It is clear that this meaning is quite lost when the same proceeding is forced on older children, who are quite accustomed to pull down and build up.
Froebel emphasizes the fact that the pieces are of the same cubical form as the whole thus presented, and adds:
“Thus fundamental perceptions, whole and part, form, and size, are made clear by comparison and contrast, as well as deeply impressed by repetition.”—P., p. 119.
It is in speaking of this simplest of toys that Froebel enters a strong protest against the complex and useless toys which afford no scope for childish activity.
“Here, then, we meet a very great imperfection and inadequateness—indeed in reference to the inner development of the child an obstructing element in that which is now so frequently provided as a plaything for children; an element which slumbers like a viper under roses—it is, in a word, the already too complex and ornate, too-finished plaything. The child can begin no new thing with it, cannot produce enough variety by means of it; his power of creative imagination, his power of giving form to his own idea, are thus actually deadened. For when we provide children with too finished playthings we at the same time deprive them of the incentive to perceive the particular in the general, and of taking the means to find it.… What presents are the most prized by the child as well as by mankind in general? Those which afford him a means of unfolding his inner life most purely and of shaping it in a varied manner, giving it freest activity and presenting it clearly.”—P., p. 122.
This quotation sets forth quite plainly the main idea underlying all the varied toys or play-material known as the “Gifts and Occupations” of the Kindergarten.
According to Mr. Hailmann and other writers, the gifts are material by which the child can gain ideas, and the occupations furnish material for gaining skill. But Mr. Hailmann allows that this distinction, which to him seems important, was never formulated by Froebel.
Froebel’s psychological knowledge, in fact, was in advance of that of his interpreters. He knew that it was by action, by manipulation of material, that the child gains his ideas and that the clear distinction between gift and occupation which to Mr. Hailmann is “very important” is on the contrary actually non-existent.