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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Froebel's Gifts, by
+Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Froebel's Gifts
+
+Author: Kate Douglas Wiggin
+ Nora Archibald Smith
+
+Release Date: January 27, 2010 [EBook #31097]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FROEBEL'S GIFTS ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by David Edwards and the Online Distributed
+Proofreading Team at https://www.pgdp.net (This file was
+produced from images generously made available by The
+Internet Archive)
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+ 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]
+
+ [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. 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]
+
+ [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. 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]
+
+ [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.)
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+The Ball a Universal Plaything.
+
+"The presentiment of truth always goes before the recognition of it,"
+says Froebel; and it would seem, indeed, as it, in selecting the first
+gift, he 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.
+
+"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's Ideas of First Gift.
+
+Froebel considered the ball as an external counterpart of the child in
+the first stages of his development, its 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]
+
+ [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_.
+
+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.
+
+ [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.
+
+
+Manner of Introduction.
+
+Before beginning any exercise we should fully decide in our own minds
+the main point or points to be brought 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]
+
+ [6] See _Kindergarten Chimes_ (Kate D. Wiggin), pages 22-32,
+ Oliver Ditson Publishing Co.
+
+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."
+
+
+Method of Introduction.
+
+The qualities of the ball must of course be brought before the child's
+observation in some more or less 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."
+
+ [8] "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_.
+
+
+Conrad Diehl.
+
+On the other hand, Conrad Diehl says: "Color is the first sensation of
+which an infant is capable. With the first ray 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]
+
+ [8] Conrad Diehl's _Elements of Ornamentation and Color_.
+
+
+Herbert Spencer.
+
+Spencer says:[9] "The earliest impressions which the mind can
+assimilate are those given to it by the 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]
+
+ [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_.
+
+
+Froebel.
+
+The balance of authority seems to be, on the whole, upon the side of
+presenting color first to the young child, 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]
+
+ [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.)
+
+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 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."
+
+ [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_.
+
+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; 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]
+
+ [13] Emma Marwedel, _Childhood's Poetry and Studies_, page 35.
+
+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.
+
+ [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.
+
+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.
+
+
+Hints on Additional Color Exercises.
+
+The formation of the so-called secondary colors will not be very
+obvious to the younger children, nor is the fact to be taught
+scientifically or learned by them; they will, 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.
+
+ [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."
+
+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:--
+
+ 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.
+
+
+Symbolic Stage of Child's Development.
+
+In order to present the ball in a more attractive light in the
+kindergarten, to suit it to the symbolic stage of the child's
+development, and to bring it nearer to his 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]
+
+ [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._
+
+
+Cooperative Exercises.
+
+The teacher who truly understands the great principles on which
+Froebel built the kindergarten will ever be 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 cooperative 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]
+
+ [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.
+
+
+What we should strive for.
+
+We must remember that on a carefully prepared plan of procedure
+depends much of the value of any system of education; therefore we
+must decide, when the child 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-Buelow_. 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]
+
+ [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.)
+
+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]
+
+ [19] _Education_, page 132.
+
+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]
+
+ [20] E. Shirreff.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+Points to be noted in each New Gift.
+
+"That which follows is always conditioned upon that which goes
+before,"[21] says Froebel, and he makes this apparent to children
+through his educational processes; the gifts show this idea in
+concrete form.
+
+ [21] "We cannot evolve what has not first been involved."
+
+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]
+
+ [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.)
+
+
+Method of Attack in First Exercise.
+
+In the first lesson with the second gift the child will quickly see
+the similarities between his former worsted 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]
+
+ [23] "The infant mind is transparent to resemblance, but
+ opaque to difference."--Susan E. Blow, _Symbolic Education_,
+ page 83.
+
+
+Ball and Sphere.
+
+In comparing the ball and the sphere the child will observe, in the
+first place that they are both round and 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.
+
+
+Value of the Discriminative Power; Method by which it may be developed.
+
+We need not be distressed if the lessons are a little noisy when the
+children are making the acquaintance of these wonderful new friends.
+To be sure they will pound the wooden forms heartily up and down on
+the table (if they are three-year old babies, they certainly would and
+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]
+
+ [24] For second gift songs, see _Kindergarten Chimes_ (Kate D.
+ Wiggin), pages 32, 33, Oliver Ditson Publishing Co.
+
+"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.
+
+ [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.
+
+
+The Cube.
