This proof may not be quite so clear to others as it was to Froebel, but at least the passage shows the close connection in his mind between instinct--the impulse towards activity and employment--and habit, and that he had noted the interaction between the two. There are many references to the transitory nature of at least childish impulses. “What delight a child takes in noticing what is smooth, woolly, hairy, sparkling, round, etc.… But if you do not cherish this and do not set it going in the right way, it becomes a lost thing; it grows rusty, and loses its power as a magnet loses its power when it is not sufficiently used. Power that is not at once used, effort that does not at once meet the right object--perishes.”--_M., p. 181._ “Now, at last, we would fain give another direction to the energies, desires and instincts (Kräfte, Neigungen und Triebe) of the child growing into boyhood; but it is too late. For the deep meaning of child-life passing into boyhood we not only failed to appreciate, but we misjudged it; we not only failed to nurse it, but we misdirected and crushed it.”--_E., p. 75._ “See parents, the first impulse to activity, the first constructive impulse (Bildungstrieb) comes from man according to the nature of the working of his mind, unconsciously, unrecognized, without his will, as man can indeed perceive in himself in later life. If, however, this inner summons to activity (diese innere Aufforderung zur Thätigkeit) meets with outer hindrance, especially such a one as the will of the parents, which cannot be set aside, the power is at once weakened in itself, and with many repetitions of this weakening, falls into inaction.”--_E., p. 100._ “The neglect of inner power causes the inner power itself to vanish.”--_E., p. 133._ “It is true there are few such children; but there would be more, were we not ignorantly blunting so many tendencies in our children, or starving them into inanition.”--_E., p. 220._ Writing of the origin of boyish faults Froebel says: “When we look for the sources of these shortcomings … we find a double reason, first, complete neglect of the development of certain sides of human life, secondly early misdirection, early unnatural stages in development, and distortion, through arbitrary interference with human powers, qualities and tendencies good in their source.… Therefore at the bottom of every shortcoming in man, lies a crushed, frustrated quality or tendency, suppressed, misunderstood or misguided.”--_E., pp. 119-121._