Its material is also of great advantage in that it lessens the possibility of startling noises which would distract the child from the contemplation of its qualities. By its use, he is first led to observation, and then to self-expression. As the simplest type-form as well as the most universal, it offers a satisfactory basis for the classification of objects in general; while its indefiniteness and adaptability make it a useful medium for the expression of the child's vague ideas. With the ball we give first impressions of Unity, Form, Color, Material, Mobility, Motion, Direction, and Position. The ball songs and plays are used as the first exercises in language, singing, and rhythm.
5. As the kindergarten gifts are designed to serve as an alphabet of form, by whose use the child may learn to read all material objects, it follows that they must form an organically connected sequence, moving in logical order from an object which contains all qualities, but directly emphasizes none, to objects more specialized in nature, and therefore more definitely suggestive as to use.
"Each successive gift in the series must not only be implicit in, but demanded by, its predecessor;" so Froebel selects the ball, with its simplicity but great adaptability, for the starting-point of his series.
6. Connected contrasts of Motion, Direction, and Position are shown in the first gift. By the use of pigments, the so-called secondary colors, purple, orange, and green, may be produced from the opposite hues, red and blue, red and yellow, and blue and yellow.
"The mind is aroused to attention and led to comparison by contrasts; on the groundwork of comparison, it is enabled to do the work of classification, of clear abstraction, of the formation of definite ideas by the connection of these contrasts."[3]
The Ball a Universal Plaything.
"The presentiment of truth always goes before the recognition of it," says Froebel; and it would seem, indeed, as it, in selecting the first gift, he looked far back into the past of humanity, and there sought the thread which from the beginning connects all times and leads to the farthest future.
"The ball is the last plaything of men, as well as the first with children." In Kreutzer's "Symbolik" we read that the educators of the young god Bacchus gave him golden balls to play with, and also that the youthful princes of Persia played with them, and alone had this privilege.
It is a significant fact that we find balls even among the remains of the Lake Dwellers of Northern Italy and Switzerland, while small, round balls, resembling marbles, have been found in the early Egyptian tombs. The Teutons made ball-plays national, and built houses in which to indulge in these exercises in all sections of Germany, as late as the close of the sixteenth century. The ancient Aztecs used the game of ball as a training in warfare for the young men of the nation; and that it was considered of great importance is evident from the fact that the tribute exacted by a certain Aztec monarch from some of the cities conquered by him consisted of balls, and amounted to sixteen thousand annually.