Froebel made these requests, as he made his own observations, as the result of the conviction with which he declares himself “thoroughly penetrated,” “that the movements of the young and delicate mind of the child, although as yet so small as to be almost unnoticeable, are of the most essential consequence to his future life.”--_P., p. 53._ “Why do we observe the child less than the germ of a plant? Is it to be supposed that in the child, the capacity to become a complete human being is contained less than in the acorn is contained the capacity to become a strong, vigorous and complete oak?”--_P., p. 62._ “We cannot pass over unmentioned the fact, essential for the whole life of the child, for the whole course of his development, that phenomena and impressions which seem to us insignificant, and which we generally leave unnoticed, have for the child, and especially for his inner world, most important results, since the child develops more through what seems to us small and imperceptible, than through what appears to us large and striking … hence--wholly contrary to prevailing opinion--nowhere is consideration of that which is small and insignificant of more importance than in the nursery.”--_P., p. 125._ Professor Dewey, one of the few important educational writers who do justice to Froebel as a pioneer, gives as a general summary of his educational principles: “1. That the primary business of school is to train children in co-operative and mutually helpful living; to foster in them the consciousness of mutual interdependence, and to help them practically in making the adjustments that will carry this spirit into overt deeds. “2. That the primary root of all educative activity is in the instinctive, impulsive attitudes and activities of the child, and not in the presentation and application of external material, whether through the ideas of others or through the senses; and that, accordingly, numberless spontaneous activities of children, plays, games, mimic efforts, even the apparently meaningless motions of infants--exhibitions previously ignored as trivial, futile, or even condemned as positively evil--are capable of educational use, nay, are the foundation-stones of educational effort. “3. That these individual tendencies and activities are organized and directed through the uses made of them in keeping up the co-operative living already spoken of; taking advantage of them to reproduce on the child’s plane the typical doings and occupations of the larger maturer society into which he is finally to go forth; and that it is through production and creative use that valuable knowledge is secured and clinched.”[3]