The psychology of Froebel's play-gifts
Snider, Denton Jaques, 1841-1925
;iK':;:;:'.K)i!- :[•>.;-■;:!•; • X ' I'v'':. T.V\.;' ■'.::'''■'•».';;■.; . :'"'•:'■;;,;•■; SI V^«i0r 7 ^5 O. = ^ v-^ X^ >^^ ^^. C 9d/^o cP^:-'-'.<'^. .^ 9^> '-\ C-^' v<^-», %.'°-^ o^^-'Sol'" , ^>Vr.°'.%. 0. i-» ^ %^# ^■\.^^ .^Q V ^^ 0.% ^ %^^^ ^^ ^^^0^ .' *^°- I .- ,#■ -^ % <. cr .. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF fROEBEL'S PLAY-GIFTS. BY DENTON J. SNIDER, Of the Chicago Kindergarden College. SIGMA PUBLISHING CO., St. Louis, Mo., 210 Pine St. Chicago, Ills., 10 Van Buren St. (For Bale by A. C. M'Clurg & Co., Booksellers, Chicago, Ills.) W\ TWO COf>lES RECEIVED, » « L/brary of Congrast c.'/^ Office of the '^^ FP 2 11900 Hegleter of Copyrlghfi^ 54261 Copyright by D. J. Snider, 1900. b&OwixJ OvJr*!, 6 2^7 ffO TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE Introduction v Chapter First. The First Gift (Potential) 1 TheBaU 8 Psychology of the Ball 20 General Terms 31 The Ball in relation to the external world . . .' 38 (iii) iv TABLE OF CONTENTS. PAGE Chapter Second. The Gifts (Quantatitive) . : . . . 42 I. The Second Gift (Originative) . .49 II. The Derived Gifts 101 A. Concrete Magnitude . . . 103 1. The rectilineal series . . 105  The Line 229 3. The Point 251 C. From Abstract to Concrete . 266 III. Eet urn to the Originative Gift . .270 Chapter Third. The Occupations ........ 288 I. The Plastic Occupation . . . .316 n. The Industrial Occupations . . .339 1. The Plastic Industrial Occupa- tion 347 2. The Useful Industrial Occupa- tions ... * 354 3. The Graphic Industrial Occu- pation 369 III. The Graphic Occupation .... 374 INTRODUCTION. Under the title of Play-gifts we include that portion of Froebel's work usually called the Gifts and Occupations, such as are employed in the kindergarden. The attempt is here made to organize them according to their fundamental principle, and thereby to put them into their psychological order, which will show their educa- tive value. The appreciation of the worth of the child, which seems just now to be dawning upon man- kind in all its splendor and fullness of meaning, is one of the greatest facts of our time, and is its supreme educational fact. The movement is an outcome of the ao^e, but it finds its mio^htiest expression in Froebel, who was filled with the (V) vi THE PSYCHOLOGY OF idea and gave to it his life. Moreover, he was the first man who in any adequate sense devel- oped the instrumentalities for unfolding the child in harmony with its own nature. Such is the purpose of these Play-gifts. Still, much remains to be done. The kinder- garden is as yet hardly more than the seed-corn whose planting is to be completed by the incom- ing generation, with the happy prospect of a vast harvest in the future. One of its advances must be in the way of theoretic formulation, which Froebel did not, and probably could not, give. Froebel is not to be regarded as a very successful f ormulator of psychology, even of that psychology which lies at the basis of his own work. He was a great maker of educational instrumentalities for developing the child, in fact the very greatest in history; but he never did give, and apparently could not give, an organized expression of what he had done. Rightly taken, he was a far better thinker with his hands than with his brains. It may seem presumption to some ardent dis- ciples to try to improve upon Froebel. But the business of writing has in it always a concealed vanity. The author of a book must have a lurk- ing egotism that he is going to do something which nobody else in all antecedent time has done. He may be mistaken, usually is; still he would not write and certainly ought not to write his book unless he believes that he is al)le to do FBOEBEL'S PLAY GIFTS.— INTBODUCTION. vii a better thing than any of his predecessors has done. So much of self-esteem may be pre-sup- posed by the very act of taking pen in hand. Still this book claims to be emphatically Froe- belian, resting upon faith in Froebel's work, and deeming him the greatest of all modern educa- tors. Let us express our position in this regard a little more fully. In the kindergarden world of to-day there are three main attitudes towards Froebel: the sta- tionary, the evolutionary, and the revolutionary. To the first class belong the literalists, who by word and deed show that their belief is that the child exists simply for the kindergarden, and not the kindergarden for the child. There must be no change from the transmitted text, no variation from the established ritual, unless the audacious innovator wishes to be put down among the burning heresiarchs in a nether circle of the kindergarden Inferno. Instead of Froebel's motto : ** Come, let us live for the children," we seem to hear this revised edition: «' Come, let the children live for Froebel." In such fashion the crystallized formalists, unconsciously, doubt- less, turn their master's doctrine inside out, con- tradict it in its very heart, pervert Froebel till he would not know himself. To this class the present book has no ambition to belong. Then there is just the opposite class, the revo- lutionists, who react so strongly from the fore- Vlii THE PSYCHOLOGY OF going f eticli -worshipers, that they rush head- long to the opposite extreme, and become followers of the Destroyer, veritably the Satanic element of the kindergarden. It may be ques- tioned if these should still be