+
+We will now turn to the investigation of the cube and open a new world
+of information to the child, and here 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.
+
+
+Mediation of Contrasts.
+
+Of course we shall see the underlying idea of the gift to be the
+connection of opposites. Not too much can be 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.
+
+ [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.
+
+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.
+
+
+Value of Contrasts.
+
+These contrasts of the second gift, and all contrasts, arouse the mind
+to attention. We can have no judgment 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.
+
+
+Mobility of Sphere.
+
+The sphere is the symbol of motion, the cube the embodiment of rest,
+and the fact should be illustrated in 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.
+
+
+Sphere and Cube.
+
+The cube can only be moved, on the contrary, when force is exerted,
+and then it merely slides, to stop when 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.
+
+
+Counting Faces.
+
+The square faces of the cube, in comparison with the one curved,
+unbroken surface of the sphere, must now be 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."
+
+
+Cylinder.
+
+We now proceed to the cylinder, the reconciliation of the two
+opposites; an object which having qualities 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.
+
+ [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.
+
+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]
+
+ [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.
+
+
+Hints as to Manner and Method.
+
+Let the children call the cylinder a "roller" or "barrel" if they
+choose, and tell them the right name when it is 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.
+
+
+Dangers of Object Lessons.
+
+The second gift is, more than any other, too much used for mere object
+lessons, and these are invariably 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."
+
+
+How to deal successfully with Second Gift.
+
+It is not uncommon to hear students in kindergarten training classes
+(and even some full-fledged kindergartners) express a distaste for the
+second gift, and 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.
+
+
+Treatment of Previous Gifts when passed over.
+
+The preceding gift need not entirely disappear, but be used
+occasionally for a pleasing review as a bond of friendly intercourse
+between older and younger pupils.[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.
+
+ [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.
+
+
+Second Gift Forms in Architecture and Cube in Ancient Times.
+
+These three objects, the sphere, cylinder, and cube, constitute a
+triad of forms united in architecture and sculpture producing the
+column, which is made up of the pedestal or base (the cube), the shaft
+(the cylinder), and 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."
+
+
+Froebel's Monument.
+
+And here we leave the second gift, that trinity of forms which,
+wrought in marble, marks the place dear and sacred to all
+kindergartners, the grave of Froebel,--a 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.
+
+
+Suggestions of the Gift.
+
+This gift can hardly be studied but that an inner unity, born of these
+reconciled contrasts, suggests itself to the 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."
+
+ [30] W. N. Hailmann.
+
+
+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]
+
+ [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.
+
+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.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+Hailmann on Third Gift.
+
+Mr. W. N. Hailmann says that the third gift marks an important step in
+the mental life of the child. Heretofore, 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]
+
+ [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.)
+
+
+Simplicity but Adaptability of the Gifts.
+
+Simple as this first building gift appears, it is capable of great
+things. It lends itself to a hundred practical lessons and a hundred
+charming transformations, but if it is not 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.
+
+
+How Children are to be reached.
+
+Therefore these simple devices with which we carry on our education
+should never seem trifling, for we are 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.
+
+
+What is Necessary on Part of Kindergartner.
+
+To accomplish this, we can see that not only is absolute knowledge
+necessary, but that a well developed sensibility and imagination are
+needed in leading the 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.
+
+
+Imagination in Child and Kindergartner.
+
+We may be thankful that this heaven-born imaginative faculty is the
+heritage of every child,--that it is hard to kill and lives on very
+short rations. The little boy ties a 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."
+
+ [33] "If we want to educate children, we must be children with
+ them ourselves." (Martin Luther.)
+
+"If it were only the play and the mere outward apparatus," says the
+Baroness von Marenholtz-Buelow, "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."
+
+
+Reasons for Choice of Third Gift.
+
+This third gift satisfies the child's craving to take things to
+pieces. Froebel did not choose it arbitrarily, for 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] Fenelon 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.
+
+ [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_.
+
+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]
+
+ [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_.
+
+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]
+
+ [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-Buelow, _Child and Child
+ Nature_.
+
+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.
+
+
+Classes of Forms.
+
+There are three different classes of forms for dictation and
+invention, variously named by kindergartners.
+
+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 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]
+
+ [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.
+
+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 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.
+
+
+Hints from Ronge's "Guide."
