2 1 article friedrich froebels gifts

8/13/2019 2 1 Article Friedrich Froebels Gifts

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2009 by the Board o rustees o the University o Illinois

Friedrich Froebels Gifts

Connecting the Spiritual and Aestheticto the Real World of Play and Learning

E F. P, J.

Friedrich Froebel, the German educator and ounder o the Kindergarten Move-ment, developed a series o play materials including geometric building blocks andpattern activity blocks designed to teach children about orms and relationshipsound in nature. Froebels notions about using activity and play in preschool educa-tion complement many principles o early childhood education used in contempo-rary schools. But ew modern teachers and educators study the nineteenth-centuryeducation pioneer or his ideas. Tis article explores how his system o learningthrough directed play ocused on his play materials, called gifs,is still importantand relevant to children and learning today.

F F, German educator and ounder o the KindergartenMovement, is not widely known in modern education or play theory. While

respected as a pioneer in early childhood education, Froebels ideas inspire little

discussion o the potential relevance o his work to contemporary education or

o the pertinence o his theories or todays children. It is the thesis o this article

that Froebels ideasparticularly those involving toys and playshould be bet-

ter understood by contemporary educators and that his approach to educating

young children can provide a starting point or reorming many elements ohow we currently teach children and or improving the opportunities they have

or play.

I Froebel is not widely known by most contemporary educators, he is even

less amiliar to the general public. Tis is true even though he, as much as any

single figure, ounded the modern Kindergarten Movement. Born to a Lutheran

minister in 1782, Froebel was prooundly shaped by his religious belies and

his experiences as a child. He did not get along with the stepmother who raised

him, and, when he was fifeen, his parents apprenticed him to a orester. For

two years, the boy studied plants and trees. From this experienceand rom


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86 A M E R I C A N J O U R N A L O F P L A Y S

the time he spent working as a mineralogist or the Royal Museum in Berlin

Froebel developed much o his understanding o nature. For Froebel, natureliterally revealed the truths o religion and the meaning o God. As he explained,

Nature presents the truths o religion in visible orm, and confirms what we

learn by mediating upon God. What we thus conceive we find existing in the

material world. So it is that nature satisfies the demands o religion. For like

all that exists, nature reveals God.1

Froebels emphasis on spiritualityand the religiously dogmatic interpre-

tation o his ideas in late nineteenth-century America by the likes o Susan E.

Blowperhaps help to explain why his ideas are not more widely appreciated. Inany case, such dogmatism was successully challenged by a progressive movement

in kindergarten education led by Patty Smith Hill, Anna Bryan, Alice Putnam,

and others. Whereas Blow emphasized a ormulaic and orthodox approach to

Froebels work, the progressives saw his ideas as just a starting point to which

they added a new model o child study and developmentone which also took

into account childrens learning in urban settings.2

In truth, Froebels ideas were part o the larger Romantic philosophical move-

ment in Germany. While attending the University o Jena, Froebel was introduced

to the ideas o Immanuel Kant, Johann Wolgang von Goethe, Friedrich Schiller,

Illustration 1. A nineteenth-century engraving o FriedrichFroebel by . Johnson.


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and others. Froebel was particularly influenced by the work o Johann Gottlieb

Fichte who, in his 1808Addresses to the German Nation, claimed the ideas o the

Swiss educator Johann Heinrich Pestalozzi provided a means o renewing Ger-man culture through education.3According to Barbara Beatty, Froebel was also

