{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.)