+
+Excellent exercises or suggestions for building can be found in
+Ronge's "Kindergarten Guide." He mentions one pleasant little play
+which I will quote. "When each 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]
+
+ [40] See _Kindergarten Chimes_ (Kate D. Wiggin), Oliver
+ Ditson Publishing Co.: "Building Song," pages 34, 35; "Trade
+ Game," page 70; "The Carpenter," page 92.
+
+
+Group Work.
+
+With the first of the Building Gifts enters a new variety of group
+work, which was not adapted for the first and 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 cooperation 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 cooperative 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 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.
+
+
+Method and Manner of using the Gift.
+
+Even yet we must not suffer this to become work. The exercises should
+be repeated again and again, but we must learn to break off when the
+play is still delightful, 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]
+
+ [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."
+
+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]
+
+ [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.
+
+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-Buelow_. Page 152.
+ Child and Child Nature. _Von Marenholtz-Buelow_. 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.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+What the Child has gained from Third Gift.
+
+The use of the third gift opened to the child quite a new world of
+experiences, each one of which was pleasant and instructive, combining
+all the delights of mental and physical activity, imagination,
+practical industry, and cooperation.
+
+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.
+
+ [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.)
+
+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.
+
+
+Differences between Third and Fourth Gifts.
+
+And now we approach another cubical box, containing the fourth gift,
+and, on opening it, see that it presents resemblances between and
+differences when compared 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. Seguin's Objections to the Cube as the Primary Figure in the
+Kindergarten.
+
+Dr. E. Seguin, in his celebrated "Report on Education," says, in
+regard to the use of the cube as the primary block or figure in the
+kindergarten: "Had the kindergartners chosen it with their senses, as
+it must speak to the senses of the child, instead of with their 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."
+
+
+Answers to these Objections.
+
+With all deference to Dr. Seguin, whose opinions and deductions are
+generally indisputable, we cannot regard 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.
+
+
+Value of the Brick Form.
+
+The "brick" is a form rich in impressions, for we find that every
+position in which it is placed gives the child a new perception, and
+the union of these perceptions 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!"
+
+
+Dimension.
+
+The fourth gift contains all that the three former gifts showed, and
+introduces differences of dimension and 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.
+
+ [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.
+
+
+Equilibrium.
+
+As to the law of equilibrium, it is very forcibly brought to the
+child's attention every time his forms fall to the 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.
+
+
+Fourth Gift Building.
+
+The symmetrical forms are much more interesting than before and
+decidedly more artistic when viewed in comparison with the somewhat
+thick and clumsy designs 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]
+
+ [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.
+
+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.
+
+
+Transmitted Motion.
+
+To show simply the law of transmitted motion, for instance, let the
+child place his eight bricks on end, in a 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.
+ 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.
+
+
+Effect of the Study of Froebel's Gifts on the Kindergartner.
+
+How instructive and delightful have we found this orderly procedure;
+this development of great from little things; this thoughtful
+association of new and practical ideas with all that is familiar to
+the child mind and heart. 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, aesthetic 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.
+
+
+Why we are required to study deeply and to know more than we teach.
+
+We have been required to look at each gift in its broadest aspect, and
+to observe it patiently and minutely in all its possibilities, for the
+larger the amount of knowledge the kindergartner possesses, the more
+free from error will be 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."
+
+
+Relation between Gifts, and their Relation to the Child's Mental and
+Moral Growth.
+
+These are a few of the technicalities which have been mastered up to
+this time by a faithful study of the gifts of Froebel; and yet they
+are only technicalities, and do not include the half of what has been
+gained in ways more difficult to describe.
+
+"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.
+
+
+Pleasure of Child at New Gift.
+
+In the fifth gift, which, it may be said, can commonly only be used
+with profit after the child has neared or attained his fifth year, we
+find that we have not parted 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.
+
+
+Its New Features.
+
+At the first glance the most striking characteristics are its greater
+size and greater number of divisions, into thirds, 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.
+
+
+Importance of Triangular Form.
+
+The triangle, by the way, is a valuable addition in building
+exercises, for as a fundamental form in architecture it occurs very
+frequently in the formation of 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.
+
+
+Difficulties of the Fifth Gift.
+
+The difficulties of the fifth gift are only apparent, for the
+well-trained child of the kindergarten sees more than any 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.
+
+
+Effect of Good Training.
+
+But here let us note that we can only succeed in attaining
+satisfactory results in kindergarten work by beginning intelligently
+and never discontinuing our patient 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.
