its form. He has arranged a variety of pure movement games, each one of which calls into play important muscles,-he has reproduced life in a series of dramatic games representing the flowing of streams, the sailing of boats, the flying of birds, the swimming of fishes, the activities of the farmer, the miller, the baker, the carpenter, the cobbler,-in short, all the activities of nature and of man; he disciplines the senses through games appealing to sight, touch, hearing, smell and taste, and rouses pure mental activity through games which stimulate curiosity by suggesting puzzles.

A comparison of Fröbel's plays with the traditional games of different nations would do much to show the purifying and elevating tendency of the Kindergarten. The limits I have set myself permit, however, only one or two suggestive illustrations..

The Kindergarten games, like the songs, express the same thought in melody, in movement and in words. They differ from the songs in that their representations require the combined action of many different children. In the play of the birds' nest, for instance, a given number of children represent trees, imitating, with arms and fingers, the branches and leaves, while others, like birds, fly in and out, build nests, and finally drop their little heads in sleep. So in the ship game, the chil dren standing around the circle, by a rhythmical undulating movement, represent waves, while a half-dozen little children, with intertwined arms, form the ship, and with a movement corresponding to that of the waves, imitate its sailing. Each child has something to do, and if a single child fails to perform his part, the harmony of the representation is destroyed. The games, therefore, tend strongly to develop in the children mutual dependence and sympathy, as in all life nothing draws us nearer to each other than united action for a common end.

History teaches us that music, poetry and dancing were one in their origin, and observation shows us that they are one to the child. This suggests another important aspect of the Kindergarten games. We must see in them the crude beginnings of the three arts, and from this common center, lead the child slowly to perception of the harmonies of movement, the harmonies of sound, and the harmonies of thought.

That their varied possibilities may be realized, the games require very judicious direction. The Kindergartner must wisely alternate dramatic games with those which appeal mainly to physical activity; games which exercise the arms with games which exercise the legs; games which emphasize the activity of a particular child with those which call for united effort. She must adapt the games to the ages of the children and to the season of the year. She must connect them with the child's life, and help him to see in them the reproduction of his experiences. She must not play one game too long, lest monotony result in inattention; neither must she change the games too often, lest she tempt to frivolity. She must guide as a playmate, and not as a teacher. She must allow no mechanical imitation of set movement,

but aim to have movement spring spontaneously from the thought and feeling of the children. She must deeply feel the ruling idea of each game, and communicate it by contagion as well as by words. In short, possessed with a living spirit, she must infuse it into the children, and lead them to give it free and joyful expression.

The daily talk with the children is one of the most important and yet one of the most neglected features of the Kindergarten. It is neglected because it cannot be done by rule, it is important because through it the varied activity of the Kindergarten is concentrated in the unity of its idea. What should be talked about depends on what the children have been doing, and the whole idea of the conversation is lost when it is perverted into an object lesson. What the children have expressed in play, in their block-building, in their stick-laying, in their weaving and cutting and modeling, that also should they learn to express in words. What they see around them in the room, what they have noticed on their way to the Kindergarten, the pebbles they have picked up, the insects they have caught, the flowers they have brought with loving, smiling eyes to their motherly friend-in one word, in all the thronging impressions which besiege the mind from without, and in all the crude activity which shows the tumultuous forces within, the true Kindergartner finds suggestions for her talks with the little ones she is trying to lead into the light.

The stories have one distinct object, which they realize in a twofold way. They aim to show the child himself, and to attain this end offer him both contrasts and reflections. The wise Kindergartner alternates the fairy tales which startle the child out of his own life and enable him to look on it from an alien standpoint, with symbolic stories of birds and flowers and insects, and with histories of little boys and girls in whose experiences she simply mirrors his own. Using the "MotherPlay and Nursery Songs," she leads the children toward the past, and, as they grow older, reproduces, in the legends of heroes and demi-gods, and in the touching narratives of the Bible, the infancy and childhood of the human race. Moving thus from the known to the unknown, and from the near to the remote, she holds himself up to him first in the glass of nature, then in the glass of childhood, and at last in the glass of history. Finally she shows him ideal childhood in the life of the ideal child, and tells him how the boy Jesus "grew in knowledge and wisdom and in favor with God and man."

Never does the Kindergarten present a prettier picture than when the work is cleared away, the tables carefully set, and the children with shining faces and rosy hands are gathered at their lunch. Here are shown the beauty of cleanliness and the charm of order,-here the children learn to share generously, to accept graciously, and to yield courteously; and the social training, which is one of the most important features of the Kindergarten, culminates in this half hour of free yet gentle and kindly intercourse. Good manners give not only social

charm but social power, and surely in this age of complex social demands man cannot be taught too early to move harmoniously among his fellows.

In what I have to say of Fröbel's gifts and occupations I wish to be distinctly understood as stating only their theoretic possibilities. Their adaptations to children of different ages and characters can only be learned by experience. Some of them may be profitably used by the baby in the nursery,-others are valuable in the primary school. Again, the same gift or occupation may be used in different ways to secure different ends. From the blocks the child builds with when he is five years old, he may learn at seven the elements of form and number. The square of paper, which the beginner creases into a salt-cellar or twists into a rooster, the older child uses to produce artistic forms and combinations. In general, there is advance from indefinite impressions to clear perceptions, from vague and half-conscious comparison to sharp distinction and clear analysis, from isolated experiences to connected work and thought, and from a mere general activity to production and creation.

With this general understanding pass we now to a detailed consideration of the gifts and occupations, and of their relationship to each other and to the child.

The First Gift consists of six soft worsted balls of the colors of the rainbow.

The Second Gift consists of a wooden sphere, cube and cylinder. The Third Gift is a two-inch cube divided equally once in each dimension, producing eight small cubes.

