First:  The words suggest thought to the child.

Second:  The thought suggests gesture.

Third:  The gesture aids in producing the proper feeling.

We all believe thoroughly in the influence of mind on body, the inward working outward, but we are not as ready to see the influence of body on mind.  Yet if mind or soul acts upon the body, the external gesture and attitude just as truly react upon the inward feeling.  “The soul speaks through the body, and the body in return gives command to the soul.”  All attitudes mean something, and they all influence the state of mind.

Fourth:  The melody begets spiritual impressions.

Fifth:  The gestures, feeling, and melody unite in giving a sweet and gentle intercourse, in developing love for labor, home, country, associates, and dumb animals, and in unconsciously directing the intellectual powers.

Learning to sing well is the best possible means of learning to speak well, and the exquisite precision which music gives to kindergarten play destroys all rudeness, and does not in the least rob it of its fun or merriment.

“We cannot tell how early the pleasing sense of musical cadence affects a child.  In some children it is blended with the earliest, haziest recollection of life at all, as though they had been literally ‘cradled in sweet song;’ and we may be sure that the hearing of musical sounds and singing in association with others are for the child, as for the adult, powerful influences in awakening sympathetic emotion, and pleasure in associated action.”

Who can see the kindergarten games, led by a teacher who has grown into their spirit, and ever forget the joy of the spectacle?  It brings tears to the eyes of any woman who has ever been called mother, or ever hopes to be; and I have seen more than one man retire surreptitiously to wipe away his tears.  Is it “that touch of nature which makes the whole world kin”?  Is it the perfect self-forgetfulness of the children?  Is it a touch of self-pity that the radiant visions of our childhood days have been dispelled, and the years have brought the “inevitable yoke”?  Or is it the touching sight of so much happiness contrasted with what we know the home life to be?

Sydney Smith says:  “If you make children happy now, you will make them happy twenty years hence by the memory of it;” and we know that virtue kindles at the touch of this joy.  “Selfishness, rudeness, and similar weedy growths of school-life or of street-independence cannot grow in such an atmosphere.  For joy is as foreign to tumult and destruction, to harshness and selfish disregard of others, as the serene, vernal sky with its refreshing breezes is foreign to the uproar and terrors of the hurricane.”

For this kind of ideal play we are indebted to Friedrich Froebel, and if he had left no other legacy to childhood, we should exalt him for it.