+
+
+Arrangement of Pieces.
+
+To return to the specific consideration of the gift, there must be a
+plan of arranging the various pieces which go 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]
+
+ [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.
+
+The exercises with this gift are like those which have preceded it.
+
+
+Exercises of the Gift
+
+1. Informal questions by the kindergartner and answers by the
+children, on its introduction, that it may be well understood. This
+should be made entirely 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]
+
+ [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.
+
+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.
+
+
+Errors in Form Teaching.
+
+As to the form lessons, we must remember that our method has nothing
+to do with scientific geometry, but is 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]
+
+ [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.
+
+
+LIFE FORMS.
+
+We can now be quite methodical and workman-like in our building, and
+can learn to use all the parts 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]
+
+ [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.
+
+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]
+
+ [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.
+
+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.
+
+ [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.
+
+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."
+
+
+Group Work.
+
+Our opportunities for group work, or united building, are greatly
+extended, and none of them should be neglected, as it is essential to
+inculcate thus early the value of cooperation. 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 cooperative 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 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.
+
+ [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.
+
+
+Dangers of Dictation.
+
+The dictations should be made with great care and simplicity. The
+child's mind must never be forced if it 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]
+
+ [55] "Whoever sacrifices health to wisdom has generally
+ sacrificed wisdom, too." (Jean Paul.)
+
+
+MATHEMATICAL FORMS.
+
+We must beware of abstractions in these forms of knowledge, and let
+the child see and build for himself, 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]
+
+ [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.
+
+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.
+
+ [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.)
+
+
+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.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+Introduction of the Gift.
+
+The sixth gift is so evidently an enlarged and diversified fourth
+gift, that it is well to compare it on its 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.
+
+
+Difficulties of the New Gift.
+
+The difficulties of the new gift are very slight, as has been said,
+consisting neither in dictation, in mass of material, nor in new
+forms, lines, or angles. Equilibrium 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.
+
+
+Forms of Life.
+
+The sixth gift far surpasses all the other building blocks in its
+decided adaptation to the purely architectural 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]
+
+ [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.
+
+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, facades 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]
+
+ [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 aesthetic culture, for the
+ dawning sense of the beautiful as well as of the true is
+ gaining consistency and power." (Karl Froebel.)
+
+
+Forms of Symmetry.
+
+Although with this gift we cannot produce symmetrical forms in as
+great diversity as with the fifth, yet the 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.
+
+
+Forms of Knowledge.
+
+In the forms of knowledge we find again much less diversity than in
+the fifth gift,--the rectilinear solids and consequent absence of
+oblique angles limiting us in the 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]
+
+ [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.
+
+
+cooperative Work.
+
+The group work at the square tables is now especially beautiful, both
+when forms of symmetry or object forms 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 cooperative 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.
+
+
+The Gifts and their Treatment by the Kindergartner.
+
+Every gift and occupation and exercise of the kindergarten has been
+developed with infinite love and forethought to meet the child's
+wishes and capabilities; 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.
+
+
+Underlying Idea of Froebel's Gifts.
+
+If we have grasped the underlying idea which welds the mass of
+material which forms the kindergarten gifts into a harmoniously
+connected whole; if we have developed 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.
+
+
+Education _vs._ Cramming.
+
+Certainly the ignorant and unsympathetic kindergartner may err in
+dealing with them, and introduce the 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]
+
+ [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."
+
+In leaving these first six gifts, we need finally to remember these
+things:--
+
+
+Suggestions as to Method.
+
+First, that we must not be too anxious to resolve these plays into the
+routine of lessons; with our younger pupils 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.
+ { Obtuse isosceles.
+ Triangles. { 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.
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+Step from Solid to Plane.
+
+We have now left the solid and are approaching abstraction when we
+begin the study of planes. All 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.
+
+
+Systematic Relation between the Tablets.
+
+The various tablets as first introduced in Germany and in this country
+were commonly quite different in size and degrees of angles in the
+different kindergartens, as they 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]
+
+ [62] _Pamphlet on the Seventh Gift_. (Milton Bradley Co.)
+
+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 deg., or the mitre. The
+equilateral has three angles of 60 deg. each; the divided equilateral or
+right-angled scalene has one angle of 90 deg., one of 60 deg., and one
+of 30 deg., while the obtuse isosceles has one angle of 120 deg., and
+the remaining two each 30 deg. These are the standard angles (90 deg.,
+45 deg., 60 deg., and 30 deg.) 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.
