, of the same size and
appropriate coloring, and to be had either plain or gummed on the
back. After the inventions have been made, they are easily transferred
to paper with parquetry, and so can be bestowed according to the will
of the inventor.

Group Work.

The parquetry of the seventh gift lends an added grace to cooperative
work, for the children can now combine all their material in one form
to decorate the room, or perhaps to send as a gift to an absent
playmate. They may make an inlaid floor for the doll's house, a
brightly colored windowpane for the sun to stream through, and with
larger forms may even design an effective border for the wainscoting
of the schoolroom.[65]

[65] "The utility of this united action is not to be
overlooked. The children all proceed according to one and the
same law, they all work to produce one and the same result,
the same purpose unites them all; in short, we see here in
the children's play all that forms the base of every human
society, all that renders it possible for men to act together
in organized communities, such as are the family, the state,
and the church. And to prepare for the future, to be mindful
even amidst play of that which a child will afterwards
require in order worthily to fill his place in the world,
ought surely not to be among the least important ends of an
education claiming to be in conformity with nature and
reason."--H. Goldammer, _The Kindergarten_, page 135.

The group work at the square tables is also carried on very fully with
the tablets, the symmetrical figures when the colors are well combined
being quite dazzling in beauty.

Color with Seventh Gift.

In this connection, a danger may be noted in the treatment of the
gifts, both by kindergartner and children. Color appears again here in
almost bewildering profusion after its long absence in the series, and
is another straw to prove that the wind is blowing strongly toward the
occupations. Many of the pasteboard tablets are of different colors on
the opposite sides, and though this is of great use in Beauty forms,
when properly treated, it is quite often unfortunate in forms of life,
unless careful attention is given to arranging the material
beforehand. The effect of a barn, for instance, with its front view
checkered with violet, red, and yellow squares, may be imagined, or
of a pigeon-house with a parti-colored green and blue roof, a