“The nature of man as a being intended for self-consciousness, shows itself in the quite distinctive nature of the child’s activity, even at the end of the so-called three months’ slumber, in the totality of the first childish action. This cannot be better comprehended than by the expression ‘to busy himself’ (sich beschäftigen) in the impulse of the child—an impulse awakening simultaneously with his inner life—an impulse in close union with feeling and perception, to be active for the increasing development of his life: in this lies the nature of man as a being intended to grow towards and ultimately to become self-conscious.”—P., p. 22.
Speaking of his second plaything, intended for a child six months old, he says:
“And so his play, and through his play, his surroundings—finally Nature and Universe—may become a mirror of himself and of his life. But this cannot be too early facilitated, that the child at once, from the first beginning of his self-developing feeling of life, may grow up in exchange and comparison with Nature and life, and as he impresses his life in form, and as form on things outside, so he may again perceive his life therein.”—P., p. 95.
Froebel was bound to watch for early developments of self-consciousness, because his whole philosophy and pedagogy are based on his firm belief that while everything in the universe is an expression of the Divine, man alone is “destined” to express the God within “with self-determination.” So, of the little child, he writes:
“Because the child himself begins to represent his inner being outwardly, he imputes the same activity to all about him, to the pebble and chip of wood, to the plant, the flower, and the animal. And thus there is developed in the child at this stage his own life, his life with parents and family, and particularly his life in and with Nature, as if this held life like that which he feels within himself.”—E., p. 54.
As the child grows older, the mother, Froebel continues, tries to teach him to feel the complexity of his own body, “Give me your arm,” “Where is your hand?” she says, and she “playfully leads him to a knowledge of the members which he cannot see,” and the passage ends:
“The aim of all this is to lead the child to self-consciousness, to reflection about himself in the approaching period of boyhood. Thus, a boy ten years old, similarly guided by instinct, believing himself unobserved, soliloquized: ‘I am not my arm, nor my ear; all my limbs and organs I can separate from myself, and I still remain myself; I wonder what I am; who and what is this which I call myself?’”—E., p. 56.
Nor does Froebel forget the idea of the self as the boy grows older.
Once the activities of running, jumping, etc., are familiar, the boy’s play takes on a new complexion. His games are now “trials of strength,” or “displays of strength.”