+
+
+Possibilities of the Gift in Mathematical Instruction.
+
+Edward Wiebe says in regard to the relation of the seventh gift to
+geometry and general mathematical instruction: "Who can doubt that the
+contemplation of these figures and the occupations with them must tend
+to 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.
+
+
+How and when Tablets should be introduced.
+
+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 gift may be taken
+and surrounded on all its faces by 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]
+
+ [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.
+
+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.
+
+
+Order of introducing Triangles.
+
+The first triangle given is the right isosceles, showing the angle of
+forty-five degrees, and formed by bisecting the square with a diagonal
+line. The child should be 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.
+
+ [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.
+
+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.
+
+
+Dictations.
+
+The dictations should invariably be given so that opposites and their
+intermediates may be readily seen. 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.
+
+
+Life Forms.
+
+The Life forms are no longer absolute representations, but only more
+or less suggestive images of certain 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 facades 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."
+
+
+Symmetrical Forms.
+
+The symmetrical forms are more varied and innumerable than those of
+any other gift, and with the addition of the brilliant colors of the
+pasteboard, or the soft shades of 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.
+
+
+Mathematical Forms.
+
+The work with forms of knowledge, as has been fully shown, will be in
+geometry than in arithmetic, to which 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 Seventh Gift in Weaving.
+
+The square tablets afford a valuable aid to the occupation of weaving,
+as all the simple patterns can be 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.
+
+
+Seventh Gift Parquetry.
+
+It is easy to see when we begin the practical use of the tablets that
+the essential characteristics of the gifts in 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.
+
+
+Group Work.
+
+The parquetry of the seventh gift lends an added grace to cooperative
+work, for the children can now combine all 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]
+
+ [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.
+
+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.
+
+
+Color with Seventh Gift.
+
+In this connection, a danger may be noted in the treatment of the
+gifts, both by kindergartner and 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 Staebchen_, 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.
+
+
+Relation of the Single and Jointed Slats to the other Gifts. How both
+are used.
+
+With the single and jointed slats we shall not deal separately, merely
+stating that they form a transition between the surface and the line,
+having more breadth and relation to the surface itself than to the
+edge, but manifestly tending towards the embodied line of which 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]
+
+ [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.
+
+
+Materials of Froebel's Gifts.
+
+As to the unpretentious little sticks themselves, the use of these
+bits of waste wood is entirely unique and 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.
+
+
+How the Stick is to be regarded.
+
+The stick of course is to be regarded in its relation to what comes
+before and after it,--as the embodied edge 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.
+
+ [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.
+
+
+Method and Manner of Lessons.
+
+Although the stick exercises should make their appearance at least
+once every week after their introduction, they may always be varied by
+stories, and 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 cooperative 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.
+
+
+Forms of Knowledge and Number Work.
+
+When we consider that the length of the sticks varies from one to six
+inches, and that the number given to the child is limited only by his
+capacity for using them 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]
+
+ [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.
+
+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]
+
+ [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.
+
+
+Evolution of the Kindergarten Stick.
+
+It is well by way of prelude to the first few lessons to draw from the
+children the origin and history of the tiny 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]
+
+ [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.
+
+
+Group Work with Sticks.
+
+The sticks are especially serviceable for group work of various kinds,
+either at the long or square tables. As the 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 cooperation will be
+plainly shown, without a word from the kindergartner.[71]
+
+ [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.
+
+
+Forms of Life.
+
+As to Life forms in general, their number is practically unlimited,
+though as they are only line-pictures, and 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?
+
+
+Connection of other Objects with Stick Dictations.
+
+We may sometimes connect simple, inexpensive objects with stick
+dictations, with a view to making them more realistic and delightful.
+When the little ones are just 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.
+
+
+Forms of Beauty.
+
+Enough has already been said of the possibilities of the sticks to
+show that they are most valuable for 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]
+
+ [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.
+
+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.
+
+
+Connection of Sticks with Drawing.
+
+We may make the laying of one-inch sticks in vertical and horizontal
+positions, in angles and squares, a prelude to the drawing of similar
+lines; and the copying of stick 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.
+
+
+Ambidexterity.
+
+We should encourage in all possible ways the use of both hands in all
+the exercises with gifts and 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-Sequard, 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]
+
+ [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_.
