t is enough to give the hint for the play.
We can cut little paper birds for the bird-cages, tumblers for the
rude little tables, green leaves for the trees, etc., making the stick
exercise, even in its first more difficult details, a time of great
satisfaction and gladness.

Complete sets of these card-board objects, one for each child, should
always be kept on hand; if well made they will last a year.

Forms of Beauty.

Enough has already been said of the possibilities of the sticks to
show that they are most valuable for symmetrical forms. They may be
combined with the tablets, and thus very pretty effects be made, and
when four children unite their material at the group work tables, the
dictations and inventions produced are of course very large, and may
be really beautiful if constructed on artistic principles.

Border work may be very fully carried out with the sticks, and another
charming feature of the gift is the way in which it lends itself to
the making of snow crystals. These are symmetrical combinations and
modifications of familiar geometrical forms around the hexagon. Mr. W.
N. Hailmann says regarding them: "At first, it is best to give each
child only six or twelve sticks, and to dictate the central figure (a
hexagon or hexagonal star) verbally or by means of a drawing on the
blackboard. They may then receive a number of additional sticks, and
let the central figure grow, all obeying the teacher's dictation, or
each following his own inventive genius."[72]

[72] "These forms are invaluable even as _silent_ teachers
of geometrical and numerical relations. Used judiciously
in conversational lessons, leading to partial or complete
analysis of the figures in spoken or written descriptions,
their teaching power is inexhaustible."--W. N. Hailmann's
_Primary Helps_, page 21.

In this gift, as well as in the seventh, the child's imitative and
inventive powers are obviously more greatly taxed than in the others,
and the danger will be, if he is not well trained, that, as he
apparently can do anything with the material, he will end by doing
nothing. The greater the freedom given to the child, the greater the
necessity of teaching him to use that liberty in and through the law,
and not to abuse it by failing to reach with its aid the highest ends.

Connection of Sticks with Drawing.

We may make the laying of one-inch sticks in vertical and horizontal
positions, in angles and s