Tablets follow the solid forms of the building Gifts. These tablets present simple, geometric forms, proceeding from the square, the embodied surface of the cube, to different triangles.

As with the blocks, figures are laid according to law, making mathematical relations clearer, and awakening the fancy by forms of beauty.

All these Gifts tend to arouse the power of production, to give exercise in plastic formation and comparison, to so fix the attention on an object that it shall be quickly perceived in its totality as well as in its parts, to train the eye to note relations of size and proportion, to quicken the sense for symmetry and beauty, to give mathematical ideas in preparation for arithmetic, and to train the hand to great dexterity. It is acknowledged that no book gives so clear and simple a demonstration of the Pythagorean proportion as is furnished by the Fifth Gift. The constant seeking for opposites and their connection leads to clear understanding, and by the orderly succession of things throughout, the

foundation for logic is laid, and that by seeing and doing, rather than by abstract formulæ, which the school usually inflicts upon the child. The simplicity of the system does away with all artifice and pedantry, while all that is purely mechanical is avoided in combining mental training with plastic formation.

The Slats lead from surface to line, suggesting the latter in their length, and surface in their width. They precede the sticks, as the forms made with them can be joined so as to be permanent.

The Sticks are the embodied line, giving the boundaries of surface, and so leading to drawing. They may also be considered as the divided surface of the cube, making the connection with the preceding Gift. Number is emphasized i this Gift. in this Gift. Froebel's law is exemplified in all these occupations in form and direction of parts. With the sticks, letters and figures may be laid, preparing for reading, writing, and arithmetic, and varied forms are invented by the children. Later, sticks of different lengths are used for pasting figures on cardboard.

The sticks lead to Ring-laying. Whole, half, and quarter rings are given, made of steel, presenting the curved line, and preparing, like the sticks, for drawing.

In the Pease-work the sticks are joined by embodied points (the peas), giving a permanent form to the work. This Gift closes the first series of the alphabet of things, which gives impressions, leading to later knowledge of form, size and number.

The child is led in an orderly way from solids through their divisions, to surface, line, and point. Through the representation of mathematical figures, the abstract thinking of mathematics is made easier.

All abstractions are derived from the phenomena of the material world, even far-reaching conclusions, which, separated from their source, mount to the highest region of pure reason. Either the demand that ideas shall grow out of sense-impressions is wholly wrong and unjustifiable, or there must be such a connection, such an analogy between the things of the material world and the objects of thought, as is here indicated. Education can prescribe no other way for the development of the human soul than that shown by nature. But this development must be guided, or all education ceases. Left to itself, the process of development would be chaotic, indefinite and unsymmetrical.

THE OCCUPATIONS.

With the Gifts, Froebel gives corresponding occupations, reproducing the ideas of surface, line, and point already gained. The simplest material serves for these occupations, as paper, wood, peas, splints, and clay; and the tools are a pencil and needle. All the work is done according to law, and there is an orderly

connection in the occupations, which present, as it were, the first rude beginnings of human culture in its development. Different senses are exercised (as the sight in estimating relations of space and size, the sense for number arrangement, construction, form and size), and skill of hand is gained, preparing for all human activity, and developing produc tivity in every way. Lower desires are kept in abeyance, as the ideality of the child is aroused by his own plastic formation. This has been hitherto too little considered in early education. The child is also given opportunity to work for others, and so to express his love in deeds.

These occupations should be used in every institution for children in order to early awaken skill for and love of work among the people.

Paper-Folding. In this occupation many different forms are produced from one ground-form by creasing different lines according to a prescribed rule. purpose is, to develop the sense for form, to give dexterity and neatness, and to lay the foundation for mathematical ideas by observation and simple description. The lines creased in a vertical and horizontal direction present opposites, connected by the slanting line; or the law is illustrated in the angles, the right angle connecting the obtuse and the acute.

In paper-intertwining the forms based on the square and the different triangles are represented in outline by paper folded to a narrow strip.

Weaving is one of the favorite occupations of children, and proceeds from the simplest and roughest work to most artistic patterns and figures of their own invention. After some practice other material may be used, as leather, ribbon,