The Fourth Gift is a two-inch cube divided by one vertical and two horizontal cuts into eight rectangular parallelopipeds. Each of these parallelopipeds is two inches long, one inch broad and half an inch thick.

The Fifth Gift is a three-inch cube divided equally twice in each dimension into twenty-seven small cubes. Three of these are divided by one diagonal cut into two triangular parts, and three by two diagonal cuts into four triangular parts.

The Sixth Gift is a cube of three inches divided into twenty-seven parallelopipeds of the same dimensions as those of the Fourth Gift. Three of these are divided lengthwise into square prisms, two inches long, half an inch wide and half an inch thick, and six are divided crosswise into square tablets an inch square and half an inch thick. Thus the gift contains thirty-six pieces.

The Seventh Gift consists of square and triangular tablets. Of the latter there are four kinds, viz.: Equilateral, right and obtuse isosceles and right scalene triangles.

The Eighth Gift is a connected slat,-the Ninth consists of disconnected slats.

The Tenth Gift consists of wooden sticks of various lengths, and the Eleventh Gift of whole and half wire rings of various diameter.

Looking at the gifts as a whole we see at once that their basis is mathematical, and we notice that they illustrate successively the solid, the plane and the line. We perceive, too, that they progress from undivided to divided wholes, and from these to separate and independent elements. Finally, we observe that there is a suggestiveness in the earlier gifts which the later ones lack, while on the other hand the range of the latter far exceeds that of the former. The meaning of these distinctions and connections will grow clear to us as we study the common objects of the varied gifts. These objects are :

I. To aid the mind to abstract the essential qualities of objects by the presentation of striking contrasts.

II. To lead to the classification of external objects by the presentation of typical forms.

III. To illustrate fundamental truths through simple applications. IV. To stimulate creative activity.

I. We can never recur too often to the history of the race for the interpretation of the individual. So I cannot consider it irrelevant to refer to a recent result of linguistic research which throws into clearer light the trite, yet only vaguely understood, truth that knowledge rests upon comparison, and which strongly confirms the wisdom of Fröbel in stimulating comparison by suggesting contrasts. I quote from an article by Dr. Carl Abel, one of the best known of the younger philologists of Germany. After mentioning that the Egyptian language can be traced in hieroglyphics up to about 3000 B. C., and in the Koptic to 1000 A. D, "furnishing the student, therefore, a favorable opportunity of exposing an uncommonly long period of linguistic development," he goes on to say:

"In the Egyptian the words-at least in appearance-have two distinetly opposite meanings, and the letters of such words also are sometimes exactly reversed. Suppose the German word "gut" were Egyptian, then besides meaning good it might mean bad, and besides “gut” it might sound like tug. Tug again could mean good as well as bad, and by a small sound modification, as it often happened in the life of a language-perhaps to tuch-furnish occasion to a new conversion into chut which again from its side could unite the two meanings "

This statement is followed by illustrations of the facts adduced, and by reference to the Koptic researches of the author which contain a list of such metatheses ninety pages long. It is then shown that in the Egyptian writing the opposite meanings of the same word were distinguished by adding to the sound value written by letter of each word a determining picture. The word ken, for instance, could mean either strong or weak, and whenever this word appears in writing it is accompanied by a picture illustrating its meaning in the particular case. Commenting on these very remarkable facts Dr. Abel says:

"Our judgments are formed solely upon comparison and antitheses. Translation in the New Englander for November.

As little as we need to think of weakness when we have once grasped the conception of strength, so surely could not strength have been originally conceived of without measuring itself by contrast with weakness. Let any one attempt to grasp a single new idea beyond the range of thought which has become familiar to him by known word definitions without his being put to the trouble of seeking them out, and he will be convinced on this point as to the nature of intellectual progress. Each one to-day becomes acquainted with strength without an effort of his own judgment, because the idea exists in the language, because he is accustomed to it from childhood as a meaning for certain actions, objects and persons. But when, leaving the range of every-day experience and words applying to it, we attempt to create individual ideas or to think over again rare and seldom heard thoughts of others, we find ourselves face to face with the necessity of conscious antithesis. To bide by word-thoughts, no scholar has grasped the idea of acute, obtuse and right angle without bringing the three in real contrast; no student has grasped the esse of Hegel without having confronted it with the non esse; in general, no one has learned tolerably a foreign tongue without explaining those word-meanings which vary from those of his native tongue by a comparison with them. The Egyptian leads us back to the infant period of humanity, in which these first commonest conceptions had to be grasped in this slow and thoughtful manner. In order to learn to think of strength one must separate one's self from weakness; in order to comprehend darkness you must separate light; in order to grasp much you must hold little in the mind for contrast. Such Egyptian words as antithetically show both branches of the original comparison, furnish an insight into the wearisome work-shop in which the first and most necessary ideas-to-day the glibbest and most easily handled-were forged.”

It is quite true, as Prof. Abel says, that we now acquire many ideas along with the means of their expression, and the style of our thinking is largely determined by our inherited speech. To a great extent this coercion of our thought is necessary. If we are to advance upon our forefathers, we must learn in months and years what they learned in generations and centuries. Born in an age of steam engines we must in some way rapidly reproduce the experiences which began when some forgotten savage kindled the first fire. We are mediated results ourselves, and therefore have to learn through the mediation of others. Nature cannot tell us what she told to the first men; that secret she has trusted to them and we must learn it from them before we can understand what she has to say to us. The heir of all the ages must enter upon his inheritance before he can penetrate their increasing purpose.

While all this is true, it is equally true that ideas acquired without the conscious exercise of judgment and comparison lack vitality. Traditional habits of thought must end in formalism. The reaction of lan