+
+
+Abuse of Eighth Gift.
+
+No materials of the kindergarten (save the beans, lentils, etc., which
+serve to represent the point) have been so 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_.
+
+ [74] Circulars of Information of the Bureau of Education,
+ No. 4, 1882.
+
+
+
+
+ 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.)
+
+ * * * * *
+
+
+The New Gift and its Charms.
+
+Having already analyzed straight lines in the sticks, we will pass
+directly to the consideration of the ninth in the 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.
+
+
+Introduction of the Ring.
+
+We must first discuss the new form with the children so as to be
+certain that they fully understand its relation to the other gifts.
+Perhaps in a previous exercise with the 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."
+
+
+Material of the Rings.
+
+When the wire rings are at last given, some conversation about their
+material will be pleasant and timely, as it is of a kind we have not
+had before in the gifts, and shall 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.
+
+
+First Exercises.
+
+In the first dictation exercise several whole circles of the same size
+may be given, and their equality shown by 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]
+
+ [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.
+
+
+When the Rings should be introduced.
+
+The rings should not be used freely until the child is familiar with
+vertical, horizontal, and slanting lines, and not only familiar in the
+sense of being able to receive 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.
+
+
+How we may keep the Curve before the Child's Eye.
+
+Although the gifts, from third to ninth, illustrate straight lines,
+angles, and rectilinear figures, yet the occupations present many
+facilities for keeping the curve before the 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.
+
+
+Uniting the Straight and Curved Lines.
+
+After this, he takes great pleasure in uniting the straight and curved
+lines in his inventions with the sticks and 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.
+
+
+Copying Inventions.
+
+The first trials of this kind may be in copying the inventions in
+rings which he has made on his table, exactly as he previously
+transferred his stick 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.
+
+
+Forms of Life, Beauty, and Knowledge.
+
+The rings are of course not as well adapted to the production of
+objects constructed by man as were the sticks, but, nevertheless, the
+material is not without 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.
+
+ [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.
+
+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.
+
+
+Wooden Rings.
+
+Miss Emma Marwedel introduced a supplement to the ninth gift in the
+form of wooden circles and half-circles 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 aesthetic 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.
+
+
+Difficulties of the Gift.
+
+The gift presents little difficulty, the dictations requiring less
+concentration than heretofore as the positions in 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 aesthetic
+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.
+
+
+Froebel's Idea.
+
+The idea of Froebel in devising all these gifts was not, it seems
+hardly necessary to say, to instruct the child in 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.
+
+
+An Objection answered.
+
+The objection has been made that the study and practice with straight
+lines, angles, geometrical forms, cubes, and 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_.
+
+ [77] Circulars of Information of the Bureau of Education,
+ No. 4, 1882.
+
+
+
+
+ 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.
+
+
+Meeting-Place of Gifts and Occupations.
+
+When we begin upon a consideration of the tenth gift, the last link in
+the chain of objects which Froebel devised to "produce an all-sided
+development of the 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.
+
+
+The Point as a Gift.
+
+Before the child completes his kindergarten course, however, he should
+certainly be led to an intellectual 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]
+
+ [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.
+
+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.
+
+
+Pleasure of Child in Point-laying and Stringing.
+
+The pleasure the child finds in point-laying is not confined to the
+kindergarten, for playing with beads and pin-heads is an ordinary
+nursery occupation in all 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.
+
+
+Miscellaneous Materials.
+
+It will commonly be found that the child enjoys tenfold more the
+objects for point-work which he finds himself than the more perfect
+school-materials. Imagine the joy, 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.
+
+
+Use of the Gift.
+
+One of the first uses of the point may be in following the outline of
+some form of life which the kindergartner has 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.
+
+
+Tenth Gift Parquetry.
+
+Tiny circles and squares of colored paper corresponding to the wooden
+lentils are also to be had with this gift, and afford a means of
+preserving the designs in 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.
+
+
+Objections to the Gift.
+
+These strictures on the tenth gift parquetry bring us naturally to the
+criticisms lately made by eminent authorities upon some of the Froebel
+materials. The 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]
+
+ [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.
+
+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.
+
+
+How these Objections may be obviated.
+
+The only good reason for using the small materials to which the
+preceding objections have been made is a very good one, viz., that if
+we are to take any concrete object 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.
+
+
+The Marwedel Materials.