prooundly moved by Friedrich von Schellings 1802 Bruno, or Te Natural and

the Divine Principle o Tings, rom which he obtained much o his understanding

o nature and the interconnectedness o all things.4

Froebels invention o kindergarten was essentially a synthesis o the ideas

o Fichte and Pestalozzi. He believed that the education o a child should start

shortly afer birth. His ideas emphasized the spiritual dimensions o a child, and

he developed a theory o play based on what he believed was a childs natural

need or activity.5

His belie that a child needed to be active and engaged in meaningul play

led Froebel to make what many consider to be his most important contribu-

tion to education: Froebelsgifs and occupations. Te gifs and occupations

were a series o twenty devices and activities, essentially a hands-on curricular

system, intended to introduce children to the physical orms and relationships

ound in nature. Tese tangible objects and activities assumed that there was

a mathematical and natural logic underlying all things in natureone which

Froebel ascribed to Gods handiwork.6Ofen the first ten o Froebels educa-tional activities were reerred to as the gifs,and the second set o activities were

the occupations. Froebels ollowers evidently adhered to this division much

more closely than Froebel himsel. In this article, I ollow Norman Broster-

mans model in his book Inventing Kindergartenand reer to all o Froebels

educational activities simply as the gifs.7

Te gifs literally unctioned as tools with which to awaken and develop

a childs recognition o the common, God-given elements ound in nature.

Froebels philosophy embraced a Christian pantheism, one that assumed that allthings in nature (animal, vegetable, and mineral) are connected. Tus Froebel

was concerned with showing the interrelationships between living and inani-

mate things. His gifs helped him do so by instilling in children an apprecia-

tion o natural orms and harmonies. Such an accomplishment remains clearly

consistent with his more general understanding o the purpose o education,

the nature o which he believed to be directed by an eternal law and unity.

For the modern educator and reader, Froebels ideas are highly abstract,

metaphysical, deeply religious, and spiritual. Tey do not necessarily resonate

with more modern ideas o efficiency in education, o teaching to the standards,

F r i edr i ch F roebe l s G i f t s 87


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and o educational accountability. Tis is a shame. Froebel should interest mod-

ern educators i or no other reason than to show us how to take a spiritually

based model o education and translate its abstractions into tangible and engag-ing educational activities and devices or children. Te gifs, when used selectively

and in an updated manner, also stand by themselves as valuable manipulatives

or early childhood education and play.

In act, we still use many o Froebels ideas and materials without acknowl-

edging their source. We consider block play, or example, as a basic learning

activity in early childhood education. It was Froebel who introduced the use

o blocks on a wide scale into early childhood education (third, ourth, fifh,

and sixth gifs). Likewise, the use o parquetry and pattern recognition (sev-

enth and thirteenth gifs) is one o his important contributions, as is the use o

structural-design toys similar to inkertoys (nineteenth gif).

Froebel did not particularly emphasize the differences between the gifs.

His system, however, deliberately moved rom the simple to the complex: rom

solid, to plane, to line, to point, and then reversed to arrive back in three di-

mensions with activities in peas-work and modeling clay.8Writing in 1871,

Bertha Maria von Marenholtz-Blow, one o Froebels most influential ollow-

ers, argued that a child learned about things, rom the simple to the complex,

by using the Froebelian materials. In doing so, a child recognizes the agree-ment between the intellectually organic linking o his own being with that in

the material world.9

Froebels gifs were not only clever inventions, but wonderully appropriate

in terms o the cognitive and developmental needs o children. Te first gif,

or example, was a collection o six sof woolen balls, each one on a string. Te

three main balls are red, blue, and yellow (the primary colors). Te remaining

three balls were violet, orange, and green (the secondary colors), representing

the combination or synthesis o the colors or each o the three main balls (red+ blue = violet; red + yellow = orange; and blue + yellow = green). Froebel used

the balla perectly round shape or spherebecause it was an idealized orm

(equally proportioned on all sides, without end or beginning, in terms o its

surace, and so on).

From a practical point o view, the first gif was used to introduce children

to basic concepts in the world around them. By grasping, swinging, rolling,

dropping, hiding the ball, and so on, children learned about concepts such as

here, there, over, right, lef, larger, and smaller.

