“Indeed each successive generation and each successive individual human being, inasmuch as he would understand the past and present, must pass through all preceding phases of human development and culture, and this should not be done in the way of dead imitation, or mere copying, but in the way of spontaneous self-activity.”--_E., p. 18._ “Man should, at least mentally, repeat the achievements of mankind, that they may not be to him empty dead masses, that his judgment of them may not be external and spiritless; he should mentally go over the ways of mankind, that he may learn to understand them. However it may be said of this growing activity of boyhood, which by spirit and law are destined for a conscious aim, ‘My son does not require this.’ Perhaps you are right, I do not know, but you do know that your sons need energy, judgment, perseverance, prudence, etc., and that these things are indispensable to them; and all these things they are sure to get in the course indicated.…”--_E., p. 282._ It is often said that traditional games are mere survivals, degenerate imitations of ancient customs, and therefore not worth encouraging. But children are not bound by tradition, and Froebel is probably right when he says: “It is my firm conviction that whenever you find anything that gives children lastingly and ever freshly a joy belonging to a true pure life--anything where innocence and mirth predominate--you have found something which has at the bottom of it a higher and more important meaning for a child’s life.”--_M., p. 172._ We cannot always tell why children enjoy the game, or what they gain from it. Such games are at least the earliest and simplest introduction to “the rules of the game,” and they contain the elements of choosing sides and of whispered secrets. These things may seem small to the ordinary onlooker, but not to the real observer, who sees the amount of self-control required by a child of four or five, that he may not proclaim the secret aloud, the difficulty he has in whispering, and the importance to him of the choice between oranges and lemons or whatever it may be. There are certainly some which most thinking persons, Froebelian or otherwise, would wish to discourage. As Froebel himself said of some that he found in use: “I thought some were too empty and silly and some said a great deal that I would not willingly have said to children. Yet the counting games themselves seemed to me important in many ways, as I hope will appear from comparing the way I have dealt with them, and above all, as the mottoes are meant to point out. I even wished to keep the sound of the well-known popular words, at least in the opening words.…”--_M., p. 157._