“This does not imply that the boy is to devote himself chiefly to art, and is to become an artist; but that he should be enabled to understand and appreciate true works of art. At the same time, a true education will guard him from the error of claiming to be an artist unless there is in him the true artistic calling.”--_E., p. 227._ In connection with the mother’s instinctive rhythmic crooning and dandling of the infant, Froebel says: “Thus the genuine natural mother cautiously follows in all directions the slowly developing all-sided life of the child. Others suppose him to be empty.… Thus those means of cultivation that lead so simply and naturally to the development of rhythm are lost.… Nevertheless an early development of rhythmic movement would prove most wholesome.… Even very small children, in moments of quiet, and particularly when going to sleep, will hum little strains of songs they have heard; and this should be heeded and developed as the first germ of future growth in melody and song. Undoubtedly this would soon lead in children to a spontaneity such as is shown by children in the use of speech.”--_E., p. 71._ In the “Mother Songs,” too, Froebel writes: “Hence it is so very important to rouse at least the germs of all this (the perceiving of harmony in sound and form and colour) early in a human being. If they do not develop and take shape as independent formations in life, they at least teach how to understand and recognize those of other people. This is life-gain enough. It makes a person’s life richer--richer by the lives of others. And how could our earthly life be long enough to form our being with equal perfection on all sides. We can only do it by knowing and respectfully recognizing in the mirror of the lives of others what we should like to carry out ourselves. And this is as it should be, for it is by means of knowledge, regard for and respectful recognition of others, that the whole of humanity ought to represent the whole of a God-like harmonious human being.”--_M., p. 162._