I'HE REAL NATURE OF EDUCATION. 371 
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real-gymnasia ; and the humanistic (languages, history) of the gymnasia. 
He wants ‘“living union with God, man, and nature” ; that means not 
only that which consists in knowledge and the mastery of words, but in 
which, also, the sensible and active man is involved. 
Froebel wanted first, as mentionéd above, the culture of men in all 
directions accord to nature’s laws, with reference to nature, man, and God, 
as well as in respect to the three fundamental attributes of human nature, 
acting, thinking, and feeling. As a psychological basis he placed acting 
first. The child is to him first an acting and creating being, not first a 
learning and knowing being. Knowledge, perception, must, so to speak, 
grow out of action. Ie repeats this principle over and over again, always 
In new terms. We will here quote the most important of these expressions : 
“The education worthy of man, following the demands of nature, must 
place him early in such relations and actions that he, by creating and 
acting, may represent his own nature outwardly, and thus fully reveal 
himself.” 
‘The time of daily work and exercises of teachers and pupils must be 
divided with the time for labor—that is, working and acting—learning 
and instruction must alternate with labor.” 
““ This instruction—that is, learning and teaching of pupils and 
teachers—must proceed from their own acting and working; doctrines 
must be applied in life.” 
“In public education acting must be supreme ; that is to say, teaching 
and learning should proceed by and through things, through acting and 
through life. Thus the intelligence, reaching higher and higher, to the 
particular as well as to the general, and its creative power, working accord- 
ing to the faculties, the talents, and the inclinations of the pupils, are 
developed.” 
According to this the representations—.e., thoughts and ideas within the 
mind of the child—must not remain dormant, but they must come into 
life by the hand, by means of action and by creating. On the other side, 
the external works of art and nature must not remain external to the child, 
out they must be made internal, being brought into the mind. 
Froebel thus combines the two psychological contrasts of acting and 
thinking, art and science. This he expressed in a short formula, which 
uns thus : ¢“ The external must be made internal to the child, and the 
nternal must be made external.” 
The acting of the little child is represented by play. ¢ With the play 
of the child,” as Froebel says—¢¢ with the play, as with the child’s inner- 
most nature,” he connected the first education in family and kindergarten, 
and for the playing activity he sought and found “a whole in itself of 
play and occupations.” To sketch this in its separate parts may be super- 
Auous, as it is represented in many American books, generally with good 
1lustrations.