Froebel would certainly not draw the line where Groos does, when he says “the true characteristics of play are in inverse ratio to the intensity of the desire for knowledge,” and if this rule were strictly adhered to, a good deal of what Groos does call play might have to come out.
The plays which fall under the head of Reason have two bearings, says Groos, first causality, and second inherence. There are various references to the “joy of being a cause” from the child “whose capacity for speech is as yet undeveloped,” but who draws away the support and as the cube falls “turns to his mother in joyous triumph,” up to the pride of Keilhau boys, who “might not have accomplished their fortresses without the sapper,” but “who believed that if cast on a desert island, each could build a hut of his own.” Froebel also brings in intellectual games such as draughts, and he notes how children will invent their own words and their own alphabets in play. Of the making and solving of riddles I think Froebel never speaks.
As to what Groos says of Experimentation with the feelings, the parallels in Froebel are surprise plays such as Hide and Seek, adventure and hunting games where there may be play with fear, and the legends and stories.
Under the Impulse of the Second or Socionomic order, come the Fighting Plays, Love Play, Imitative Play, and Social Play. Of Love Play, Froebel has none, but the hunting and fighting were allowed abundant scope at Keilhau. Of Imitative Play there is much that can be cited from the playful imitation of simple movements and sounds in the Mother Songs and the Kindergarten Games, to the “classic dramas” of the Keilhau boys. Plastic and constructive play, too, goes from the simplest sand play, through the Kindergarten handwork, not only up to the fortress making, but also to the “boxes with locks and hinges, so neatly finished, veneered, and polished that many a trained cabinet-maker’s apprentice could have done no better,” which were made at Keilhau.
Of the Social Plays Groos says with feeling that, however advisable, it is wellnigh impossible to make a distinct class. He starts, however, with the “need of bodily association or the herding instinct.” He brings in the child’s eager desire to be with his fellows, and the importance in adult life of festivals, religious or otherwise. He mentions the child’s voluntary submission to a leader, and speaks of play as instrumental in teaching children submission to law. We have noticed Froebel speaking of the “combined games, which will train the child, by his very nature eager for companionship, in the habit of association with comrades, in good fellowship and all that this implies.” He also wants the child to take alternately some special part in the game and to be merely one of the crowd: “Each child should have a chance to lead, for it is especially developing to a child to recognize himself as independent as well as a member of the whole.” Among the older boys, the Bergwachts for instance were carefully organized under separate leaders and the captain of the first band was director of the whole. Froebel, too, made much of festivals at Keilhau, and this has always been a recognized feature of the Kindergarten.
Enjoyment of the comic never, I think, makes its appearance at all. Froebel had many gifts, but the saving sense of humour does not appear to have been among them.
FOOTNOTES
[1] See [Chapter IX].
[2] See [Chapter X].