.
The ball may be made a starting-point in giving the child an idea of various
simple facts about objects in general, and in illustrating in movements the
many terms with which we wish him to become familiar. The meaning of
the terms to swing, hop, jump, roll, spring, run away, come back, fall, draw,
bounce, and push may be taught by a like movement of the ball, urging the
child to give his own interpretation of the motions in words. All the children
may then make their balls hop, spring, roll, or swing at the same time,
accompanying the movements by appropriate rhymes.

The ball is more purely a plaything than anything which the child receives
in the kindergarten, and its mobility is so charming, it so easily slips from
his hands and travels so delightfully far when dropped, that exercises with it
soon become riotous if not carefully guided. Every play-lesson on the ball
should close with some active exercise in which the children may indulge
their wish for a game with their dear playfellow, and in which they may also
gain greater skill and learn practically the laws of motion.
When sitting at their tables, each pair of children may roll a ball to and fro,
all beginning at the same moment; or the first pair may begin, the second
and third follow, and so on until all are rolling. They may throw balls
against the wall, or toss them in the air, or throw them alternately first in the
air, then against the wall; they may toss them to each other at increasing
distances. The whole company of children may be arranged in two rows and
throw the balls to each other in unison, or they may pass them from hand to
hand as in a Wandering Game,—all the exercises being accompanied with
appropriate songs or rhymes.
The laws of incidence and reflection may be simply taught by leading the
children to note that if they strike the ball straight against the wall it will
bound straight back, and then asking them to see if it returns when thrown
in a slanting direction.
In order to present the ball in a more attractive light in
the kindergarten, to suit it to the symbolic stage of the Symbolic Stage of
child's development, and to bring it nearer to his Child's Development.
sympathies, we constantly, in our play, suppose it to be
something which it resembles in certain of its characteristics. By its color, it
may represent a fruit, a flower, or a gayly dressed child; by its form, an egg,
a downy chicken, a tiny duckling; by its mobility, a bird, a squirrel, a baby;
or when fastened to its string, a bucket in the well, a toy wagon, a
pendulum, or a pet lamb tethered by the roadside.
The child is always at home in the world of "make-believe," and delights in
the stories and the many charming songs to which this imaginative use of
the ball gives rise.
Perhaps we may wisely remind ourselves, however, that though the child's
fancy is most vivid, and though the ball is well adapted to represent many

objects, yet if it resemble in no single point the thing to which we liken it,
we are indulging in empty imaginings which will only hinder the child's
comprehension of truth.[16]
The teacher who truly understands the great principles
on which Froebel built the kindergarten will ever be Coöperative
Exercises.
mindful of one of the highest of these,—"the brotherly
union of those who are like-minded." Even in the simple plays with the first
gift, group work is easily possible. The stringing of the first gift beads or the
supplementary modeling in clay may be made into a coöperative exercise,
the work with the balls at the sand-table may have a similar aim, and many
of the ball games are well fitted to unite the whole community of children,
older and younger, in a common aim, a common purpose.[17]
We must remember that on a carefully prepared plan of
procedure depends much of the value of any system of What we should
education; therefore we must decide, when the child strive for.
comes under our tutelage, what we wish to accomplish and what shall be
our method of accomplishing it; and yet as the first gift is not the last, as it
is but the first link in a chain of related objects, it is obvious that it must be
chiefly useful as a starting-point. Each lesson should be carefully studied by
the teacher, for the foundation is being laid for all future acquisition.
The kindergarten gifts are designed to lead to the mastery of material
objects, but at the same time they are always connected with the child's
experience and affection by being often transported into the region of fancy
and feeling in a blending of realism and symbolism. Omitting everything
which has reference to the moral and physical development, and speaking
now only of that which is intellectual, what we should strive for at the
beginning is that the child may acquire a habit of quick observation, with
clear and precise expression; that in due time he may see not only quickly,
but accurately; in short, that a slight degree of judgment may begin to
attend his perceptions, so that he may know as well as observe. It is not
enough to awaken the curiosity of a child, and to heap up in his memory a
mass of good materials which will combine of themselves in due time, and
which the brain when more highly developed will arrange in systematic
groups; we should endeavor as far as possible to control the first
impressions which sink unconsciously into a child's mind, but still more

careful should we be in the selection of those later ones which we try to
inculcate, and of the links which we wish to establish between such and
such perceptions, sentiments, or actions.
We should seek to develop, side by side with the perceptions, the faculty of
judging and acting rightly.
To give a child very little to observe at a time, but to make him observe that
little well and rightly, is the true way of forming and storing his mind.
The process of receiving an idea must be through sensation, attention, and
perception, conception and judgment being later processes. The curiosity to
know must be kept alive, for it is our greatest ally, and the imagination must
be fed, for the child remembers only what interests him.
Recognizing what is to be accomplished, we say, then:—
a. The ball is one of the first means used in awakening and developing the
dawning consciousness and growing faculties of the child.

b. The beginning must be well made, or no later step will seem clear.

c. If the first opportunity which occurs of dealing with the gift (or with any
instrumentality of education) is wasted, interest on the part of the child is
permanently lessened.

d. The mind retains clear impressions in proportion to the degree of
spontaneous interest and attention with which they are received.

e. The law of diminishing interest decrees that each point in a successful
exercise shall be more interesting than the previous one.

f. The lessons must not be confined to so narrow a channel that they become
monotonous, and they must leave room for the child to develop and not
attempt to prescribe his mental action.
Tiedemann says: "Liberty of action even in imitated actions is one of the
conditions of a child's happiness; besides that, it has the effect of exercising
and developing all his faculties. Example is the first tutor, and liberty the

second, in the order of evolution; but the second is the better one, for it has
inclination for its assistant."

READINGS FOR THE STUDENT.

From Cradle to School. Bertha Meyer. Pages 118-20.
Education. Herbert Spencer. 128-40.
Kindergarten Culture. W. N. Hailmann. 41-46.
Education. E. Seguin. 7, 8.
The Kindergarten. Emily Shirreff. 10.
Kindergarten at Home. Emily Shirreff. 46.
Reminiscences of Froebel. Von Marenholtz-Bülow. 208, 209.
Lectures on Child-Culture. W. N. Hailmann. 24.
Kindergarten Guide. J. and B. Ronge. 1-3.
Koehler's Kindergarten Practice. Tr. by Mary Gurney. 5-12.
Child-Culture. Henry Barnard. 567, 568, 570-75.
Education of Man. Fr. Froebel. Tr. by J. Jarvis. 105, 106, 206.
Lectures to Kindergartners. E. P. Peabody. 30, 31, 38, 39, 44-51.
Pedagogics of the Kindergarten. Fr. Froebel. Tr. by J. Jarvis. 31-69.
Paradise of Childhood. Edward Wiebe. 7-9.
Law of Childhood. W. N. Hailmann. 31-33.
Kindergarten Guide. Kraus-Boelte. 1-15.
Froebel and Education by Self-Activity. H. Courthope Bowen. 136-38.
Childhood's Poetry and Studies. E. Marwedel. Part I. 7-15.
Childhood's Poetry and Studies. E. Marwedel. Part II. 6-17.
A System of Child-Culture. E. Marwedel. 1-5.
The Dawn of History. A. Keary. 44-47.
Hints to Teachers. E. Marwedel. 5, 6.
Froebel's Letters. Tr. by Michaelis and Moore. 83-85, 98, 101-03, 107, 176, 220.
Conscious Motherhood. E. Marwedel. 106, 107, 118, 119, 153, 162-64, 170-74, 256-
62, 291-96.

FROEBEL'S SECOND GIFT
"From the ball as a symbol of unity, we pass over in a consecutive manner to the
manifoldness of form in the cube."
"The child has an intimation in the cube of the unity which lies at the foundation of all
manifoldness, and from which the latter proceeds."
Friedrich Froebel.
"Notice has now become observation, and observation leads to discrimination. He
sees and is curious by nature, but it belongs to us to lead him to observe and inquire."
Emily Shirreff.

1. Froebel's second gift consists of a wooden sphere, cube, and cylinder,
two inches in diameter (as now made), with rods and standards for
revolution.[18]
2. In the first gift the child received objects of the same shape and size but
of different colors, thus learning to separate color from form. In the second
gift he receives unlike objects, and learns to distinguish them from each
other by their individual peculiarities. The first gift suggests unity, and leads
to the detection of resemblances; the second suggests variety or
manifoldness, and emphasizes contrasts.
3. The most important characteristic of the gift is contrast of form, leading
to the distinction of different objects. The mediation of contrasts here
suggests the connection of all objects, however widely separated.
4. The purpose of the gift is to stimulate observation and comparison by
presentation of striking contrasts, and to afford new bases for the
classification of objects. Spencer says that any systematic ministrations to
the perceptions ought to be based upon the general truth that in the
development of every faculty markedly contrasted impressions are the first
to be distinguished; that hence sounds greatly differing in loudness and
pitch, colors very remote from each other, and substances widely removed
in hardness or texture should be the first supplied; and that in each case the
progression must be by slow degrees to impressions more nearly allied.[19]

5. The geometrical forms illustrated in this gift are:—

{ Sphere.
{ Cube.
Solids. { Cylinder.
{ Double Cone. } Seen in motion.
{ Conoid. }

Planes. { Circles.
{ Squares.

6. The sphere and cube are sharply contrasting forms, and the cylinder
illustrates the connecting link between the two, possessing characteristics of
both.
"The cylinder is the first example Froebel gives of the intermediate
transition—forms connecting opposites, which he explains as the very
ground plan of Nature, and on which his fundamental law of contrasts and
connection of contrasts, the law of all harmonious development and creative
industry, is based."[20]

"That which follows is always conditioned upon that
which goes before,"[21] says Froebel, and he makes this Points to be noted
in each New Gift.
apparent to children through his educational processes;
the gifts show this idea in concrete form.
In entering upon a consideration of the second gift one thing cannot fail to
impress us, and that is the continuous development in each new set of
objects placed before the child; together with an increase of difficulty or
complexity which is never without a corresponding forethought, careful
arrangement, and attention to logical sequence; thus the newly introduced
objects can never seem unnatural to him.
We shall find that in every new gift or occupation there is always a
suggestion of the last, enough to make it a pleasant reminder of knowledge

gained and difficulties surmounted, and so the child sees not everything
painfully strange, but something which at least recalls to his mind his
former friend and familiar playfellow.[22]
In the first lesson with the second gift the child will
quickly see the similarities between his former worsted Method of Attack in
First Exercise.
ball and his new companion, the wooden sphere. Let
him take these two balls together, and find out the similarities and
dissimilarities, remembering that before he compares objects consciously,
experiences should invariably be given him.
We should always draw attention to the universal properties of things first
and then proceed to the specific. The qualities common to all objects are the
universal ones: Form, Size, Color, Material, etc. The invariable rule should
be: simple before complex, concrete before abstract, unity before variety,
universal qualities before special ones.
If we are in doubt as to whether we shall first direct attention to the
similarities or to the dissimilarities between the ball and sphere, we may
recall the educational maxim, "The child's eye always at first seizes the
analogous, the point of union, the whole connection of things, and only
after that begins to discern differences and opposition."[23]
In comparing the ball and the sphere the child will
observe, in the first place that they are both round and Ball and Sphere.
both roll equally well, but that one has color, one being
without; one is soft, the other hard; one quiet, one noisy; one a little rough
to the touch, the other velvet smooth. He should find for and by himself,
aided by our suggestive questioning, the reasons for these evident
differences.
It is absolutely necessary that each child should have one of the boxes
containing the solids, or at least the three forms of the gift without the box,
rods, and standards, and examine them thoroughly and often as he will be
glad to do.
If the solids as ordinarily manufactured are too costly for a kindergartner of
limited means, she can substitute large marbles, blocks, and linen thread

spools; the material does not matter so long as each child has the objects to
handle.
We need not be distressed if the lessons are a little noisy
when the children are making the acquaintance of these Value of the
Discriminative
wonderful new friends. To be sure they will pound the Power; Method by
wooden forms heartily up and down on the table (if they which it may be
are three-year old babies, they certainly would and developed.
should do so); but within bounds what does it matter? If
it can be arranged so that other classes shall not be disturbed, and each child
can have the same opportunity for experimenting as his neighbor, there will
be no great harm done.
We are endeavoring to rouse all the latent energies of the child by the
presentation of these objects to his observation, and he must have full
liberty to make the various experiments which suggest themselves to him.
His desire to hear the sound of the objects is so manifest that it would be
folly to try and thwart it. It is far better to use the desire for educational
purposes and divert it into the channel of systematized noise. Let us
suppose that we are carpenters today and pound the wooden objects on the
floor in exact time with a building song; let us play we are drummer boys
and tap with our drumsticks for the soldiers to march; or shall we make
believe that the sphere is a woodpecker and let it tap on the trees while we
recite some simple little rhyme?[24]
"This craving of young children for information," says Bernard Perez, "is an
emotional and intellectual absorbing power, as dominant as the appetite for
nutrition, and equally needing to be watched over and regulated."

It is not alone the noise of the sphere which delights the child,[25] though
this is always pleasing,—it is the knowledge he is gaining, the new ideas
that dawn upon him for the first time in recognizable form. It is, in fact, a
knowledge of cause and effect. He has often dropped the woolen ball and
pounded it on the table, and it produced no sound. He does the same with
the sphere and recognizes the difference. He will begin to experiment with
other objects, by and by to classify his knowledge, and finally, he will see
and remember that like causes produce like effects, and in progressing thus
far will have made a tremendous stride. The child will see all the more

clearly, in comparing the woolen ball and wooden sphere, the difference
between soft and hard, rough and smooth, light and heavy, if he is allowed
to perform his own experiments.
We will now turn to the investigation of the cube and
open a new world of information to the child, and here The Cube.
we seem to deviate a little from the famous educational
maxim, "Proceed from the known to the unknown," and almost to make a
leap into the dark. However, we very soon give the cylinder, and thus
connect the opposites. Here he meets a dazzling quantity of new
appearances; the square sides or faces, and the many edges and corners, all
of which must be viewed in comparison with the sphere. We can give him
an experience of the faces of the cube without conscious analysis, by letting
the ball roll against them.
Of course we shall see the underlying idea of the gift to
be the connection of opposites. Not too much can be Mediation of
Contrasts.
said of this law, so all-important and significant in
Froebel's system.[26] We should bear it constantly in mind, and bring it in
connection with every new phase of our work. Froebel cannot be
understood clearly unless this deep principle, which lies at the very root of
his system, is appreciated and comprehended. At the same time it is, when
formulated, an abstract and metaphysical statement, which one cannot grasp
at once, but to which one must grow.
It may be said that comparatively few kindergartners know its value;
nevertheless knowledge of this kind can never be useless or fruitless to the
person who is forming the mind of the child, and who should be a perfect
mistress of her science and her art.
These contrasts of the second gift, and all contrasts,
arouse the mind to attention. We can have no judgment Value of Contrasts.
without comparison. We should have no idea of heat or
darkness if we had not a conception of cold and light; the quality of
sweetness would have no meaning if its opposite did not serve to stimulate
comparison.
The sphere is sharply contrasted with the cube, so that there may be a ready
perception of the striking qualities of both. The more abrupt the contrast the

more readily noticed and described; for it takes a more developed eye to
discern the difference between a sphere and a spheroid, for instance, than
between a sphere and a cube.
The contrasts of the first gift were contrasts of color, mediations of them
being shown also, and contrasts of direction and position or situation.
Another point less readily seen in the first gift perhaps was Froebel's
thought that the ball, in its perfect simplicity and unity, when first given to
the young child, is regarded by him as another contrasted individuality,
almost as capable of life in its varied movements as he is himself.
The sphere is the symbol of motion, the cube the
embodiment of rest, and the fact should be illustrated in Mobility of Sphere.
divers ways. We may, for instance, place the sphere near
the rim of a plate, and by inclining the latter a little, the sphere will roll
rapidly round its own axis and round the rim. A few simple little rhymes
may be taught, which the children may say or sing together while the sphere
is journeying rapidly round and round the plate, for, as Froebel says, the
thought always grows clearer to the child when word and motion go hand in
hand.
The cube can only be moved, on the contrary, when
force is exerted, and then it merely slides, to stop when Sphere and Cube.
the force is removed. The children will soon see why the
cube is so lazily inclined, and why the sphere is ever rolling, rolling about,
scarcely to be kept still, for by various experiments we may show that the
sphere stands only on a little part of its face, the cube on the whole.
The sphere is always the same in whatever way regarded, and to whatever
tests subjected. It is always an emblem of unity, and cannot be robbed of its
simplicity, its unity, its freedom from all that is puzzling.
The cube, on the contrary, being made to revolve on any one of its axes,
constantly shows a different aspect, so that the child views it as a very
extraordinary little block, full of fascinating surprises and whimsical
apparitions.
It is put upon the string, and, when whirled rapidly, mysteriously loses its
identity, and appears to the little one's laughing gaze as an entirely different

object; and yet as the motion grows more sedate, the new form fades away
and the cube reappears so quickly as to make him rub his eyes and wonder
if he has been dreaming.
The square faces of the cube, in comparison with the one
curved, unbroken surface of the sphere, must now be Counting Faces.
noted, and may be counted if we are using the gift as a
means of instruction.
We must beware, however, of making this counting exercise into a lesson,
or requiring that the number of faces shall be learned and recited. Every
teacher of experience will corroborate Mr. W. N. Hailmann when he says:
"If the kindergartner sets the cube before the child and counts the faces,
edges, and corners, so that he may 'know all about it,' the child's interest, if
born at all, will soon die."
If the faces are counted, as they are all so exactly alike, the children may
sometimes be puzzled as to the number, by enumerating the same one more
than once. This difficulty may be obviated by pasting a paper square of a
different color on each face, and then submitting it to examination, giving
each child an opportunity to count, since independent self-activity is to be
more and more encouraged.
If the faces, edges, and corners be made the integral point of an interesting
story or play, the child will have little difficulty in recalling their number
and character, but we must remember that "lively interest and steady
progress come only from following and feeding the child's purposes."
We now proceed to the cylinder, the reconciliation of the
two opposites; an object which having qualities Cylinder.
possessed by both occupies a middle ground in which
each has something in common.

Froebel originally took the doll[27] as the intermediate form "uniting in itself
the opposites of the sphere and cube," and thus showed that he understood
child nature well, for no toy follows the ball with greater certainty than the
doll.

The cylinder, however, was subsequently selected, as being more in line
with the other geometrical forms shown in the sequence of gifts. It is as
easily moved as the sphere, upon one side; as prone to rest as the cube,
when placed upon the other; it has the curved surface of the sphere and the
flat faces of the cube; it has no corners but two curved edges; more edges
than the sphere, fewer than the cube; less unity than the sphere, more than
the cube.
Its importance as a mediation, or connecting link, is further shown by
suspending the cube on a string, by which it may be twisted rapidly and
caused to revolve; in this motion a cylinder being readily seen. When the
cylinder is spun in like manner a sphere suddenly appears, and so the
wonderful and subtle bond of union is complete.[28]
Let the children call the cylinder a "roller" or "barrel" if
they choose, and tell them the right name when it is Hints as to Manner
and Method.
needful. Each gift must be thoroughly understood before
we pass to the next, or there will be no orderly development; but as the
impressions have all been made through the senses of the child, we must
not expect him to voice these impressions in logical phrases all at once, so
beware of making the lesson irksome or wearisome to him through a formal
questioning that does not properly belong to childhood.
When the keen appetite for knowledge disappears we may well despair. If
several children in our class express dislike of a certain exercise or lesson,
and seem to dread its appearance, we may be well assured that the fault lies
in our method of putting it before them, and strive in all humility for a
better understanding of them, of ourselves, and of the subject.
We must not, however, be too hard in our self-judgments and lose courage.
We are not responsible for a child who is "born tired," and who seems to
have no interest in anything, either in heaven above or in the earth beneath,
until, by ingenuity and perseverance, we are able to open the eyes and ears
which see and hear not.
It will be remembered that in discussing the first play or lesson with the
second gift great freedom was advised; but let us note the difference
between liberty and lawlessness, between spontaneity and the confusion of
self-assertion which is sometimes mistaken for it.

No lesson or play amounts to anything unless conducted with order and
harmony, unless at its close, no matter how merry and hearty the enjoyment,
some quiet and lasting impression has been made on the mind. Many
teachers miss the happy medium, and in trying with the best intentions to
allow the individuality of the child proper development, only succeed in
gaining excitement and disorder.
The second gift is, more than any other, too much used
for mere object lessons, and these are invariably Dangers of Object
Lessons.
dangerous because there is apt to be too much
impressing of the teacher's own ideas upon the mind, and too little actual
handling, perceiving, observing, comparing, judging, concluding, on the
child's part, and that is the only logical way in which he is able to form a
clearly crystallized idea.
We can have no higher authority than Dr. Alexander Bain, who says that the
object lesson more than anything else demands a careful handling; there
being "great danger lest an admirable device should settle down into a
plausible but vicious formality."
It is not uncommon to hear students in kindergarten
training classes (and even some full-fledged How to deal
kindergartners) express a distaste for the second gift, and successfully
Second Gift.
with

it is, unfortunately, even more common to find the
children dealing with it either sunk in deepest apathy, or mercifully
oblivious of the matter in hand and chatting with their neighbors. The fact is
that we have too commonly made the exercises dull, dreary affairs; we have
doled out the forms to the children and asked a series of formal questions
about them, giving no experiments, no concerted work, and no opportunity
for action. The children have been intensely bored, therefore either stupid or
wandering, and the kindergartner has attributed her want of success to the
gift, and not to her method of dealing with it.
Let the light of imagination shine on the scene, and note the answering
sparkle in the children's eyes. Who cares for the names of all the faces on a
stupid block; but who doesn't care when it's a house and Johnnie can't find
his mother, though he looks in the front door and the back door, the right-
hand door, the left-hand door, the cellar-door, and finally the trap-door

leading to the roof? Nobody knows, or wants to know, when questioned if
the cylinder rolls better on its flat circular face, or on its rounding face; but
when it's a log of wood in the forest, and must be taken home for winter
fires, then it is worth while to experiment and see how it may be moved
most easily.
The second gift, too, is delightful for groupwork in the sand table, where
the objects may be treated symbolically, and likened to a hundred different
things. With the second gift beads, which in the natural wood color are
admirable supplements to the larger forms, the children are always
charmed, assorting and stringing them according to fancy or dictation, and
with the addition of sticks making them into rows of soldiers, trees in
flowerpots, kitchen utensils, churns, stoves, lamps, and divers other
household objects.
The kindergartner may give many a lesson in the simple principles of
mechanics with the second gift and its rods and standards, allowing the
children to experiment freely as well as to follow her suggestions. The
pulley, the steelyard, the capstan, the pump, the mechanical churn, the
wheelbarrow, etc., may all be made, adding the beads where necessary, and
thus the child gain a real working knowledge of simple machinery.
The preceding gift need not entirely disappear, but be
used occasionally for a pleasing review as a bond of Treatment of
Previous Gifts
friendly intercourse between older and younger pupils. when passed over.
[29]
This will convey an indirect hint, perhaps, to the
little ones that it is not well to neglect old friends for new ones, but that they
should still love and value the playthings and playmates of former days.
These three objects, the sphere, cylinder, and cube,
constitute a triad of forms united in architecture and Second Gift Forms
in Architecture and
sculpture producing the column, which is made up of the Cube in Ancient
pedestal or base (the cube), the shaft (the cylinder), and Times.
the capital (the sphere).
In a book on Egyptian antiquities we find that, in the beginning of the
culture of that country, the three Graces, or goddesses of beauty, were
represented by three cubes leaning upon each other. The Egyptians did not,
of course, know that it was the first regular form of solid bodies in nature or

crystallization; but the significant fact again brings us to the thought
expressed in the first lecture: "It would seem, indeed, as though Froebel, in
selecting his gifts, looked far back into the past of humanity, and there
sought the thread which from the beginning connects all times and leads to
the farthest future."
And here we leave the second gift, that trinity of forms
which, wrought in marble, marks the place dear and Froebel's
sacred to all kindergartners, the grave of Froebel,—a Monument.
simple monument to one so great, yet so connected with our study and the
child's experience that with all its simplicity it is strangely effective. A still
more enduring monument he has in the millions of happy children who
have found their way to knowledge through the door which he opened to
them; indeed, if half the children he has benefited could build a tower of
these tiny blocks to commemorate his life and death, its point would reach
higher than St. Peter's dome and draw the thoughts of men to heaven.
This gift can hardly be studied but that an inner unity,
born of these reconciled contrasts, suggests itself to the Suggestions of the
Gift.
imagination.
The cube seems to stand as the symbol of the inorganic, the mineral
kingdom, with its wonderful crystals; the cylinder as the type of vegetable
life, suggesting the roots, stems, and branches, with their rounded sides, and
forming a beautiful connection between the cube, that emblem of "things in
the earth beneath," and the sphere which completes the trinity and speaks to
us of a never-ending and perfect whole having "Unity for its centre,
Diversity for its circumference."
The cube seems to suggest rest, immobility; the cylinder, in this connection,
growth; and the sphere, perfection, completeness,—so delicately poised it
is,—only kept in its proper place by the most exquisite adjustment. And so
to us, sometimes, the things that are visible become luminous with
suggestions of greater realities which are yet unseen; and in the least we
discern a faint radiance of the greatest.
Things that are small mirror things that are mighty. The tiny sphere is an
emblem of the "big round world" and the planetary systems. The cube
recalls the wonderful crystals, and shows the form that men reflect in

architecture and sculpture. As for the cylinder it is Nature's special form,
and God has taught man through Nature to use it in a thousand ways, and
indeed has himself fashioned man more or less in its shape.
Mr. Hailmann says: "The second gift presents types of the principal phases
of human development; from the easy mobility of infancy and childhood,—
the ball,—we pass through the half-steady stages of boyhood and girlhood,
represented in the cylinder, to the firm character of manhood and
womanhood for which the cube furnishes the formula."
Bishop Brooks, speaking from the words, "The length and the breadth of it
are equal," in his sermon on Symmetry of Life, uses the cube as a symbol of
perfect character: The personal push of a life forward, its outreach laterally
or the going out in sympathy to others, the upward reach toward God,—
these he considers the three life dimensions. But such building must be
done without nervous haste; the foundation must hint solidly of the
threefold purpose; length, breadth, and thickness must be kept in
proportion, if the perfect cube of life is ever to be found.

