"The employment of these apprenticed nurses and young instructresses in the Crêches and Kindergärten is a great economy. They are not paid, and under one directress they could take charge of many children, partaking of their amusements and directing their occupations with ardor, ease, and success."

Connected with the garden, there should be two or more spacious, well-arranged, and well-ventilated rooms; the outer one devoted to the exercises, and the inner one to the games. The latter room is furnished with tables and forms adapted to the children, the tables accommodating from six to twelve. A sufficient space to allow freedom of motion is allotted to each person. Every child has his own number, which is marked on his boxes, slate, needle, pencil, modelling-knife, drawing-book, plaiting-mat, &c.; and he is held responsible for the care of his own playthings. The beauty and necessity of order are strictly inculcated. The walls are surrounded by large glass cases, containing the boxes of "the six Gifts of Froebel," works made by the children, material for their use, collections of minerals, plants, dried mosses, insects, birds, and stuffed animals. Beside these are the numbered cupboards for the safe-keeping of their implements. Modelling is found to be almost universally attractive to children. "The substance used in modelling is soft clay, which is kept from soiling the table by a piece of oil-cloth. The clay is delivered in a round ball, and a wooden knife is given with which to form it. The knife, to prevent it from adhering to the clay, is dipped in water." The children enjoy the satisfaction of successful work, when any forms made from any of their materials-clay, blocks, sticks, paper, &c.—are considered worthy of preservation. The halls and gardens are often ornamented with the devices of these youthful brains, wrought out by their tiny hands.

The outer room is especially for the exercises. It need not have any furniture, except a piano. The walls are ornamented with figures representing agricultural and gardening labors, those of the household, and different trades, and pictures speaking to the heart and conscience through beautiful forms. This is the play-ground in bad weather, or during the heat of the day. Though, to carry out Froebel's system fully, a garden in the

country is required, yet it is capable of infinite adaptations, and in the hands of a living teacher in the close limits of a city even, it will be found a most valuable improvement upon all past methods of instruction. Indeed, the principles of Froebel, and as far as possible his methods, should be introduced into every family, and "every lady's seminary should make the children's garden a branch of education, that all mothers might thus acquire the power to instruct their children."

To establish these institutions for children of the poor, or to introduce this system as far as possible into existing infantschools, would be a noble Christian charity.

"Drawing," " singing" (the primitive language of man), "natural mathematics," such, according to Froebel, are the plays which satisfy the first demands of the child's intellect. Drawing furnishes to the soul visible signs by which to reproduce its impressions; singing gives life to the sentiments; mathematics satisfy the intelligence in demonstrating the fundamental laws of nature.

"Such is the true basis of all that children subsequently learn at school, giving artistic activity and inspiring the love of the beautiful. In exercising the organs of form, color, time, and tune, in awakening the idea of comparison, the ideality of their nature is appealed to and developed, before the material instincts become dominant in the soul."

"Most of the Kindergärten in Germany and Belgium are for the children of the richer or middle classes, and the parents pay the Directress, generally some young person, instructed by Froebel in the theory and practice of his method."

But they are also peculiarly adapted to the children of the working classes and to the poor, preparing them for their life of labor by inculcating habits of industry and dexterity, and of working intelligently to an end from their early years. What a valuable introduction and accompaniment would this system form for our public schools! How many a teacher would find her energies restored, and her courage sustained, by leaving the school-room to direct and share Froebel's games in the exhilarating fresh air! Changes will be needed to adapt the system to our climate, language, and mode of life; but nowhere is the necessity for a full and generous culture of all the powers in childhood greater than in our busy country and trying climate.

To put in practice his leading ideas, Froebel invented and arranged a series of plays and exercises calculated to call into action all the varied powers of the child. The arrangement of the garden, though in miniature, calls to mind Goethe's famous scheme of education as developed in Wilhelm Meister; for here also each kind of labor and sport has its peculiar province, and is accompanied with appropriate songs. By the assistance of Madame Marenholtz and Madame Ronge, we may study these methods in detail.

The most important of Froebel's inventions are his Six Gifts:

"The First Gift is composed of six balls, which present the colors of the prism, red, blue, and yellow, green, violet, and orange. Froebel makes use of this from an early period of infancy, as soon as the child wishes to seize whatever comes within its reach, or when it begins to be active and fix its eyes upon objects.

"The first task of the infant in making acquaintance with this world is, to distinguish the different qualities of objects: form, color, sound, movement, and afterward size, number, &c.

"The quantity and the variety of objects which surround the newlyborn child render this task very fatiguing to its senses, which have scarcely yet begun to awaken.

"The fatigue which is experienced in discerning the qualities of everything in the chaos that surrounds it, at last obliges the child to abstract its attention. It is wearied; for at this age the child knows weariness, the pain of not being comprehended, because no one understands how to satisfy the requirements of its nature.

