“If activity brought joy to the child, work now gives delight to the boy. Hence the daring and venturesome feats of boyhood; the explorations of caves and ravines; the climbing of trees and mountains; the searching of heights and depths; the roaming through fields and forests.… To climb a new tree means to the boy the discovery of a new world.… Not less significant of development is the boy’s inclination (Neigung) to descend into caves and ravines, to ramble in the shady grove and dark forest.”--_E., pp. 102-5._ Even the baby shows trace of the collecting or acquiring instinct, but to Froebel this still falls under the head of investigation. The child who has just learned to walk is: “attracted by the bright round smooth pebble, by the quaint brilliant leaf, by the smooth piece of wood, and he tries to get hold of these with the help of the newly acquired use of his limbs. Look at the child that can scarcely keep himself erect and that can walk only with the greatest care--he sees a twig, a bit of straw; painfully he secures it.… See the child laboriously stooping and slowly going forward under the eaves. The force of the rain has washed out of the sand small, smooth, bright pebbles, and the ever-observing child gathers them.”--_E., p. 72._ The boy, still only from six to eight years old, keeps up the collecting habit with more method and with a wider range, and he demands assistance. “Not less full of significance, nor less developing, is the boy’s inclination to descend into caves and ravines, to ramble in the shady grove and in the dark forest. It is _the effort_ (_Streben_) to seek and find the new, to see and discover the hidden, the desire to bring to light and _to appropriate_ that which lies concealed in darkness and shadow. “From these rambles the boy returns with rich treasures of unknown stones and plants, of animals--worms, beetles, spiders and lizards, that dwell in darkness and concealment. ‘What is this? What is its name?’ etc., are the questions to be answered; and every new word enriches his world and throws light upon his surroundings. Beware of greeting him with the exclamation, ‘Fie, throw that down, that is horrid!’ or ‘Drop that, it will bite you!’ If the child obeys, he drops and throws away a considerable portion of his power.”--_E., p. 104._ This quotation brings us to another mode of investigation, that of asking questions, which Froebel was not likely to miss. “The child, your child, ye fathers, follows you wherever you go. Do not harshly repel him. Show no impatience about his ever-recurring questions. Every harshly repelling word crushes a bud of his tree of life.… Question upon question comes from the lips of the boy thirsting for knowledge--How? Why? When? What for? and every satisfactory answer opens to him a new world.”--_E., p. 86._