Note on Second Gift.[30] "The second gift, even in the nursery, calls for
modifications from the form in which it comes to us from Froebel. It is
incomparable in its rich symbolism for illustrating Froebel's thought to
mature minds, and answers quite a useful purpose in the nursery, where it
may help mamma tell her stories. But in the kindergarten the child wants to
build with blocks. Hence, the third, fourth, fifth, and sixth gifts are
indicated; the second gift, as such, is, to say the least, an anachronism. Only
in the form of the beads, or some similar expedient which gives many of
these things for control, will it satisfy the kindergarten child. When he is
expected to study the cube, as an object lesson, to count the squares and
corners and tell where they are, it is wholly unpalatable to him and entirely
foreign to his plans."

THOUGHTS ON THE DISCRIMINATIVE POWER.

"Mind starts from Discrimination. The consciousness of difference is the
beginning of every intellectual exercise."
"Our intelligence is, therefore, absolutely limited by our power of
discrimination; the other functions of intellect, the retentive power, for
instance, are not called into play until we have first discriminated a number
of things."
"The minuteness or delicacy of the feeling of difference is the measure of
the variety and multitude of our primary impressions and therefore of our
stored-up recollections."
"Bear in mind the fact that until a difference is felt between two things,
intelligence has not yet made the first step."
"The higher arts of comparison to impress difference are best illustrated
when both differences and agreements have to be noted, i. e., similarities
and dissimilarities."
"Discrimination is the necessary prelude of every intellectual impression as
the basis of our stored-up knowledge or memory."
Definition of the state of mind significantly named Indifference,—"the state
where differing impressions fail to be recognized as distinct."
"The retentive power works up to the height of the discriminative power; it
can do no more."
Alex. Bain.
"The most delightful and fruitful of all the intellectual energies is the
perception of similarity and agreement, by which we rise from the
individual to the general, trace sameness in diversity, and master instead of
being mastered by the multiplicity of nature."
Friedrich Froebel.
"It is by comparisons that we ascertain the difference which exists between
things, and it is by comparisons, also, that we ascertain the general features
of things, and it is by comparisons that we reach general propositions. In
fact, comparisons are at the bottom of all philosophy."

Louis Agassiz.

READINGS FOR THE STUDENT.

From Cradle to School. Bertha Meyer. Pages 132, 133.
The Kindergarten. Emily Shirreff. 11, 12.
Lectures on Child-Culture. W. N. Hailmann. 26, 27.
Froebel and Education by Self-Activity. H. Courthope Bowen. 138-40.
Kindergarten Guide. J. and B. Ronge. 3-5.
Koehler's Kindergarten Practice. Tr. by Mary Gurney. 47-49.
Kindergarten at Home. Emily Shirreff. 47-49.
Kindergarten Culture. W. N. Hailmann. 46, 51, 54.
Childhood's Poetry and Studies. E. Marwedel. Part II. 16-42.
Pedagogics of the Kindergarten. Fr. Froebel. 69-107.
Paradise of Childhood. Edward Wiebe. 9-11.
Law of Childhood. W. N. Hailmann. 33-35.
Kindergarten Guide. Kraus-Boelte. 15-27.
Education of Man. Fr. Froebel. 107-10.
Kindergarten Toys. H. Hoffmann. 12-17.
Architecture, Mysticism, and Myth. W. K. Lethaby. 50, 65.
Stories of Industry. Vols. i. and ii. A. Chase and E. Clow.
Ethics of the Dust. John Ruskin.
Mme. A. de Portugall's Synoptical Table, as given in "Essays on the Kindergarten."

THE BUILDING GIFTS
The Building Gifts meet two very strongly marked tendencies in the child.
a. The tendency to investigate. b. The tendency to transform.
The first and second gifts consist of undivided units, each one of which
stands in relation to a larger whole, or to a class of objects.
The third, fourth, fifth, and sixth gifts are divided units, and their
significance lies in the relationship of the parts to one another, and to the
whole of which they are the parts.
The effect of the Building Gifts is to develop the constructive powers of the
child. Their secondary importance lies in the fact that they afford striking
fundamental perceptions of Form, Size, Number, Relation, and Position.
The following rules should govern the dictation exercises:—

BUILDING RULES.

1. Use all material in order to keep the idea of relation of parts to a whole,
and because all unused material is wasted material.[31]
2. Build on the squares of the table in order to develop accuracy and
symmetry.
3. "Induce the child to form other wholes gradually and systematically from
the various parts of the cube. In doing this the laws of contrast and
development must be your guide."
Koehler.
4. Give names to each object constructed, thereby bringing it into relation
with the child's experience; for the miniature model serves to interpret more
clearly to him the object which it represents.

5. Connect with the child's life and sympathy in order to increase his
interest and develop the tendency to view things in their right relations.
6. "The younger the child, the more you should talk about the thing which
you intend to construct. You should intersperse passing observations or
short songs. As the children gain intelligence, this conversation will be
replaced by more formal descriptions of the things represented."
Koehler.
7. Begin with Life forms and proceed from these to forms of Beauty and
Knowledge.
8. Allow no child to rely upon the blocks of his playmates in his building,—
thus he will learn economy, self-reliance, and independence of action. This
should not be carried too far, or rather the necessity and beauty of
interdependence should also be taught. Herein, indeed, lies more than at
first appears. To make the most out of little is the great work of life; to be
contented with what one has, and to make the best of it with happiness and
contentment is surely no small lesson, and one which is constantly, though
indirectly, taught in the kindergarten work and plays and lessons.
9. Group work, or united building, should frequently be introduced. "Every
direction given by the kindergartner should be followed by spontaneous
work (either in word or deed) by the child. This must not only be individual,
but synthesized for the community."
10. Often encourage the class to imitate some specially attractive form
which has been produced by a child, and named according to his fancy.
11. Accustom the child to develop figures or forms by slight changes rather
than by rudely destroying each single one preparatory to constructing
another. From learning to be strictly methodical in his actions, he will
become so in his later reasoning.
12. "Let the child, if possible, correct his own mistakes, and do not
constantly interfere with his work. Whatever he is able to do for himself, no
one should do for him."
Koehler.

FROEBEL'S THIRD GIFT
"All children have the building instinct, and 'to make a house' is a universal form of
unguided play."
"It is not a mere pastime, but a key with which to open the outer world, and a means
of awakening the inner world."
"This gift includes in itself more outward manifoldness, and, at the same time, makes
the inward manifoldness yet more perceptible and manifest."
"The plaything shows also the ultimate type of structures put together by human hand
which stand in their substantiality around the child."
Friedrich Froebel.
"The definitely productive exercises begin with the third gift."
Susan E. Blow.

1. The third gift is a wooden cube measuring two inches in each of its
dimensions. It is divided once in its height, breadth, and thickness,
according to the three dimensions which define a solid, and thus eight
smaller cubes are produced.
2. We pass from the undivided to the divided unit, emphasizing the fact that
unity still exists, though divisibility enters as a new factor.
3. The most important characteristics of the gift are contrasts of size
resulting in the abstraction of form from size; increase of material as a
whole, decrease of size in parts; increase of facilities in illustrating form
and number.
The new experience to be found in this first divided body is the idea of
relativity; of the whole in its relation to the parts (each an embryo whole),
and of the parts in relation to the whole.
The form of the parts is like the form of the whole, but, in shape alike, the
dissimilarity is in size; the fact becoming more apparent by a variety of
combinations of a different number of parts: thus the relations of numbers

are introduced to the observation of the child together with those of form
and magnitude.
4. The third gift was intended by Froebel to meet the necessities of the child
at a period when, no longer satisfied with the external appearances of
things, he strives to penetrate their internal conditions, and begins to realize
the many different possibilities of the same element.
5. The geometrical forms illustrated in this gift are:—

{ Cube.
Solids. { Square Prism.
{ Rectangular Parallelopiped.

Planes. { Square.
{ Oblong.

6. Froebel intends the building exercise to be carried on in a certain way
with a view of establishing a law to regulate the child's activity. The upper
and lower parts of the figure—the contrasts—are first brought into position,
and the balance is established by the intermediates—right and left.
The cube itself is divided according to the law of Mediation of Contrasts.
The contrasts of exterior and interior, whole and parts, analysis and
synthesis, are also brought into relation with each other.

Mr. W. N. Hailmann says that the third gift marks an
important step in the mental life of the child. Heretofore, Hailmann on Third
Gift.
he has had to do with playthings indivisible, whole,
complete in themselves. Every impression, or, rather, every fact, came to
him as a unit, a one, an indivisible whole.
The analyses and syntheses that are presented to him in the first and second
gifts come ready-made as it were, so that the joyous exercise of his
instinctive activity, guided and directed by the judicious, loving mother, is
sufficient to give him control of them; indeed, the first and second gifts hold

to his mental development the same relation that the mother's milk holds to
his physical growth.
But the third gift satisfies the growing desire for independent activity, for
the exercise of his own power of analysis and synthesis, of taking apart and
putting together.[32]
Simple as this first building gift appears, it is capable of
great things. It lends itself to a hundred practical lessons Simplicity but
Adaptability of the
and a hundred charming transformations, but if it is not Gifts.
thoroughly comprehended it will never be well or
effectively used by the kindergartner, and will be nothing more to her than
to uninterested observers, who see in it nothing more than eight
commonplace little blocks in a wooden box.
Froebel says if his educational materials are found useful it cannot be
because of their exterior, which is as plain as possible and contains nothing
new, but that their worth is to be found exclusively in their application.
Therefore these simple devices with which we carry on
our education should never seem trifling, for we are How Children are
to be reached.
compelled in teaching very young children to put forth
all gentle allurements to the gaining of knowledge.
They are to be reached chiefly by the charms of sense, novelty, and variety,
and consequently, to please such active and imaginative little critics, our
lessons must be fresh, vivid, vigorous, and to the point.
To accomplish this, we can see that not only is absolute
knowledge necessary, but that a well developed What is Necessary
on Part of
sensibility and imagination are needed in leading the Kindergartner.
child from the indefinite to the definite, from universal
to particular, and from concrete to abstract. The worth of the gifts then, we
repeat, lies exclusively in their application; the rude little forms must be
used so that the child's imagination and sympathy will be reached.
We may be thankful that this heaven-born imaginative
faculty is the heritage of every child,—that it is hard to Imagination in
Child and
kill and lives on very short rations. The little boy ties a Kindergartner.

string around a stone and drags it through dust and mire with happy
conviction that it is a go-cart. The little girl wraps up a stocking or a towel
with tender hands, winds her shawl about it, and at once the God-given
maternal instinct leaps into life,—in an instant she has it in her arms. She
kisses its cotton head and sings it to sleep in divine unconsciousness of any
incompleteness, for love supplies many deficiencies. So let us cherish the
child heart in ourselves and never look with scorn upon the rude
suggestions of the forms the child has built, but rather enter into the play,
enriching it with our own imaginative power. The children will rarely
perceive any incongruities, and surely we need not hint them, any more
than we would remind a child needlessly that her doll is stuffed with
sawdust and has a plaster head, when she thinks it a responsive and
affectionate little daughter.
Middendorf said, "This is like a fresh bath for the human soul, when we
dare to be children again with children.[33] The burdens of life could not be
borne were it not for real gayety of heart."
"If it were only the play and the mere outward apparatus," says the
Baroness von Marenholtz-Bülow, "we might indeed find our daily teaching
monotonous, but the idea at the foundation of it and the contemplation of
the being of man and its development in the child is an inexhaustible mine
of interesting discovery."
This third gift satisfies the child's craving to take things
to pieces. Froebel did not choose it arbitrarily, for Reasons for Choice
of Third Gift.
Nature, human and physical, was an open handbook to
him, and if we study deeply and sympathetically the reasons for his choice
they will always be comprehended.[34] Fénelon says, "The curiosity of
children is a natural tendency, which goes in the van of instruction."
Destruction after all is only constructive faculty turned back upon itself.
The child, having no legitimate outlet for his creative instinct, pulls his
playthings to pieces, to see what is inside,—what they are made of and how
they are put together;[35] but to his chagrin he finds it not so easy to reunite
the tattered fragments.
In the divided cube, however, he can gratify his desires, and at the same
time possess the joy of doing right and destroying nothing, for the eight

little blocks can be quickly united into their original form, and also into
many other pleasing little forms, each one complete in itself, so that every
analysis ends as it should, in synthesis.
Froebel calls this gift specifically "the children's delight," and indeed it is,
responding so generously to their spontaneous activity, while at the same
time it suits their small capabilities, for the possibilities of an object used
for form study should not be too varied. "It must be suggestive through its
limitations," says Miss Blow, "for the young mind may be as easily crushed
by excess as by defect."[36]
Froebel was left motherless at a very early age, and during his first four
years of life his father was entirely engrossed with parish duties, and the
child had only occasional supervision from a hard-worked servant. Thus it
happened that he was frequently alone long hours at a time in a dusky room
overshadowed by the neighboring church, and naturally strayed often to the
window, from whence he might look down upon the busy world outside. He
recalls that he was greatly interested at one time in some workmen who
were repairing the church, and that he constantly turned from his post of
observation to try and imitate their labors, but his only building material
was the furniture of the room, and chairs and tables clumsily resisted his
efforts to pile them up into suitable form. He tells us that this strong desire
for building and the bitter disappointment of his repeated failures were still
keenly remembered when he was a grown man, and thus suggested to him
that children ought to be provided with materials for building among their
playthings. He often noticed also, in later years, that all children seem to
have the building instinct, corresponding to what Dr. Seguin calls "the
building mania in the infancy of peoples," and that "to make a house is the
universal form of unguided play."[37]
We now understand the meaning of the gift, the reason for its importance in
Froebel's plan, and its capabilities as a vehicle for delightful instruction.
There are three different classes of forms for dictation
and invention, variously named by kindergartners. Classes of Forms.

1. Life forms, or upright forms, which are seen in the child's daily life, as a
pair of boots, a chair, table, bed, or sofa. Froebel calls them also object
forms, or forms of things.

("The child demands that the object constructed stand in connection with
himself, his life, or somebody or something in his life."—Froebel.)
2. Mathematical forms, or various combinations of the blocks, upright and
supine, for mathematical exercises. They correspond to the forms of
knowledge in Logic.
(Also called by Froebel forms of truth, forms of instruction, forms of
learning.)
3. Symmetrical forms, or flat designs formed by opposites and their
intermediates. These are figures in which four of the blocks generally
revolve in order around the other four as a centre.
(Also called by Froebel picture forms, flower forms, star forms, dance
forms.)

LIFE FORMS.

Life forms should be given first, as the natural tendency
of the young child is to pile things up,[38] and these Life Forms.
forms seem simpler for dictation, are more readily
grasped by the mind, and more fascinating to the imagination. They are the
images of things both dear and familiar to him, and thus are particularly
adapted to the beginning since the "starting point of the child's development
is the heart and the emotions." It is easier for him to be an architect at first
than an artist, though each will be comprehended in the other after a time.
[39]

The dictations should be given very simply, clearly, and slowly, always
using one set of terms to express a certain meaning, and having those
absolutely correct. We should never give dictations from a book, but from
memory, having prepared the lesson beforehand, and should remember that
every exercise we give should "incite and develop self-activity." We must
guard against mistakes or confusion in our own minds; it is very easy to
confuse the child, and he will become inattentive and careless if he is
unable to catch our meaning.

Brief stories should occasionally be told, just mere outlines to give color
and force to the child's building, and connect it with his experience. If it is
an armchair, grandmother may sit in it knitting the baby's stocking. If it is a
well, describe the digging of it, the lining with stones or brick, the
inflowing of the water, the letting down of the bucket and long chain, the
clear, cool water coming up from the deep, dark hole in the ground on a hot
summer's day. These, of course, are but the merest suggestions which
experience may be trusted to develop.
It is better, perhaps, to give a bit of word-painting to each object constructed
than to wait till the end of the series for the day and tell a longer story, as
the interest is thus more easily sustained. The children, too, should be
encouraged to talk about the forms and tell little stories concerning them.
The form created should never be destroyed, but transformed into the next
in order by a few simple movements.

SYMMETRICAL FORMS.

"These forms, in spite of their regularity, are called
forms of beauty. The mathematical forms which Froebel Symmetrical
Forms.
designates forms of knowledge give only the skeleton
from which the beautiful form develops itself.
"Symmetry of the parts which make up these simple figures gives the
impression of beauty to the childish eye. He must have the elements of the
beautiful before he is in a condition to comprehend it in its whole extent.
"Only what is simple gives light to the child at first. He can only operate
with a small number of materials, therefore Froebel gives only eight cubes
for this object at this time."
Of course these three classes of forms are not to be kept arbitrarily separate,
and the children finish and lay aside one set before attempting another.
There are many cases where the three may be united, as indeed they are
morally speaking in the life of every human being.
When the distinctions are clear in our own minds, our knowledge and tact
will guide us to introduce the gift properly, and carry it on in a natural,

orderly, and rational manner, not restricting the child's own productive
powers.
If the children have had time to imbibe a love of symmetry and beauty, and
have been trained to observe and delight in them, then this second class of
forms will attract them as much, after a little, as the first, though more
difficult of execution.
Each sequence starts from a definite point, the four outside blocks revolving
round the central four, and going through or "dancing through," as Froebel
says, all the successive figures before returning in the opposite direction.
All the dictations are most valuable intellectually, but should not be long-
continued at one time, as they require great concentration of mind, and are
consequently wearisome.
Excellent exercises or suggestions for building can be
found in Ronge's "Kindergarten Guide." He mentions Hints from Ronge's
one pleasant little play which I will quote. "When each "Guide."
in the class has produced a different form, let the children rise and march
round the table to observe the variety." Let them sing in the ascending and
descending scales:—
Many pretty forms I see,
Which one seems the best to me?
At another time let each child try to build the house he lives in, and while
this is being done, let them join in singing some song about home. It is well
to encourage singing during the building exercises, as we have so many
appropriate selections.[40]
With the first of the Building Gifts enters a new variety
of group work, which was not adapted for the first and Group Work.
second gifts. The children may now be seated at square
tables, one at each side, and build in unison in the centre, the form produced
being of course four times as large and fine as any one of the number could
have produced alone. All the suggestions or directions for building are
necessarily carried out together, and the success of the completed form is
obviously dependent on the coöperation of all four children. Forms of

Beauty are very easily constructed in this manner, as well as forms of Life,
having four uniform sides, and when the little ones are somewhat more
expert builders, Life forms having opposite sides alike, or even four
different sides, may be constructed.
The other various forms of coöperative work are of course never to be
neglected, that a social unity may be produced, in which "the might of each
individual may be reinforced by the might of the whole."

MATHEMATICAL FORMS.

A better idea of these may be obtained through a
manipulation of the blocks and an arrangement of the Mathematical
Forms.
geometrical forms in their regular order.
The child, if he were taught as Froebel intended, would make his first
acquaintance with numbers in the nursery, beginning in a very small way
and progressing slowly. The pupils of the kindergarten are a little older, and
having already a slight knowledge of numbers (though not of course in their
abstract relations) are able to accomplish greater things.
The child can, with our guidance, make all possible combinations of the
parts of the number Eight. The principles of Addition, Subtraction, even
Multiplication and Fractions, can also be mastered without one tear of
misery or pang of torture. He grasps the whole first, then by simple
processes, building with his own hands, he finds out and demonstrates for
himself halves, fourths, and eighths, sometimes in different positions, but
always having the same contents.
Even yet we must not suffer this to become work. The
exercises should be repeated again and again, but we Method and
must learn to break off when the play is still delightful, Manner
Gift.
of using the

and study ways to endow the next one with new life and
charm, though it carry with it the same old facts. What we want to secure is,
not a formidable number of parrot-like statements, but a firm foundation for
future clearness of understanding, depth of feeling, and firmness of purpose.
So, at the beginning of the exercise, we should not ask John if he
remembers what we talked about last time, and expect him to answer

clearly at once. Because he does not answer our formal questions which do
not properly belong to babyhood, we need not conclude he has learned
nothing, for a child can show to our dull eyes only a very tiny glimpse of
his wonderful inner world.
Let our aim be, that the child shall little by little receive impressions so
clearly that he will recognize them when they appear again, and that he
shall, after a time, know these impressions by their names. It is nothing but
play after all, but it is in this childish play that deep meaning lies.
A child is far less interested in that which is given him complete than in that
which needs something from him to make it perfect. He loves to employ all
his energies in conceiving and constructing forms; the less you do for him
the better he enjoys it, if he has been trained to independence.[41]
Pedantry and dogmatism must be eliminated from all the dictations; the life
must not be shut out of the lessons in order that we may hear a pin drop, nor
should they be allowed to degenerate into a tedious formalism and
mechanical puppet-show, in which we pull the strings and the poor little
dummies move with one accord.
Yet most emphatically a certain order and harmony must prevail, the forms
must follow each other in natural sequence, the blocks must, invariably, be
taken carefully from the box, so as to present a whole at the first glance, and
at the close of the lesson should always be neatly put together again into the
original form and returned to the box as a whole.[42]
And now one last word of warning about doing too much for the children in
these exercises, and even guiding too much, carrying system and method
too far in dictation. We must remember that an excess of systematizing
crushes instead of developing originality, and that it is all too easy even in
the kindergarten to turn children into machines incapable of acting when the
guiding hand is removed.

NOTE.

In opening the boxes, it is well to observe some simple form. It is not
irksome, but, on the contrary, rather pleasing to the children, who delight in

doing things in concert.

BOXES IN CENTRE OF TABLE.

1. Draw the cover out one half space.
2. Fingers of right hand placed on left-hand side of box.
3. Turn entirely over from left to right.
4. Withdraw lid and place on right-hand upper corner of table.
5. Lift box gently and place on top of cover mouth upwards.

READINGS FOR THE STUDENT.

Reminiscences of Froebel. Von Marenholtz-Bülow. Page 152.
Child and Child Nature. Von Marenholtz-Bülow. 145, 146.
Education. E. Seguin. 95, 96.
Lessons in Form. W. W. Speer. 23.
Pedagogics of the Kindergarten. Fr. Froebel. 108-44.
Education of Man. Fr. Froebel. Tr. by Josephine Jarvis. 40, 41.
Kindergarten at Home. E. Shirreff. 12-14.
Kindergarten Culture. W. N. Hailmann. 55-66.
Paradise of Childhood. Edward Wiebe. 11-16.
Law of Childhood. W. N. Hailmann. 35-38.
Kindergarten Guide. J. and B. Ronge. 5-13.
Kindergarten Guide. Kraus-Boelte. 27-47.
Koehler's Kindergarten Practice. Tr. by Mary Gurney. 20-23.
Froebel and Education by Self-Activity. H. Courthope Bowen. 140-42.
Kindergarten Toys. Heinrich Hoffmann. 17-26.
Conscious Motherhood. E. Marwedel. 165, 166.
The Kindergarten. H. Goldammer. 49-70.