We

"We must then come to its relief and aid in its development. must present objects to it, one after the other, the most simple at first, make it comprehend primitive forms before passing to complicated ones.

"For this end, Froebel suspends before the eyes of the child a ball held by a cord; this ball takes successively the three elementary colors, and afterward the three secondary. The infant receives thus the impression of the primitive form, the sphere, of the primary colors, red, blue, and yellow.

"The ball is made to swing horizontally; then it is raised vertically, and finally is made to turn in a circle, the song indicating these directions: 'Here and there, up and down, backwards and forwards, or round and round.'

Here, then, are form, color, sound, and movement, indicated at the

same time, and in a manner so simple as to be comprehended by the infant.

"These games respond perfectly to the child's needed development and amusement, as the radiant faces of the little ones testify, as well as the constant demand for the renewal of the game.

"The ball is thrown to the child, who sends it back, the instructress singing, The ball goes to thee, it comes to me,' &c. This play gives the child an idea of its individuality, of which it has full consciousness only towards its second year; until then, it feels instinctively united to all; it has not said me, but designates itself by the name it has heard others apply to it.'

"Diverse movements are given to the ball, indicated by singing. The ball jumps, balances, dances, flies, rolls,' &c. 'It jumps like a squirrel, flies like a bird,' &c.

"All these little plays, insignificant in themselves, are here very important, aiding the development of the intelligence through the senses. "The ball has always been a favorite plaything, and Froebel as much as possible applied his method to familiar games, all of which find their place in the garden. He has composed a hundred little songs, indicat-ing as many different plays with balls; for it is his principle not to givea child a variety of objects, but to show him a variety of relations with. one object. Many of these games are given with rhymes and illustrations in the Practical Guide;' an invaluable book to mothers who look intelligently and reverently upon the unfolding life of their little ones, -invaluable too to the elder children, preparing them unconsciously for their future duties as parents and guardians of the young.

"The second series of implements are solids, the cube, the cylinder, and the wooden ball, and also a stick and string. The games of this gift are so simple that the weakest child can find delight in them, so instructive that the most scientific mind can derive information from them, and they are capable of a surprising variety.

"Froebel's system is not to be taught mechanically. To be a successful teacher of childhood, one must come to the work with a heart full of love, and a mind with all its creative power in full activity. To such this system will yield great delight, developing teachers as they train the pupils, who are unconsciously drinking in great principles and facts of science, and strengthening the body whilst seemingly engaged in play.

"To facilitate comparison between objects, the only means of comprehending them, Froebel always gives two opposites, two contrasts:

*Compare our own remarks in the first article of the Examiner for September.

VOL. LXVII.

5TH S. VOL. V. NO. III.

28

sur

in this case, the cube and the ball. The first represents variety, faces, sides, angles, and inertia, as it does not roll; the second, unity, and movement.

it being the same throughout,

"If between these two objects the intermediate object is placed, the child will perceive that in this form are united some of the properties at the two others, the cylinder having two flat sides like the cube, and of the same time being round like the ball.

"The rod is passed at first over the surfaces of the cube, then over the angles and edges; and afterwards the cube is made to turn on itself. The child thus sees the cylinder, the circle, and the double cone,

- the three fundamental forms of mechanics and crystallization. The cylinder will appear as the corners and edges disappear. All the laws of mechanics are found in nature.

"The cube is not only the fundamental form of crystallization, but it is also the primary regular form recognized by mankind. The three Graces of the ancient Egyptians were three cubes, supporting one another, a proof that no form appeared to them more beautiful. The cube is truly the starting-point for form.

"The cylinder, in turning on itself, reproduces the ball and other solids, showing, like the cube, that a primary always includes its secondaries.

"The singing explains the qualities of these forms to the child. For example, the cube says, 'With a stick through my centre, I can turn round, And look like a roller that rolls on the ground.' And the ball says, 'A ball I am wherever I go; Wherever I turn, myself I show.' And the cylinder, 'With a string through my centre I rapidly run; My edges and corners delight in the fun. To you they are lost, though there they remain, And when I stand still, you will see them again.' And so on, with the forms singly or in combination, almost ad infinitum, the child learning unconsciously the laws of statics and dynamics without any infringement of its enjoyment; in fact, with far less fatigue and ennui than result from plays without object with numerous complicated toys which he cannot comprehend, whilst he is forbidden to gratify the instinctive desire to know their construction.

"To play with objects in a rational manner, and with an aim, is the true method of a child's education. If mothers realized how much these little beings can suffer from ennui and want of aid to develop themselves, if they knew that a well-directed play would have the effect on them of the sun and fresh air on plants, they would profit by the counsels of Froebel. In giving the child a progressive series of forms, colors, sounds, movement, sizes, &c., he receives the impression of general development according to a fixed and logical law, which links