y are given to the child without
a single word, they carry something of their own logic with them.

They emphasize the gospel of doing, for Froebel believes in positives
in teaching, not negatives; in stimulants, not deterrents. How
inexpressibly tiresome is the everlasting "Don't!" in some households.
Don't get in the fire, don't play in the water, don't tease the kitty,
don't trouble the doggy, don't bother the lady, don't interrupt, don't
contradict, don't fidget with your brother, and _don't_ worry me
now; while perhaps in this whole tirade, not a word has been said of
something to do.

Let sleeping faults lie as long as possible while we quietly oust
them, little by little, by developing the good qualities. Surely the
less we use deterrents the better, since they are often the child's
first introduction to what is undesirable or wrong. I am quite sure
they have something of that effect on grown people. The telling us not
to do, and that we cannot, must not, do a certain thing surrounds it
with a momentary fascination. If your enemy suggests that there is a
pot of Paris green on the piazza, but you must not take a spoonful and
dissolve it in a cup of honey and give it to your maiden aunt who has
made her will in your favor, your innocent mind hovers for an instant
over the murderous idea.

Froebel's play-materials come to the child when he has entered upon
the war-path of getting "something to do." If legitimate means fail,
then "let the portcullis fall;" the child must be busy.

The fly on the window-pane will be crushed, the kettle tied to the
dog's tail, the curtains cut into snips, the baby's hair shingled,--
anything that his untiring hands may not pause an instant,--anything
that his chubby legs may take his restless body over a circuit of a
hundred miles or so before he is immured in his crib for the night.

The child of four or five years is still interested in objects, in the
concrete. He wants to see and to hear, to examine and to work with his
hands. How absurd then for us to make him fold his arms and keep his
active fingers still; or strive to stupefy him with such an opiate as
the alphabet. If we can possess our souls and primers in patience for
a while, and feed his senses; if we will let him take in living facts
and await the result; that result will be that when he has learned to
perceive, compare, and construct, he will desire to learn words, for
they tell him what others have seen, thought, a