"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.