Thus in the play-lessons the teacher simply rules the order in which the child shall approach a new thing, and gives him the correct names which, henceforth, he must always use; but the observation of resemblances and differences (that groundwork of all knowledge), the reasoning from one point to another, and the conclusions he arrives at, are all his own; he is only led to see his mistake if he makes one.  The child handles every object from which he is taught, and learns to reproduce it.

It is not enough to say that any ordinary system of object teaching in the hands of an ingenious teacher will serve the purpose or take the place of the kindergarten.  People who say this evidently have no conception of Froebel’s plan, in which the simultaneous training of head, heart, and hand is the most striking characteristic.

The kindergarten is mainly distinguished from the later instruction of the school by making the knowledge of facts and the cultivation of the memory subordinate to the development of observation and to the appropriate activity of the child, physical, mental, and moral.  Its aim is to utilize the now almost wasted time from four to six years, a time when all negligent and ignorant mothers leave the child to chance development, and when the most careful mother cannot train her child into the practice of social virtues so well as the truly wise kindergartner who works with her.  “We learn through doing” is the watchword of the kindergarten, but it must be a doing which blossoms into being, or it does not fulfill its ideal, for it is character building which is to go on in the kindergarten, or it has missed Froebel’s aim.

What does the kindergarten do for children under six years of age?  What has it accomplished when it sends the child to the primary school?  I do not mean what Froebel hoped could be done, or what is occasionally accomplished with bright children and a gifted teacher, or even what is done in good private kindergartens, for that is yet more; but I mean what is actually done for children by charitable organizations, which are really doing the work of the state.

I think they can claim tangible results which are wholly remarkable; and yet they do not work for results, or expect much visible fruit in these tender years, from a culture which is so natural, child-like, and unobtrusive that its very outward simplicity has caused it to be regarded as a plaything.

In glancing over the acquirements of the child who has left the kindergarten, and has been actually taught nothing in the ordinary acceptation of the word, we find that he has worked, experimented, invented, compared, reproduced.  All things have been revealed in the doing, and productive activity has enlightened and developed the mind.