FROEBEL'S FOURTH GIFT
"A new gift is demanded—a gift wherein the length, breadth, and thickness of a solid
body shall be distinguished from each other by difference of size. Such a gift will
open the child's eyes to the three dimensions of space, and will serve also as a means
of recognizing and interpreting the manifold forms and structures with which he is
constantly brought in contact."
"The inner difference, intimated in the three perpendicular axes of the cube (and the
sphere), now becomes externally visible and abiding in each of its building blocks as
a difference of size."
Fr. Froebel.
"The fourth gift incites the child to consider things in their relations to space, and to
the forces of nature, and in his play with the bricks he is constantly engaged in efforts
to adapt himself to the laws of their nature, while rendering them subservient to his
ends."
W. N. Hailmann.

1. The fourth gift consists of a cube measuring two inches in each of its
dimensions. It is divided once vertically in its height, and three times
horizontally in its thickness, giving eight parallelopipeds or bricks, each
two inches long, one inch wide, and one half inch thick.
2. Like the third gift in form, size, material, and use, it is unlike it in
division. In the third gift the parts were like each other, and like the whole,
in the fourth they are like each other, but unlike the whole.
3. The most important characteristics of the gift are:—
a. Approximation to surface in the symmetrical forms.
b. Greater height and greater extension, resulting in a greater possible
inclosure of space.
c. The illustration of two philosophical laws, viz., the law of Equilibrium or
Balance, and the law of Transmitted Motion or Propagation of Force.
4. Progress is shown in this gift as follows:—

a. In the difficulty of dictation and manipulation arising from the different
character of the faces of the bricks, and the many positions which each
brick can assume.
b. In the necessity of perfect balance.
c. In a clearer illustration of dimension. In the third gift the parts were equal
in height, breadth, and thickness; in the fourth they are unequal, and
therefore each dimension is emphasized.
As to progression, the increase of difficulty suits the increase in the child's
power of comprehension and receptivity. He is being developed thus far, not
by rapid changes in material or greater exercise in number, but by practice
with differing forms, each one bringing with it new knowledge and
experience. The organs of perception are being constantly made to grow by
exercise with intention. We are forming the scientific eye which can detect
differences ever after at a glance.
5. The geometrical forms illustrated in this gift are:—

Solids. { Rectangular Parallelopipeds.
{ Square Prisms.

Planes. { Oblongs.
{ Squares.

6. The fourth gift presents contrasts of dimension and, as to the area of its
faces, contrasts of size and their mediation.

The use of the third gift opened to the child quite a new
world of experiences, each one of which was pleasant What the Child has
gained from Third
and instructive, combining all the delights of mental and Gift.
physical activity, imagination, practical industry, and
coöperation.

He has gained an idea, distinct in proportion to the skill with which it has
been placed before him, of the cube as a solid body having surfaces,
corners, and edges; of a whole and its equal fractional parts; of the power of
combining those parts into new wholes; and of the fact that form and size
are two separate and distinct characteristics of objects. He has also gained
new dexterity.[43] His ten little fingers that seemed "all thumbs" as they
arranged so carefully the clumsy little cubes of the Low Wall can now build
the Bunker Hill Monument with unerring skill, and can even, with the grave
concentration that it demands, drop the last difficult little block cornerwise
into the top of the church window.
The child has counted his cubes from one to eight until he knows them like
the children of a family, and can divide them into sets of two and four with
equal ease.
These are the deeds. As to the new words the little box of blocks has
brought him, their number is legion, comprising many terms of direction
and position, names of tools and implements, buildings and places.
Truly if the kindergartner has been wise and faithful, the child has gained
wonders from this simple unassuming toy, one which is almost too plain
and rude to fix the momentary attention of a modern spoiled child, though
even he will grow to appreciate its treasures if rightly guided.
And now we approach another cubical box, containing
the fourth gift, and, on opening it, see that it presents Differences
between Third and
resemblances between and differences when compared Fourth Gifts.
with that just left behind.
We notice at once the new method of division, and in separating it find that
the parts, evidently in number the same as before, are entirely novel in
form, though the whole was familiar in its aspect. If the child is old enough
to understand the process of comparison, he will see that the parts of the
two gifts have each six surfaces, eight corners, and twelve edges; but that
while edges and corners are alike, the faces differ greatly on the new block,
which he will probably call the "brick," as it is a familiar form and name to
him. This process of comparison will be greatly facilitated if he models the
two cubes in clay, and divides them with string or wire, the one into inch
cubes, the other into bricks.

Dr. E. Seguin, in his celebrated "Report on Education,"
says, in regard to the use of the cube as the primary Dr. Seguin's
block or figure in the kindergarten: "Had the Objections to the
Cube as the Primary
kindergartners chosen it with their senses, as it must Figure in the
speak to the senses of the child, instead of with their Kindergarten.
mind, they would certainly never have selected the cube,
a form in which similarity is everywhere, difference nowhere, a barren type
incapable by itself of instigating the child to active comparison. Had they,
on the contrary, from infantile reminiscences, or from more philosophical
indications, selected a block of brick-form, the child would soon have
discovered and made use of the similarity of the straight lines, and of the
difference of the three dimensions. For example: Put a cube on your desk
and let a pupil put one on his; you change the position of yours, he,
accordingly, of his. If you renew these moves till both of you are tired, they
will not make any perceptible change in the aspect of the object. The
movement has been barren of any modification perceptible to the senses
and appreciable to the mind. There has been no lesson unless you have, by
words speaking to the mind, succeeded in making the child comprehend the
idea of a cube derived from its intrinsic properties; a body with six equal
sides and eight equal angles."
With all deference to Dr. Seguin, whose opinions and
deductions are generally indisputable, we cannot regard Answers to these
Objections.
as unwise the choice of the cube as the primary figure in
the gifts.
In the first place, Froebel, having a sequence of forms in his mind,
undoubtedly wished to introduce, early in that sequence, the one which
would best serve him as a foundation for further division and subdivision.
This need is, beyond question, better met in the cube than in the brick,
which would lend itself awkwardly to regular division.
Secondly, although there is in the cube "similarity everywhere, difference
nowhere," and therefore it might be called in truth a "barren type, incapable
by itself of instigating the child to comparison and action," we do not
introduce it, by itself, but in contrast with the sphere and cylinder.

Then, when it appears again in the building gifts, "as the simplest and most
easily handled form element," the kindergartner has every opportunity to
use it so that it may lead the child to comparison and action, and to develop
the slowly dawning sense of difference and agreement without which she
well knows "knowledge has not yet made the first step." But, if the cube is a
form speaking little to the senses of a child, and requiring description by
words spoken to the mind, it is evident that we should use great care in
dealing with the second gift, lest we run needlessly into abstractions, and
strive to give the child ideas of which he can have no comprehension.
The "brick" is a form rich in impressions, for we find
that every position in which it is placed gives the child a Value of the Brick
new perception, and the union of these perceptions Form.
furnishes him with a complete idea of the object, and of its possible uses in
relation to its form.
Dr. Seguin does not rate it too highly when he says: "What a spring of
effective movements, of perceptions and of ideas in the exercises with this
form, where analogy and difference, incessantly noted by the touch and the
view, challenge the mind to comparison and judgment!"
The fourth gift contains all that the three former gifts
showed, and introduces differences of dimension and Dimension.
equilibrium only hinted at before. It also, as Froebel
says, "throws into relief the perception of size by showing similarity of size
with dissimilarity of dimension and position."
As to dimension, the child built the Shot-tower with the third gift, and knew
that it was high, the Platform and that it was broad, the Well and that it was
deep, the Wall and saw that it was thick, etc., so that he has a conception of
height, length, breadth; but in the fourth gift he is shown these dimensions
in a single block. He is thus led from the known to the unknown.[44] They
are united and contrasted in one object, and therefore emphasized.
As to the law of equilibrium, it is very forcibly brought
to the child's attention every time his forms fall to the Equilibrium.
table when constructed without due regard to its
principles.

He soon sees its practical significance, takes care to follow its manifest
expression, and to observe with more care the centre of gravity. Great
liberties could be taken with the stolid little cubes and they seldom showed
any resentment; they quietly settled down into their places and resisted
sturdily all the earthquake shocks which are apt to visit a kindergarten table
during the building hour. The bricks on the other hand have to be humored
and treated with deference. The moment one is placed upon another, end to
end, the struggle begins, and in any of the high Life forms, the utmost
delicacy of touch is necessary as well as sure aim and steady hand.
Here comes in, too, a necessity of calculation not before required. The
cubes could be placed on any side and always occupy the same space, but
the building with the bricks will vary according as they are placed on the
broad, the narrow, or the short face. They must also fit together and bear a
certain relation to each other.
In the dictations it will be perceived that we now have to specify the
position which the brick must take as well as the place which it is to
occupy. We designate the three faces of the brick as the broad face, the
narrow face, and the short face or end.
The symmetrical forms are much more interesting than
before and decidedly more artistic when viewed in Fourth Gift
comparison with the somewhat thick and clumsy designs Building.
made with the cubes. The fourth gift forms cover more space, approach
nearer the surface, and the bricks slide gracefully from one position to
another, and slip in and out of the different figures with a movement which
seems like a swan's, compared with the goose-step of the stubby little
cubes.
It is a noteworthy fact that "the buds," as Froebel calls them, of all the
fourth gift Beauty forms were contained in those of the third gift, and have
here opened into fuller bloom.
The Life forms are much more artistic now, and begin to imitate a little
more nearly the objects they are intended to represent. We can make more
extensive buildings also since we have an additional height or length of
eight inches over that of the third gift, and thus can cover double the
amount of surface and inclose a much greater space. In the first play with

the gift, the children's eyes, so keen in seeing play possibilities, quickly
discover the value of the bricks in furniture-making, and set to work at once
on tables and chairs, or bureaus and sofas and bedsteads.
They engage too in a lively contest with the law of equilibrium, and
experiment long and patiently until they comprehend its practical workings.
When they understand the fourth gift fairly well, know the different faces
and can handle the bricks with some dexterity, the third gift should be
added and the two used together. They complement each other admirably,
and give variety and strength to the building, whether forms of Life, Beauty,
or Knowledge are constructed.
Froebel, however, is most emphatic in directing that each set of blocks
should be given to the child in its own box, opened so as to present a whole
at the first glance, and carefully rebuilt and packed away when the play is
over. The cubes and bricks should never be left jumbled together at the
close of the exercise, nor should they be kept in and returned to a common
receptacle.
"Unimportant as these little rules may appear," he says, "they are essential
to the clear and definite development of the child, to his orderly
apprehension of external objects, and to the logical unfolding of his own
concepts and judgments."
"The box of building blocks should be regarded by the child," he concludes,
"as a worthy, an appreciated, and a loved comrade."
The mathematical forms are constructed and applied in precisely the same
manner as before. The fourth gift, however, offers a far greater number of
these than its predecessor, while it is particularly adapted to show that
objects identical in form and size may be produced in quite different ways.
Throughout all these guided plays, it should be remembered that time is
always to be allowed the child for free invention, that the kindergartner
should talk to him about what he has produced so that his thought may be
discovered to himself,[45] and that in all possible ways Group work should
be encouraged in order that his own strength and attainments may be
multiplied by that of his playfellows and swell the common stock of power.

Froebel, the great advocate of the "Together" principle says, "Isolation and
exclusion destroy life; union and participation create life."[46]
It is perhaps needless to say that the philosophical laws which govern the
outward manifestations of a moving force, as equilibrium or self-
propagating activity, are for personal study, and are never to be spoken of
abstractly to the child, but merely to be illustrated with simple explanations.
To show simply the law of transmitted motion, for
instance, let the child place his eight bricks on end, in a Transmitted
Motion.
row, one half inch apart, with their broad faces toward
each other. Then ask him to give the one at the right a very gentle push
towards the others and see what will happen; the result is probably as great
a delight as you could reasonably wish to put within his reach.
When he asks, "What makes them do so?" as every thoughtful child is apt
to do, let us ask the class the same question and set them thinking about it.
"Which brick did it?" we may say familiarly, and they will see it all in a
moment,—where the force originated, how it gave itself to the next brick in
order, that one in turn doing the same, and so on.
This law of transmitted motion, when so simply illustrated in the fourth gift,
easily suggests to the children the force of example, and indeed every
physical law seems to have its correlate in the moral world. We may make
the children see it very clearly through the seven poor, weak little bricks
that fell down because they were touched by the first one. They really could
not help it; now, how about seven little boys or girls? They can help doing
things, can they not?
By such simple exercises and appropriate comments the children may be
made to realize their moral free agency.

READINGS FOR THE STUDENT.

Kindergarten at Home. Emily Shirreff. Pages 58-61.
Kindergarten Culture. W. N. Hailmann. 66.
Koehler's Kindergarten Practice. Tr. by Mary Gurney. 23, 24.
Kindergarten Guide. J. and B. Ronge. 13-24.

Pedagogics of the Kindergarten. Fr. Froebel. 166-95.
Paradise of Childhood. Edward Wiebe. 17-19.
Kindergarten Guide. Kraus-Boelte. 47-81.
Froebel and Education by Self-Activity. H. Courthope Bowen. 141, 142.
Kindergarten Toys. H. Hoffmann. 27-30.

FROEBEL'S FIFTH GIFT
"The material for making forms increases by degrees, progressing according to law, as
Nature prescribes. The simple wild rose existed before the double one was formed by
careful culture. Children are too often overwhelmed with quantity and variety of
material that makes formation impossible to them."
"The demand of the new gift, therefore, is that the oblique line, hitherto only
transiently indicated, shall become an abiding feature of its material."
"In the forms made with the fifth gift there rules a living spirit of unity. Even
members and directions which are apparently isolated are discovered to be related by
significant connecting members and links, and the whole shows itself in all its parts as
one and living,—therefore, also, as a life-rousing, life-nurturing, and life-developing
totality."
Fr. Froebel.

1. The fifth gift is a three-inch cube, which, being divided equally twice in
each dimension, produces twenty-seven one-inch cubes. Three of these are
divided into halves by one diagonal cut, and three others into quarters by
two diagonal cuts crossing each other, making in all thirty-nine pieces,
twenty-one of which are whole cubes, the same size as those of the third
gift.
2. The fifth gift seems to be an extension of the third, from which it differs
in the following points:—
The third gift is a two-inch cube, the fifth a three-inch cube; the third is
divided once in each dimension, the fifth twice. In the third all the parts are
like each other and like the whole; in the fourth, they are like each other but
unlike the whole; and in the fifth they are not only for the most part unlike
each other, but eighteen of them are unlike the whole.
The third gift emphasized vertical and horizontal divisions producing
entirely rectangular solids; the fifth, by introduction of the slanting line and
triangular prism, extends the element of form. In the third gift, the slanting
direction was merely implied in a transitory way by the position of the
blocks; in the fifth it is definitely realized by their diagonal division.

In number, the third gift emphasized two and multiples of two; the fifth is
related to the fourth in its advance in complexity of form and mathematical
relations.
3. The most important characteristics of the gift are: introduction of
diagonal line and triangular form; division into thirds, ninths, and twenty-
sevenths; illustration of the inclined plane and cube-root. As a result of
these combined characteristics, it is specially adapted to the production of
symmetrical forms.
It includes not only multiplicity, but, for the first time, diversity of material.
4. The fifth gift realizes a higher unity through a greater variety than has
been illustrated previously. It corresponds with the child's increasing power
of analysis; it offers increased complexity to satisfy his growing powers of
creation, and less definitely suggestive material in order to keep pace with
his developing individuality.
5. The geometrical forms illustrated in this gift are:—

{ Cube.
{ Rectangular Parallelopiped.
{ Square Prism.
{ Triangular Prism.
Solids. { Rhomboidal Prism.
{ Trapezoidal Prism.
{ Pentagonal Prism.
{ Hexagonal Prism.
{ Heptagonal Prism.
{ Octagonal Prism.

{ Square.
{ Oblong.
{ Right Isosceles Triangle.
{ Rhomboid.
{ Oblong.
Planes. { Trapezium.

{ Trapezoid.
{ Pentagon.
{ Hexagon.
{ Heptagon.
{ Octagon.

6. The fifth gift shows the following contrasts and mediations:—
The diagonal line a connection between the horizontal and vertical; the right
angle as a connection between the obtuse angle (largest) and the acute angle
(smallest); in size of parts the half cube standing between the whole and
quarter cubes.

We have thus far been proceeding from unity to variety, from the whole to
its parts, from the simple to the complex, from easily constructed forms to
those more difficult of manipulation and dictation, until we have arrived at
the fifth gift.
How instructive and delightful have we found this
orderly procedure; this development of great from little Effect of the Study
of Froebel's Gifts
things; this thoughtful association of new and practical on the
ideas with all that is familiar to the child mind and heart. Kindergartner.
Every year the training teacher feels it anew herself, and
is sure of the growing interest and sympathy of her pupils.
Many persons who fail to grasp the true meaning of the kindergarten seem
to consider the balls and blocks and sticks with which we work most
insignificant little objects; but we think, on the other hand, that nothing in
the universe is small or insignificant if viewed in its right connection and
undertaken with earnestness and enthusiasm. Nothing in childhood is too
slight for the notice, too trivial for the sympathy of those on whom the
Father of all has bestowed the holy dignity of motherhood or teacherhood;
and to the kindergartner belongs the added dignity of approaching nearer
the former than the latter, for hers indeed is a sort of vice-motherhood.

We must always be impressed with the knowledge which we ourselves gain
in studying these gifts and preparing the exercises with them. In
concentration of thought; careful, distinct, precise, and expressive language;
logical arrangement of ideas; new love of order, beauty, symmetry, fitness,
and proportion; added ingenuity in adapting material to various uses,
æsthetic and practical,—in all these ways every practical student of Froebel
must constantly feel a decided advance in ability.
Then, too, the simple rudiments of geometry have been reviewed in a new
light; we have dealt with solid bodies and planes, and studied them
critically so that we might draw the child's attention to all points of
resemblance or difference; we have found some beautifully simple
illustrations of familiar philosophical truths, and, best of all, have simplified
and crystallized our knowledge of the relations of numbers so that the
child's impressions of them may be easily and clearly gained.
We have been required to look at each gift in its broadest
aspect, and to observe it patiently and minutely in all its Why we are
required to study
possibilities, for the larger the amount of knowledge the deeply and to know
kindergartner possesses, the more free from error will be more than we teach.
her practice.
Unless we know more than we expect to teach, we shall find that our
lessons will be stiff, formal affairs, lacking variety, elasticity, and freshness,
and marred continually by lack of illustration and spontaneity.
Lack of interest in the teacher is as fatal as lack of interest in the child; in
fact, the one follows directly upon the heels of the other. For this reason,
continued study is vitally necessary that new phases of truth may
continually be seen.
Above all other people the teacher should go through life with eyes and ears
open. Unless she is constantly accumulating new information her mind will
not only become like a stagnant pool, but she will find out that what she
possesses is gradually evaporating. There is no state of equilibrium here;
she who does not progress retrogresses.
It should be a comparatively simple matter to gain enough knowledge for
teaching,—the difficult thing is the art of imparting it. Said Lord Bacon,

"The art of well delivering the knowledge we possess to others is among the
secrets left to be discovered by future generations."
These are a few of the technicalities which have been
mastered up to this time by a faithful study of the gifts Relation between
Gifts, and their
of Froebel; and yet they are only technicalities, and do Relation to the
not include the half of what has been gained in ways Child's Mental and
more difficult to describe. Moral Growth.

"To clearly comprehend the gifts either individually or collectively we must
clearly conceive their relation to and dependence on each other, for it is
only in this intimate connection that they gain importance or value."
If the kindergartner does not recognize the relationship which exists
between them and their relation to the child's mental and moral growth, she
uses them with no power or intelligence. We conceive nothing truly so long
as we conceive it by itself; the individual example must be referred to the
universal law before we can rightly apprehend its significance, and for a
clear insight into anything whatsoever we must view it in relation to the
class to which it belongs. We can never really know the part unless we
know the whole, neither can we know the whole unless we know the part.
In the fifth gift, which, it may be said, can commonly
only be used with profit after the child has neared or Pleasure of Child at
attained his fifth year, we find that we have not parted New Gift.
from our good old friend, the cube, that has taught us so many valuable
lessons. We always find contained in each gift a reminder of the previous
one, together with new elements which may have been implied before, but
not realized. So, therefore, we have again the cube, but greatly enlarged,
divided, and diversified. When the child sees for the first time even the
larger box containing his new plaything, he feels joyful anticipation,
surmising that as he has grown more careful and capable, he has been
entrusted with something of considerable importance. If he has been
allowed to use the third and fourth gifts together frequently, he will not be
embarrassed by the amount of material in the new object.
Lest he be overwhelmed, however, by its variety as much as by its quantity,
it might be well before presenting the new material as a whole to allow the
child to play with a third gift in which one cube cut in halves and one in

quarters have been substituted for two whole cubes. He will joyfully
discover the new forms, study them carefully, and find out their distinctive
peculiarities and their value in building. When he has used them
successfully once or twice, and has learned how to place the triangular
prisms to form the cube, then the mass of new material as a whole can have
no terrors for him.
How great is his pleasure when he withdraws the cover and finds indeed
something full of immense possibilities; he feels, too, a command of his
faculties which leads him to regard the new materials, not with doubt or
misgiving, but with a conscious power of comprehension.
At the first glance the most striking characteristics are its
greater size and greater number of divisions, into thirds, Its New Features.
ninths, and twenty-sevenths, instead of halves, quarters,
and eighths.
These divisions open a new field in number lessons, while the introduction
of the slanting line and triangular prism makes a decided advance in form
and architectural possibilities.
The triangle, by the way, is a valuable addition in
building exercises, for as a fundamental form in Importance of
architecture it occurs very frequently in the formation of Triangular Form.
all familiar objects. Indeed, the new form and its various uses in building
constitute the most striking and valuable feature of the gift.
We find it an interesting fact that all the grand divisions of the earth's
surface have a triangular form, and that the larger islands assume this shape
more or less.
The operation of dividing the earth's surface into greater and lesser triangles
is used in making a trigonometrical survey and in ascertaining the length of
a degree of latitude or longitude. The triangle is also of great use in the
various departments of mechanical work, as will be noted hereafter in
connection with the seventh gift.
The difficulties of the fifth gift are only apparent, for the
well-trained child of the kindergarten sees more than any Difficulties of the
Fifth Gift.
other, and he will grasp the small complexities with

wonderful ease, smoothing out a path for himself while we are wondering
how we shall make it plain to him.
But here let us note that we can only succeed in attaining
satisfactory results in kindergarten work by beginning Effect of Good
intelligently and never discontinuing our patient Training.
watchfulness, self-command, and firmness of purpose,—firmness,
remember, not stubbornness, for it is a rare gift to be able to yield rightly
and at the proper time.
If we help the little one too much in his first simple lessons or dictations; if
we supply the word he ought to give; if, to save time and produce a
symmetrical effect, we move a block here and there in weariness at some
child's apparent stupidity, we shall never fail to reap the natural results. The
effect of a rational conscientious and consistent behavior to the child in all
our dealings with him is very great, and every little slip from the loving yet
firm and straightforward course brings its immediate fruit.
The perfectly developed child welcomes each new difficulty and invites it;
the imperfectly trained pupil shrinks in half-terror and helplessness, feeling
no hope of becoming master of these strange new impressions.
To return to the specific consideration of the gift, there
must be a plan of arranging the various pieces which go Arrangement of
Pieces.
to make up the whole cube.
We have now for the first time the slanting line, the mediation of the two
opposites, vertical and horizontal, and by this three of the small cubes are
divided into halves and three into quarters. It is advisable, when building
the cube, to place nine whole cubes in each of the two lower layers, keeping
all the divided cubes in the upper or third layer, halves in the middle row,
quarters at the back. Then we may slide the box gently over the cube as in
the third and fourth gifts, which enables us to have the blocks separated
properly when taken out again, and forms the only expedient way of
handling the pieces.[47]
The exercises with this gift are like those which have preceded it.

