“In all activity, in every deed of man, even as a child, yes the very smallest, an aim is expressed, a reference to something, to the furthering or representing of something; … thus the child strives, even if unconsciously, to make his inner life objective, and through that perceptible, that so he may become conscious of it.”--_P., pp. 237-240._ The same idea, that conscious process is directed to an end, though there may be no consciousness of that end, is given in another passage, where Froebel is speaking of the need for satisfying a child’s normal desire for playthings. “Very often the child seeks for something, nevertheless he himself does not know at all what he seeks; at another time he puts something away from him and again knows not why.”--_P., p. 168._ Of the earliest mental activity Professor Stout writes: “In its earliest and simplest form, mental activity consists in those simple reactions which without being determined by any definite idea of an end to be realized, tend on the whole to the maintenance of immediate pleasure and the avoidance of immediate pain.” The movements of the organism at this earliest stage “seem primarily adapted to the conservation and furtherance of vital process in general.”[13] Froebel speaks of the child’s efforts: “to put far from him that which is opposed to the needs of his life and yet would break in upon it.”--_P., p. 167._ He tells the mother that, in the first stages at least, the restlessness and tears of the infant will warn her of the presence of anything in his surroundings hurtful to his development, while his laughter and movements of pleasure will show “what according to the feeling of the child is suited to the undisturbed development of his life as an immature human being.” Mr. Stout goes on to say that such simple reactions are adapted “secondarily and by way of necessary corollary to the conservation and furtherance of conscious life.” He tells us that: “The primary craving with which the education of the senses begins, so far as it does not involve such practical needs as that of food, may be described as a general craving for stimulation or excitement … this conation being in the first instance in the highest degree indeterminate.” Froebel, who speaks of the nurse “soothing the restless child _vaguely striving_ for definite and satisfactory outward activity,” tells us that: “if his bodily needs are satisfied and he feels himself well and strong, the first spontaneous employment of the child is spontaneous taking in (selbstthätiges Aufnehmen) of the outer world.”--_P., p. 29._ He writes to Madame Schmidt, the cousin for whose assistance he has begged in observing children: “This spontaneous activity of limb and vividness of sensation natural to infancy, and I may say inseparable from it, must also be carefully studied.”--_L., p. 110._ And, in the Mother Songs, he says: