NOTE.--The foregoing chapter was written some years ago, but in 1912 there appeared a fresh criticism of Froebel and his work in many ways more adequate than certain others. It appeared as an Introduction to a new translation of “The Education of Man” and of some of Froebel’s lesser writings, by Dr. Fletcher and Professor Welton. In this introduction, important points are granted, for example, that Froebel had “grasped the vital principle that all true development, and consequently all true education, is a self-directed process--that purpose is the key-note of human culture and advance. It was the emphasis which he laid upon this which makes Froebel one of the princes of education and gives him an enduring place in the history of thought.” Or again, that Froebel’s teaching is “not the negation of all human constraint,” but that he sees clearly that “constraint is necessary to train the will to resist impulse and follow purpose”; that with Froebel “Discipline must direct instinctive impulse, not simply oppose and thwart it.” Unfortunately, however, the writers of the book do not seem to have grasped the idea of the Kindergarten as an Institution which had this very end in view, and the second part of the book which is called “The Kindergarten,” never mentions its essential features. So we have the familiar statement that between the Kindergarten and “The Education of Man” a gulf is fixed, a statement which has been already discussed. And we are also told that Froebel attracts us “by his very vagueness.” But Keilhau and Helba and the real Kindergarten are none of them vague. That Froebel attributed too much importance to his Gifts and occupations most of us will readily allow, but that the forms of expression set forth in the Helba plan are to be regarded as merely additions to the Gifts is impossible seeing that the plan for Helba is dated 1829. Besides, all such work had already been very much in evidence at Keilhau (See _p. v_, Preface), and the Gifts and Occupations were an attempt to provide in a similar manner for children very much younger, and as materials are only such as children find for themselves. We claim that Froebel himself is the best interpreter of his own invention, the Kindergarten, and we are content to abide by his own definition of it: _An Institution for the cultivation of the life of mankind through fostering the impulse to activity, investigation and construction in the child; an institution for the self-instruction, for self-education of mankind through play, that is creative self-activity and spontaneous self-instruction_. APPENDIX I ON THE MEANING OF THE WORD “ACTIVITY”