Similar concepts have been integrated into contemporary instruction orchildren today. Concepts such as top, through, below, away rom, next to, and


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inside, or example, are the first five (o fify) concepts listed by Ann Boehm as

part o her Boehm est o Basic Concepts (BBC), one o the most widely used

modern tests designed to measure childrens mastery o concepts considered

necessary or achievement in the first two years o school.10Essential or chil-

drens reading readiness, the mastery o these concepts orms a undamental

part o most contemporary childrens early education.11

In his second gif, Froebel created a simple yet metaphysical educationaltoy. Tis device o three parts consisted o a wooden sphere approximately three

Illustration 2. Examples o suggested exercises using Froebels first gif, illustrated in Johann and

Bertha Ronge,A Practical Guide to the English Kindergarten (1855).

Illustration 3. Te second gifillustrated in Mrs. John (Ma-ria) Krause-Boelte, Charac-teristics o Froebels Method,

inAddresses and Proceedingso the National EducationalAssociation (1876). 217.



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inches in diameter, a wooden cube, and a wooden cylinder. It demonstrated

not only the principle o unity ound in all living and inanimate things, but

also the dialectical principle o the German Romanticera philosopher, GeorgWilhelm Friedrich Hegel.

According to Hegels theory, thesis and antithesis yield synthesis. Tus, seem-

ingly opposite and opposed things can be synthesized or combined together

through the dialectic process to create a new unity. In the case o the sphere, all

sides o the object are round. In the case o the cube, all sides are rectilinear or

square. Combining these two seemingly opposite objects creates a synthesis in

the orm o the cylinder, which includes both flat and rounded sides.

When asked i his system was based on Hegels dialectical theory, Froebel

responded that he had not studied Hegels work, but that the whole meaning o

his own system rested upon this law alone. It is almost certain that he picked up

on Hegels ideas, which were widely circulated in German universities during

Froebels era, without his realizing their source. Tere is, however, the possibil-

ity that Froebel invented his theory independently o Hegels ideas.12

Froebel created extremely clever pedagogical exercises using these devices,

which urther demonstrated the synthetic merging o opposites. In each o the

solid orms o the second gif (sphere, cube, cylinder), he drilled holes through

the center, rom plane to plane. By pushing a long dowel through each orm,the parts o the second gif became tops. By spinning the cylinder rapidly, the

image o a sphere would appear. Trough this brilliant manipulation o the

objects in the second gif, Froebel was able to demonstrate the essential unity

and connectedness o seemingly opposite orms.

Illustration 4. Te third gifillustrated in Mrs. John (Ma-ria) Krause-Boelte, Charac-teristics o Froebels Method,inAddresses and Proceedingso the National EducationalAssociation (1876).


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Froebels next our gifs were sets o blocks, something we take or granted

today as part o early childhood education but novel in Froebels time. In the

third gif, the block set consisted o a two-inch cube divided into eight smallerand equal-sized cubes. Te ourth gif also consisted o a divided cubemade

up o oblong blocks. Where the third gif included blocks equal in height, length,

and breadth, the oblong blocks o the ourth gif are twice as long as they are

broad, and twice as broad as they are high. Te fifh and sixth gifs represent

expansions o the third and ourth.

Froebels blocks were radical innovations in the history o play. He asked

children not to imitate the world around them, but to use the blocks as elements

in creating their own structures. By manipulating the blocks on the gridded

tables that were a standard eature o nineteenth-century kindergarten class-

rooms, children created simple pieces o urniture, complex patterned designs,

or complex architectural structures. In commenting on the third and ourth

gifs, Maria Kraus-Boeltean early American-based advocate o kindergarten

educationnoted that children learn particularly in these gifs to develop in

themselves the great law o order, which is the condition o everything that lives

and moves.13

Te first six o Froebels gifs emphasized three-dimensional objects. His

seventh gif, Parquetry, represented a transition to the abstract. Parquetry con-sisted o brightly colored wooden or cardboard pieces in five different shapes

