t, and straightway appears the form which so
delights the child. This is the outward fact; what is the truth which
through this fact is dimly hinted to the prophetic mind? Is it not the
creative and transforming power of light, that power which brings form
and color out of chaos, and makes the beauty which gladdens our
hearts? Is it not more than this,--a foreshadowing, perhaps, of the
spiritual fact that our darkest experiences may project themselves in
forms that will delight and bless, if in our hearts shines the light
of God? The sternest crags, the most forbidding chasms, are beautiful
in the mellow sunshine; while the fairest landscape loses all charm,
and indeed ceases to be, when the light which created it is
withdrawn. Is it not thus also with our lives? Yesterday, touched by
the light of enthusiastic emotion, all our relationships seemed
beautiful and blessed; to-day, when the glow of enthusiasm has faded,
they oppress and repulse us. Only the conviction that it is the
darkness within us which makes the darkness without, can restore the
lost peace of our souls. Be it therefore, O mother, your sacred duty
to make your darling early feel the working both of the outer and
inner light. Let him see in one the symbol of the other, and tracing
light and color to their source in the sun, may he learn to trace the
beauty and meaning of his life to their source in God.

Translation of Susan E. Blow.

THE LAWS OF THE MIND

From 'The Letters of Froebel'

I am firmly convinced that all the phenomena of the child-world, those
which delight us as well as those which grieve us, depend upon fixed
laws as definite as those of the cosmos, the planetary system, and the
operations of nature; and it is therefore possible to discover them
and examine them. When once we know and have assimilated these laws,
we shall be able powerfully to counteract any retrograde and faulty
tendencies in the children, and to encourage, at the same time, all
that is good and virtuous.

FOR THE CHILDREN

From 'The Letters of Froebel'

I wish you could have been here this evening, and seen the many
beautiful and varied forms and lovely patterns which freely and
spontaneously developed themselves from some systematic variations of
a simple ground form, in stick-playing. No one would believe, without
seeing it, how the child soul, the child life, develops when treated
as a whole, and in the s