called kindergard- ners, their object being to destroy the kinder- garden. They are the Froebelians who are doing their best" to dethrone Froebel," bearing a strong family resemblance to those fallen angels of the old Mythus, those children of God who conspired to dethrone God. Of course the present book would not for the world enroll itself in this class. Finally there is the middle or mediating class, which insists upon being neither stationary nor revolutionary, but evolutionary, unfolding with the progress of the time, keeping step to the spirit of the age, whose watchword is evolution in its widest and worthiest meaning. Here we place ourselves, worshiping neither the fetich on the one hand nor the fiend on the other. Our belief is that Froebel has given to the world a seed-thought which is to be developed into its fullness by and in the great kindergarden organ- ism, whose principle of existence must be growth, not being crystallized on the one hand, not being destructive on the other. We have placed all the Gifts and Occupations under the much-needed common name of Ph\y- gifts {Spidgaben)^ which name comes from their FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— INTRODUCTION, ix: inventor. We also put the whole stress of our book upon the Psychology of the Play -gifts in their immediate genesis. Hence it comes that we have very little to say of what may be called the Morphology of the Play-gifts, which deals with the manifold combinations of these Forms after they have been generated. That is, we do not try to teach the manipulation of the Gifts and Occupations, we say nothing of those well- known Froebelian terms : Forms of Life, Forms of Beauty, Forms of Knowledge. These are the proper theme of Morphology, or the Science of Form. Undoubtedly Morphology is based upon a psy- chical process, like everything else in the world; there is a psychology of all these combinations of Forms in both the Gifts and Occupations. But, as before said, this part of the subject lies outside of the present treatise, though it may be our portion to take up the same hereafter. Still, if the eager student desires at once a more exact nomenclature for expressing these two divisions, let them be named, first, the Psychology of the Method of the Play -gifts (Methodology), and, secondly, the Psychology of the Forms of the Play-gifts (Morphology). The psychical movement of thought here employed is often deemed unreal, far-fetched, fantastic. To the sensuous mind all thinking appears fantastic and is so branded by it, at times X THE PSYCHOLOGY OF Trith a considerable outpour of insulted dignity proceeding from a profound feeling of its own ignorance. But how can the case be helped? To the senses thought must seem merely a prod- uct of subjective fancy turned loose and allowed to roam at will in the fields of No Man's Land. That thought is creative, creating anew the ob- jective world of things, the sensuous mind can- not conceive, because it cannot truly conceive (grasp creatively) anything whatsoever. True conception is not simply an imaging, but an ideal creation of the object. So Psychology has here the emphasis, and well it may have, being that science in which the spirit of the age just at present is most busily and most deeply mirroring itself. But what Psychology — whose ? Not the old rational Ps}'- chology nor the new physiological Psychology, thouo^h both have brous^ht and delivered their message. Not the Spencerian, Herbartian, or Hegelian Psychology, though each has its place in the history of the science. The psychological formulation of the present book is taken directlj^ from the form of mind itself, from the Ego with its threefold process inherent in every act of cognition. (For a fuller development of this view of Psychology, the author must refer to his work. Psychology and the Psychosis.) Still, the earnest kindergardner, free of all the schools of Psychology and innocent of its detailed. FBOEBEL\S PLAY GIFTS.— INTRODUCTION, xi study, can, we believe, get the bearing of the present book with a fair degree of application. Undoubtedly the procedure is carefully ordered, and such procedure has to have its nomenclature at every important step, but the object of this nomenclature is to give clearness and definiteness to the somewhat complicated movement of the thought. So, what at first seems an obstacle may at last turn out a friend in disguise. On one point, however, we confess ourselves to be in open revolt against kindergarden usage, and refuse submission. It is in the spelling of the word hindergardner ; we cannot bring our- selves to associate with that awful linguistic monstrosity hindergartner, which is neither Ger- man nor English, nor of any other known speech, being an unearthly hybrid comparable only to those monsters, half-man, half-beast, which Dante saw in the ditches of the infernal world. The full German word Kinder gdrtnerinn has been introduced into some writinojs in Ensrlish (for instance by Miss Lyschinska). This recog- nizes the trouble, but does not solve it satisfac- torily, in our opinion. The word hindergarte^i might pass in English, but the change in its derivative involves it also. We are aware of the objection to this spelling of ours, namely, that a German and an English word are united in a compound, but really garden is likewise German (Saxon, Platt-deutsch), and though it be spelt xii PSYCHOLOGY OF FBOEBEU S PLAY GIFTS. with