"A new gift is demanded—a gift wherein the length, breadth, and thickness of a solid body shall be distinguished from each other by difference of size. Such a gift will open the child's eyes to the three dimensions of space, and will serve also as a means of recognizing and interpreting the manifold forms and structures with which he is constantly brought in contact."
"The inner difference, intimated in the three perpendicular axes of the cube (and the sphere), now becomes externally visible and abiding in each of its building blocks as a difference of size."
Fr. Froebel.
"The fourth gift incites the child to consider things in their relations to space, and to the forces of nature, and in his play with the bricks he is constantly engaged in efforts to adapt himself to the laws of their nature, while rendering them subservient to his ends."
W. N. Hailmann.
1. The fourth gift consists of a cube measuring two inches in each of its dimensions. It is divided once vertically in its height, and three times horizontally in its thickness, giving eight parallelopipeds or bricks, each two inches long, one inch wide, and one half inch thick.
2. Like the third gift in form, size, material, and use, it is unlike it in division. In the third gift the parts were like each other, and like the whole, in the fourth they are like each other, but unlike the whole.
3. The most important characteristics of the gift are:—
a. Approximation to surface in the symmetrical forms.
b. Greater height and greater extension, resulting in a greater possible inclosure of space.