ntiment of truth always goes before the recognition of it,"
says Froebel; and it would seem, indeed, as it, in selecting the first
gift, he looked far back into the past of humanity, and there sought
the thread which from the beginning connects all times and leads to
the farthest future.

"The ball is the last plaything of men, as well as the first with
children." In Kreutzer's "Symbolik" we read that the educators of the
young god Bacchus gave him golden balls to play with, and also that
the youthful princes of Persia played with them, and alone had this
privilege.

It is a significant fact that we find balls even among the remains of
the Lake Dwellers of Northern Italy and Switzerland, while small,
round balls, resembling marbles, have been found in the early Egyptian
tombs. The Teutons made ball-plays national, and built houses in which
to indulge in these exercises in all sections of Germany, as late as
the close of the sixteenth century. The ancient Aztecs used the game
of ball as a training in warfare for the young men of the nation; and
that it was considered of great importance is evident from the fact
that the tribute exacted by a certain Aztec monarch from some of the
cities conquered by him consisted of balls, and amounted to sixteen
thousand annually.

The ball entered into many of the favorite games alike of the Greeks
and the Romans, the former having a special place in their gymnasiums
and a special master for it. It may be noted also that nearly all our
modern sports are based upon the effort to get possession of a ball.

Froebel's Ideas of First Gift.

Froebel considered the ball as an external counterpart of the child in
the first stages of his development, its undivided unity corresponding
to his mental condition, and its movableness to his instinctive
activity. Through its recognition he is led to separate himself from
the external world, and the external world from himself.[4]

[4] "But as he grows he gathers much,
And learns the use of 'I' and 'me,'
And finds 'I am not that I see,
And other than the things I touch.'

"So rounds he to a separate mind
From whence clear memory may begin,
As through the frame that binds him in
His isolation grows defined."
Tennyson's _In Memoriam_.

Froebel's intention was that the first gift should be used in the
nursery,[5] but as this is for the