(square, right isosceles triangle, equilateral triangle, and others). Each o the

parquetry units was based on the one-inch module o the block system and the

gridded table surace. From Parquetry, as well as Cutting (thirteenth gif), Weav-

ing (ourteenth gif), and Folding (eighteenth gif), children learned symmetry

o orm and neatness, and the endless changes delight the ancy and awaken the

intelligence and higher understanding.14

Te remaining Froebelian gifs dealt with different aspects o line, pattern,color, and structure: the eighth gif consisted o sticks or laying down patterns;

the ninth gif encouraged making patterns with circular pieces; the tenth gif

involved drawing; the eleventh gif inspired drawing or printing on preprinted

grids; and the twelfh gif required children to sew using gridded patterns or

images o objects on cards. Gifs fifeen, sixteen, and seventeen were essentially

variations on earlier activities.

Among the most important o the later gifs was Peas Work (nineteenth

gif), which was a primitive inkertoy system using peas or cork balls and small

lengths o wood. Its purpose was to take point and line and project them into



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volumetric orms that could also provide skeletal supports or structures and

objects children created.

Peas Work, which seems obscure on the surace, was a brilliant way to in-

troduce children to basic engineering principles. Many years afer he attended

kindergarten in Milton, Massachusetts, the American architect Buckminster

Fuller recalled how he discovered the triangle (the undamental unit o Fullers

Illustration 5. Te eighth gifillustrated in Mrs. John (Ma-ria) Krause-Boelte, Charac-

teristics o Froebels Method,inAddresses and Proceedingso the National EducationalAssociation (1876).

Illustration 6.Te nineteenthgif illustrated inMrs. John (Maria)Krause-Boelte,Characteristics oFroebels Method,inAddresses andProceedingso theNational Educa-tional Association

(1876).


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amous geodesic-dome system) as a structural and architectural concept by

working with the nineteenth gif.

One o my first days at kindergarten the teacher brought us some tooth-

picks and semi-dried peas, and told us to make structures. With my bad

sight, I was used to seeing only bulks. I had no eeling about structural

lines. Te other children, who had good eyes, were amiliar with houses

and barns. Because I couldnt see, I naturally had recourse to my other

senses. When the teacher told us to make structures, I tried to make

something that would work. Pushing and then pulling, I ound that

the triangle held its shape when nothing else did. Te other children

made rectangular structures that seemed to stand up because the peas

held them in shape. Te teacher called all the other teachers in primary

school to take a look at this triangular structure. I remember being

surprised that they were surprised.15

Te twentieth gif, the final gif, involved children doing ree-orm modeling

using clay or bees wax. Tis final gif allowed children to work with a totally

flexible orm and impose on it whatever shape they wished.

On the surace, it is easy to dismiss Froebels work as simply childs play.In act, his educational devices and the philosophical system underlying them

were prooundly spiritual and aesthetic. Froebels system clearly relates to how

children develop according to the theories o Jean Piaget and his ollowers.16

Froebels gifsprogress rom the simple to the complex, which makes their use

compatible with Piagets ideas. Te gifs hands-on elements reinorce the idea

o concrete learningan essential part o Piagets work and almost certainly

his most significant contribution to educational practice.

As noted earlier, it is Froebels religious belies and spirituality that probablycause the most difficulty or contemporary educators. Spirituality is a subject

simply not widely discussed in education, avoided because o its religious over-

tones. While Froebel was trying to connect children to larger religious belies,

he was also interested in helping them understand their own relationship and

the relationship o humankind to nature. Such thinking nowadays resonates

with our concerns or the environment, and we can read Froebels attempts

to connect children to nature and the world ecologically. So, although helping

children understand the meaning o God was essential to Froebel, it is not es-

sential or those who wish to use the gifs in contemporary education.



