To say that circle or ring games help a child to gain an idea of unity--Ring a Ring of Roses may give the first dim idea of corporate unity--is a very different thing from saying that a circle is to the child a symbol of unity. This is the kind of thing, however, that Froebel is supposed to have said, but after careful investigation one is surprised to find how little there is, and to what extent Froebel’s disciples and translators seem to have read in their own interpretations. For instance, in searching for passages about symbolism, we find in the English translation of the paper on Movement Plays, a passage stating that the “Snail Game” forms a frequent conclusion to a “games” period, because it yields the form of the circle, “which is symbolic of wholeness.” On comparing this with the original, however, we find that this phrase is an addition of the translator’s. No doubt she considered it explanatory, but all that Froebel himself says is that the game is suitable “because it finally unites all the players in a lively and completely finished whole.” To practical teachers, who know the difficulty of getting a number of children to settle down after a game, this may bear a very different meaning. It seems to me that Froebel’s translators have been altogether too fond of the word “symbolic.” The German words usually translated “symbol” and “symbolic” are “Sinnbild” and “Vorbild,” with their respective adjectives. After considering innumerable passages in which these words occur it seems plain that Froebel’s meaning would often have been better expressed by “typical,” or by “significant,” and sometimes by “metaphorical.” For instance, it is quite legitimate to say of such perceptions as Froebel intended a child to gain from his second “Gift”--resistance, weight, hardness and softness, noise, etc.--that the ball and cube give, and are only intended to give, “normal, fundamental and _typical_ perceptions” (nur die normalen, begründenden und vorbildlichen Anschauungen), and Froebel goes on to say that the same perceptions must come from many other objects. There is nothing _symbolic_ here, and there is no reason for using this word. That in many passages _significant_ would be a much more correct translation than symbolic is abundantly evident. Froebel was convinced, and most people will now agree with him, that there is real meaning or significance in those activities, which are common to children of all countries, and this meaning he endeavours to discover. Small blame to him if, though wonderfully correct on the whole, he sometimes hits upon a wrong meaning, in which case we are apt to fall back upon that convenient scapegoat, his symbolism. In one of his letters he thanks his cousin for describing to him how she had watched a tiny child “who quietly let his eye travel from the ball hanging at the end of its cord, up to the hand which held it,” and he adds: