ing in
the hands of an ingenious teacher will serve the purpose or take the
place of the kindergarten. People who say this evidently have no
conception of Froebel's plan, in which the simultaneous training of
head, heart, and hand is the most striking characteristic.

The kindergarten is mainly distinguished from the later instruction of
the school by making the knowledge of facts and the cultivation of
the memory subordinate to the development of observation and to the
appropriate activity of the child, physical, mental, and moral. Its
aim is to utilize the now almost wasted time from four to six years, a
time when all negligent and ignorant mothers leave the child to chance
development, and when the most careful mother cannot train her
child into the practice of social virtues so well as the truly wise
kindergartner who works with her. "We learn through doing" is the
watchword of the kindergarten, but it must be a _doing_ which blossoms
into _being_, or it does not fulfill its ideal, for it is character
building which is to go on in the kindergarten, or it has missed
Froebel's aim.

What does the kindergarten do for children under six years of age?
What has it accomplished when it sends the child to the primary
school? I do not mean what Froebel hoped could be done, or what is
occasionally accomplished with bright children and a gifted teacher,
or even what is done in good private kindergartens, for that is yet
more; but I mean what is actually done for children by charitable
organizations, which are really doing the work of the state.

I think they can claim tangible results which are wholly remarkable;
and yet they do not work for results, or expect much visible fruit in
these tender years, from a culture which is so natural, child-like,
and unobtrusive that its very outward simplicity has caused it to be
regarded as a plaything.

In glancing over the acquirements of the child who has left the
kindergarten, and has been actually _taught_ nothing in the ordinary
acceptation of the word, we find that he has worked, experimented,
invented, compared, reproduced. All things have been revealed in the
doing, and productive activity has enlightened and developed the mind.

First, as to arithmetic. It does not come first, but though you
speak with the tongues of men and angels, and make not mention of
arithmetic, it profiteth you nothing. The First Gift shows one object,
and the children get an idea of one whole; in th