a t, this is almost universally pronounced as a d among English-speaking people. At any rate we cannot be brouofht to desicrnate any human being by such a monstrous name, certainly not those whom we confess to be the nearest and dearest to us of all sublunary beings, namely the kinder- gardners. Coming back to the Play-gifts, we shall divide them primarily into three grand divisions, to each of which we shall devote a chapter. These will be set forth in the following order : — Chap. I. The First Gift (Potential Gift). Chap. II. The other Gifts (Quantitative Gifts). Chap. III. The Occupations (Qualitative Gifts). It will be observed that we have placed the First Gift in a Chapter by itself, parallel with the other two divisions. The ground of this classification is to be unfolded in the course of the following exposition, so that we may now drop all further preliminaries and come to the main business at once. CHAPTER FIRST, THE FIRST GIFT (POTENTIAL). We have already stated that the First Gift is put into a chapter by itself, co-ordinate with the two other chapters of the present book. Within itself it has no genetic movement like the Second Gift ; it remains implicit, potential, undeveloped, or at least mainly so. Its six Balls cannot be said to be derived, one from the other, in any way; they are chiefly repetitions, one of the other, the chief difference being that of color. Still, in this Gift we shall begin to find the inkier educative process which belongs to all the Play-gifts of Fro^bel. Here we shall have to consider the Ball, which shows in its conception an external 'psychical movement which corre- sponds to the child's mind, and so calls it forth, educates it in its primal stage. 2 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF The First Gift consists of six Balls, covered with a soft netting of worsted, elastic, showing six colors of the spectrum — the primary, red, yellow, blue — and the secondary, green, violet, orange. If we notice more closely the leading items of this Gift, we find the foUowing: (1) The Ball- is, first, " the symbol of unity," as Froebel often declares; (2) multiplicity, however, is brought into this unity by the six Balls ; ( 3 ) a unity of qualities is maintained in the six Balls, they are alike in size, form, softness, elasticit}^ etc. ; (4) multiphcity, however, is brought into this qualitative unity by color, each Ball being of a different color. Thus we find, after a little analysis, a double unity and a double multiplicity (or difference), the one being quantitative, and the other quali- tative. Accordingly there is a suggestion or intimation in this First Gift of the two grand divisions which are to follow, in general called the Gifts and Occupations. The former are quantitative, primarily geometrical, and may be at times named the geometric Gifts, yet they have a strong current of arithmetic (counting) under- neath; the latter, the Occupations, we shall see, are chiefly concerned with the qualities or prop- erties of bodies. Of course, it will be understood that what we FBOEBEUS PL Ay GIFTS. — THE FIB ST. 3 here have said concerning the First Gift is not yet unfolded — is still implicit within the same ; in fact, the object of the present book is to develop these faint intimations into something like full- ness and completeness. In profound harmony, therefore, with child-nature and with his own nature (the two were grown together in him), Froebel has begun his whole series of Gifts with the one Avhich may be considered the Gift of Anticipation (Ahming). We have, for this reason, placed the First Gift as the grand overture and introduction to all the rest — namely, the Gifts and Occupations. It is not merely the first of the Gifts, though it be that too ; it is also the first division of the entire theme, and is co-ordinate with the other two divisions. It shares, by a kind of instinct, in the characteristics of both Gifts and Occu- pations, it is the germ of which they are the unfolding. Here, then. Lies the primal unconscious thought, the ideal creative principle, as yet un- developed, implicit, premonitory — the faint, prophetic foreshadowing of what is to be. It is the infantile lisp which has babbling within itself the coming word and all that human speech can utter. It is supremely the Gift belonging to babydom, intended for the nursery mainly, and giving echo in its deepest note to the new-born soul. The first Gift is, therefore, a kind of 4 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF speech, endowed with a voice intelligible to the speechless infant (m and fans), and calling it forth, educating it (e and duco) into its earliest seK-utterance, into the primal expression of its Ego. Now we have to select a name for this First Gift, a name which will be most significant of its character. Among the many epithets applicable to it, our vote is for the word potential , designat- ing the fact that it is a potentiahty, not yet a reality, yet always working to make itseK real. Accordingly, we shall call this First Gift tJie Potential Gift. It connects with the quantita- tive Gifts directly through the Ball, out of which the latter are deduced ; then it connects with the Occupations (qualitative Gifts) through the prop- erties of matter common to both. All of which is, of course, to be unfolded in the forthcoming exposition. The fundamental character of the First Gift is, therefore, that it is a potentiality, undeveloped yet developing, implicit yet becoming explicit. In psychological speech, it is the first or imme- diate stage of the Psychosis. It may be aflSrmed with truth that the First Gift, as the Potential Gift, above all others is in the deepest correspondence with the infant, who is supremely a potential being, the unrealized man, and yet contains the germs of all culture, the possibility of all progress. Take the Ball; FBOEBEVS PLAY GIFTS.