1. Informal questions by the kindergartner and answers
by the children, on its introduction, that it may be well Exercises of the
understood. This should be made entirely Gift
conversational, familiar, and playful, but a logical plan of development
should be kept in mind. A consideration of the various pieces of the gift
may occupy a part of each building or number lesson.
2. Dictation, building by suggestion, and cooperative plays in the various
forms. With all except advanced children the Life forms are most useful and
desirable.[48]
3. Free invention with each lesson.
4. Number and form lessons. In number there will of course be some
repetition of what has been done before, but a sufficient amount of new
presentation to awaken interest. It is only by constant review and repetition
that we can assist children to remember these things and to receive them
among their natural experiences, and fortunately the habit of repetition in
childhood is a natural one, and therefore seldom irksome.
As to the form lessons, we must remember that our
method has nothing to do with scientific geometry, but is Errors in Form
Teaching.
based entirely on inspection and practice. It lays the
foundation of instruction in drawing, and forms an admirable preparation
for different trades, as carpentry, cabinet-making, masonry, lock-smithing,
pattern-making, etc. Even in the primary schools, and how much more in
the kindergarten, the form or geometrical work should be essentially
practical and given by inspection. Even there all scientific demonstration
should be prohibited, and the teacher should be sparing in definitions.
It is enough if the children recognize the forms by their special
characteristics and by perceiving their relations, and can reproduce the
solids in modeling, and the planes and outlines in tablets, sticks, rings, slats,
drawing, and sewing.[49]

LIFE FORMS.

We can now be quite methodical and workman-like in
our building, and can learn to use all the parts Forms of Life.
economically and according to principle. We can discuss
ground plans, cellars, foundations, basements, roofs, eaves, chimneys,
entrances, and windows, and thus can make almost habitable dwellings and
miniature models of larger objects.[50]
The child is a real carpenter now, and innocently happy in his labor. Who
can doubt that in these cheerful daily avocations he becomes in love with
industry and perseverance, and as character is nothing but crystallized habit,
he gets a decided bias in these directions which affects him for many a year
afterward.[51]
Objects which he meets in his daily walks are to be constructed, and also
objects with which he is not so familiar,[52] so that by pleasant conversation
the realm of his knowledge may be extended, and the sphere of his
affections and fancies enlarged; for these exercises when properly
conducted address equally head, heart, and hand.
Froebel says of all this building, "It is essential to proceed from the cube as
a whole. In this way the conception of the whole, of uniting, stamps itself
upon the child's mind, and the evolution of the particular, partial, and
manifold from unity is illustrated."
Our opportunities for group work, or united building, are
greatly extended, and none of them should be neglected, Group Work.
as it is essential to inculcate thus early the value of
coöperation. We have material enough to call into being many different
things on the children's tables; the house where they live, the church they
see on Sunday, the factory where their fathers or brothers work, the
schoolhouse, the City Hall, the public fountain, the stable, and the shops.
Thus we may create an entire village with united effort, and systematic,
harmonious action. Each object may be brought into intimate relation with
the others by telling a story in which every form is introduced. This always
increases the interest of the class, and the story itself seems to be more
distinctly remembered by the child when brought into connection with what
he has himself constructed.

The third gift may be used with the fifth if we wish to increase the number
of blocks for coöperative work, and is particularly adapted to the laying of
foundations for large buildings in the sand-table. A large fifth gift,
constructed on the scale of a foot instead of an inch, is very useful for
united building. One child or the kindergartner may be the architect of the
monument or other large form which is to be erected in the centre of the
circle. The various children then bring the whole cubes, the halves, and
quarters, and lay them in their appropriate places, and the erection when
complete is the work of every member of the community.

SYMMETRICAL FORMS.

These are in number and variety almost endless, as we
have thirty-nine pieces of different characters. Edward Forms of
Symmetry.
Wiebe says: "He who is not a stranger in mathematics
knows that the number of combinations and permutations of thirty-nine
different bodies cannot be counted by hundreds nor expressed by thousands,
but that millions hardly suffice to exhaust all possible combinations."
These forms naturally separate themselves, Froebel says, into two distinct
series, i. e., the series of squares and the series of triangles, and move from
these to the circle as the conclusion of the whole series of representations.
"From these forms approximating to the circle there is an easy transition to
the representation of the different kinds of cog-wheels, and hence to a crude
preliminary idea of mechanics."
If the movements begin with the exterior part of the figure instead of the
interior, we should make all the changes we wish in that direction before
touching the centre, and vice versa.
Each definite beginning conditions a certain process of its own, and
however much liberty in regard to changes may be allowed, they are always
to be introduced within certain limits.[53]
We should leave ample room for the child's own powers of creation, but
never disregard Froebel's principle of connection of opposites; this alone
will furnish him with the "inward guide" which he needs.[54] It is only by

becoming accustomed to a logical mode of action that the child can use this
amount of material to good advantage.
The dictations should be made with great care and
simplicity. The child's mind must never be forced if it Dangers of
Dictation.
shows weariness, nor the more difficult lessons given in
too noisy a room, as the nervous strain is very great under such
circumstances. We should remember that great concentration is needed for a
young child to follow these dictations, and we must be exceedingly careful
in enforcing that strict attention for too long a time. A well-known specialist
says that such exercises should not be allowed at first to take up more than a
minute or two at a time; then, that their duration should gradually extend to
five and ten minutes. The length of time which children closely and
voluntarily attend to an exercise is as follows: Children from five to seven
years, about fifteen minutes; from seven to ten years, twenty minutes; from
twelve to eighteen years, thirty minutes. A magnetic teacher can obtain
attention somewhat longer, but it will always be at the expense of the
succeeding lesson. "By teachers of high pretensions, lessons are often
carried on greatly and grievously in excess of the proper limits; but when
the results are examined they show that after a certain time has been
exceeded, everything forced upon the brain only tends to drive out or to
confuse what has been previously stored in it."
We find, of course, that the mind can sustain more labor for a longer time
when all the faculties are employed than when a single faculty is exerted,
but the ambitious teacher needs to remind herself every day that no error is
more fatal than to overwork the brain of a young child. Other errors may
perhaps be corrected, but the effects of this end only with life. To force
upon him knowledge which is too advanced for his present comprehension,
or to demand from him greater concentration, and for a longer period than
he is physically fitted to give, is to produce arrested development.[55]

MATHEMATICAL FORMS.

We must beware of abstractions in these forms of
knowledge, and let the child see and build for himself, Forms of
Knowledge.
then lead him to express in numbers what he has seen

and built. He will not call it Arithmetic, nor be troubled with any visions of
mathematics as an abstract science.[56]
The cube may be divided into thirds, ninths, and twenty-sevenths, and the
fact thus practically shown that whether the thirds are in one form or
another, in long lines or squares, upright or flat, the contents remain the
same. We may also illustrate by building, that like forms may be produced
which shall have different contents, or different forms having the same
contents.
Halves and quarters may be discussed and fully illustrated, and addition,
subtraction, multiplication, and division may be continued as fully as the
comprehension of the child will allow.
During the practice with the forms of knowledge we should frequently
illustrate the lawful evolution of one form from another, as in the series
moving from the parallelopiped to the hexagonal prism.
It should not be forgotten that whenever the cube is separated and divided,
recombination should follow, and that the gift plays should always close
with synthetic processes.
Some of the mathematical truths shown in the fifth gift were also seen in
the third, but "repeated experiences," as Froebel says, "are of great profit to
the child."[57]
We should allow no memorizing in any of these exercises or meaningless
and sing-song repetitions of words. We must always talk enough to make
the lesson a living one, but not too much, lest the child be deprived of the
use of his own thoughts and abilities.

THE FIFTH GIFT B.

There is a supplemental box of blocks called in Germany the fifth gift B,
which may be regarded as a combination of the second and fifth gifts, and
whose place in the regular line of material is between the fifth and sixth. It
was brought out in Berlin more than thirteen years ago, but has not so far
been used to any extent in this country.

It is a three-inch wooden cube divided into twelve one-inch cubes, eight
additional cubes from each of which one corner is removed and which
correspond in size to a quarter of a cylinder, six one-inch cylinders divided
in halves, and three one-inch cubes divided diagonally into quarters like
those of the fifth gift.
Hermann Goldammer argues its necessity in his book "The Gifts of the
Kindergarten" (Berlin, 1882), when he says that the curved line has been
kept too much in the background by kindergartners, and that the new blocks
will enable children to construct forms derived from the sphere and
cylinder, as well as from the cube.
Goldammer's remark in regard to the curved line is undoubtedly true, but it
would seem that he himself indicates that the place of the new blocks (or of
some gift containing curved lines) should be supplemental to the third,
rather than the fifth, as they would there carry out more strictly the logical
order of development and amplify the suggestions of the sphere, cube, and
cylinder.
It is possible that we need a third gift B and a fourth gift B, as well as some
modifications of the one already existing, all of which should include forms
dealing with the curve.
Goldammer says further: "In Froebel's building boxes there are two series
of development intended to render a child by his own researches and
personal activity familiar with the general properties of solid bodies and the
special properties of the cube and forms derived from it. These two series
hitherto had the sixth gift as their last stage, although Froebel himself
wished to see them continued by two new boxes. He never constructed
them, however, nor are the indications which he has left us with regard to
those intended additions sufficiently clear to be followed by others."
The curved forms of the fifth gift B are, of course, of marked advantage in
building, especially in constructing entrances, wells, vestibules, rose-
windows, covered bridges, railroad stations, viaducts, steam and horse cars,
house-boats, fountains, lighthouses, as well as familiar household furniture,
such as pianos, tall clocks, bookshelves, cradles, etc.

Though one may perhaps consider the fifth gift B as not entirely well placed
in point of sequence, and needing some modification of its present form, yet
no one can fail to enjoy its practical use, or to recognize the validity of the
arguments for its introduction.

READINGS FOR THE STUDENT.

Paradise of Childhood. Edward Wiebe. Pages 21-27.
Kindergarten Guide. J. and B. Ronge. 24-29.
Kindergarten Guide. Kraus-Boelte. 81-113.
Koehler's Kindergarten Practice. Tr. by Mary Gurney. 25-31.
Froebel and Education by Self-Activity. H. Courthope Bowen. 142, 143.
Pedagogics of the Kindergarten. Fr. Froebel. 201-236.
Art and the Formation of Taste. Walter Crane. 152, 197-242.
Seven Lamps of Architecture. John Ruskin.
The Kindergarten. H. Goldammer. 85-104, 111-116.
Kindergarten Toys. H. Hoffmann. 31-36.

FROEBEL'S SIXTH GIFT
"The artistically cultivated senses of the new generation will again restore pure, holy
art."
Friedrich Froebel.
"Life brings to each his task, and whatever art you select, algebra, planting,
architecture, poems, commerce, politics,—all are attainable, even to the miraculous
triumphs, on the same terms, of selecting that for which you are apt; begin at the
beginning, proceed in order, step by step."
R. W. Emerson.
"The sixth gift reveals the value of axial contrasts."
W. N. Hailmann.

1. The sixth gift is a three-inch cube divided by various cuts into thirty-six
pieces, eighteen of which are rectangular parallelopipeds, or bricks, the
same size as those of the fourth gift, two inches long, one inch wide, and
one half inch thick. Twelve additional pieces are formed by cutting six of
these parallelopipeds or units of measure in halves breadthwise, giving
blocks with two square and four oblong faces. The remaining six pieces are
formed by cutting three parallelopipeds or units of measure in halves,
lengthwise, giving square prisms, columns, or pillars.
2. The sixth is the last of the solid gifts, and is an extension of the fourth,
from which it differs in size and number of parts. It deals with multiples of
the number two and three also; with halves rather than with quarters or
thirds, the "half" being treated in a new manner, i.e., by dividing the unit of
measure both in its length and breadth, giving two solids, different in form
but alike in cubical contents.
3. The most important characteristics of the gift are:—
a. Irregularity of division.
b. Introduction of column.
c. Extent of surface covered by symmetrical forms.

d. Greater inclosure of space in symmetrical forms.
e. Introduction of distinct style of architecture.
f. Greater height of Life forms.
g. Severe simplicity of Life forms produced by the rectangular solids.
4. The sixth gift has no great increase of difficulty, and though new forms
are presented there is little complexity in dictation. The building needs a
somewhat more careful handling, inasmuch as the Life forms rise to
considerable height and need the most exact balance.
The child sees solids whose faces are all either squares or oblongs, but of
different sizes, viz., oblongs of three sizes, squares of two sizes.
This is the last of the Building Gifts; the child having received sufficient
knowledge to be introduced step by step into the domain of the abstract, the
first step being the planes of the seventh gift.
5. The geometrical forms illustrated in this gift are:—

{ Rectangular Parallelopipeds.
Solids. { Square Prisms.
{ Cubes.

Planes. { Squares.
{ Oblongs.

6. The brick of the sixth gift is identical with that of the fourth, therefore it
presents the same contrasts and mediations.
In number the different classes of blocks stand to each other as 6:12:18.
We may add that the brick is the foundation form of the gift, and that we
gain the remaining two forms, the square block and pillar, by dividing it in
exactly opposite directions.

The sixth gift is so evidently an enlarged and diversified
fourth gift, that it is well to compare it on its Introduction of the
Gift.
introduction with the fourth, as well as with its
immediate predecessor in the series. When the fourth is placed beside it,
and the contents of the two boxes brought to view, it is evident at once to
the child that a higher round in the ladder of evolution has been reached,
and a new and highly specialized form developed. He is fired at once with
creative activity, and his eager hands so quiver with impatience to
investigate the possibilities of the new blocks that the wise kindergartner
does not detain him long with comparisons, only assuring herself that he
notes the relation of the new gift to the former ones, that he compares the
two new solids to the brick, or unit of measure, and to each other, and
discovers how each has been produced.
The difficulties of the new gift are very slight, as has
been said, consisting neither in dictation, in mass of Difficulties of the
material, nor in new forms, lines, or angles. Equilibrium New Gift.
alone presents novel problems, but this law the child now understands fairly
well in its practical workings, while he has gained so much dexterity in his
use of the other blocks that the height and delicate poise of the new forms
are added attractions rather than obstacles.
The sixth gift far surpasses all the other building blocks
in its decided adaptation to the purely architectural Forms of Life.
forms. The bricks of the fourth gift may be used as a
foundation for the construction of large and ambitious structures, and with
this additional material, the sixth gift may excel in producing elegant and
graceful forms.
The bricks of course admit of a much greater superficial extension and the
inclosure of a more extensive space than has heretofore been possible.
The children will unaided construct familiar objects, such as household
furniture and implements, churches, fences, walled inclosures, and towers,
with the new blocks, and seize with delight upon the possibilities of the
column, which is really the distinctive feature of the gift.
So far, the building of object forms will closely resemble those of the
previous gifts, but a step in advance may be made by the children if the

kindergartner is complete mistress of the new forms and knows their
capabilities. The gift may serve as a primer of architecture if its materials
are thoroughly exploited, and may lead later on to a healthy discontent with
incorrect outline, with vulgar ornamentation, and with crudity of form.[58]
Froebel himself, who had made exhaustive studies in architecture, and
obtained the training necessary to enable him to take it up as a profession,
has left us many examples of sixth gift building, which are to be found in
all the German "Guides." The structures are no longer rude representations,
but have a marked grace and symmetry, and in their simplicity, clearness of
outline, and fine proportion, strongly resemble early Greek architecture.
Colonnades, commemorative columns, façades of palaces, belvederes,
temples, arches, city gates, monuments, fountains, portals, fonts,
observatories,—all can be constructed in miniature with due regard to law,
fitness, and proportion, and as the soft, creamy-white structures rise on the
various tables, we see borne out Froebel's saying that the order of his
Building Gifts was such that the child might be led in their use through the
world's great architectural epochs from Egypt to Rome.[59]
Although with this gift we cannot produce symmetrical
forms in as great diversity as with the fifth, yet the Forms of
Symmetry.
materials are productive to the inventive mind, and when
the pieces are arranged with care and taste, beautiful figures may always be
developed, those having a triangular centre being novel and especially
pleasing. Although not as diversified, however, they have the added
advantage of approaching nearer the plane; and that this progression may be
more clearly shown, it seems evident that the symmetrical forms should
only be produced by laying the columns, "square-faced blocks" and bricks,
flat upon the table, and that the practice, advised by some authorities, of
changing the figures by placing the blocks erect, or half erect, should be
discouraged.
In the forms of knowledge we find again much less
diversity than in the fifth gift,—the rectilinear solids and Forms of
consequent absence of oblique angles limiting us in the Knowledge.
construction of geometrical forms. The blocks, however, offer excellent
means for general arithmetical instruction, for working out problems as to
areas, for further illustration of dimension, and for building many varieties

of parallelopipeds, square prisms, and cubes, and studying the
parallelograms which bound them. The elements of this knowledge, it is
true, were gained with the fourth gift, but we must remember that interest in
any subject is not necessarily decreased by repetition, and that the value of
review depends upon whether or not it is mechanical.[60]
The group work at the square tables is now especially
beautiful, both when forms of symmetry or object forms Coöperative Work.
are constructed. The fourth gift may be used, as has been
said, if more material is needed, and of course combines perfectly with the
sixth gift blocks. A large sixth gift made as was suggested for the fifth, on
the scale of a foot instead of an inch, is most useful for coöperative
exercises in the centre of the ring, and the slender, graceful columns, for
instance, which may thus be built in unison to commemorate some historic
birthday, are so many concrete evidences to the child's eyes of the value of
united effort.
Every gift and occupation and exercise of the
kindergarten has been developed with infinite love and The Gifts and their
Treatment by the
forethought to meet the child's wishes and capabilities; Kindergartner.
every one of them has been so delicately adjusted to
meet the demands of the case, and so gently drawn into the natural and
legitimate channel of childlike play, that they never fail to meet with an
enthusiastic reception from the child, nor to awaken the strongest interest in
him.
The kindergartner should be careful that he never builds hastily or
lawlessly, and above all she should guide him to those forms which he will
be able to construct with perfection and accuracy. She should always follow
him in his work, answering his questions and suggesting new ideas, letting
him feel in every way that she is in sympathy with him, and that none of his
plans or experiments, however small they may be, are indifferent to her. It is
always a delight to the child if his productions are understood by grown-up
people, for he often feels somewhat doubtful of the value of his work until
the seal of approval has been set upon it by a superior mind.
If we have grasped the underlying idea which welds the
mass of material which forms the kindergarten gifts into Underlying Idea of

a harmoniously connected whole; if we have developed Froebel's Gifts.
the analytical faculty sufficiently to perceive their
relation to the child, the child's relation to them, and the reasons for their
selection as mediums of education; if we see clearly why each object is
given, what connection it has with the child's development, and what
natural laws should govern it in play, then we comprehend Froebel's own
idea of their use.
Certainly the ignorant and unsympathetic kindergartner
may err in dealing with them, and introduce the Education vs.
Cramming.
cramming process into her field of labor as easily as the
public school teacher, for it is as easy to cram with objects as with books,
and should this occur there is cause for grave uneasiness, since the
opportunity for injuring the brain of the child is greater during these first
years than at any other time.
If we force the child, or make the lesson seem work to him, his faculties
will rebel, he will be dull, inattentive, or restless, according to his
temperament or physical state; he will not be interested in what we teach
him, and therefore it will make no impression on him.
The child has memory enough; he remembers the picnic in the woods, the
glorious sail across the bay, the white foam in the wake of the boat, the very
tint of the flowers that he gathered,—in fact, he remembers everything in
which he is interested. If we would have him remember our teachings
forever, we must make them worthy of being remembered forever. And to
this end it is essential that only the best teachers be provided for little
children. The ideal teacher should know her subject thoroughly, but should
be able to boil it down, to condense it, so that the concentrated extract alone
will remain, and this be presented to her pupils.[61]
In leaving these first six gifts, we need finally to remember these things:—
First, that we must not be too anxious to resolve these
plays into the routine of lessons; with our younger pupils Suggestions as to
Method.
especially this is not admissible, and we must guard
against it in all exercises with the kindergarten materials.

Second, we may assure ourselves, in all modesty, that it is a difficult matter,
indeed, to direct these plays properly; that is, to have system and method
enough to guard the children from all lawlessness, idleness, and disorder,
and yet to keep from falling into a mechanical drill which will never
produce the wished-for results. Play is the natural, the appropriate business
and occupation of the child left to his own resources, and we must strive to
turn our lessons into that channel,—only thus shall we reach the highest
measure of true success.
Third, we must strive by constant study and thought, by entering into the
innermost chambers of the child-nature, and estimating its cravings and
necessities, to penetrate the secret, the soul of the Froebel gifts, then we
shall never more be satisfied with their external appearances and superficial
uses.

Note. In arranging the blocks of the sixth gift, place the eighteen bricks erect, in three
rows, with their broad faces together. On top of these place nine of the square-faced
blocks, thus forming a second layer. The third layer is formed by placing the
remaining three blocks of this class on the back row, and filling in the space in front
with the six pillars, placed side by side.

READINGS FOR THE STUDENT.

Paradise of Childhood. Edward Wiebe. Pages 27-29.
Kindergarten Guide. J. and B. Ronge. 20-31.
Kindergarten Guide. Kraus-Boelte. 113-145.
Koehler's Kindergarten Practice. Tr. by Mary Gurney. 31, 32.
The Kindergarten. H. Goldammer. 105-110.
Stones of Venice. John Ruskin.
Architecture, Mysticism, and Myth. W. K. Lethaby.
The Sources of Architectural Types. Spencer's Essays, vol. ii. page 375.
The Two Paths. John Ruskin. (Chapter on Influence of Imagination in Architecture.)
Discourses on Architecture. E. E. Viollet-le-Duc. Tr. by Henry Van Brunt. (First and
Second Discourses.)

FROEBEL'S SEVENTH GIFT
"The properties of number, form, and size, the knowledge of space, the nature of
powers, the effects of material, begin to disclose themselves to him. Color, rhythm,
tone, and figure come forward at the budding-point and in their individual value. The
child begins already to distinguish with precision nature and the world of art, and
looks with certainty upon the outer world as separate from himself."
Friedrich Froebel.
"Froebel's thin colored planes correspond with the mosaic wood or stone work of
early man."
H. Poesche.
"There is nothing in the whole present system of education more deserving of serious
consideration than the sudden and violent transition from the material to the abstract
which our children have to go through on quitting the parental house to enter a school.
Froebel therefore made it a point to bridge over this transition by a whole series of
play-material, and in this series it is the laying-tablets which occupy the first place."
H. Goldammer.

1. The seventh gift consists of variously colored square and triangular
tablets made of wood or pasteboard, the sides of the pieces being about one
inch in length. Circular and oblong pasteboard tablets have lately been
introduced, as well as whole and half circles in polished woods.
2. The first six gifts illustrated solids, while the seventh, moving from the
concrete towards the abstract, makes the transition to the surface.
The Building Gifts presented to the child divided units, from which he
constructed new wholes. Through these he became familiar with the idea of
a whole and parts, and was prepared for the seventh gift, which offers him
not an object to transform, but independent elements to be combined into
varied forms. These divided solids also offered the child a certain fixed
amount of material for his use; after the introduction of the seventh gift, the
amount to be used is optional with the kindergartner.
3. The child up to this time has seen the surface in connection with solids.
He now receives the embodied surface separated from the solid, and

gradually abstracts the general idea of "surface," learning to regard it not
only as a part, but as an individual whole.
This gift also emphasizes color and the various triangular forms, besides
imparting the idea of pictorial representation, or the representation of
objects by means of plane surfaces.
4. The gift leads the child from the object itself towards the representation
of the object, thus sharpening the observation and preparing the way for
drawing.
It is also less definitely suggestive than previous gifts, and demands more
creative power for its proper use. It appeals to the sense of form, sense of
place, sense of color, and sense of number.
5. The geometrical forms illustrated in this gift are:—

Squares.

{ Right isosceles.
Triangles. { Obtuse isosceles.
{ Equilateral.
{ Right-angled scalene.

{ Oblong.
{ Rhombus.
{ Rhomboid.
{ Trapezoid.
In combination.{ Trapezium.
{ Pentagon.
{ Hexagon.
{ Heptagon.
{ Octagon.

6. The law of Mediation of Contrasts is shown in the forms of the gift. We
have in the triangles, for instance, two lines running in opposite directions,
connected by a third, which serves as the mediation. Contrasts and their
mediations are also shown in the squares and in the forms made by

combination. This gift, representing the plane, is a link between the divided
solid and the line.

