Words, says Froebel, first separate the child from the world outside him.
“Up to this stage (the beginning of speech), the inner being of man is still an unmembered, undifferentiated unity. With language, the expression and representation of the internal begin; with language, organization, or a differentiation with reference to ends and means sets in.”—E., p. 50.
Both in the earlier “Education of Man,” and in his later writings Froebel uses the strong expression that “the word creates the thing” for the child, and in one passage he adds that by language the idea is defined and retained.
“This period is pre-eminently the period of the development of speech. Therefore in all the child did, it was indispensable that what he did should be clearly designated by words. Every object, every thing became such, as it were, only through the word; before it had been named although the child might have seemed to see it with the outer eyes, it had no existence for the child. The name, as it were, created the thing for the child; hence the name and the thing seemed to be one.”—E., p. 90.
“Through her little rhymes the mother will make clear to the little one what he has done, and so his accidental productions will become a point of departure for his self-development. Word and form are opposite and yet related. Hence the word should accompany the form as its shadow. In a certain sense, giving a form a name really creates the form itself. Through the name, moreover, the form is retained in memory and defined in thought.”—P., p. 192.
Of very early speech Froebel says that it shows:
“the peculiarity and requirement of the human mind to render itself intelligible to clarify itself by communication with others.”—P., p. 56.
Having investigated his surroundings, near or far, and collected what seems to him attractive, the child, whether older or younger, arranges his treasures in some way, and this arrangement implies some comparison. “Like things must be ranged together and things unlike must be separated,” says Froebel of the child “scarce able to walk,” who has collected “the small, smooth, pebbles washed out of the sand by the rain.” This “arranging objects of each kind singly in a row” is at first no doubt only a recognition of the like and unlike, but Froebel notes that it is also one way in which the child may arrive at “the capacity for counting” by which his sphere of knowledge is again extended.
“The knowledge of the relations of quantity adds much to a child’s life.… At first he places together similar objects.… Who has not had frequent opportunity to observe how the child arranges the objects of each kind singly in a row. Let the mother supply the quickening word, saying Apple, apple, apple, etc. All apples. Pear, pear, pear, etc. All pears.… One pear, another apple, another apple.… Instead of the indefinite word “another” the mother subsequently uses the numerals, counting together with the child, thus: One apple, two apples, three apples, etc.”—E., p. 80.