— THE FIB ST. 5 it is the child's first plaything, the earliest friend who can talk to the new unspoken soul, itself in- capable of talking. But the Ball is not dropped with the passing of infancy ; it goes out of the nursery into the kindergarten ; beyond the kin- dergarten it flies into the hands of the schoolboy ; from youth it passes into the recreations of even the grown man. Thus the Ball is a universal plaything, perpetuating itself through several ages of the human being. Still it keeps its po- tential character to the last. For the grown man too has his potential element hovering ob- scurely around all that he may have realized or can realize ; enveloping his sphere of conscious life lies a vast, quite illimitable periphery of un- conscious existence, in which lurk, darkly fer- menting, all the possibihties of himseK and of his race, as well as all the inheritances, still dimly working in him, of that by-gone world from which he has sprung. So the Ball, as a repre- sentative of the grand human potentiahty, is not so easily superannuated. There is something in the nature of affection in the Ball when taken into your hand, especially one of these soft, pliable, responsive Balls of the First Gift. Do you not feel its gentle pressure upon your palm? It is trying to join hands with you in friendship by its first act, and you cannot help responding with a slight caress ; your very organism must give answer with a little kiss. 6 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF You cannot blame your hand if it soon closes more passionately upon that Ball, with an eager embrace, to which the latter replies by a stronger and warmer osculation imparted to your palm and fingers. There is in it a yielding yet deeply re- sponsive nature — it loves you and how can jou help loving it? You nestle it, you coddle it, you rock it and swing it with both hands, you toss it up into the air like a baby and catch it coming down with a smile. It has all sorts of domestic suggestions — that of a nest with its birdling ; you can house it between your palms in a cosy little home. To the child the Ball lives, from the start he regards it as an animated thing, and does not get over his living intercourse with it for a long time. And certainly for him it has a voice, speaking to him, and calling him out of his dumb self, com- municating to him important matters otherwise unutterable. And I have seen the kindergardner play with the Ball in such a sympathetic manner that her radiant face showed that she had re- turned into the soul of infancy and was taking deep draughts from that primal fountain of joy and hope along with the little ones over Avhom she had guidance. Looking: a^ain at the First Gift we see that it contains more or less implicitly both the Gifts and the Occupations, both the quantitative and the qualitative elements, which are to unfold out FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE FIBST. 7 of it into reality. The Ball connects it with the Second Gift; while color, elasticity, and other properties suggest the Occupations. Yet the First Gift is a sense-gift, immediate ; it has not the reproductive principle which characterizes the Occupations. THE PSYCHOLOGY OF THE BALL. There are certain characteristics of the Ball which the kindero^artiier will take delisfht in thinking out, as this plaything is the starting- point, and, in fact, generative principle of a large portion of her vocation. It begins so many things in her work that it comes to possess a peculiar fascination for her mind. Here, too, it is proper to note with what love and fullness Froebel has treated of the Ball in his writino^s. We shall append at this place some cardinal thoughts upon the Ball. 1. The first statement usually made about the Ball, is that it shows unity. But what kind of unity or oneness? For there is a kind of unity which is dead, lifeless, without process; then there is just the opposite kind, manifesting all the movement and richness of the spirit. Let us think. The Ball is, in the first place, round, when considered as a whole ; it has no developed point or line, no edge; the one center controls the periphery through the radius. Such is the con- ception of the unity of the Ball. It is self-cen- FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS— THE FIRST. 9 tered; its outer manifestation is determined by the one central principle, always equidistant from the surface. Like the seK-centered human being ( or Ego ) , its outward seeming or conduct is ruled by the one controlling center within. Thus it suggests the self-contained element in man, the possibility of moral control. The thought of the Ball always brings it back into relation with itself; so it evokes the conception of the self -related, the self-determined, which is just the process of freedom. Doubtless some reader of ours will think these terms and these ideas as very abstruse speculation about a very simple thing. But they all seek to express the one fundamental thought which utters itself in the unity of the Ball. We must also add, that this thought is not lifeless, but is a process. 