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I suggest that the gifs can be easily removed rom Froebels religious con-

text and used to ground children in the real world through personal experience

and hands-on learning. In this context, Froebels ideas complement the work othe educationally progressive John Dewey, who included kindergarten instruc-

tion as an important part o his educational system. While Dewey sided with

the progressive kindergarten leaders such as Patty Smith Hill and Anna Bryan,

his strong convictions about learning through doing and hands-on education

do not contradict the basic principles learned through the gifs. I cannot help

but think that Dewey, who early in his career embraced Hegelianism, would

have had little trouble with the dialectical quality o the gifs. Whatever the case,

clearly Deweys desire to ground children in meaningul hands-on learning

was not inconsistent with a broad and creative use o Froebelian materials.

Te gifs also provided children a means o engaging in the aesthetic dimen-

sions o being. Tis is something that Froebel would have assumed to come rom

children gaining a better understanding o nature and the godly spirit within

all things. In our era, we more ofen view this spiritual dimension aesthetically

rather than religiously.

And there is clear evidence that the Froebelian gifs did indeed influencein

some cases, prooundlythe aesthetic development o the children who used

them. In his book Inventing Kindergarten, Norman Brosterman argued thatseveral major artists and designers such as Buckminster Fuller, Georges

Braque, Piet Mondrian, Paul Klee, Wassily Kandinsky, Frank Lloyd Wright,

and Le Corbusier were greatly influenced by their experiences with Froebels

gifs in kindergarten.17

In the case o Paul Klee and Piet Mondrian, or example, it seems likely

that their paintings were influenced by design principles that were almost

certainly introduced to them in their early educational experiences. Tis is

clearly so in the well-documented and widely cited experience o Frank LloydWright with Froebels kindergarten materials. Wright was introduced to the

Froebelian materials through his mother who had learned about them while

visiting the 1876 Philadelphia Centennial Exhibition. In a remarkable sec-

tion o his autobiography, Frank Lloyd Wright recalled, At the Centennial

in Philadelphia, afer a sightseeing day, mother made a discovery. . . . Te

kindergarten! She had seen the Gifs in the Exposition Building. Te strips

o colored paper, glazed and matt, remarkably sof brilliant colors. Now

came the geometric by-play o those charming checkered combinations! Te

structural figures to be made with peas and globes. Te smooth shapely maple


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blocks with which to build, the sense o which never aferward leaves the

fingers:ormbecomingeeling.18

Afer her return rom Philadelphia, Wrights mother purchased a set o

the Froebelian gifs to use with her two young sons. Te set had a particularly

proound effect on Frank. Recounting his experience with the kindergarten

materials many years later, Wright explained, A small interior world o color

and orm now came within grasp o small fingers. Color and pattern, in the

flat, in the round. Shapes that lay hidden behind the appearances all about. . . .Here was something or invention to seize, and use to create. Tese Gifs came

into the gray house in drab old Weymouth and made something live that had

never lived beore.19

According to Wright, it was by playing with the Froebelian gifsin par-

ticular the paper-cutting exercisesthat he became aware o the use o color.

Trough Froebels peas work or cork work, Wright believed that he was intro-

duced to the skeletal structure o objects. According to him, the virtue o the

Froebelian toys was: in the awakening o the child-mind to rhythmic structurein Naturegiving the child a sense o innate cause-and-effect otherwise ar

beyond child-comprehension. I soon became susceptible to constructive pat-

tern evolving in everything I saw. I learned to see this way and when I did, I

did not care to draw casual incidentals o Nature. I wanted to design.20Te

probable influence o Froebels gifs on Wrights work as an architect has been

thoughtully analyzed by Norman Brosterman and others, including the au-

thor o this article.21Tere is an undeniable link between Wrights adult work

and Froebels gifs. One need only look at Wrights stained-glass windows to

realize the extent to which Froebels parquetry and paper-olding exercises

Illustration 7. Children re-ceiving instruction in theKindergarten Cottage at thePhiladelphia Centennial Ex-hibition, 1876 illustrated inFrank Leslies Historical Registero the United States CentennialExposition, 1876 (1877).