+
+If we throw out all the smaller materials used for point-laying, and
+it seems advisable so to do, we still have left smooth pebbles from
+one half to three fourths of an inch in diameter, and shells of any
+univalve, such as the "money-cowry" (_cyproea 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]
+
+ [80] _Marwedel's Materials for Child-Culture_. D. C. Heath &
+ Co.
+
+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.
+
+
+Mind-Pictures.
+
+In some of Miss Marwedel's pamphlets on the use of these materials,
+she speaks of the mind-pictures which 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.
+
+
+Abuse of the Gift.
+
+If some of the materials used in the kindergarten are unwisely chosen,
+and if this objection applies in the 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-Buelow_.
+
+
+
+
+ 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 encyclopaedic 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.
+
+
+Difficulty of holding Child's Attention.
+
+It is not uncommon, when discussing any exercises with kindergarten
+materials which require dictation or guidance, to hear complaints of
+the difficulty of holding 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."
+
+ [81] _Public School Journal_, July, 1895.
+
+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."
+
+
+Language Teaching.
+
+The plays with the gifts open wide avenues for language teaching if
+conducted as Froebel intended. He says many 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]
+
+ [82] _Education of Man_, page 145.
+
+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]
+
+ [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.
+
+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.
+
+
+Relation of Word to Object.
+
+It should be said here that there is great value to the child in
+learning to name things correctly from the very 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]
+
+ [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.
+
+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.
+
+
+Value of Knowledge Gained by Individual Effort.
+
+One of the commonest errors in the kindergarten, as well as one of the
+most pernicious, is that of assisting the child too much in all his
+work. This is perhaps more universally true of the plays with the
+occupations than with the gifts, but even in the latter direction
+the practice is far too widespread.[86]
+
+ [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.
+
+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.
+
+
+Value of Interrelation in Kindergarten Work.
+
+One of the highest essentials of gift work is that it should not be
+isolated from other experiences of the child and concern itself merely
+with first principles of 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]
+
+ [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.
+
+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]
+
+ [88] W. T. Harris.
+
+
+Effect of Froebel's Gifts on the Kindergartner.
+
+Although uninterested and uninitiated persons doubtless regard the
+various gifts of Froebel as very ordinary objects, made from
+commonplace materials, yet that this 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.
+
+
+Effect of Froebel's Gifts upon the Child.
+
+The effect of Froebel's gifts upon the child has been shown directly
+and indirectly through the entire series of talks, and need not now be
+recapitulated. If they are 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]
+
+ [89] Froebel's _Letters on the Kindergarten_, page 145.
+
+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.
+
+
+
+
+ By Mrs. Wiggin.
+
+ THE BIRDS' CHRISTMAS CAROL. Illustrated. Square 12mo, boards,
+ 50 cents.
+
+ THE STORY OF PATSY. Illustrated. Square 12mo, boards, 60
+ cents.
+
+ A SUMMER IN A CANYON. A California Story. Illustrated. 16mo,
+ $1.25.
+
+ TIMOTHY'S QUEST. A Story for Anybody, Young or Old, who 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. By Mrs.
+ WIGGIN and NORA A. SMITH. Illustrated. 16mo, $1.00.
+
+ CHILDREN'S RIGHTS. By Mrs. WIGGIN and NORA A. SMITH. A Book
+ of Nursery Logic. 16mo, $1.00.
+
+ A CATHEDRAL COURTSHIP AND PENELOPE'S ENGLISH EXPERIENCES.
+ Illustrated. 16mo, $1.00.
+
+ POLLY OLIVER'S PROBLEM. Illustrated. 16mo, $1.00.
+
+ THE VILLAGE WATCH-TOWER. 16mo, $1.00.
+
+ FROEBEL'S GIFTS. By Mrs. WIGGIN and NORA A. SMITH. 16mo.
+
+
+ HOUGHTON, MIFFLIN & CO.
+ BOSTON AND NEW YORK.
+
+
+
+
+ TRANSCRIBER'S NOTES
+
+
+1. Passages in italics are surrounded by _underscores_.
+
+2. The sidenotes are changed to section headings.
+
+3. The word "cyproea moneta" uses an oe ligature in the original.
+
+4. Other than the corrections listed above, printer's inconsistencies
+in spelling, punctuation and hyphenation have been retained.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Froebel's Gifts, by
+Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith
+
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