2. The Ball has only surface manifested, and this is unlimited surface, that is, nothmited any- where by point or line. Hence the Ball has been sometimes taken as the symbol of the Unlimited, the Infinite — yes, the Divine. Points and Lines by the millions are implicit in it — potentialities which are to become realities. 3. The Ball is, accordingly, a small universe of possibilities. It is the possibility of all points and Hues and /bounded surfaces, hence of all forms. Being round, it is also the possibility of 10 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF all directions ; it may turn itseK any whither if not stopped by some developed point or Hne. This is its mobihty and has a close correspond- ence to the child-mind, which is likewise an in- finite possibility of direction. What turn will this infantile soul take in its unfolding? As yet, it is potentially all, it is the round rolling Ball, or at least the inner counterpart thereof. No wonder that the Ball speaks to the infant in the cradle as nothing else can, declaring in all its motions as well as in its shape its kinship to that seedling of a soul recently become visible in flesh. 4. We must also think, that the Ball through its external rotundity suggests everywhere the return into self, which is the fundamental fact in the process of the Ego, and hence the basic principle in every psychological movement. 5. The seen rotundity of the Ball gives a sug- gestion of the unseen center, which is the point within, and is ideal. The visible manifestation, which is here the round surface of the Ball, calls up in the soul of the child the invisible center which determines that round surface. That which is seen goes back to that which is unseen as its source, cause, determinant. In like manner, though more dimly, the felt rotundity of the Ball projects darkly the inner central point which is unfelt as well as unseen. The infant, clutching in his little hand the little FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE FIB ST. 11 Ball, begins to feel its rotundity; with such feel- ing, however faint, starts a corresponding spirit- ual unfolding ; the tiny fingers closing round the Ball feel the turn within, and have a premoni- tion of that inner point which determines the outer. Thus the Ball by its very shape opens the soul's anticipation through the senses, in fact, through the very humblest, least definite of the senses, that of touch. The Ball seems to have the power of breaking the spirit' s shell and letting the chick out. And here we may be permitted to give a prac- tical suggestion. Let not the Ball be made too large ; the little hand or hands must be able to inclose it, otherwise this sense of rotundity Avill be dimmed or quite lost. The hand or the two hands surrounding the Ball make a Ball, the second Ball, which incloses and feels the first Ball, feels that this is a Ball by making itself a Ball for inclosing and sensing and taking up the same. Through such adaptation the organism becomes that which it seeks to make its own. S6 the hand halls itself to receive the Ball (in some languages the closed fist is said to be hailed). Now, it is evident that if the ball be too laro-e, the little hand cannot perform its part, and there will be no sense of rotundity, or a blurred one. 6. As the child takes up into himself rotundity, first through tactual and then through visual sen- 12 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF sation, he must project its invisible counterpart, which is its determinant, nameljthe central point alread}^ mentioned. Let the sensation or feeling of the round be never so slight, it cannot be without the inner susfofestion of the center. But this inner central point is the negation of all extension and of visibility. Through the Ball the child's soul passes from the visible to the invisible, as the source and cause of the visible. And this invisible element is not merely negative, a canceling of the external and visible, but is positive, is truly the creative principle of the thing seen. For we must always keep in mind that the unseen central point with its radius is what creates the rotundity. In like manner, the spatial or extended is determined by what has no extension — the ideal point. Thus throuo^h the Ball the child-soul beo^ins its career of education, which is, in general, the rise from the sensuous to the supersensuous as con- troller, the rise from the subjection of mind to the mastery of mind in the realm of matter. 7 . In this connection we may take a glance at Symbolism, that much-discussed doctrine in Froe- bel's system. Granting that his use of the word is not always clear, and sometimes vacillating and even reckless, we still may catch from our pres- ent standpoint a general outline of his meaning. The most inveterate objector to presentiment must confess that this ideal germ, this unsensed FB0EBEV8 PLAY GIFTS,— THE FIB ST. 13 point at the center of the sphere, is in the child, else it could never come out of him. Otherwise he could never learn geometry, which must be at last his own inner evolution of the point, line, surface ; he could never acquire the idea of rotundity, and consequently he could never know form. For this reason, primarily, the Ball may be called symbolic. It is an outer shape which images the child's Ego and its process (and the grown man's Ego too, for that matter). The child plays with the Ball, and through such play his Self is called out of its sleep, and becomes active; thus self -activity begins, and the Ego is led to go through its own process by means of its outer counterpart or symbol. 