natural
activities of childhood, on which the Kindergarten is founded. This is
probably accounted for in that her first observations were made on
deficient children who are notably wanting in initiative.

Among these "play activities" we should include the child's perpetual
imitation or pretence, a matter which Dr. Montessori entirely fails to
understand, as shown in her more recent book, where she treats of
imagination. Here she maintains that only the children of the
comparatively poor ride upon their fathers' walking-sticks or construct
coaches of chairs, that this "is not a proof of imagination but of an
unsatisfied desire," and that rich children who own ponies and who drive
out in motor-cars "would be astonished to see the delight of children
who imagine themselves to be drawn along by stationary armchairs."
Imitative play has, of course, nothing to do with poverty or riches, but
is, as Froebel said long since, the outcome of an initiative impulse,
sadly wanting in deficient children, an impulse which prompts the child
of all lands, of all time and of all classes to imitate or dramatise,
and so to gain some understanding of everything and of every person he
sees around.

The work of Dr. Montessori has helped enormously in the movement, begun
long since, for greater freedom in our Infant Schools; freedom, not from
judicious guidance and authority, but from rigid time-tables and formal
lessons, and from arbitrary restrictions, as well as freedom for the
individual as apart from the class. The best Kindergartens and Infant
Schools had already discarded time-tables, and Kindergarten classes have
always been small enough to give the individual a fair chance. Froebel
himself constantly urged that the child should become familiar with "both
the strongly opposed elements of his life, the individual determining
and directing side, and the general ordered and subordinated side." He
urged the early development of the social consciousness as well as
insisting on expansion of individuality, but it is always difficult to
combine the two, and most Kindergarten teachers will benefit by learning
from Dr. Montessori to apply the method of individual learning to a
greater extent.

We are, however, fully prepared to maintain that Froebel; even in 1840,
had a wider and a deeper realisation of the needs of the child than has
as yet been attained by the Dottoressa.[6] In order to make this clear,
it is proposed to compare the theorie