We have now left the solid and are approaching
abstraction when we begin the study of planes. All Step from Solid to
Plane.
mental development has ever begun and must begin with
the concrete, and progress by successive stages toward the abstract, and it
was Froebel's idea that his play-material might be used to form a series of
steps up which the child might climb in his journey toward the abstract.
Beginning with the ball, a perfect type of wholeness and unity, we are led
through diversity, as shown in the three solids of the second gift, toward
divisibility in the Building Gifts, and approximation to surface in the sixth
gift. The next move in advance is the partial abstraction of surface, shown
in the tablets of the seventh gift.
The tablets show two dimensions, length and breadth, the thickness being
so trifling relatively that it need not be considered, as it does not mar the
child's perception and idea of the plane. They are intended to represent
surfaces, and should be made as thin as is consistent with durability.
The various tablets as first introduced in Germany and in
this country were commonly quite different in size and Systematic Relation
degrees of angles in the different kindergartens, as they between
Tablets.
the

were either cut out hastily by the teachers themselves, or
made by manufacturers who knew very little of the subject. The former
practice of dividing an oblong from corner to corner to produce the right-
angled scalene triangle was much to be condemned, as it entirely set aside
the law of systematic relation between the tablets and rendered it impossible
to produce the standard angles, which are so valuable a feature of the gift.
"One of the principal advantages of the kindergarten system is that it lays
the foundation for a systematic, scientific education which will help the
masses to become expert and artistic workmen in whatever occupation they
may be engaged."[62]

In this direction the seventh gift has doubtless immense capabilities, but
much of its force and value has been lost, much of the work thrown away
which it has accomplished, for want of proper and systematic relation
between the tablets. The order in which these are now derived and
introduced is as follows:—
The square tablet is, of course, the type of quadrilaterals, and when it is
divided from corner to corner a three-sided figure is seen,—the half square
or right isosceles triangle; but one which is not the type of three-sided
figures. The typical and simplest triangle, the equilateral, is next presented,
and if this be divided by a line bisecting one angle, the result will be two
triangles of still different shape, the right-angled scalene. If these two are
placed with shortest sides together, we have another form, the obtuse-
angled triangle, and this gives us all the five forms of the seventh gift.
The square educates the eye to judge correctly of a right angle, and the
division of the square gives the angle of 45°, or the mitre. The equilateral
has three angles of 60° each; the divided equilateral or right-angled scalene
has one angle of 90°, one of 60°, and one of 30°, while the obtuse isosceles
has one angle of 120°, and the remaining two each 30°. These are the
standard angles (90°, 45°, 60°, and 30°) used by carpenter, joiner, cabinet-
maker, blacksmith,—in fact, in all the trades and many of the professions,
and the child's eye should become as familiar with them as with the size of
the squares on his table.
Edward Wiebe says in regard to the relation of the
seventh gift to geometry and general mathematical Possibilities of the
Gift in
instruction: "Who can doubt that the contemplation of Mathematical
these figures and the occupations with them must tend to Instruction.
facilitate the understanding of geometrical axioms in the
future, and who can doubt that all mathematical instruction by means of
Froebel's system must needs be facilitated and better results obtained? That
such instruction will be rendered fruitful in practical life is a fact which will
be obvious to all who simply glance at the sequence of figures even without
a thorough explanation, for they contain demonstratively the larger number
of those axioms in elementary geometry which relate to the conditions of
the plane in regular figures."

As the tablets are used in the kindergarten, they are intended only "to
increase the sum of general experience in regard to the qualities of things,"
but they may be made the medium of really advanced instruction in
mathematics, such as would be suitable for a connecting-class or a primary
school. All this training, too, may be given in the concrete, and so lay the
foundation for future mathematical work on the rock of practical
observation.
The kindergarten child is expected only to know the different kinds of
triangles from each other, and to be familiar with their simple names, to
recognize the standard angles, and to know practically that all right angles
are equally large, obtuse angles greater, and acute less than right angles. All
this he will learn by means of play with the tablets, by dictations and
inventions, and by constant comparison and use of the various forms.
As to the introduction of the tablets, the square is first of
all of course given to the child. A small cube of the third How and when
Tablets should be
gift may be taken and surrounded on all its faces by introduced.
square tablets, and then each one "peeled off,"
disclosing, as it were, the hidden solid. We may also mould cubes of clay
and have the children slice off one of the square faces, as both processes
show conclusively the relation the square plane bears to the cube whose
faces are squares. If the first tablets introduced are of pasteboard, as
probably will be the case, the new material should be noted and some idea
given of the manufacture of paper.
There is a vast difference in opinion concerning the introduction of this
seventh gift, and it is used by the child in the various kindergartens at all
times, from the beginning of his ball plays up to his laying aside of the fifth
gift. It seems very clear, however, that he should not use the square plane
until after he has received some impression of the three dimensions as they
are shown in solid bodies, and this Mr. Hailmann tells us he has no proper
means of gaining, save through the fourth gift.[63]
As to the triangular tablets, it is evident enough they should not be dealt
with until after the child has seen the triangular plane on the solid forms of
the fifth gift. Mr. Hailmann says that a clear idea of the extension of solids
in three dimensions can only come from a familiarity with the bricks, and

again that the abstractions of the tablet should not be obtruded on the child's
notice until he has that clear idea.
Though the six tablets which surround the cube may be given to the child at
the first exercise, it is better to dictate simple positions of one or two
squares first, and let him use the six in dictation and many more in
invention.
The first triangle given is the right isosceles, showing
the angle of forty-five degrees, and formed by bisecting Order of
introducing
the square with a diagonal line. The child should be Triangles.
given a square of paper and scissors and allowed to
discover the new form for himself, letting him experiment until the desired
triangle is obtained. He should then study the new form, its edges and
angles, and then join his two right-angled triangles into a square, a larger
triangle, etc. Then let him observe how many positions these triangles may
assume by moving one round the other. He will find them acting according
to the law of opposites already familiar to him, and if not comprehended,[64]
yet furnishing him with an infallible criterion for his inventive work.
The equilateral is then taken up, is compared with the half-square, and then
studied by itself, its three equal sides and angles (each sixty degrees) being
noted as well as the obtuse angles made by all possible combinations of the
equilateral.
Next, as we have said, comes the right-angled scalene triangle, with its
inequality of sides and angles, which must be studied and compared with
the equilateral; and last of all, the obtuse isosceles triangle, which is dealt
with in the same way.
Here, again, it should be noted that the two last forms should always be
discovered by the child in his play with the equilateral, and that he should
cut them himself from paper before he is given the regular pasteboard or
wooden triangles for study. If presented for the first time in this latter form,
they can never mean as much to him as if he had found them out for
himself.
The dictations should invariably be given so that
opposites and their intermediates may be readily seen. Dictations.

The different triangles may be studied each in the same way, introducing
them one at a time in the order named, afterwards allowing as free a
combination as will produce symmetrical figures. It is best always to study
one of a new kind, then two, then gradually give larger numbers.
Great possibilities undoubtedly lie in this gift, but it is well to remember
that with young children it must not be made the vehicle of too abstract
instruction. In order to make the dictations simple, the child must be
perfectly familiar with the terms of direction, up, down, right, left, centre;
with the simple names of the planes (squares, half-squares, equal-sided,
blunt and sharp-angled triangles, etc.); and he must learn to know the
longest edge of each triangle, that he may be able to place it according to
direction.
The children should be encouraged to invent, to give the dictation exercises
to one another, and to copy the simpler forms of the lesson on blackboard or
paper. Some duplicate copies in colored papers may be made from their
inventions, and the walls of the schoolroom ornamented with them. It will
be a pleasure to the little ones themselves, and demonstrate to others how
wonderful a gift this is and how charmingly the children use it.
No exercise should be given without previous study, and in the first year's
teaching it is wiser to draw or make the figures before giving the dictations.
The materials, too, should be prepared beforehand, in such a form that they
can be given out readily and quietly by the children at the opening of the
exercise. To require a class of a dozen or more pupils to wait while the
kindergartner assorts and counts the various colors and shapes of tablets to
be used is positively to invite loss of interest on the children's part, and to
produce in the teacher a hurry and worry and nervous tension which will
infallibly ruin the play.
The Life forms are no longer absolute representations,
but only more or less suggestive images of certain Life Forms.
objects, and thus show still more clearly the orderly
movement from concrete to abstract.
Hitherto in Life forms the child has produced more or less real objects,—for
instance, he built a miniature house, a fountain, a chair, or a sofa. They were
not absolutely real, and therefore in one way merely images; but they were

bodily images. He could place a little dish on the table, a tiny cup on the
edge of the fountain, a doll could sit in the chair, and therefore they were all
real for purposes of play, at least.
With the tablets, however, the child can no longer make a chair, though by a
certain arrangement of them he can make an image of it.
The child will notice that many of the forms made with squares are flat
pictures of those made with the third gift, and with the addition of the right
isosceles triangles he can reproduce the façades of many of the elaborate
object forms of the fifth. The various triangles differ greatly in their
capabilities of producing Life forms, the equilateral and the obtuse isosceles
being especially deficient in this regard and requiring to be combined with
the other tablets. The fact that both the right isosceles and right scalene
triangles produce Life forms in great variety seems to prove that, as
Goldammer says, "the right angle predominates in the products of human
activity."
The symmetrical forms are more varied and innumerable
than those of any other gift, and with the addition of the Symmetrical
brilliant colors of the pasteboard, or the soft shades of Forms.
the wooden tablets, make figures which are undeniably beautiful, and which
are mosaic-like in their effect.
The whirling figures are interesting and new, and the child with developed
eye and growing artistic taste will delight in their oddity, and yet be able to
find opposites and their intermediates and make them as correctly as in the
more methodical figures, where the exact right and left balanced the upper
and lower extremes. Here we note that the equilateral and obtuse isosceles
triangles, so ill fitted to produce Life forms, lend themselves to forms of
symmetry in great variety. The various sequences of the latter in the third
and fifth gifts may of course be faithfully reproduced in surface-extension
with the tablets, and thus gain an added charm.
The amount of material given to the child is now a matter for the decision
of the kindergartner, and is dependent only on the ability of the child to use
it to advantage. This increase of material presents a further difficulty, and it
is time for us to add still another, that is, to expect more of the child, and to

require that he produce not only something original, but something which
shall, though simple, be really beautiful.
Inventions in borders are a new and charming feature of this gift, and the
circular and oblong tablets as well as the squares and various triangles are
well adapted to produce them. The various borders laid horizontally across
the tablets may be divided by lines of sticks, and thus make an effect
altogether different from anything we have had before.
The work with forms of knowledge, as has been fully
shown, will be in geometry than in arithmetic, to which Mathematical
Forms.
indeed the gift is not especially well adapted. In addition
to the study and comparison of the various forms, their lines and angles, we
have a great variety of figures to be produced by combination. We can make
the nine regular forms already mentioned in the introduction in a variety of
ways, and thus give new charm to the old truths. We must allow the child to
experiment by himself very frequently, and interpret to him his discoveries
when he makes them.
The square tablets afford a valuable aid to the
occupation of weaving, as all the simple patterns can be The Seventh Gift in
Weaving.
formed with them, the child laying them upon his table
until he has mastered the numerical principle upon which they are
constructed. We can easily see how these same patterns may be further
utilized as designs for inlaid tiles, or parquetry floors. Thus the seventh gift
may introduce children to subsequent practical life, and serve as a useful
preparation for various branches of art-work.
It is easy to see when we begin the practical use of the
tablets that the essential characteristics of the gifts in Seventh Gift
Parquetry.
their progress from solid to point are now becoming less
marked, and that they begin to merge into the occupations, which develop
from point to solid. The meeting-place of the two series is close at hand,
and, like drops of water fallen near each other, they tremble with impatience
to rush into one.
The inventions which the child makes with tablets he now very commonly
expresses a desire to give away, or to take home with him,—a thought
which he seldom had with the gifts, wishing rather to show them in their

place upon the tables. As this is a natural and legitimate desire, a
supplement to the seventh gift has been devised, consisting of paper
substitutes for the various forms, of the same size and appropriate coloring,
and to be had either plain or gummed on the back. After the inventions have
been made, they are easily transferred to paper with parquetry, and so can
be bestowed according to the will of the inventor.
The parquetry of the seventh gift lends an added grace to
coöperative work, for the children can now combine all Group Work.
their material in one form to decorate the room, or
perhaps to send as a gift to an absent playmate. They may make an inlaid
floor for the doll's house, a brightly colored windowpane for the sun to
stream through, and with larger forms may even design an effective border
for the wainscoting of the schoolroom.[65]
The group work at the square tables is also carried on very fully with the
tablets, the symmetrical figures when the colors are well combined being
quite dazzling in beauty.
In this connection, a danger may be noted in the
treatment of the gifts, both by kindergartner and Color with Seventh
Gift.
children. Color appears again here in almost bewildering
profusion after its long absence in the series, and is another straw to prove
that the wind is blowing strongly toward the occupations. Many of the
pasteboard tablets are of different colors on the opposite sides, and though
this is of great use in Beauty forms, when properly treated, it is quite often
unfortunate in forms of life, unless careful attention is given to arranging
the material beforehand. The effect of a barn, for instance, with its front
view checkered with violet, red, and yellow squares, may be imagined, or
of a pigeon-house with a parti-colored green and blue roof, an orange
standard, and red supports. Yet these are no fancy pictures I have painted,
and if the child places the tablets in this fashion, they are often allowed so
to remain without criticism from the purblind kindergartner. She even
sometimes dictates, herself, extravagant and vulgar combinations of color,
such as a violet centre-piece with green corners and an orange border.
There needs no reasoning to prove that such a person is radically unfit to
handle the subject of color-teaching, and is sure to corrupt the children

under her charge; for in general, if ordinarily well trained, they should now
be far beyond the stage in which they would be satisfied with such crudity
of combination. They have had their season of "playing with brightness," as
Mr. Hailmann calls it, and should now begin to have really good ideas as to
harmonious arrangement of hues. If they have not, if they really seem to
prefer the pigeon-house or barn above mentioned, then they are viciously
ill-taught, or altogether deficient in color sense.
It has been noted that the older children often choose the light and dark
wooden tablets, for invention, rather than the gay pasteboard forms; but this
may be on account of the high polish of the wood, and its novelty in this
guise, rather than because, as has been suggested, they have been surfeited
with brightness.

READINGS FOR THE STUDENT.

Paradise of Childhood. Edward Wiebe. Pages 30-38.
Law of Childhood. W. N. Hailmann. 38, 39.
Kindergarten Guide. Kraus-Boelte. 145-237.
Koehler's Kindergarten Practice. Tr. by Mary Gurney. 6-9.
The Kindergarten. H. Goldammer. 116-54.
Kindergarten Culture. W. N. Hailmann. 68-70.
Kindergarten and Child-Culture. Henry Barnard. 210, 255, 257.
Prang Primary Course in Art Education. Part I. Mary D. Hicks, Josephine C. Locke.
Color in the School-Room. Milton Bradley.
Elementary Color. Milton Bradley.
Color Teaching in Public Schools. Louis Prang, J. S. Clark, Mary D. Hicks.
Color, an Elementary Manual for Students. A. H. Church.
The Principles of Harmony and Contrasts of Colors. M. E. Chevreul.
Students' Text-Book of Color. O. N. Rood.
Suggestions with Regard to the Use of Color. Prang Ed. Co.

FROEBEL'S EIGHTH GIFT
THE STRAIGHT LINE.

The Single and Jointed Slats and Staff or Stick.

"The knowledge of the linear lies at the foundation of the knowledge of each form;
the forms are viewed and recognized by the intermediation of the straight-lined."
Friedrich Froebel.
"Froebel's laths, wherewith the child can form letters, correspond to the beech-staves
(buchenen Stäbchen, now contracted to Buchstaben, i. e., letters of the alphabet),
whereon were carved the runes and magic symbols of our primitive ancestors."
Hermann Poesche.
"It will be readily seen how useful stick-laying may become in perspective drawing,
in the study of planes and solids, in crystallography; how, while it insures an
enjoyable familiarity with geometrical forms and secures ever-increasing manual skill
and delicacy of touch, it develops at the same time the artistic sense of the children in
a high degree."
W. N. Hailmann.

1. The wooden staffs of the eighth gift (sometimes called the tenth) are of
various lengths, but have for their uniform thickness the tenth of an inch.
They present, as now made, flat sides and square ends, are sometimes
uncolored and sometimes dyed in the six primary colors.
2. The previous gifts dealt with solids and plane surfaces, wholes or divided
wholes, while this one illustrates the edge or line.
The previous gifts more definitely suggested their uses by their prominent
characteristics; this depends for its value largely upon the ingenuity of the
teacher.
We have contrasts of size in the preceding gifts, both in the units themselves
and in the component parts of which the divided units are made; but in this
gift the dimension length is alone emphasized.

3. The most important characteristic of the gift is the representation of the
line. The relations of position and form enter as essential elements of
usefulness.
4. The laying of sticks may be used as an occupation very early in the
kindergarten course, and thus serve as a preparation for the first drawing
exercises, but there should be no attempt at this time to give them their
legitimate connection with the cube as the edge of the solid and with the
tablet as a portion of the surface.
Later they may be introduced in their proper place in the sequence of gifts,
and thus assume their true relation in the child's mind. This relation is made
more evident as we can and should reproduce the lessons with the solids in
outline with the sticks. When the child is more advanced, the connection of
the sticks with the preceding objects will be more clearly explained and
intelligently comprehended, and then they may be used in connection with
softened peas or tiny corks, which serve to illustrate the points of contact of
the sides of surfaces and edges of solids whose skeletons the child can then
construct with these materials.
5. The geometrical forms illustrated in this gift are:—
Angles of every degree.
Triangles, quadrilaterals, and additional polygons.
Skeletons of solids by means of corks or peas.
6. The law of the mediation of contrasts is shown in the fact that every line
is a connection between opposite points. As in the other gifts, the law
governs the use of the line in the formation of all outlines of objects and all
symmetrical designs.

As we have already noted, the gifts of Froebel are thus far solids, divided
solids, planes and divided planes.
With the single and jointed slats we shall not deal
separately, merely stating that they form a transition Relation of the
Single and Jointed
between the surface and the line, having more breadth

and relation to the surface itself than to the edge, but Slats to the other
Gifts. How both are
manifestly tending towards the embodied line of which used.
the little stick given by Froebel is the realization.
The jointed slats, generally ruled in half and quarter inches for measuring,
may be used to show how one form is developed from another,—for
instance, the rhombus from the square, the rhomboid from the oblong, and
they are very useful also for explaining and illustrating the different kinds
of angles, as the opening between the joints may be made narrower or wider
at pleasure.
The disconnected slats are used for the occasional play or exercise of
interlacing, forming a variety of figures, geometrical and artistic, which
hold together when carefully treated.[66]
As to the unpretentious little sticks themselves, the use
of these bits of waste wood is entirely unique and Materials of
Froebel's Gifts.
characteristic. No one else would have deemed them
worthy of a place in school apparatus or among educational appliances; but
Froebel had the eye and mind of a true philosopher, ever seeing the great in
the small,—ever bringing out of the commonplace material, which lies
unused on every hand, all its inherent possibilities and capabilities of
usefulness. Froebel was no destructive reformer, but the most conservative
of philosophers.
The stick of course is to be regarded in its relation to
what comes before and after it,—as the embodied edge How the Stick is to
be regarded.
of the cube, as the tablet was its embodied face. The
child should at last identify his stick, the embodiment of the straight line,
with the axis of the sphere, the edge of the cube, and the side of the square.
[67]
The sticks and rings are, properly speaking, one gift, contrasting the
curved and straight lines.
Although the stick exercises should make their
appearance at least once every week after their Method and
introduction, they may always be varied by stories, and Manner of Lessons.
when occasionally connected with other objects, cut from paper to illustrate
some point, are among the pleasantest and most fruitful exercises of the
kindergarten.

The sticks may be used for teaching number and elementary geometry, both
in the kindergarten and school, or for reviewing and fixing knowledge
already gained in these directions, for practice in the elements of designing,
for giving a correct idea of outlines of familiar objects, and should
constantly serve as an introduction to drawing and sewing lessons, to which
they are the natural prelude.
They should be used strictly after the manner of the other gifts, beginning
with careful dictations, in which the various positions of one stick should be
exhausted before proceeding to a greater number, with coöperative work,
and with free invention. These exercises and original designs may be put
into permanent form in parquetry, which is furnished for this gift in the
various colored papers, as well as for the tablets. The inventions may also
be transferred to paper by drawing, and to card-board by sewing.
The exercises may continue from the various simple positions which one
stick may assume to really complex dictations requiring from fifteen to
twenty-five sticks, and introducing many difficult positions and outlines of
new geometrical figures.
When we consider that the length of the sticks varies
from one to six inches, and that the number given to the Forms of
Knowledge and
child is limited only by his capacity for using them Number Work.
successfully, we can see that the outlines of all the
rectilinear plane figures can easily be made by their use. Of course in these
exercises there must be a great deal of incidental arithmetic, but the gift
may also be used for definite number work, and is far better adapted to this
purpose than any other in the series, since it presents a number of separate
units which may be grouped or combined to suit any simple arithmetical
process. Representing the line as it does, it has less bodily substance than
any previous gift, and hence comes nearest to the numerical symbols, as the
next step to using a line would obviously be making one. It also offers very
much the same materials for calculation as were used by the race in its
childhood, and hence fits in with the inherited instincts of the undeveloped
human being.[68]
Who has not seen him arranging twigs and branches in his play, counting
them over and over or simulating the process, and delighting to divide them

into groups? So the cave-dweller used them, doubtless, not in play, but in
serious earnest, for some such purpose as keeping tally of the wild beasts he
had killed, or the number of his enemies vanquished.
"With a few packets of Froebel's sticks," as has been very well said, "the
child is provided with an excellent calculating machine." The use of this
machine in the primary school in word making as well as in number work is
practically unlimited; but in the kindergarten it may very well give a clear,
practical understanding of the first four rules of arithmetic,—an
understanding which will be based on personal activity and experience.[69]
It is well by way of prelude to the first few lessons to
draw from the children the origin and history of the tiny Evolution of the
Kindergarten Stick.
bit of wood given them for their play, and they will
henceforth regard it in a new light and treat it with greater respect and care.
Let us trace it carefully from its baby beginnings in the seed, its
germination and growth, the influences which surround and foster it from
day to day, its steady increase in size and strength, its downward grasp and
its upward reach, the hardening of the tender stem and slender cylindrical
trunk into the massive oak or pine, the growth of its tough, strong garment
of bark, its winter times of rest and spring times of renewal, until from the
tender green twig so frail and pliant it has become too large to clasp with
the arms, and high enough to swing its dry leaves into the church tower.
Then let us follow out its usefulness; for instance, we might first paint a
glowing word-picture of the logging-camp, the chopping and hewing and
felling, the life of the busy woodcutter in the leafy woods in autumn, or in
the dense forests in winter time, when the snow, cold and white and
dazzling, covers the ground with its fleecy carpet. Again, let us depict the
road and the busy teamsters driving their yokes of strong oxen with their
heavy loads of logs to the towns and cities where they are to be sold. A
scene, a perfect word-picture, should be painted of everything concerning
the trip,—the crunching of the oxen's hoofs on the pressed snow, the
creaking of the heavy truck as its runners slip along the smooth surface, the
breath of the men and animals rising like steam into the clear, cold air. All
these things rise in image before the child's eye and are not soon forgotten,
you may be sure. The work and life of the river-drivers might also be

described, and their manner of floating the logs down river in springtime
when the water is high and the current strong. Then perhaps the children
will help to tell us about the mill of which they doubtless know something,
—where the sawmills are built, how the water helps in turning the great
wheel, the buzzing and hissing of the big saws, and the way in which they
quickly make boards of the long, strong logs. This and much more may be
said, and if it is well said, no child can ever look at the tiny stick afterwards
and entirely forget the charm which once surrounded it.[70]
The sticks are especially serviceable for group work of
various kinds, either at the long or square tables. As the Group Work with
Sticks.
children have now an abundance of material they can
make all the objects, perhaps, which may be mentioned in a story the
kindergartner tells. If it is about the origin of Thanksgiving Day, for
instance, Abby, who sits at one end of the line, may make a picture of the
Mayflower, and John, her neighbor, make the Speedwell. The next child
may construct a cradle for Oceanus, the little Pilgrim baby born on
shipboard; the next use his material for the Indian huts the settlers saw after
landing; and so on, each child making a different object, which remains
upon his table until the close of the story. When this is completed, it will
have been fully illustrated by the children with their sticks, and they will be
delighted to inspect the different pictures which they will plainly see are
much more varied and beautiful than any one of them could have made
alone. Thus the value of coöperation will be plainly shown, without a word
from the kindergartner.[71]
As to Life forms in general, their number is practically
unlimited, though as they are only line-pictures, and Forms of Life.
heavy lines at that, they are not as real as those made in
the Building Gifts. They are easily made, however, and the veriest baby in
the kindergarten who handles the sticks as a prelude to his drawing
exercises invents with them all sorts of rude forms which he calls by
appropriate names.
The question of color as it enters into these forms needs, perhaps, a
moment's consideration here. As the gift includes both white and colored
sticks, would it not be well to use the former for all dictations in Life forms,

