The original spirit of the kindergarten training was the careful fostering and the full gratification of all the instinctive, spontaneous activities of the child’s body and soul. The free and complete unfolding and development of his life and being was its sole aim. All the plays and occupations of the child were considered simply as the free, spontaneous expression of his instinctive activities, springing from the necessity of his inner being--the externalization of the internal. But, gradually and unconsciously, the means and inventions to supply the demands of this child nature became end in themselves; the plays and occupations became the instruction and the schooling; it came to be that the child was treated as if he lived in order to learn these things; the “gifts,” which were invented only as one of thousands of means to aid the child’s development, came to be almost the whole business of the kindergarten. Let it liberate itself from “the increasing worship of the baggages of his pedagogy,” and return to the never-dying spirit of its originator. “Let us learn from our children. Let us give heed to the gentle admonitions of their life, to the silent demands of their minds” (5: p. 89). As to the estimation of Froebel’s pedagogy there is a great disparity of opinions. James Munroe thinks that, “without being a psychologist, he gave a psychologic twist to all his theories, and complacently esteemed his will-o’-the-wisp of fancy to be the beacon lights of progress” (15: p. 200). Compayré’s criticism is no less unfavorable when he says: “An impartial and thorough study of Froebel’s work will abate rather than encourage this excessive infatuation and this somewhat artificial enthusiasm.” In his opinion, “like most of the Germans of this century, he has ventured on the conception of a nebulous philosophy, and, following the steps of Hegel, he has too often deserted the route of observation and experiment, to strike out into metaphysical divigations.” “But,” he adds, “his practical work is worth more than his writings, and he cannot be denied the glory of having been a bold and happy innovator in the field of early education” (4: p. 447). Quick considers his “Education of Man” as “a book with seven seals,” and confesses that “at times he goes entirely out of sight, and whether the words we hear are the expression of deep truth or have absolutely no meaning at all, I for my part am at times totally unable to determine” (17: p. 397). Yet he says: “All the best tendencies of modern thought on education seem to me to culminate in what was said and done by Friedrich Froebel, and I have little doubt that he has shown the right road for future advance” (17: p. 384). G. Stanley Hall, whose educational ideas have much in common with Froebel, says: “His was one of the deepest, truest, and most intuitive of minds,” and “his heart was one of the most devoted to be found in the whole history of education” (11: p. 579). But he