... Questa montagna è tale
Che sempre al cominciar di sotto è grave:
E quant’ uom più va su, e men fa male.
Però, quand’ ella ti parrà soave
Tanto che il su andar ti fia leggero,
Com’ a seconda giù andar per nave,
Allor sarai al fin d’ esto sentiero:
Quivi di riposar l’ affanno aspetta![216]
There is a moral progression by which man enters gradually and by accumulation into the fulness of self-conquest, and so, of his inheritance of Freedom.
But “grading” also, in the more specific sense, seems to be symbolised in the Purgatorio. This principle was not born with Froebel, though its emphatic recognition to-day may be an outcome of his message that each stage of the child-life has its own absolute value and rights.