Kindergarten practice was far ahead of this, for here the teacher was expected to choose her material according to (1) Time of Year; (2) Local Conditions, such as the pursuits of the people; (3) Social Customs.  When it was possible the children went to see the real blacksmith or the real cow, and to let game or handwork be an expression, and a re-ordering of ideas gained was natural and right.  Connectedness, however, meant more than this, it meant that the material itself was to be treated so that the children would be helped to that real understanding which comes from seeing things in their relations to each other.  As Lloyd Morgan puts it, “We are mainly at work upon the mental background.  It is our object to make this background as rich and full and orderly as possible, so that whatever is brought to the focus of consciousness shall be set in a relational background, which shall give it meaning; and so that our pupils may be able to feel the truth which Browning puts into the mouth of Fra Lippo Lippi: 

  This world’s no blot for us
  Nor blank; it means intensely and means good: 
  To find its meaning is my meat and drink.”

According to Professor Dewey, some such linking or joining is necessary “to foster that sense which is at the basis of attention and of all intellectual growth, the sense of continuity.”  The Herbartian correlation was designed to further that well-connected circle of thought out of which would come the firm will, guided by right insight, inspired by true feeling, which is their aim in education.

Froebelian unity and connectedness have, like the others, an intellectual and a moral aspect.  Intellectually “the essential characteristic of instruction is the treatment of individual things in their relationships”; morally, the idea of unity is that we are all members one of another.  The child who, through unhindered activity, has reached the stage of self-consciousness is to go on to feel himself a part, a member of an ever-increasing whole—­family, school, township, country, humanity—­the All; to be “one with Nature, man and God.”

Every one has heard something of the new teaching—­which, by the way, sheds clearer light over Froebel’s warning against arbitrary interference—­viz. that a great part of the nervous instability which affects our generation is due to the thwarting and checking of the natural impulses of early years.  But this new school also gives us something positive, and reinforces older doctrines by telling us to integrate behaviour.  “This matter of the unthwarted lifelong progress of behaviour integration is of profound importance, for it is the transition from behaviour to conduct.  The more integrated behaviour is harmonious and consistent behaviour toward a larger and more comprehensive situation, toward a bigger section of the universe; it is lucidity and breadth of purpose.  The child playing with fire is only wrong conduct because it is behaviour that does not take into account consequences; it is not adjusted to enough of the environment; it will be made right by an enlargement of its scope and reach."[19]