Professor Adams writes: “Not Philosophy, but common sense, experience and loving observation, have led Froebel and his followers to adopt certain apparatus and certain methods, which are excellent in themselves, and which in capable hands produce admirable results. For this he deserves all the honour that has been heaped upon him--but he has not explained John.” True enough, Froebel has not explained, at least, he has not entirely explained that charming John, the Professor’s own creation and type of all our children. Who has? Still, by his efforts as a pioneer in genetic psychology--the result of his belief that “only by the study of development in ourselves and others, can we learn to understand the child”--and by the two sketches so full of insight into child-life and into boy life, which he has given us in “The Education of Man,” surely Froebel has done at least his share even in explaining John. No doubt he learnt much from “loving observation.” Nor does he undervalue it, but, in his case, the observation was induced by the Philosophy, as well as by the love. For, as he tells us, “it is a necessary part of me to be irresistibly driven to search out the ultimate cause of every fact in life, to discover its roots.” He learned much from watching both mothers and children, but he says: “What natural mother wit and human common sense left to themselves, have been doing by chance and piece-meal, ought now to be brought forward by a thoughtful mind, its foundation, connections and deeper meaning recognized, that it may be improved upon by clever and kindly thought.”--_M., p. 147._ An education which “follows” needs shown by the child, which “follows” the laws of development, physical and mental, as far as these can be discovered from history, from introspection, and from observation of children in general and of “each individual child,” that is the “patiently following” education which Froebel puts before us as an ideal. “For,” he says: “By the full application of the latter method of education, the prescribing and interfering, we should wholly lose the sure, steady and progressive development of mankind, which is the ultimate aim and object of all education.”--_E., p. 10._