reason
for this is that only through real experience or action can a child gain
the ideas which he will express later, therefore he must reproduce all
he sees or hears.

"In the family the child sees parents and others at work, producing,
doing something; consequently he, at this stage, would like to represent
what he sees. Be cautious, parents. You can at one blow destroy, at
least for a long time, the impulse to activity and to formation if you
repel their help as childish, useless or even as a hindrance....
Strengthen and develop this instinct; give to your child the highest he
now needs, let him add his power to your work, that he may gain the
consciousness of his power and also learn to appreciate its
limitations."

As the child's sense of power and his self-consciousness deepen he
requires possessions of his "very own." Says Froebel: "The feeling of
his own power implies and demands also the possession of his own space
and his own material belonging exclusively to him. Be his realm, his
province, a corner of the house or courtyard, be it the space of a box
or of a closet, be it a grotto, a hut or a garden, the boy at this age
needs an external point, chosen and prepared by himself, to which he
refers all his activity."

As ideas widen the child's purposes enlarge, and he finds the need for
that co-operation which binds human beings together. And so by play
enjoyed in common, the feeling of community which is present in the
little child is raised to recognition of the rights of others; not only
is a sense of justice developed, but also forbearance, consideration and
sympathy.

"When the room to be filled is extensive, when the realm to be
controlled is large, when the whole to be produced is complex, then
brotherly union of similar-minded persons is in place." And we are
invited to enter an "education room," where boys of seven to ten are
using building blocks, sand, sawdust and green moss brought in from the
forest. "Each one has finished his work and he examines it and that of
others, and in each rises the desire to unite all in one whole," so
roads are made from the village of one boy to the castle of another: the
boy who has made a cardboard house unites with another who has made
miniature ships from nut-shells, the house as a castle crowns the hill,
and the ships float in the lake below, while the youngest brings his
shepherd and sheep to graze between the mountain and the lake, and all
stand and behold