fts was such that the child might be led in their use
through the world's great architectural epochs from Egypt to Rome.[59]

[59] "As the gifts proceed from the first to the sixth,
observation is demanded with increasing strictness,
relativity more and more appreciated, and the opportunity
afforded for endless manifestations of the constructive
faculty, while all the time impressions are forming in the
mind which in due time will bear rich fruits of mathematical
and practical knowledge as well as aesthetic culture, for the
dawning sense of the beautiful as well as of the true is
gaining consistency and power." (Karl Froebel.)

Forms of Symmetry.

Although with this gift we cannot produce symmetrical forms in as
great diversity as with the fifth, yet the materials are productive to
the inventive mind, and when the pieces are arranged with care and
taste, beautiful figures may always be developed, those having a
triangular centre being novel and especially pleasing. Although not as
diversified, however, they have the added advantage of approaching
nearer the plane; and that this progression may be more clearly shown,
it seems evident that the symmetrical forms should only be produced by
laying the columns, "square-faced blocks" and bricks, flat upon the
table, and that the practice, advised by some authorities, of changing
the figures by placing the blocks erect, or half erect, should be
discouraged.

Forms of Knowledge.

In the forms of knowledge we find again much less diversity than in
the fifth gift,--the rectilinear solids and consequent absence of
oblique angles limiting us in the construction of geometrical forms.
The blocks, however, offer excellent means for general arithmetical
instruction, for working out problems as to areas, for further
illustration of dimension, and for building many varieties of
parallelopipeds, square prisms, and cubes, and studying the
parallelograms which bound them. The elements of this knowledge, it is
true, were gained with the fourth gift, but we must remember that
interest in any subject is not necessarily decreased by repetition,
and that the value of review depends upon whether or not it is
mechanical.[60]

[60] "What makes Froebel's gifts particularly instructive is,
indeed, the fact that the most varied materials constantly
lead to the same observations, but always under different
conditions, so that we obtain the