“It has been stated as a fundamental truth that the plays and occupations of children should by no means be treated as offering merely means for passing, we might say for consuming, time, hence as mere outer activity, but rather that by means of such plays and employments the child’s innermost nature must be satisfied.”--_P., p. 108._ Froebel was speaking of his own Play-material--known by the name of “Froebel’s Gifts” because he thought them the most suitable gifts for little children--when he wrote: “To realize his aims, man, and more particularly the child, requires material, though it be only a bit of wood or a pebble with which he makes something or which he makes into something.”--_P., p. 235._ And although his opinion of the importance of that particular series of playthings, which he chose from among those he saw in general use, may have been exaggerated, still there is a good deal of sound psychology in what he says about them. In speaking of imitative action and construction, we have already touched upon what were perhaps the most important ideas underlying this series.[42] “What presents are most prized by the child? Those which afford him a means of unfolding his inner life most freely and of shaping it in various directions.”--_P., p. 142._ But Froebel also writes of his Gifts that “they will cover the whole ground of training in sense perception,” and he has managed to think out a very fair number of the points which Dr. Ward, in his Analysis of Perception, notes as important. One of Froebel’s frequent Reviews of his play-material begins: “How has the child developed up to this point? How has the world, the objects and things around him developed? How has the child developed himself _especially through the toys_--the means of play and employment--which have thus far been given him? The brightening light in the child’s mind illuminates the objects around him. In proportion as the inner light increases, the nature of external objects grows clear to him … the law of development is that of progress from the unlimited to the limited, from the whole to the part, from an undifferentiated to a membered totality … the outer world comes to meet the inner world, it does not hinder, but helps the inner world. “The man advanced in insight should be clear about all this before he introduces his child to the outer world. Even when he gives his child a plaything he must make clear to himself its purpose, and the purpose of playthings and occupation material in general. This purpose is to aid the child freely to express what lies within him--to bring the phenomena of the outer world nearer to him, and thus to serve as mediator between the mind and the world.”--_P., pp. 169-171._