8. Thus, what we may name the external pro- cess of the Ball, calls forth the internal process of the child's Ego. This is the main educative fact under the present head. So there comes to light the connection between point and peri- phery, inside and outside, visible and invisible, ideal and real. This thought takes the form of a connecting line, the radius, which joins the Seen and the Unseen. In thinking, or rather sensing, the Ball, there- fore, we have the following process : — First is the outer surface or periphery, that which is seen or felt, hence the sensuous, the immediate ; it is that element which first appeals to the child through his senses. 14 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF Second is the opposite, that which is different from the sensuous and is absolute!}^ separated from it — the negation of surface and extension. This is the central point. Third is the return to the surface from the center, which creates or determines the peri- phery with its rotundity. This process we shall develop more fully here- after in connection with the psychology of the BaU. 9 . The child has the immediate sensuous expe- rience of being himself the center of a Ball. Very early does he look up and behold the sky overhead, which surrounds him on all sides with its dome. Still he is the center always, the cen- ter of this hollow Ball, or half -Ball which goes with him everywhere and environs him in every direction. As he sees a little Ball outside of him- self held in his little hand, yet with its center inside, so he sees himseK inside a great Ball, he being himself that center. He goes forward and may long to reach the wall " where the world comes down," but it recedes as he approaches; let him go as far as he pleases he remains the center of the Ball made out of sky, he cannot somehow run away from his central position. He soon discovers that he is the determinant of this Ball; he makes the round dome above, the circling horizon 3^onder, in fact the whole over- arching canopy of heaven; with every step, too. FROEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE FIRST. 15 he must make it anew, and so reconstruct and repossess his former possession. Thus the most persistent sensuous fact pres- ent to the vision of the child is that he is the central point of the material universe about him, which shapes itself like the inside of a Ball, and covers him over with a kind of protecting roof as far as his eye can reach. He finds that he lives in a Ball or Hemisphere, ever changing in space Avith him, yet ever remaining the same in all his wanderino's. So he sees in the vanishino^ a reappearance; in the transitory is always the abiding, and within such a shifting yet permanent world is his home, just at the heart of it. But he must remake it, and forever be re- making it — this his outermost physical environ- ment. Such also he is to do with all nature — remake it and transform it into the abode of his spirit. This is the meaning of our modern in- dustrial progress. Still further, and chiefly, the child is surrounded with an unseen institutional world, a vast overarching unseen canopy of which he is the center and which protects his soul, the invisible yet essential portion of himself. This institutional world also he is in the course of his unfolding to remake, to reform, to repossess, and thus to come into a true ownership of his spiritual inheritance. All this is again symbolic : his sense-world is the symbol of his spirit- world, suffojestino' and callino- for the unseen in the seen. 16 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF 10. We must repeat here that the word Gift in the present connection means something given in the sense of pre-established, prescribed, and presented in advance to the child. This is true of all the Gifts and Occupations, yet they have different degrees of prescription. In the First Gift the child is almost wholly the recipient without changing the material or the thing given ; still he is to move more and more toward making over or transforming what has been given him, till he gets to be the producer of his own world or the maker of his own presuppositions. Thus he is always advancing toward a completer freedom. So the child in the present Gift is essentially receptive. But to receive, he has to act; he sees, feels, tests the Ball in various ways; the senses and the will he employs in receiving. The red Ball is usually taken first, as its color is the most striking or stimulating to the eye which has to be roused from its infantile somnolescence. A string is attached to the Ball, showing control by an outside power, by a providential hand; so the Ball is the image of this early stage of the child, who soon demands that the string be put into his hand, that he be the controller; as fast as possible, he is going to be his own Providence, though this end he never quite attains even as a man. In the play with the Ball, motion of many FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE FIB ST. 17 kinds begins to manifest itself, as the Ball is the possibility of all