d if he models the two cubes in
clay, and divides them with string or wire, the one into inch cubes,
the other into bricks.

Dr. Seguin's Objections to the Cube as the Primary Figure in the
Kindergarten.

Dr. E. Seguin, in his celebrated "Report on Education," says, in
regard to the use of the cube as the primary block or figure in the
kindergarten: "Had the kindergartners chosen it with their senses, as
it must speak to the senses of the child, instead of with their mind,
they would certainly never have selected the cube, a form in which
similarity is everywhere, difference nowhere, a barren type incapable
by itself of instigating the child to active comparison. Had they, on
the contrary, from infantile reminiscences, or from more philosophical
indications, selected a block of brick-form, the child would soon have
discovered and made use of the similarity of the straight lines, and
of the difference of the three dimensions. For example: Put a cube on
your desk and let a pupil put one on his; you change the position of
yours, he, accordingly, of his. If you renew these moves till both of
you are tired, they will not make any perceptible change in the aspect
of the object. The movement has been barren of any modification
perceptible to the senses and appreciable to the mind. There has been
no lesson unless you have, by words speaking to the mind, succeeded in
making the child comprehend the idea of a cube derived from its
intrinsic properties; a body with six equal sides and eight equal
angles."

Answers to these Objections.

With all deference to Dr. Seguin, whose opinions and deductions are
generally indisputable, we cannot regard as unwise the choice of the
cube as the primary figure in the gifts.

In the first place, Froebel, having a sequence of forms in his mind,
undoubtedly wished to introduce, early in that sequence, the one which
would best serve him as a foundation for further division and
subdivision. This need is, beyond question, better met in the cube
than in the brick, which would lend itself awkwardly to regular
division.

Secondly, although there is in the cube "similarity everywhere,
difference nowhere," and therefore it might be called in truth a
"barren type, incapable by itself of instigating the child to
comparison and action," we do not introduce it, by itself, but in
contrast with the sphere and cylinder.

Then, when it appears again in the building gifts, "as the simplest
and most