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influenced the architects designs, or how the proportions in Froebels differ-

ent block systems are replicated in Wrights buildings.22

Is all o this merely an interesting digression into historical archeology?

Why should contemporary educators and play theorists be concerned with

Froebels work? Why is it important in terms o understanding the physical

and psychological development o children? What do Froebels ideas suggestto us in terms o rediscovering spirituality in play and learning?

As I have already suggested, Froebels work points us to the idea that there

is the potential in play and play devices like the gifs to direct childrentoward

the unity ound in naturetoward what Froebel calls the pattern or patterns

that connect. In Froebels spinning o objects like the cube and cylinder in

the second gif, or example, a child receives a concrete demonstration o the

connectedness o seemingly dissimilar objects and o the more general prin-

ciples o dialectic thinkingwhat Froebel believes to be the unmistakable unityound in things.

I mentioned also that Froebels thinking can be viewed ecologically. Froebels

second gif, or example, might well be compared to recent work in the field o

social and cultural ecology. Gregory Bateson, in his classic workMind and Na-

ture, argued that the schools provide almost no training concerning the pattern

that connects disparate things in nature. Likewise, contemporary models and

theories o play do little to show children the pattern. According to Bateson,

the pattern which connects includes the notion o what things mean to one

another even when they are seemingly as different and unrelated as the crab

Illustration 8. Window inFrank Lloyd Wrights RobieHouse, Chicago, Illinois.Historic American BuildingsSurvey, Library o Congress,

Cervin Robinson, Photogra-pher, 1963.


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and lobster, the rose and primrose. Bateson asks, in turn, what do these our

lie orms mean to the amoeba or to man?23Like Froebel, Bateson seeks the

unity in all thingsor in his words, the pattern which connects all the livingcreatures.24

Froebel invented a system o play and learning that does, in act, connect

a child to nature and to that something, i there is a god and a unity, which

transcends and connects all living things. I would argue that what Froebel was

doing was prooundly important and, ultimately, deeply spiritual. By showing

how things are connected, his system was also deeply ecological.

I would like to suggest that understanding how things are connectedi.e.,

what Bateson reers to as the pattern which connectsis ultimately aesthetic.25

By aesthetic, I mean a critical reflection o nature and the artistic elements cre-

ated by humankind. In the end, it seems to me that what is most important in

scholarship and learning is the ability to see these types o connections. Modern

play theory, and, more importantly, education and our schoolsor any o a

number o complex reasons in a time o standardized tests and accountability

seem to have largely orgotten the importance o such connections. As a result,

the experience o children as playul and learning beings is diminished.

According to John P. Manning, Froebel saw man in a world filled with

objects.26Tese were objects that humans must interact with and that mustinteract with humansobjects that Froebel described as having orm, size, and

number and that must be taught.27It is this tangible element o Froebels

gifs that warrant our attention together with their abstract, philosophical, and

aesthetic underpinnings.

In conclusion, I believe that Froebel and his gifsprovide us a means by

which to ground our abstract theories o play or children in tangible and en-

gaging learning toys and activities. In doing so, the gifs are not only worthy

o being systematically reintroduced into our schools but can provide us withthe means to understand how abstract and philosophical ideas in general can

be connected to practice and to the lives o children. Manning suggests that

Froebels first ten gifs can be used in a contemporary educational context to

promote objectives such as developing hand strength (first gif), comparing

and contrasting (second gif), developing eye-hand coordination (third gif),

and so on.28His arguments are well taken, almost sel-evident. When combined

with the ideas outlined in this article, they suggest that those interested in

educational reorm, in the improvement o our schools, and in the play o our

children would do well to reconsider the insights o Froebel. Doing so, they



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would obtain the means to ground many important philosophical and aesthetic

insights and experiences in hands-on and tangible activities.