reserving the brilliant hues for the forms of symmetry whose charms they
would greatly enhance?
We may sometimes connect simple, inexpensive objects
with stick dictations, with a view to making them more Connection of other
Objects with Stick
realistic and delightful. When the little ones are just Dictations.
getting the various positions and corresponding terms
into their minds, and when therefore it is advisable to keep them amused
and happy with one to three sticks as long as possible,—that is, until the
fundamental principles have become very familiar,—these objects are most
invaluable.
Innumerable lessons may be practiced with one stick only, calling it at last a
whipstock and giving it a bit of curly paper for a lash. Far from being an
instrument of punishment, it makes every child laugh with the glee of
possession.
With two sticks laid horizontally we may give a little paper horse-car, or
when one is vertical and the other runs horizontally across its end, we may
call it a candlestick and snip a half-circle of paper into the semblance of a
flame. The effect is electrical, though the light be only one candle-power.
And so on, ad infinitum; it is enough to give the hint for the play. We can
cut little paper birds for the bird-cages, tumblers for the rude little tables,
green leaves for the trees, etc., making the stick exercise, even in its first
more difficult details, a time of great satisfaction and gladness.
Complete sets of these card-board objects, one for each child, should
always be kept on hand; if well made they will last a year.
Enough has already been said of the possibilities of the
sticks to show that they are most valuable for Forms of Beauty.
symmetrical forms. They may be combined with the
tablets, and thus very pretty effects be made, and when four children unite
their material at the group work tables, the dictations and inventions
produced are of course very large, and may be really beautiful if
constructed on artistic principles.
Border work may be very fully carried out with the sticks, and another
charming feature of the gift is the way in which it lends itself to the making

of snow crystals. These are symmetrical combinations and modifications of
familiar geometrical forms around the hexagon. Mr. W. N. Hailmann says
regarding them: "At first, it is best to give each child only six or twelve
sticks, and to dictate the central figure (a hexagon or hexagonal star)
verbally or by means of a drawing on the blackboard. They may then
receive a number of additional sticks, and let the central figure grow, all
obeying the teacher's dictation, or each following his own inventive
genius."[72]
In this gift, as well as in the seventh, the child's imitative and inventive
powers are obviously more greatly taxed than in the others, and the danger
will be, if he is not well trained, that, as he apparently can do anything with
the material, he will end by doing nothing. The greater the freedom given to
the child, the greater the necessity of teaching him to use that liberty in and
through the law, and not to abuse it by failing to reach with its aid the
highest ends.
We may make the laying of one-inch sticks in vertical
and horizontal positions, in angles and squares, a prelude Connection of
Sticks with
to the drawing of similar lines; and the copying of stick Drawing.
dictations, either from the table, or from memory, into
drawing, is a most excellent exercise, calling into requisition great
correctness and good judgment, besides an unusual amount of calculation,
since the stick dictation will be on a scale of one inch, and the drawing on a
scale of one fourth inch, reducing the original design to one in miniature.
The child will almost always begin by attempting to make the picture
exactly like his model in size without counting the inches and trying to
make it mathematically correct; but after the idea is carefully explained and
fully illustrated, he will have no further difficulty excepting, perhaps, with
the more complicated figures containing slanting lines.
We should encourage in all possible ways the use of
both hands in all the exercises with gifts and Ambidexterity.
occupations, not only that one may be as skillful as the
other, but also to avoid a one-sided position of the body which frequently
leads to curvature of the spine. The well-known physiologist, Professor
Brown-Séquard, insists on the equal use of both hands, in order to induce
the necessary equal flow of blood to the brain. Through the effect of our

irregular and abnormal development, the cause of which is the too
persistent use of the right hand, one lobe of our brains and one side of our
bodies are in a neglected and weakened condition, and the evils resulting
from this weakness are many and widespread. Dr. Daniel Wilson says: "In
the majority of cases the defect, though it cannot be wholly overcome, may
be in great part cured by early training, which will strengthen at once both
the body and mind."[73]
No materials of the kindergarten (save the beans, lentils,
etc., which serve to represent the point) have been so Abuse of Eighth
Gift.
over-used and so abused as the sticks. When no other
work was prepared for the children, when helpers were few, and it was
desirable to give something which needed no supervision, when
inexperienced students were to take charge of classes, when the
kindergartner was weary and wanted a quiet moment to rest, when
everybody was in a hurry, when the weather was very cold, or oppressively
warm, when there was a torrent of rain, or had been a long drought, the
sticks were hastily brought forth from the closet and as hastily thrust upon
the children. These small sufferers, being thus provided with work-
materials in which it was obvious that superior grown people took no
interest, immediately lost interest themselves. In riotous kindergartens the
sticks were broken, poked into pockets, and thrown on the floor; in the
orderly ones they were gazed at apathetically, no one deeming it worth
while to stir a hand to arrange them, save under pressure. Sticks had been
presented so often and in so tiresome a manner that they produced a kind of
mental atrophy in the child,—they were arresting his development instead
of forwarding it.
Such an abuse of material is entirely unnecessary in the kindergarten, where
so many ways are provided of presenting the same truths in all sorts of
different and charming guises. It is unnecessary and most unfortunate, for it
has frequently thrown undeserved contempt on an innocent and attractive
gift, which, when properly treated, is one of the most pleasing and useful
which Froebel has bequeathed to us.

READINGS FOR THE STUDENT.

Paradise of Childhood. Edward Wiebe. Pages 39-45.
Kindergarten Guide. J. and B. Ronge. 33-36.
Kindergarten Guide. Kraus-Boelte. 239-373.
The Kindergarten Principle. Mary J. Lyschinska. 103-20.
Law of Childhood. W. N. Hailmann. 39.
Kindergarten Culture. W. N. Hailmann. 70-72.
The Kindergarten. H. Goldammer. 154-72.
Primary Helps. W. N. Hailmann.

Industrial Art in Schools.[74] Charles G. Leland.
Drawing and Decorative Design. Charles G. Leland.
Art and the Formation of Taste. Walter Crane.
Manual of Design. Richard Redgrave, R. A.
Principles of Decorative Design. Christopher Dresser.
Art and Ornament in Dress. Introduction. Charles Blanc.

FROEBEL'S NINTH GIFT
THE RING OR CURVED LINE

"Art developed in the same way. The Egyptian temples show us only straight-lined
figures, which consequently show mathematical relations. Only in later times
appeared the lines of beauty, that is, the arched or circular lines. I carry the child on in
the same way."
Friedrich Froebel.
"The curve bears with it in its unity and variety, its rich symbolism to everything
which lives and moves, the most intimate relation to that which the child sees, feels,
and loves."
Emma Marwedel.
"It might be said that to produce useful objects is the result of the struggle for life; but
the tendency to create that which is simply artistic results from no such urgent need,
yet it is found wherever the former exists."
Charles G. Leland.
"Thou canst not wave thy staff in air,
Or dip thy paddle in the lake,
But it carves the bow of beauty there,
And the ripples in rhymes the oar forsake."
Emerson.

1. The rings of the ninth gift are made of silvered wire, either soldered or
unsoldered, and are whole circles three inches, two inches, and one inch in
diameter, with their respective halves and quarters.
2. As the first six gifts emphasized solids and divided solids, the seventh,
the plane, and the eighth, the straight line, so the ninth, the ring, embodies
the curve, and illustrates the circumference of the sphere and the edge of the
cylinder.
3. All the objects hitherto used have, with the exception of the ball and
cylinder, dealt with straight lines and the figures formed by those lines. We
now begin a series of exercises with the curve, and the variety of
symmetrical figures that can be constructed is immensely increased.
4. Much new knowledge can be conveyed by means of this fresh material, a
complete set of new figures may be produced, and the imitation of objects
passes from that of things constructed by man, which are mostly rectilinear,
to those of nature in which curved lines in every possible variety prevail.

5. The geometrical forms illustrated in this gift are:—

{ Circles.
{ Semicircles.
Planes. { Quadrants.
{ Sectors.
{ Segments.

By the union of straight and curved lines (sticks and rings) the entire
geometry of the circle may be illustrated, and the child may thus become
acquainted with the appearance of the
Diameter.
Radius.
Circumference.
Chord.
Arc.
6. The law of mediation of contrasts is shown as follows: the semicircles,
when placed on the table with ends towards right or left, connect points of
opposite direction up and down, and when placed with ends pointing
upward or downward they connect the right with the left side.
The circle is of course an unending line traced from a given point back to
itself, according to certain laws, but it is also a union of two semicircles
curving outward in opposite directions. "It is a representation of the general
law, since the periphery and centre stand in contrast to each other, and are
connected by the radii."—(Froebel.)

Having already analyzed straight lines in the sticks, we
will pass directly to the consideration of the ninth in the The New Gift and
its Charms.
series of Froebel's gifts, the rings, which are whole, half,
and quarter circles of bright silvered wire.
If the sticks were fascinating to the child as the embodied straight edge or
line, and perfect treasure-houses of new possibilities to the kindergartner,

the rings are just a bit more delightful as, with their glittering surface and
curved lines, and their wonderful property of having neither beginning nor
end, they are quite different in appearance from anything which precedes or
follows them. Of course the child sees at once that here is an entirely new
field for invention, and he hastens to possess it, fully conscious of his power
of combining the new elements.
We must first discuss the new form with the children so
as to be certain that they fully understand its relation to Introduction of the
the other gifts. Perhaps in a previous exercise with the Ring.
eighth gift we have allowed the children to experiment with a stick, and to
break it partially in a number of places so as to produce a measurably
correct curved line, afterwards promising them that they should soon have
perfect curves to play with. This exercise has its value because it illustrates
practically that a curved line is one which changes its direction at every
point.
Let us see when to-day's play begins if the children can think of any way to
make such curves, save by the stick already used. Some quick-witted little
one will remember at once the surface of the ball and his repeated
experiments in dividing it, and will suggest in sufficiently plain words that a
curved line might be made from a clay sphere. His neighbor thinks a clay
cylinder would make one more easily, and both experiments are tried by all
the children with a resultant of quite perfect clay rings. Then some one
wants to make paper rings, and some one else cloth rings, and the wise
kindergartner encourages all this experimenting, knowing that "the power
of memory increases in the same ratio as delight, animation, and joy are
connected with free mental activity."
When the wire rings are at last given, some conversation
about their material will be pleasant and timely, as it is Material of the
of a kind we have not had before in the gifts, and shall Rings.
not have again. The children will see that it is akin to the substance of
which their sewing and weaving needles and their scissors are made, and
possibly some one may know that both are products of iron. At this juncture
it may be well to show a piece of iron, to let the children handle it and note
its various properties, and while this is being done, to tell them of the many
parts of the world in which it is found, of its great strength and usefulness,

and that its value is greater than that of the shining yellow gold. A
description of iron mines will easily follow, and the children will delight to
hear of the great shafts sunk deep in the earth, of the baskets in which the
miners travel up and down, of the darkness underground where they toil all
day with pick and shovel, of the safety lamps they carry in their caps, of the
mules that drag the loads of iron ore to and fro, and—startling fact, at which
round eyes are invariably opened—that some of these mules have their
stables down in the ground below, and never come up where the sun shines
and the flowers bloom. If there is a foundry in the vicinity of the
kindergarten, and we can take the little ones to see the huge furnaces, the
intense fires, the molten iron, and the various roasting, melting, and
moulding processes necessary in refining the ore, they will gain an
ineffaceable idea of the value of the metal in human labor, and of the
endless chain of hands, clasped each in the other, through which the slender
wire rings have passed to reach them.
In the first dictation exercise several whole circles of the
same size may be given, and their equality shown by First Exercises.
laying one on top of the other. Then we may lay them
side by side in actual contact, and the important fact will be discovered by
the children that circles can touch each other at one point only. Subsequent
exercises take up rings of different sizes, when concentric circles are of
course made, showing one thing completely inclosed in another, and next
follow the half and quarter rings, which the children must be led, as
heretofore, to discover and make for themselves.
With the semicircles, which offer still richer suggestions for invention than
the whole rings, another property of the curved line is seen. Two blocks,
two tablets, two sticks could not touch each other without forming new
angles, nor could they be so placed as to produce a complete figure. Two
semicircles, on the other hand, form no new angles when they touch, and
they may be joined completely and leave no opening.
In his work with the sticks the child became well versed in handling a
comparatively large amount of material, so that now he can deal
successfully from the first exercise with a fair number of whole, half, and
quarter rings. We must be careful, however, not to give him too many of

these in the beginning, lest he be overwhelmed with the riches at his
command.[75]
The rings should not be used freely until the child is
familiar with vertical, horizontal, and slanting lines, and When the Rings
should be
not only familiar in the sense of being able to receive introduced.
and obey dictations intelligently, but in constantly
making correct and artistic use of them in his creations. The practice with
them, however, is often deferred entirely too long, and the intense pleasure
and profit which the child gains from the beautiful and satisfying curved
line are not given him until very late in the kindergarten course. This is
manifestly unnecessary, for although, if we introduce Froebel's gifts and
occupations in orderly sequence, we make greater use of the straight line
after the first and second gifts are passed than we do of the curve, yet we
should not end with it, nor accept it as a finality; neither should we keep the
child tied down altogether to the contemplation of such lines.
There is no need of exhausting all the possibilities of the straight line before
beginning work with the curve, for sufficient difficulties could be devised
with the former to last an indefinite length of time.
If the child understands the relation of the edge to the solid, and of the
outline to the body; if he is skilled in the use of six to a dozen sticks laid in
various positions, he can appreciate perfectly the relation of the curved edge
or line to the spherical and circular objects which he has seen in the
kindergarten. He remembers the faces of the cylinder, the conversation
about spherical and flat rounding objects in his plays with the ball, and he
has seen the circular as well as square paper-folding.
He will be accustomed in that to the appearance of the semicircle, segment,
quadrant, and sector, and will take great delight in cutting and drawing rings
and crescents if we open the way for him.
Although the gifts, from third to ninth, illustrate straight
lines, angles, and rectilinear figures, yet the occupations How we may keep
the Curve before
present many facilities for keeping the curve before the the Child's Eye.
eye of the child. In sewing, we introduce curving
outlines during the study of the ball, and work out a series of objects in the
vegetable and animal world in order to vary the mathematical precision of

the making of lines, angles, and geometrical figures, as well as to illustrate
more fully the spherical form.
We may also use the circular paper-folding in some simple sequence as
early as the child's development will permit, and we have, of course, at the
very outset, the occupation of modeling, which is one of the most valuable
of aids in this matter, and the stringing of wooden spheres and beads.
The thread game enters here also, and makes a useful supplement to the
rings, as the wet thread may be pushed while it lies on the surface of the
table or slate into numberless different forms, all of which may be included
under curving outlines.
In linear drawing we give the child lines running in various directions at the
earliest possible time, so that he may not grow into a strained and unnatural
position of the hand, for this constant drawing of the vertical line, which is
necessary to its execution with perfect precision by the young child, limits
the freedom of the wrist and muscles, and instead of preparing him to write
a good hand, does absolutely the reverse. The various exercises, on the
other hand, in drawing the curves of circle and oval and their combinations
are quite perfect preparations for clear, graceful penmanship.
We also have, in drawing, Miss Emma Marwedel's circular system, and the
outline work performed by means of pasteboard patterns, most of which are
of the curving outlines of leaves, flowers, fruits, and vegetables. When the
children can draw quite well from these patterns we always encourage the
drawing without them, merely looking at the object to be copied.
These exercises are of the greatest value as connected with modeling when
the subjects chosen for invention are comprehended under the sphere,
prolate and oblate spheroid, ovoid, cone, etc., the cube with its straight lines
coming last of all.
In this way, while keeping up the regular sequence of lessons and
occupations with the straight line, we do not debar the child from the
contemplation of the line of beauty.
After this, he takes great pleasure in uniting the straight
and curved lines in his inventions with the sticks and Uniting the Straight
and Curved Lines.
rings given him together, and is quite able to use them

separately or unitedly in his creative work. About this time the fruit of these
exercises will begin to appear in his drawing. He will attempt to unite his
straight lines by curves, and even essay large designs in curves which will
be far from perfect, but nevertheless will not be without their value.
The first trials of this kind may be in copying the
inventions in rings which he has made on his table, Copying
exactly as he previously transferred his stick inventions Inventions.
to the slate. The spaces should be just as carefully counted, and accuracy
expected in preserving the numerical proportions. But this needs much tact
and patience on the part of the kindergartner, as well as skill in teaching; for
the principles of drawing the curve are much less obvious to the child and
much more difficult for him to comprehend than the measurement and
calculation of straight lines with their various lengths and inclinations.
These inventions with rings, which are often wonderfully beautiful,—so
beautiful, in fact, that the uninstructed person is sometimes skeptical as to
their production by the children,—may also be preserved in permanent form
by parquetry. It is furnished in various colors for this gift, as for the seventh
and eighth, and is greatly enjoyed by the children.
If any should fear that the long contemplation of rectangular solids, planes,
and straight lines in Froebel's gifts should tend towards too great rigidity
and barrenness of imagination in inventive work, it is obviously within our
power, as has been shown, to vary this mathematical exactness, which is no
doubt less agreeable to the child than the graceful image of his own fancy
(could he attain it), by introducing the curve freely into many of the
occupations and exercises with the kindergarten material in general.
The rings are of course not as well adapted to the
production of objects constructed by man as were the Forms of Life,
sticks, but, nevertheless, the material is not without Beauty, and
Knowledge.
value in this direction. Various fruits, flowers, and leaves
may be made, as well as such objects as bowls, goblets, hour-glasses,
baskets, and vases. When connected with sticks, the number of Life forms
is obviously much increased on account of the union of straight and curved
lines thus made possible. Tablets may also be added and contribute a new
element to the possibilities for invention.

For symmetrical forms, however, the gift is admirably adapted, since the
child can hardly put two rings together without producing something
pleasing.[76] Borders enter here in great variety, tablets and sticks being
added when desirable, and the group work forms, combining the seventh,
eighth, and ninth gifts, give full play to the creative impulses of the child,
while calling constantly upon those principles of design which he has
learned empirically.
The forms of knowledge which can be made with the ninth gift are
necessarily few. It is not especially well fitted for number work, and
development of geometrical form is limited to the planes and lines of the
circle.
Miss Emma Marwedel introduced a supplement to the
ninth gift in the form of wooden circles and half-circles Wooden Rings.
in many colors. These are much heavier than the metal
rings, therefore somewhat easier to handle and give, as she claims, "the
child's creative powers a much larger field for æsthetic development." Of
course, this larger field is to be found in color blending, not in beauty of
design, as the form elements remain the same. The bright hues are
undoubtedly a great attraction, however, and perhaps are in line with that
return to color which was noted in the seventh gift, when the architectural
forms were laid aside. If we adopt the wooden rings we need not on that
account lay aside the metal ones, for the two materials may be combined to
great advantage.
The gift presents little difficulty, the dictations requiring
less concentration than heretofore as the positions in Difficulties of the
Gift.
which the rings may be placed are few and simple.
Froebel's purpose evidently was that the child should now concentrate his
activity entirely upon design, and that he should use the material by itself,
and in connection with sticks and tablets to give out in visible form
whatever æsthetic impressions he had received through the preceding gifts.
The office of the kindergartner is hardly now more than to suggest, merely
to watch the child in his creative work, and to advise when necessary as to
the most artistic disposition of the simple material. She may here, if she
adopts this attitude, have the experience of seeing the direct result of her

teachings, for the child's work will be a mirror in which she can see
reflected her successes or her failures.
The idea of Froebel in devising all these gifts was not, it
seems hardly necessary to say, to instruct the child in Froebel's Idea.
abstractions, which do not properly belong to childhood,
but to lead him early in life to the practical knowledge of things about him;
to inculcate the love of industry, helpfulness, independence of thought and
action, neatness, accuracy, economy, beauty, harmony, truth, and order.
The gifts and occupations are only means to a great end, and if used in this
sense will attain their highest usefulness.
No dictation with any of the kindergarten materials, no study of lines,
angles, oblongs, triangles, and pentagons, no work with numbers either
concrete or abstract are fit employments for little children, if not connected
in every possible way with their home pleasures and the natural objects of
their love. Only when thus connected do they produce real interest, only
thus can agreement with the child's inner wants be secured.
Actual experiences in the child's life are its most natural and potent
teachers. We need constantly to remember that the prime value of the
kindergarten lies in its personal influence upon individuals, and seek to
develop each separate member of our class according to his possibilities.
The objection has been made that the study and practice
with straight lines, angles, geometrical forms, cubes, and An Objection
answered.
other rectangular solids would fit the child for later work
in the exact and mathematical sciences more than for other branches of
study. But yet it is difficult to see how, when the child's powers of
observation are so carefully trained in every way; when he is constantly led
to notice objects in nature and reproduce them with clay, pencil, chalk, or
needle; when these objects are so frequently presented for his critical
inspection and comparison; when he is led to see in the flowers, plants,
rocks, and stars, the unity which holds together everything in the universe;
when beauty and harmony, mingled freely, constitute the atmosphere of the
ideal kindergarten,—it is difficult indeed to see how he can receive
anything but benefit from the gift plays, which present at first mainly the

straight line, seemingly deferring the curve to a later period when it can be
managed more successfully.

READINGS FOR THE STUDENT.

Paradise of Childhood. Edward Wiebe. Pages 45, 46.
Kindergarten Guide. Kraus-Boelte. 373-417.
The Kindergarten. H. Goldammer. 173-78.
The Kindergarten. Principles of Froebel's System. Emily Shirreff. 17-20.

Industrial Art in Schools.[77] Charles G. Leland.
Childhood's Poetry and Studies. With Diagrams. Emma Marwedel.
The Grammar of Ornament. Owen Jones.
Art. Sir John Lubbock.
How to Judge a Picture. Van Dyke.

FROEBEL'S TENTH GIFT
THE POINT

"The awakening mind of the child ... is led from the material body and its regular
division to the contemplation of the surface, from this to the contemplation of the line
and to the point made visible."
Friedrich Froebel.
"And it is precisely thus that the first artistic work of primeval man occurs; he begins
by the forming of simple rows, as strings of beads, or of shells, for instance."
H. Poesche.
"For the last step in this analysis the child receives small lentil seeds or pebbles—
concrete points, so to speak—with which he constructs the most wonderful pictures."
W. N. Hailmann.

1. The point made concrete, which forms the tenth and last of Froebel's
gifts, is represented by many natural objects, by beans, lentils, pebbles,
shells, leaves, and buds of flowers, by seeds of various kinds, as well as by
tiny spheres of clay and bits of wood and cork.
2. We have been moving by gradual analysis from the solid through the
divided solid, the plane and the line, and thus have reached in logical
sequence the point, into a series of which the line may be resolved.
3. The point which was visible in the preceding gifts, but inseparable from
them, now in the tenth gift has an existence of its own. Although it is an
imaginary quantity having neither length, breadth, nor thickness, yet it is
here illustrated by tangible objects which the child can handle. By its very
lack of individuality, it lends itself to many charming plays and
transformations.
4. By the use of the point the child learns practically the composition of the
line, that its direction is determined by two points, that the shortest distance
between two points is a straight line, and that a curved line is one which
changes its direction at every point. The gift closes the series of objects

obtained by analysis from the solid, and prepares for the occupations which
are developed by synthesis from the point.
5. The outlines of all geometrical plane figures both rectilinear and
curvilinear may be illustrated with the point as well as straight and curved
lines and angles of every degree.
6. The law of mediation of contrasts is no longer illustrated in the gift itself,
but simply governs the use of the material. All lines and outlines of planes
made with a series of dots show its workings, and the symmetrical figures,
as we have noted from the first, owe to it their very existence.

