Even in the infant, however, this instinct or impulse to activity is devoted to “penetrating what is outer,” and the Kindergarten, meant for children from three to six, is intended to foster the three instincts, activity, investigation and construction, as well as to cultivate the social instinct by placing a little child among his equals. Froebel describes it in his plan as: “An Institution for fostering of family life and for shaping the life of the nation and human life generally, through cultivating the human instincts of activity, of investigation (Forschungstrieb), and of construction in the child, as a member of the family, of the nation, and of humanity.…”--_P., p. 6._ As regards the child, the word Trieb, which is exactly equal to impulse, seems to be applied only in one other direction, to what we would call the social instinct, and here again Froebel shows his recognition of the vagueness and indefiniteness of early consciousness. As he attributes to the infant the one impulse to activity which differentiates later into Investigation and Construction, so in the infant he recognizes a “feeling of community” (Gesammtgefühl), but says that it differentiates later into something more definite.[33] “The development of man constitutes an unbroken whole, steadily and continuously progressing, gradually ascending. The feeling of community (Gemeingefühl) awakened in the infant, develops in the child into impulse, inclination (entwickelt sich in dem Kinde der Trieb, die Neigung).”--_E., p. 95._ Under the important Instinct of Investigation, or the Instinct for Self-Instruction, Froebel includes a great deal. Many different activities until recently somewhat carelessly talked of collectively as “play,” Froebel has separated and explained as the child’s way of investigating his surroundings. Even “the earliest activity and first action of the child,” Froebel says, shows “the instinct to self-teaching and self-instruction.” Imitative action or imitative play is always referred to as action which helps towards understanding of the surroundings. In the “Mother Songs” we read: “Your child will certainly understand all the better if you make him take a part--though it be only by imitation--in what grown-up people are doing in their anxiety to maintain life.…”--_M., p. 141._