N

1. Friedrich Froebel, Froebels Chie Writings on Education, trans. S. S. F. Fletcherand James Welton (1912), 97. 2. For background on the conflict between the conservative Froebelians and the pro-gressive Kindergarten Movement, see Evelyn Weber, Te Kindergarten: Its Encounterwith Educational Tought in America (1969); Michael S. Shapiro, Childs Garden: Te

Kindergarten Movement rom Froebel to Dewey (1983); and Barbara Beatty, PreschoolEducation in America: Te Culture o Young Children rom the Colonial Era to the Pres-ent (1995). Patty Smith Hill was perhaps the most orceul o the Progressive critics. Inthis context, see Te Value and Limitations o Froebels Gifs as Educative MaterialsParts I, II, Te Elementary School eacher9 (1908): 12937. Te conflict between theconservative Froebelians and the Progressives came to a conclusion in 1913 with theissuance o Te International Kindergarten Unions Te Kindergarten: Reports o theCommittee o Nineteen on the Teory and Practice o the Kindergarten (1913). In thisreport, the view that a restatement o Froeblian principles seemed to be necessaryin light o the recent contributions o biology, sociology, and modern psychology to

the science o education prevailed (statement rom the preace o the report by LucyWheelock). 3. See Ann aylor Allen, Spiritual Motherhood: German Feminists and the Kinder-garten Movement, 18481911, History o Education Quarterly22 (1982): 321. 4. Beatty, Preschool Education in America, 40. 5. Allen, Spiritual Motherhood, 322. 6. Froebels educational philosophy was primarily explicated by his ollowers. Temost useul o his works or understanding his philosophical perspective is Te Educationo Man(1900), which was first published in Germany in 1826. See also Henry Barnard,ed., Kindergarten and Child Culture Papers(1884); Susan E. Blow, Symbolic Educa-

tion: A Commentary on Froebels Mother Play (1895); Edward Wieb, Te Paradiseo Childhood (1869); Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora Archibald Smith, Te Republic oChildhood, vol. 1, Froebels Gifs(1895); and Kate Douglas Wiggin and Nora ArchibaldSmith, Te Republic o Childhood,vol. 2, Froebels Occupations (1896). 7. See Norman Brostermans discussion o this issue in Inventing Kindergarten(1997), 35. 8. Ibid., 36. 9. Ibid. 10. Ann E. Boehm, Boehm est o Basic Concepts (Manual) (1969), 12. 11. Ibid., 3.


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12. See Beatty, Preschool Education in America, 42, or the source o these quotes,which were originally taken rom Froebels discussion o his laws o learning includedin Te Education o Man.

13. Mrs. John [Marie] Krause-Boelte, Characteristics o Froebels Method,Ad-dresses and Proceedings, National Educational Association (1876), 219. 14. Ibid., 220. 15. Buckminster Fuller, Tinking Out Loud, video, produced and directed byKaren Goodman and Kirk Simon (Zeitgeist Films, 1996), quoted by Brosterman, In-venting Kindergarten, 84. 16. See specifically works such as Jean Piagets o Understand Is o Invent(1974). 17. See note 6. 18. Frank Lloyd Wright,An Autobiography(1943), 13. 19. Ibid., 14. 20. Frank Lloyd Wright,A estament(1957), 13. 21. See Eugene F. Provenzo, Jr., and Arlene Brett, Te Complete Block Book (1983). 22. See, or example, Grant Carpenter Manson, Frank Lloyd Wright to 1910: TeFirst Golden Age(1958), 510. 23. Gregory Bateson,Mind and Nature: A Necessary Unity (1979), 8. 24. Ibid. 25. Ibid., 89. 26. John P. Manning, Rediscovering Froebel: A Call to Re-examine His Lie & Gifs,Early Childhood Education Journal32 (2005): 373.

27. Froebel as quoted by Manning, ibid., 372. 28. Ibid., 374.


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