When we begin upon a consideration of the tenth gift,
the last link in the chain of objects which Froebel Meeting-Place of
devised to "produce an all-sided development of the Gifts and
Occupations.
child," we see at once that the meeting-place of gift and
occupation has been reached. The two series are now in fact so nearly one
that the point is much more often used for occupation work than as a gift.
This convergence of the series in regard to their practical use was first noted
in the tablets, and has grown more and more marked with each succeeding
object.
Though the point is in truth the last step which the child takes in the
sequence of gifts as he journeys toward the abstract, yet we are met at once
in practice by the apparently inconsistent fact that it is one of the first
presented in the kindergarten. This can only be explained by the statement
that it is in truth quite as much of an occupation as a gift, and is used in the
former sense among the child's first work-materials as a preparation for
later point-making (perforating), and as an exercise in eye-training and
accuracy of measurement. It is not an occupation, of course, for the reason
that permanent results cannot be produced with it, and because no
transformation of its material is possible.
Before the child completes his kindergarten course,
however, he should certainly be led to an intellectual The Point as a Gift.
perception of the interrelation of the gifts and their

gradual development from solid to point, for their orderly progression
according to law, though it be but dimly apprehended, will be most useful
and strengthening to the mind. To discern the logical order of a single series
of objects is a step toward the comprehension of world-order in mature life.
[78]

The mind in later childhood should be what Froebel describes his own to
have been. "I often felt," he says, "as if my mind were a smooth, still pool
scarce a handbreadth over, or even a single water-drop, in which
surrounding things were clearly mirrored, while the blue vault of the sky
was seen as well, reaching far away and above."
When the derivation of plane and of straight and curved line and their place
in the gifts are clearly understood by the child, there will be no difficulty in
gaining an equally clear apprehension of the point and its position in the
series. This may be done somewhat as follows. When the children are
playing with blocks on some occasion, we may direct the conversation to
the essential characteristics of the cube, its faces, edges, and corners. Do
they remember which one of their playthings is like the face of the cube; do
they remember cutting clay tablets from the clay blocks?
It is most unlikely that this experiment will have been forgotten, but if it has
been, it may be easily repeated. Speak next of the edges of the cube, and let
the children recall the derivation of the stick. That portion of the cube not
yet discussed will now be seized upon by the children, and they will ask if
any of their playthings are like the cube's corners. Can they think of
anything; shall we not try to make something?
Now the clay appears, cubes are quickly fashioned, and each child is
allowed to cut off the eight corners of his block. He has no sooner done this
than he sees the nearest approach we can make to a point, and proceeds to
make a design from them while he recalls the beans, shells, lentils, etc., he
has used before in a similar way.
It is well here to suggest making the bits of clay into tiny oblate spheroids,
and laying them away to dry so that we may make a group work invention
of them to-morrow. Better still, however, is the instant introduction of sticks
or wires to connect with the clay points, and thus form at once the skeleton

of the solid, which will give an ineffaceable impression of the relation of
point and line to each other.
The pleasure the child finds in point-laying is not
confined to the kindergarten, for playing with beads and Pleasure of Child in
pin-heads is an ordinary nursery occupation in all Point-laying
Stringing.
and

countries, and which of us cannot recall long happy
hours on the seashore, or by the brookside, when we gathered and sorted
shells and smooth glistening pebbles, and laid them in rows and patterns?
The mere handling of a great store of these gave a Midas-like delight, and
what primitive artistic pleasure we felt as we arranged them according to
the principle of repetition to border our garden-beds or to inclose our
miniature parks and playgrounds.
The same joy is felt in plucking, arranging, and stringing rose-hips, the
seeds of the ailantus, the nasturtium, the pumpkin, or the "cheeses" of the
mallow and wild geranium.
It will commonly be found that the child enjoys tenfold
more the objects for point-work which he finds himself Miscellaneous
than the more perfect school-materials. Imagine the joy, Materials.
for instance, of a bevy of kindergarten children set free on Pescadero Beach
(California), and allowed to ramble up and down its shining sands to pick
up the wonderful Pescadero pebbles. What colors of dull red and amber, of
pink and palest green, what opaline lights, and smooth, glimmering
surfaces! "Busy work" with such materials would be worth while indeed,—
yet easy to obtain as they are, they are almost never seen in use.
Smooth, white pebbles, washed entirely clean and sorted according to size,
are not uncommonly seen in the kindergartens, however, and are especially
useful in the sand-table, and if these and the shining cream-colored shells
could be found by the children themselves, their pleasure in them would be
immensely increased. That this is true is proved by the experience of many
teachers with seed-work. One of our own brood of kindergartners once had
a birthday melon party for one of her children. The melons were brought to
the kindergarten room and there divided, the small host serving his guests
himself. Great interest was immediately shown in the jet-black seeds of the
water-melon in contrast with the smaller light-colored seeds of the musk-

melon, and unanimous appeals were made to the kindergartner that they
might be saved and used for inventions. This was done, and they were
always called for afterwards in point-work, rather than the beans, or
vegetable and wooden lentils.
In those kindergartens where the seeds of all fruits are saved by the children
at lunch hour, it is also noted that the collection thus made is always the
object of universal interest and preference.
One of the first uses of the point may be in following the
outline of some form of life which the kindergartner has Use of the Gift.
drawn in white or colored chalk on the child's table. This
is much more fascinating work than the placing of seeds one space apart,
three in a row, etc., for the latter belongs to the "knowledge-acquiring side
of the game," which, as Froebel says, is the "quickly tiring side, only to be
given quite casually at first, and as chance may provide suitable openings
for it."
The forms drawn in chalk may very well be of curving outlines of
vegetables, fruits, leaves, and flowers to connect with the study of the first
gift, and may include any other simple appropriate object which the
kindergartner is capable of drawing.
The more advanced child can of course make his own Life forms without
the aid of drawing, and if he is given different sizes and kinds of shells,
seeds, or pebbles, often arranges them with great ability to imitate the
shading of the object.
The beginning of the forms of knowledge is in placing the points in regular
order on the squared tables at the intersection of vertical and horizontal
lines. Next, the child lays one space vertical lines, three points in a line,
then two space lines with five points, then horizontal lines, angles,
parallelograms, borders, etc., following out the school of linear drawing,
and in this way progresses in an orderly manner to the designing of
symmetrical forms. Curved lines of course are quite as easily represented as
the straight, and really beautiful designs are often made by the children with
them.

Tiny circles and squares of colored paper corresponding
to the wooden lentils are also to be had with this gift, Tenth Gift
and afford a means of preserving the designs in Parquetry.
permanent form. They are so small, however, as to give occasion for
considerable patience in pasting them, and are rather difficult to arrange
with regularity without first drawing the design. It is doubtful, in our
opinion, if they may be considered to be of any particular educational
benefit, if indeed they are not a positive harm to the child in that they
require a too minute and long-sustained use of the finer muscles.
These strictures on the tenth gift parquetry bring us
naturally to the criticisms lately made by eminent Objections to the
authorities upon some of the Froebel materials. The Gift.
objection that many of them require too minute handling and too close
attention on the part of children of the kindergarten age seems, as far as the
gifts are concerned, to hold especial weight in regard to point-work.[79]
We need not consider here the physio-psychological tests lately made of the
early motor-ability of children and the results which these have shown, but
simply concern ourselves with what we have seen and noted many times in
daily kindergarten practice. Is it not true that the laying of beans and lentils
one inch apart on the tables, for instance, is an occupation which requires
very delicate handling on account of the smallness of the object, its easy
mobility, and the exactness required to place it precisely at the crossing-
point of vertical and horizontal lines? Is it not true that such work requires
considerable effort from the kindergartner to make it interesting to the
child? Is it not true that there is a cramp of the fingers, shown by a slight
trembling, in getting hold of the tiny object and placing it, a cramp of the
eye in foreseeing and following the movement, and a cramp of the body
accompanying the tension of hand and arm? If all these observations are
correct, or measurably so, if they hold with a majority of children, then
point-laying as an occupation clearly needs considerable modification in the
kindergarten.
What are then the objections to the point as illustrated in bean, coffee-berry,
seed, and wooden lentil? In a word, that when represented as above, it
becomes too small and too mobile. The difficulty of using these materials is
immensely increased by the fact that a slight movement of the child's table

will send them all on the floor, while even an ill-timed cough or sneeze, or
puff of wind, will blow them out of position. Point-laying is quite difficult
enough for the child's small powers under the best conditions, and need not
be made more so by undue mobility in the materials with which it is carried
on. This criticism would not hold of course as against large shells or
pebbles or as against Miss Marwedel's hemispheres and ellipsoids.
The only good reason for using the small materials to
which the preceding objections have been made is a very How these
good one, viz., that if we are to take any concrete object Objections
obviated.
may be

to represent the point, it should be as small as possible,
since the point is in reality an intangible something, having no one of the
three dimensions. This reasoning seems to be logical enough, and it is
surely equally so, to insist that the child shall at some time derive his own
points from the cube and make them as small as possible, that he may the
better understand their relation to line, plane, and solid. When once this
relation is understood, however, and before it is suggested to his mind, why
may he not use the larger materials, even though they do not illustrate the
point as perfectly? Any lack in perfect representation would probably be
more than compensated by the removal of the strain on the accessory
muscles and the gain in artistic development. This latter point, indeed,
needs special consideration, for there seems no doubt that the continued use
of such small objects for design leads to accuracy and prettiness rather than
breadth and power.
If we throw out all the smaller materials used for point-
laying, and it seems advisable so to do, we still have left The Marwedel
smooth pebbles from one half to three fourths of an inch Materials.
in diameter, and shells of any univalve, such as the "money-cowry" (cyprœa
moneta). These should be polished, as free from convolutions as possible,
and not less than half an inch in diameter. To these we may add Miss Emma
Marwedel's wooden ellipsoids and hemispheres, already mentioned, which
are satisfactory in size, and add the delights of color.[80]
The hemispheres, which are about one half inch in diameter, come in eight
colors and also in the natural wood, are pierced for stringing, and are
similar to ordinary button-moulds, having of course one flat side.

The ellipsoids in the six rainbow hues, black gray, brown, and wood colors,
resemble elliptical shells, having one flat side, are also pierced for stringing,
and vary in length from three fourths of to something over an inch, being
nearly an inch wide, perhaps, and a half inch thick.
The children are invariably delighted with both hemispheres and ellipsoids,
and need no stimulus from the kindergartner in their use.
In some of Miss Marwedel's pamphlets on the use of
these materials, she speaks of the mind-pictures which Mind-Pictures.
can be made with them, and which are of course quite
possible with any of the other gifts. These mind-pictures, showing form and
number groups, are drawn by the kindergartner on the blackboard, where
they are left a second and then erased. They are then copied from memory,
and the results compared, described, and criticised by the children. This
constitutes a valuable mental exercise, and if the tests are simple at first and
made gradually more difficult will be most valuable in increasing the
memory-span as well as in developing language power.
If some of the materials used in the kindergarten are
unwisely chosen, and if this objection applies in the Abuse of the Gift.
gifts, especially to the point, then the kindergartner has
been, and still is, unnecessarily increasing her sum of error, for no one of
the connected series of objects (save the stick) is commonly so forced upon
the child. It is somewhat unusual for this reason to find a whole class of
children really enjoying point-work, though several conscientious and
industrious members of the group may be toiling away with praiseworthy
diligence.
Sometimes the children's feeling toward the gift goes beyond indifference
and passes into active dislike, but in either attitude of mind the beans,
lentils, etc., are likely to be mistreated.
It is not that the work with them is not in itself pleasing to the child, but that
it has been forced upon him ad nauseam, and that the kindergartner has
lacked interest in presenting it. His own interest has in consequence
gradually died out, and when once the fire is cold, who shall light it again?

That there is no need of this abuse of the gift is clear enough, and it can
only come from entire lack of originality in using Froebel's materials, or
from a mental or physical inertia on the part of the kindergartner, which
causes her to prefer giving out such work as needs neither preparation nor
previous thought.

READINGS FOR THE STUDENT.

Kindergarten Guide. Kraus-Boelte. Pages 439-53.
The Kindergarten. H. Goldammer. 181-84.
A System of Child-Culture. Emma Marwedel. 6-8.
Hints to Teachers. Emma Marwedel. 49.
Decorative Design. Frank S. Jackson.
Art in Education. Thos. Davidson.
Manual of Design. Richard Redgrave, R. A.
Exercices et Travaux pour les Enfants. Fanny Ch. Delon.
Manuel Pratique des Jardins d'Enfants. J. E. Jacobs and Mme. von Marenholtz-Bülow.

GENERAL REMARKS ON THE GIFTS
As we close the series of talks upon Froebel's gifts and look back over the
ground that has been covered, we see that a number of important subjects
have been only lightly touched upon, while we have been altogether silent
regarding others equally as vital. This is doubtless inevitable in any work
upon the kindergarten which does not aim to be encyclopædic in character,
but a few of the more serious omissions may be supplied before we close
our consideration of the gifts and enter upon that of the occupations.
First, then, a word on the subject of attention.
It is not uncommon, when discussing any exercises with
kindergarten materials which require dictation or Difficulty of
guidance, to hear complaints of the difficulty of holding holding Child's
Attention.
the children's attention. It may generally be said,
doubtless, that when little children fail to give attention it is because they
are not interested, and if the teacher finds the majority of her pupils listless,
indifferent, and vagrant-minded, she may reasonably conclude that
something is amiss either with the subject or with her presentation of it. The
child is as yet too young to command his mental powers and "drive himself
on by his own self-determination," and if we enforce an attention which he
gives through fear, we lose the motive power of interest which Froebel
sought to utilize in the plays of the kindergarten.

Dr. George P. Brown in a late article on "Metaphysics and Pedagogics"[81]
says, "Every one admits that there is much that must be done by the child in
his elementary education which is a task, for the reason that his ideas of its
worth to himself cannot be sufficiently appreciated to arouse a lively and
impelling interest in the doing of it," and he adds, "Garfield once
complained that he had done so long those things in which he was
interested that he was losing his power to do that which did not interest him,
which suggests the danger of relying entirely upon interest as an incentive
to learn."

That there is a danger here cannot be denied, but it is one which need hardly
be considered at the kindergarten age, when that interest which comes from
continued agreement between the work in hand and the child's inner wants
is absolutely essential to the gaining of knowledge. Mr. W. N. Hailmann
puts the whole matter in a nutshell when he says: "If the kindergartner has
the penetration to discover these inner wants, and the skill to adapt the
circumstances and her own purposes to these, she will find it easy to secure
and hold the child's attention. Without this penetration and skill, all else is
unavailing. She may sing and cajole herself into hoarseness, she may smile
and gesticulate herself into a mild sort of tarantism, or freeze herself at one
end of the table into a statue of Suppressed Reproach,—if the instruction or
dictation has no natural connection with the purposes of the children, these
will remain uninterested or bored victims of her ill-directed enthusiasm."
The plays with the gifts open wide avenues for language
teaching if conducted as Froebel intended. He says many Language Teaching.
wise things on this subject in his "Education of Man,"
and the following is of absolute application.
"Our children will attain," he says, "to a far more fundamental insight into
language, if we, when teaching them, connect the words more with the
actual perception of the thing and the object.... Our language would then
again become a true language of life, that is, born of life and producing life;
while it threatens otherwise, by merely outward consideration, to become
more and more dead."[82]
From the first the child should be led to voice his small observations on the
gifts in clear language and in approximately complete sentences, brief
though they be. He can as easily say, "I would like a blue ball, please," if
asked what color he prefers, as to jerk out a monosyllabic "Blue!"
After a little practice he will use a short sentence when comparing two
objects, for instance, but as he naturally moves along the line of least
resistance it is hardly to be expected that he will take the trouble to form
complete sentences unless gently stimulated to do so. The stimulus must be
gentle, however, and given at the right time, for any feeling that his words
are criticised will lead him to self-repression, not expression.

In gift work, too, he explains to the kindergartner what he is inventing, and
for what purpose; he weaves gossamer threads of fancy about the objects
constructed, or describes the forms of beauty and knowledge he has built by
dictation.
There is and should be constant interchange of conversation during the gift
plays, and the kindergartner who directs them like a drill-sergeant, requiring
her recruits only to be silent and obey, has entirely misconceived Froebel's
idea.[83]
It is undeniably much easier for the teacher to do all the talking, the
children serving as audience, but the ideal to be reached is that she shall be
the audience herself, or rather the chairman of the meeting, guiding the
conversation, asking suggestive questions, and making wise comments.
Our language teaching, however, is not confined to the cultivation of greater
powers of expression, for there is a direct gain in the child's vocabulary
consequent upon his kindergarten experience. He absorbs many new words
from his teachers, but many others he learns through his daily work and
play, and these are his absolute possession,—the thing and the word
together. An interesting series of experiments was once made in the San
Francisco free kindergartens relative to the number of new words which the
child had mastered and used easily and freely after three years in the child-
garden. These included terms of dictation, geometrical terms, names of
tools, colors, materials, plants, animals, buildings, and places, new and
poetic words of songs, games, and stories, etc., and the experiments
established the fact that the child's vocabulary was fully as great as that of
his parents and decidedly more choice.
It should be said here that there is great value to the
child in learning to name things correctly from the very Relation of Word to
Object.
beginning. If the new word is a simple one, he can learn
it with perfect ease, and then the object is properly labeled, so to speak, for
future use.[84] Familiar names are sometimes used in the kindergarten when
the correct term would be quite as easy to pronounce. This practice often
arises from a false conception of symbolism, and is continued with an idea
that it is pleasing to the child. Sometimes the pseudonyms are absolutely
misleading, as in the frequent speaking of squares as boxes, which must, of

course, confuse the child as to the real nature of a plane. There are many
cases where the geometrical name of a form can easily be taught if it is
given after the object is clearly understood.[85]
There is a distinction here as to age, which should be noted. Though with
babies of three years it is not only delightful, but necessary, to use objects
symbolically, to give play-names to the lines they make, etc., with older
children who are nearing the age of school instruction and therefore passing
away from the "sense relations of things," it is just as essential to begin a
more scientific nomenclature.
One of the commonest errors in the kindergarten, as well
as one of the most pernicious, is that of assisting the Value of
Knowledge Gained
child too much in all his work. This is perhaps more by Individual
universally true of the plays with the occupations than Effort.
with the gifts, but even in the latter direction the practice
is far too widespread.[86]
The kindergartner often forms his sentences for the child, over-directs him
when he is matching colors, gives names to the objects he constructs
without waiting for him to do so, moves his blocks, sticks, tablets, rings into
more accurate position, changes his spacing when incorrect, rearranges his
inventions, selects the colors for his parquetry work,—and all for what
reasons? Primarily, to produce a better effect, it is probable, glorying in the
consciousness that the work on every child's table is exactly right, and blind
to the truth that uniformity must always be mechanical; and secondarily, to
quiet her own feeling of impatience, which sometimes comes from nervous
exhaustion and sometimes from an over-eagerness to get a quantity of work
done regardless of the method by which it is obtained.
There is a thirdly, too, which is that the inaccurate work, the awkward
designs, the unfortunate blending of colors which the little one inevitably
makes at first, so offend her artistic eye that she trembles with eagerness to
set them right, forgetting that by so doing she is imposing her superior taste
upon the child and thereby failing to develop his. We shall never see this
matter clearly, nor know how to bear with the crudity of the child's work,
until we learn that the crudity is natural and therefore to be respected, and
that it is in a sense beautiful after all, for it is a stage of being.

This vice, for it is a vice, of assisting the child too much causes him to lose
his own power of bravely and persistently overcoming difficulties, and
makes him weak and dependent. It gives occasion for teachers to say, and
apparently with justice, that kindergarten children need constant assistance
in their school work, that they are always crying out for help, and seem
incapable of taking a step alone.
That this is not true of all kindergarten children we know, but that it should
be true of any is a disgrace to our interpretation of Froebel's system, which
is, in reality, a very treasure-house of self-reliance, of self-development, and
of independence of thought and action.
One of the highest essentials of gift work is that it
should not be isolated from other experiences of the Value of
child and concern itself merely with first principles of Interrelation in
Kindergarten Work.
mathematics, with elements of construction,
reproduction, and design, and with unrelated bits of knowledge.
Froebel says in the motto to one of the poems in the "Mutter-Spiel und
Kose-Lieder,"—
"Whatever singly with a child you've played,
Weave it together till a whole you've made.
...........................
"Thus it will dawn upon his childish soul:
The smallest thing belongs to some great whole."
And again,—
"Silently cherish your Baby's dim thought,
That Life in itself is as unity wrought."
Nothing is more evident in all his writings, in his more formal works as
well as in his autobiography, his volumes of letters and his reminiscences,
than that his lifelong struggle was for unity in all things. He would have this
unity expressed in simple concrete form in the kindergarten by a complete
interrelation of all the activities of the child; and the gifts as "outward
representations of his internal mental world" may be trusted to furnish us
with an absolute test as to how far we are carrying out this principle in our
teaching.

Whether or not the necessity of correlation decreases as age increases we
need not discuss here, but that there is absolute need of it in the
kindergarten probably no one will deny. If a single aim does not unify the
kindergarten day, (or month, or season), it will be a succession of scrappy
experiences, of surface impressions, no one of which can be permanent,
because it was slight by itself and received no reinforcement from others.
Such instruction only serves to dissipate the mind, to blot out the dim
feeling of unity inscribed there by its maker, and to render the child
incapable and undesirous of binding his thoughts into a whole.[87]
What the subjects should be, around which the child's mental, physical, and
spiritual activities may crystallize, furnishes a fruitful field for discussion;
but, above all, they should be vital ones, for, as Miss Blow says, "Serious
injury may be done the mind by developing concentric exercises which
belong not to the centre, but the circumference of thought."
It would be fruitless to suggest suitable subjects here, for if they do not, on
the one hand, conform to the growing mind of the particular child or class
of children, they may either arrest or overtax development, and if, on the
other hand, they do not proceed from the kindergartner's insight into
principle, it would be but "superstitious imitation" for her to follow them
out. No manual, no guide-book, no treatise, no lecture, can supply the want
of fine intelligence and judgment in all these matters, and not until the
teacher "comprehends the genesis of any principle from deeper principles
can she emancipate herself from even the hypnotic suggestion of the
principle itself, and convert external authority into inward freedom."[88]
Although uninterested and uninitiated persons doubtless
regard the various gifts of Froebel as very ordinary Effect of Froebel's
objects, made from commonplace materials, yet that this Gifts on the
Kindergartner.
view of the matter is only a peep through a pin-hole is
abundantly proven by their effect on the kindergartner. Those of us who
have seen successive groups of young women in training-classes approach
the first few gifts have noted that interest is commonly mingled at first with
a slight surprise that the objects should be considered worthy of so much
study, while underneath lies a half-concealed amusement at the simple
forms produced. Yet this attitude of mind endures but for a season, for as
soon as the gifts are studied and used practically, it is seen that they contain

possibilities of indefinite expansion. When they are looked at through the
glasses of imagination, it is wonderful how large they appear, and when one
has toiled long hours to invent some sequence with them, one wonders at
the reality and fascination of the forms produced.
The outsider who glanced at the materials hastily would undoubtedly
suppose them capable of only a limited number of changes and
combinations, but the fact remains that every year kindergarten students
invent hundreds of new forms with these simple, insignificant blocks and
sticks and beans.
How, then, does this change come about? How is it that the same student
who once half-scorned the gifts, now, upon the completion of her course of
training, looks upon them with affection, admiration, and respect? It is that
her eyes have been opened, and whereas she was blind, now she sees. Her
imagination has been awakened, her literary instinct has been stirred, and
she has come to look at things in the child way, which is always the poetic
way.
The effect of Froebel's gifts upon the child has been
shown directly and indirectly through the entire series of Effect of Froebel's
talks, and need not now be recapitulated. If they are Gifts upon the
Child.
wisely presented and wisely conducted, "inward and
outward, the limits of their influence and scope lie in infinity."
Froebel says in one of his letters: "No one would believe, without seeing it,
how the child-soul—the child-life—develops when treated as a whole, and
in the sense of forming a part of the great connected life of the world, by
some skilled kindergartner,—nay, even by one who is only simple-hearted,
thoughtful, and attentive; nor how it blooms into delicious harmonies like a
beautifully tinted flower. Oh, if I could only shout aloud with ten thousand
lung-power the truth that I now tell you in silence. Then would I make the
ears of a hundred thousand men ring with it! What keenness of sensation,
what a soul, what a mind, what force of will and active energy, what
dexterity and skill of muscular movement and of perception, and what calm
and patience will not all these things call out in the children."[89]
It is not that we regard the connected series of gifts as inspired, nor as
incapable of improvement, for it may be that as our psychological

observations of children grow wiser, more sympathetic, and more subtle, we
shall see cause to make radical changes in the objects which are Froebel's
legacy to the kindergarten. This we may do, but we can never improve upon
the motherly tenderness of spirit with which they were devised by the great
pioneer of child-study, nor upon the philosophic insight which based them
on the universal instincts of childhood.