directions. Circular motion in which the Ball by means of the string attached is made to come back to its starting-point in space, has a special interest for the child, and inti- mates the free motion of the earth around the Sun, which he is afterwards to comprehend. The central luminary has its string attached to the little earth-ball and is pulling or rather whirling the same around itself in an orbit, or self-return- ino^ circle. Is not the Sun the brio^ht luminous hand of the Lord (otherwise invisible), and is not gravitation the string he has tied to the little earth-ball, which he keeps whirling around and around through the Heavens, possibly for the amusement of the baby angels up there? Thus our First Gift has its place in the kindergarden of the skies, literally full of whizzing balls en- circlino^ central Suns Avithout collidino^ — the happy stars of the firmament forever playing and sino^ino[ tos^ether in the celestial kinder- garden, which began in the primordial chorus of creation. 11. A suggestion in regard to the Ball of this First Gift may be permitted at this point. It is said that the original Froebel Ball was wound from the center and covered with a soft network. The modern rubber Ball has not this idea of being unfolded or generated from the cen- ter, which idea is necessary to the genetic move- 2 18 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF ment of the Gift, and is what con.stitutes the psychical correspondence of the Ball with the child. The so-called clipped Ball, which is made of yarn in the form of radii springing out of the center, thus suo^orestino^ the movement from the central point outwards, has been warmly recom- mended for the older children in the kinder- garden. 12. There is no doubt that to employ six Balls in the First Gift for the nursery is a mistake. The result is complication, confusion, and final aversion to the Gift ; many a kindergardner will confess that she, of her own accord, has reduced the number of these Balls in the interest of good work and good order. The proper number of Balls for this Gift, at least in the beginning, is three, which makes it far simpler and easier to handle, and moreover, is in harmony with the movement of the Ego it- self. But chiefly, there are the three primary colors which in the order of Nature are first and give the natural starting-point, forming a whole by themselves, nay more, a Psychosis. Then in due time will come the secondary colors, and even the tertiary, though color must not be al- lowed to run to excess in the kindergarden. Finally, for the sake of the number idea three is far better than any other number, being in direct numerical correspondence with the stages of the F ROE BEL'S PLAY GIFTS.— THE FIRST. 19 child's mind, which are one, and Wo, and three, this last being a return and union of the other numbers (one and two). There can be no doubt that number dawns with the dawnino^ of the Ego and its three stages, which, when they take place, are faintly, unconsciously numbered by the child. The mind itself is stamped in its very creation with the number three, which it has to reveal when it acts and in every act. By means of the three Balls, each a separate unit empha- sized by form and color, yet all combined to- gether in a box and by various plays, the implicit number in the child's Ego is wakened out of its unconscious slumber and beg^ins to become ex- plicit. Now it is manifest that if we have more than three Balls, or even less than three, there is a lack of correspondence between the inner and the outer, between the Ego and the object, Avhich produces a jar, a discord, where there ought to be harmony. Though the dissonance seem slight, the tender budding child -mind feels it and is delayed. As the obstacle is not difficult to re- move, the kindergardner should look after this matter, and adjust her presentation of the First Gift to the psychical nature of the child. 20 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF PSYCHOLOGY OF THE BALL. In makino: the transition from the First to the Second Gift, the name Ball (in German Ball) is changed to that of Sphere ( Kugel) . Froebel gives certain external distinctions between the two, such as softness and hardness, di:fference in elasticity, etc. This is well enough, but we would fain believe that there is some inner reason for the transition from Ball to Sphere. Though these two words are employed in common usage inter- changeably, we shall try to have them do service as bearers of two distinct meanings in the follow- ing exposition. Primarily, we are to penetrate to the concep- tion of the Ball, which signifies the creative principle of it, the thought which generates it. Conception is not merely the reproduced image of the Ball, its outward shape drawn from mem- ory, but the genetic energy creating it grasped by the mind. The Ego in conception enters the Ball, as it were, and makes the same anew after its own ideal process ; to conceive an object is an inner creation of it after the thought which originally made it. FBOEBEUS PLAY GIFTS.— THE FIBST. 21 The conception of the Ball, therefore, being itself the movement of the Ego, will show the inherent psychical process thereof, namely, the Psychosis. The following exposition, which seeks to set forth the total conception of the Ball, mil move through the threefold development of it in har- mony with the underlying process of mind. In the first place, the Ball is to be grasped simply, as it is in itseK; secondly, it is to be seen as it is taken up by the child's senses and united with his Ego, in which stage (the separative) two BaUs come before us, the outer and the inner; thirdly, the Ego, having sensed the Ball, returns to it and beholds in it the movement of itseK in three stages, Avhich it specially desig- nates, thereby revealing the concrete Ball or the Sphere. Such is the transition which we shall now un- fold on psychological lines, marking carefully the various steps. The purpose is to bring out prominently the inner elements of the Ball, which are indispensable for deriving the forms of the Second Gift, and out of them the rest of the Play-gifts. We are, then, to witness the following stages : — I. The process of the Ball as it is in itself — from within outward and back again — Center, Periphery, Radius. 22 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF II. The process of the Ball in relation to the organism — from the outside going inward and then back again — the sensed without, the unsensed within, the union of the two in the spherical. III. The process of the Sphere with its central Point, diametral Line, and intersecting Plane. These brief designations in advance are to un- fold into their full meaning in what follows. Let the student, however, note the psychical movement which these three stao^es suo^orest at the start, and observe that the whole sets forth the transition from the simple Ball to the con- crete Sphere through the intermediate process of the Ego. I. First, then, let us conceive the Ball, as it is in itself without any relation, as immediate. What are the essential factors of it? Let us take it in the hand and look at it closely and think ; let us find the elements which it must have in order to be. We shall observe three. 1. The Center. This we put first, as it is first in thought, though not first to the senses. It is the determinant primarily, the genetic i)oint; it determines the object to be a Ball. The cre- ative germ of the Ball is now conceived in the Center. So we employ the Avord metaphorically when we speak of coming to the center of things. 2. The Periphery. Tliis is that Avhich is determined h\ the determining Center ; hence it FBOEBEVS PLAT GIFTS.— THE FIRST. 23 is the separated, not the concentrated; it is the opposite of the central point which is now con- ceived as propelled outwards in all directions to the limit, which is the Periphery. The inward Center thrown outward becomes the extended surface, accessible to the senses. 3. The Radius. This is properly to be regarded as the return from the Periphery to the Center, conceived as a connecting line from the outward to the inward. Not till we have the Periphery can we explicitly have the Radius, as uniting the determined Periphery to the determining Center, though we have it implicitly in the movement outwards from Center to Periphery, which, how- ever, has to be fixed before the length of the Radius can be fixed. Such are the three simple elements of the Ball when taken as it is in itself. We observe in it the stages of the Psychosis, yet as immediate, un- developed. Center, Periphery, Radius enter into the primal conception of the Ball when unrelated ; but we soon find that the Ball must be related in order to be conceived, namely, related to the Ego, which must now be reached from the out- side, through the senses. II. The Ball as related to the bodily senses comes next in order. We have just seen the Ball as it is in itself ; now its relation to the organism is to be considered. For the purpose of understanding this relation 24 THE PSYCHOLOGY OF more fully, we may regard the human organism as having an outer surface or Periphery in which are located all the senses. These are to connect the mind with the external world, which stimu- lates them by some kind of irritation, in contact or at a distance. This stimulation is borne to the brain by the afferent nerves, turns at the invisible central point (Ego) and is carried back to the Periphery by the efferent nerves, thus completing the cycle of sensation. The resemblance between this process of the organism and that of the Ball just given is strik- ins:. The human bodv is also a Ball with its Center as determinant, with its Periphery and its Eadii. But the living human Ball is a self -active process, self -moving, while the dead material Ball is the outer, externalized image, is the outered or othered counterpart of the unseen process. It may be noted here that the child of himself, will play that he is the Ball, he will enact its part and go through its motions. Thus he uncon- sciously reflects what his own organism is — a living Ball with its own Center, Periphery, and Radii, which unfolds into activity through playing Avith the Ball. Yet this is not all: the child not only plays with the Ball, but plays himself to be a Ball, converting himself into a kind of Ball in play. And it may be said that in every kind of Ball-play there are really the two Balls co-operating and interplaying — the animate and the inanimate. FBOEBEL'S PLAY GIFTS.— THE FIBST. 25 Such is the stage of separation in the pres- ent process : the two Balls, the sensing and the sensed; the first takes up the second, yet is called into activity by the second. This relation and interaction between the two sides is what we shall next unfold. 1. The sensed Ball, which is seen or felt. 