FOOTNOTES

[1] "The string unites the ball, symbol of the outer world, with the child, and is
the means by which it can act upon his inner nature." (E. G. Seymour.)
[2] "The Egyptians and the Greeks hung geometrical forms over their cradles, so
as to strike the eyes of the child with lawful relations. Froebel introduces colored
balls for the same purpose, which, considering the psychological and emotional
condition of the child, leads to the joyful conception of motion, color, and life."
(Emma Marwedel.)
[3] "Suppose, e. g., that the child, by dint of repeated and varied playing with the
blue ball of the first gift, has succeeded in getting a tolerably clear notion of the
blue ball. If then you bring the yellow ball to his notice, his mind will be led to
examine more closely and to compare the two playthings, resembling each other
so fully in every respect, yet differing so widely in color. The other balls of the
gift are introduced in judicious succession, offering new yet milder contrasts:
these reconcile, combine, the contrasts first offered; they are aided in this by the
colors of surrounding objects. The child begins to feel that these color
impressions, however widely they differ, have a similar source; he is connecting
the contrasts, and as he succeeds in this, he succeeds, too, in separating,
abstracting, the ball from its color." (W. N. Hailmann.)
[4]

"But as he grows he gathers much,
And learns the use of 'I' and 'me,'
And finds 'I am not that I see,
And other than the things I touch.'

"So rounds he to a separate mind
From whence clear memory may begin,
As through the frame that binds him in
His isolation grows defined."

Tennyson's In Memoriam.

[5] Many suggestions for the use of the ball in the nursery may be found in
Froebel's Pedagogics of the Kindergarten, translated by Josephine Jarvis.
[6] See Kindergarten Chimes (Kate D. Wiggin), pages 22-32, Oliver Ditson
Publishing Co.
[7] "The infant begins to examine forms from the commencement of his
existence; for without this knowledge it is doubtful if he could distinguish one
object from another, or even be aware of an external world. Gradually he begins
to know objects apart and to recognize them, and in time discerns resemblances
which cause him to classify them."—W. W. Speer's Form Lessons.
[8] Conrad Diehl's Elements of Ornamentation and Color.
[9] Education, page 130.
[10] "That priority of color to form which, as already pointed out, has a
psychological basis, and in virtue of which psychological basis arises this strong
preference in the child, should be recognized from the very beginning."—
Spencer's Education.
[11] "A person born blind, and suddenly enabled to see, would at first have no
conception of in or out (of eye), and would be conscious of colors only, not of
objects; when by his sense of touch he became acquainted with objects, and had
time to associate mentally the objects he touched with the colors he saw, then,
and not till then, would he begin to see objects."—Preyer's Mind of the Child,
page 58.
"Color cannot be abstracted from that which gives it vitality,—i. e., Form,—
from which it cannot be abstracted without rendering the color flat and
meaningless." (Geo. L. Schreiber.)
[12] "Finding forms of the same general shape as those taken as types is of the
highest importance. Unless this is done, pupils are not learning to pass from the
particular to the general. They are not taught to see many things through the one,
and the impression they gain is that the particular forms observed are the only
forms of this kind. Unless that which the pupil observes aids him in interpreting
something else, it is of no value to him. Certain things are taught that through
them other things may be seen. Pupils should not be trained to see for the sake of
the seeing, but that they may have the power to see." W. W. Speer, Lessons in
Form.
[13] Emma Marwedel, Childhood's Poetry and Studies, page 35.
[14] Professor Earl Barnes, of Stanford University, reports that in his various
color experiments on the Pacific Coast, 1000 children having been studied, a
very large majority selected red as their favorite color.
[15] "Care should be taken, in the selection of all materials for color lessons, to
get as perfect foundation colors as possible; no faded or poor shades are
allowable, as they lead the child astray."
[16] "The resemblance of the symbol to the thing signified is a very important
matter in education, especially in kindergarten education."—Geo. P. Brown,

Essentials of Educational Psychology.
[17] "If, therefore, genuine brotherliness, ... consideration and respect for
playmates and fellow-men, are again to become prevalent, they can become so
only by being connected with the feeling of community abiding in each man
(however much or little of it may be found), and by fostering this feeling with
the greatest care."—Friedrich Froebel, Education of Man, page 74.
[18] "The wooden sphere has no string like the balls of the first gift, because the
child no longer needs the outward connection; he now realizes the spiritual
connection between himself and the outer world." (E. G. Seymour.)
[19] Education, page 132.
[20] E. Shirreff.
[21] "We cannot evolve what has not first been involved."
[22] "Nothing charms us more than the recognition of the old in the new. The
man who hurries through a foreign city, indifferent and inattentive to the passing
crowd, feels a quick thrill of pleasure when in the midst of all the strangers he
recognizes a familiar face." (E. Minhinnick.)
[23] "The infant mind is transparent to resemblance, but opaque to
difference."—Susan E. Blow, Symbolic Education, page 83.
[24] For second gift songs, see Kindergarten Chimes (Kate D. Wiggin), pages
32, 33, Oliver Ditson Publishing Co.
[25] "The sound is a yet higher sign of life to the child, as he then, and also later,
likes to lend speech to all dumb things; therefore he also desires to hear sound
and speech from everything."—Froebel's Pedagogics, page 72.
[26] "But each thing is recognized only when it is connected with the opposite of
its kind, and when the union, accord, similitude with this object are found; and
the connection with the opposite, and the discovery of the uniting, renders the
recognition so much the more complete."—Froebel's Education of Man, page
26.
[27] "But now as man both unites the single, which finds its limits in itself, and
the manifold, which is constantly developing, and reconciles them within
himself as opposites, there results also to the child from both, from sphere and
cube outwardly united, the expression of the animate and active, especially as
embodied in the doll."—Froebel's Pedagogics, page 106.
[28] "On revolving the cylinder on an axis parallel to the circular faces, we find
that it incloses a solid, opaque sphere; teaching us the lesson, not only that each
member of the second gift contains each and all of the others, but that whatever
is in the universe is in every individual part of it; that even the meanest holds the
elements of the noblest; that the highest life is even in what in short-sighted
conceit we call death."—W. N. Hailmann, Law of Childhood, page 35.
[29] "The giving of a new play by no means precludes the further use of the
preceding and earlier plays. But, on the contrary, the use of the preceding play
for some time longer with the new play, and alternating with it, makes the

application of the new play so much the easier and more widely significant."—
Froebel's Pedagogics, page 145
[30] W. N. Hailmann.
[31] "In each construction the whole of the materials must be used; or at least
each separate piece must be arranged so as to stand in some actual relation to the
whole. While this awakens the thinking spirit, it also strengthens and elevates
the imagination; because amidst so much variety, the underlying unity is made
visibly apparent."—Froebel's Letters, tr. by Michaelis and Moore, page 72.
[32] "The idea of separation gained here in concrete form becomes typical of
that condition which must always exist in any growth—the seed breaks through
its coverings, and seems to divide itself into distinct parts, each having its
function in the growth of the whole plant." (Alice H. Putnam.)
[33] "If we want to educate children, we must be children with them ourselves."
(Martin Luther.)
[34] "What must we furnish to the child after the self-contained ball, after the
hard sphere, every part of which is similar, and after the single solid cube? It
must be something firm which can be easily pulled apart by the child's strength,
and just as easily put together again. Therefore it must also be something which
is simple, yet multiform; and what should this be, after what we have perceived
up to this point, and in view of what the surrounding world affords us, but the
cube divided through the centre by three planes perpendicular to one another."—
Froebel's Pedagogics.
[35] "Unmaking is as important as making to the child. His destructive energy is
as essential to him as his power of construction." (W. T. Harris.)
"The child wishes to discover the inside of the thing, being urged to this by an
impulse he has not given to himself,—the impulse which, rightly recognized and
rightly guided, seeks to know God in all his works.... Where can the child seek
for satisfaction of his impulse to research but from the thing itself?"—Friedrich
Froebel, Education of Man.
[36] "An element which slumbers like a viper under roses is that which is now
so frequently provided as a plaything for children; it is, in a word, the already
too complex and ornate, too finished toy. The child can begin no new thing with
it, cannot produce enough variety by means of it; his power of creative
imagination, his power of giving outward form to his own idea, are thus actually
deadened."—Froebel's Pedagogics.
[37] "One of the greatest and most universal delights of children is to construct
for themselves a habitation of some sort, either in the garden or indoors, where
chairs have generally to serve their purpose. Instinct leads them, as it does all
animals, to procure shelter and protection for their persons, individual outward
self-existence and independence."—Bertha von Marenholtz-Bülow, Child and
Child Nature.
[38] "The building or piling up is with the child, as with the development of the
human race, and as with the fixed forms in Nature, the first."—Froebel's
Education of Man.

"Towers, pyramids, up, up, connecting themselves with something high, voicing
aspiration."
[39] "The representation of facts and circumstances of history, of geography, and
especially of every-day life, by means of building, I hold to be in the highest
degree important for children, even if these representations are imperfect and fall
far short of their originals. The eye is at all events aroused and stimulated to
observe with greater precision than before the object that has been represented....
And thus, by means of perhaps a quite imperfect outward representation, the
inner perception is made more perfect."—Froebel's Letters, tr. by Michaelis and
Moore, page 99.
[40] See Kindergarten Chimes (Kate D. Wiggin), Oliver Ditson Publishing Co.:
"Building Song," pages 34, 35; "Trade Game," page 70; "The Carpenter," page
92.
[41] "Probably the chief wish of children is to do things for themselves, instead
of to have things done for them. They would gladly live in a Paradise of the
Home-made. For example, when we read how the 'prentices of London used to
skate on sharp bones of animals, which they bound about their feet, we also
wished, at least, to try that plan, rather than to wear skates bought in shops."
(Andrew Lang.)
"Complete toys hinder the activity of children, encourage laziness and
thoughtlessness, and do them more harm than can be told. The active tendency
in them turns to the distortion of what is complete, and so becomes destructive."
"Any fusing together of lessons, work, and play, is possible only when the
objects with which the child plays allow room for independent mental and
bodily activity, i. e., when they are not themselves complete in the child's hand.
Had man found everything in the world fixed and prepared for use; had all
means of culture, of satisfaction for the spiritual and material wants of his
nature, been ready to his hand, there would have been no development, no
civilization of the human race."
[42] "In order to furnish to the child at once clearly and definitely the impression
of the whole, of the self-contained, the plaything before it is given to the child
for his own free use must be opened as follows.... It will thus appear before the
observing child as a cube closely united, yet easily separated and again
restored."—Froebel's Pedagogics, pages 123, 124.
[43] "A child trained for one year in a kindergarten would acquire a skillful use
of his hands and a habit of accurate measurement of the eye which would be his
possession through life." (W. T. Harris.)
[44] "The three principal dimensions of space, which in the cube only make
themselves known as differences of position, in the fourth gift become more
prominent and manifest themselves as differences of size. These three relations
of size are in the fourth gift as abiding and changeless as the position of the three
principal directions was before and still is."—Froebel's Pedagogics, page 189.
[45] "The child is allowed the greatest possible freedom of invention; the
experience of the adult only accompanies and explains."—Froebel's Pedagogics,

page 130.
[46] Pedagogics, page 180.
[47] "This procedure is by no means intended merely to make the withdrawal of
the box easy for the child, but, on the contrary, brings to him much inner profit.
It is well for him to receive his playthings in an orderly manner—not to have
them tossed to him as fodder is tossed to animals. It is good for the child to
begin his play with the perception of a whole, a simple self-contained unit, and
from this unity to develop his representations. Finally, it is essential that the
playing child should receive his material so arranged that its various elements
are discernible, and that by seeing them his mind may unconsciously form plans
for using them. Receiving his material thus arranged, the child will use it with
ever-recurrent and increasing satisfaction, and his play will produce far more
abiding results than the play of one whose material lies before him like a heap of
cobblestones."—Froebel's Pedagogics, page 205.
[48] "The child, in a word, follows the same path as the man, and advances from
use to beauty and from beauty to truth."—Froebel's Pedagogics, page 219.
[49] "The Conference recommends that the child's geometrical education should
begin as early as possible; in the kindergarten, if he attends a kindergarten, or if
not, in the primary school. He should at first gain familiarity through the senses
with simple geometrical figures and forms, plane and solid; should handle, draw,
measure, and model them; and should gradually learn some of their simpler
properties and relations."—Report of Committee of Ten, page 110.
[50] "The child's life moves from the house and its living-rooms, through
kitchen and cellar, through yard and garden, to the wider space and activity of
street and market, and this expansion of life is clearly reflected in the order and
development of his productions."—Froebel's Pedagogics, page 221.
[51] "In some German kindergartens large building-logs are supplied in one
corner of the play garden. These logs are a foot or more in length, three inches
wide, and one inch thick. Several hundred of these are kept neatly piled against
the fence, and the children are expected to leave them in good order. This bit of
voluntary discipline has its good uses on the playground, and the free building
allowed with this larger material gives rise to individual effort, and tests the
power of the children in a way which makes the later, more organized work at
the tables far more full of meaning."—Kindergarten Magazine, November,
1894.
[52] "As these building gifts afford a means of clearing the perceptions of the
child, they give occasion for extending these perceptions, and for representing in
their essential parts objects of which the child has only heard."—Froebel's
Pedagogics, page 222.
[53] "With these forms of beauty it is above all important that they be developed
one from another. Each form in the series should be a modification or
transformation of its predecessor. No form should be entirely destroyed. It is also
essential that the series should be developed so that each step should show either
an evolution into greater manifoldness and variety, or a return to greater
simplicity."—Froebel's Pedagogics, page 225.

[54] "This free activity ... is only possible when the law of free creativeness is
known and applied; for that a free creativeness only can be a lawful one, we are
taught by the smallest blade of grass, whose development takes place only
according to immutable laws."—Reminiscences of Froebel, page 133.
[55] "Whoever sacrifices health to wisdom has generally sacrificed wisdom,
too." (Jean Paul.)
[56] "Perceptions and recognitions which are with difficulty gained from words
are easily gained from facts and deeds. Through actual experience the child
gains in a trice a total concept, whereas the same concept expressed in words
would be only grasped in a partial manner. The rare merit, the vivifying
influence of this play-material is that, through the representations it makes
possible, concepts are recognized at once in their wholeness and unity, whereas
such an idea of a whole can only very gradually be gained from its verbal
expression. It must, however, be added that later, through words, the concept can
be brought into higher and clearer consciousness."—Froebel's Pedagogics, page
206.
[57] "It is through frequent return to a subject and intense activity upon it for
short periods, that it 'soaks in' and becomes influential in the building of
character. Especially is this true if the principles of apperception and
concentration are not forgotten by the teacher in working upon the disciplinary
subjects." (Geo. P. Brown.)
[58] "The sense of beauty must be awakened in the soul in childhood if in later
life he is to create the beautiful."—Reminiscences of Froebel, page 158.
[59] "As the gifts proceed from the first to the sixth, observation is demanded
with increasing strictness, relativity more and more appreciated, and the
opportunity afforded for endless manifestations of the constructive faculty, while
all the time impressions are forming in the mind which in due time will bear rich
fruits of mathematical and practical knowledge as well as æsthetic culture, for
the dawning sense of the beautiful as well as of the true is gaining consistency
and power." (Karl Froebel.)
[60] "What makes Froebel's gifts particularly instructive is, indeed, the fact that
the most varied materials constantly lead to the same observations, but always
under different conditions, so that we obtain the necessary repetitions without
the dryness, the tiresomeness, the fatigue inseparable from constant unvaried
iteration. But they also accustom the child to discover similarity in things that
appear to differ, to find resemblance in contrasts, unity in diversity, connection
in what appears unconnected."—H. Goldammer's The Kindergarten, page 109.
[61] "If you would be pungent, be brief; for it is with words as with sunbeams,—
the more they are condensed the deeper they burn."
[62] Pamphlet on the Seventh Gift. (Milton Bradley Co.)
[63] "The perception of the difference between a surface-extension and an
extension in three dimensions begins late and is established slowly."—W. Preyer,
The Mind of the Child, page 180.

[64] "With this law I give children a guide for creating, and because it is the law
according to which they, as creatures of God, have themselves been created, they
can easily apply it. It is born with them."—Reminiscences of Froebel, page 73.
[65] "The utility of this united action is not to be overlooked. The children all
proceed according to one and the same law, they all work to produce one and the
same result, the same purpose unites them all; in short, we see here in the
children's play all that forms the base of every human society, all that renders it
possible for men to act together in organized communities, such as are the
family, the state, and the church. And to prepare for the future, to be mindful
even amidst play of that which a child will afterwards require in order worthily
to fill his place in the world, ought surely not to be among the least important
ends of an education claiming to be in conformity with nature and reason."—H.
Goldammer, The Kindergarten, page 135.
[66] "The slats form, in some sort, the transition from the surface-pictures of the
laying-tablets to the lineal representations of the laying-sticks, but have this
advantage over both tablets and sticks, that the forms constructed with them are
not bound down to the surface of the table, but possess sufficient solidity to bear
being removed from it."—H. Goldammer, The Kindergarten, page 155.
[67] "Just as we obtained the tablets from the cubes, of which they are the
embodied faces, so now we obtain also the laying-sticks from the cube, whose
edges they represent. But they are contained also in the laying-tablets, for one
may regard the surface as produced by the progressive movement of a line, and
this may be made clear to the child by slicing a square tablet into a number of
sticks."—H. Goldammer, The Kindergarten, page 161.
[68] "Each following generation and each following individual man is to pass
through the whole earlier development and cultivation of the human race,—and
he does pass it; otherwise he would not understand the world past and present,—
but not by the dead way of imitation, of copying, but by the living way of
individual, free, active development and cultivation."—Friedrich Froebel,
Education of Man, page 11.
[69] "Thus the child's sphere of knowledge, the world of his life, is again
extended by the observation and recognition, by the development and
cultivation, of the capacity of number; and an essential need of his inner nature,
a certain yearning of his spirit, are thereby satisfied.... The knowledge of the
relations of quantity extraordinarily heightens the life of the child."—Friedrich
Froebel, Education of Man, page 45.
[70] "These terse graphic descriptions of objects will be found very serviceable
in sharpening and intensifying the powers of observation, as well as securing
clearness, distinctness, accuracy, and life in verbal description. Here the pupil
learns practically to give due prominence to essentials, and to appreciate the full
value of accessories; to look for and discover the fundamental ideas of which
things are the modified, adorned, garbled, or stunted expression; to seek and find
the very soul of things."—W. N. Hailmann, Primary Helps, page 17.
[71] "In this group work it is desirable that the common aims should be fully
within the comprehension of each little worker, yet sufficiently beyond his
powers of execution and endurance to make him sensible of the need of

assistance. The former secures the possibility of individual enjoyment, and
hence the only reliable incentive to persistence; the latter insures free
subordination to the will of the whole, the essential condition of success."—W.
N. Hailmann, Primary Helps, page 18.
[72] "These forms are invaluable even as silent teachers of geometrical and
numerical relations. Used judiciously in conversational lessons, leading to partial
or complete analysis of the figures in spoken or written descriptions, their
teaching power is inexhaustible."—W. N. Hailmann's Primary Helps, page 21.
[73] "Whenever the early and persistent cultivation of the full use of both hands
has been accomplished, the result is greater efficiency, without any
corresponding awkwardness or defect. In certain arts and professions, both
hands are necessarily called into play. The skillful surgeon finds an enormous
advantage in being able to transfer his instrument from one hand to the other.
The dentist has to multiply instruments to make up for the lack of such acquired
power. The fencer who can transfer his weapon to the left hand places his
adversary at a disadvantage. The lumberer finds it indispensable, in the operation
of his woodcraft, to learn to chop timber right-and-left-handed; and the carpenter
may be frequently seen using the saw and hammer in either hand, and thereby
not only resting his arm, but greatly facilitating his work. In all the fine arts the
mastery of both hands is advantageous. The sculptor, the carver, the
draughtsman, the engraver, the cameo-cutter, each has recourse at times to the
left hand for special manipulative dexterity; the pianist depends little less on the
left hand than on the right; and as for the organist, with the numerous pedals and
stops of the modern grand organ, a quadrumanous musician would still find
reason to envy the ampler scope which a Briareus could command."—Dr. Daniel
Wilson, Left-Handedness. A Hint for Educators.
[74] Circulars of Information of the Bureau of Education, No. 4, 1882.
[75] "The number of rings should only gradually be augmented. Satiety destroys
every impulse of creation."—Emma Marwedel, Childhood's Poetry and Studies,
page 15.
[76] "It is true that the child produces forms of beauty with other material also,
but it is the curved line which offers the strongest inducements to attempt such
forms, since even the simplest combinations of a small number of semicircles
and circles yield figures bearing the stamp of beauty."—H. Goldammer's The
Kindergarten, page 177.
[77] Circulars of Information of the Bureau of Education, No. 4, 1882.
[78] "This coming-out of the child from the outer and superficial and his
entrance into the inner view of things, which, because it is inner, leads to
recognition, insight, and consciousness,—this coming-out of the child from the
house-order to the higher world-order makes the boy a scholar."—Friedrich
Froebel, Education of Man, page 79.
[79] The development of motor-ability in children and its furtherance or arrest
by the kindergarten materials concerns the occupations more particularly, and as
such will receive full consideration in a later volume.

[80] Marwedel's Materials for Child-Culture. D. C. Heath & Co.
[81] Public School Journal, July, 1895.
[82] Education of Man, page 145.
[83] It is a difficult thing to find the via media between complete silence on the
part of the children save when answering questions and a confusion of tongues
like that at the building of Babel, but there is such a via media, and it can be
found by those who seek it diligently.
[84] "At all stages of learning the mother tongue, the purely verbal exercises are
more or less accompanied with the occupation of the mind upon things. If we
suppose the child to become acquainted, in the first instance, with a variety of
objects, the imparting of the names is a welcome operation, and the mental
fusion of each name and thing is rapidly brought about. If the objects are in any
way interesting, if they arouse or excite attention, their names are eagerly
embraced. On the other hand, if objects are but languidly cared for, or if they are
inconspicuous or confused with other things, we are indifferent both to the
things themselves and to their designations." (Alexander Bain.)
[85] "Language is the necessary tool of thought used in the conduct of the
analysis and synthesis of investigation." (W. T. Harris.)
"What we are really seeking is the meaning and the word. One is of no value
without the other in the education of the child. There is no such thing as a
valuable observation and investigation of natural objects without language in
which to embody the results at every step." (Geo. P. Brown.) Report on
Correlation of Studies by Committee of Fifteen. With annotations by Geo. P.
Brown.
[86] "Of course, there is great difference between the disciplinary value of that
study in which the pupil solves his own difficulties and that teaching in which
the teacher accompanies the pupil, supplying the needed information or
suggestion at every step of his progress. The latter is not worth much for
character building for the reason that it is not apt to become a part of the
organized self.... The school cannot afford to expend much energy in acquiring
such knowledge." (Geo. P. Brown.) Report on Correlation of Studies by
Committee of Fifteen. With annotations by Geo. P. Brown.
[87] "In the broad view we are safe in affirming that all truth is congruous, and
that truth in one department of human knowledge will always reinforce truth in
any other department. There is a unity in all truth. While it is true, as Dr. Harris
affirms in his Report on the Correlation of Studies, that the student does not
come into the full consciousness of this fact before he attains the university, is it
not also true that he can be so taught that he will feel this unity before he can
think it, and that his feeling it will hasten the development of the power to think
it?"—Geo. P. Brown, "Congruence in Teaching," Public School Journal, Sept.,
1895.
[88] W. T. Harris.
[89] Froebel's Letters on the Kindergarten, page 145.

By Mrs. Wiggin.

THE BIRDS' CHRISTMAS CAROL. Illustrated. Square 12mo,
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cares to read it. 16mo, $1.00.
The Same. New Holiday Edition. Illustrated. Crown 8vo, $1.50.
THE STORY HOUR. A Book for the Home and Kindergarten.
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