lso, but it is the curved line which offers
the strongest inducements to attempt such forms, since even
the simplest combinations of a small number of semicircles
and circles yield figures bearing the stamp of beauty."--H.
Goldammer's _The Kindergarten_, page 177.

The forms of knowledge which can be made with the ninth gift are
necessarily few. It is not especially well fitted for number work, and
development of geometrical form is limited to the planes and lines of
the circle.

Wooden Rings.

Miss Emma Marwedel introduced a supplement to the ninth gift in the
form of wooden circles and half-circles in many colors. These are much
heavier than the metal rings, therefore somewhat easier to handle and
give, as she claims, "the child's creative powers a much larger field
for aesthetic development." Of course, this larger field is to be
found in color blending, not in beauty of design, as the form elements
remain the same. The bright hues are undoubtedly a great attraction,
however, and perhaps are in line with that return to color which was
noted in the seventh gift, when the architectural forms were laid
aside. If we adopt the wooden rings we need not on that account lay
aside the metal ones, for the two materials may be combined to great
advantage.

Difficulties of the Gift.

The gift presents little difficulty, the dictations requiring less
concentration than heretofore as the positions in which the rings may
be placed are few and simple. Froebel's purpose evidently was that the
child should now concentrate his activity entirely upon design, and
that he should use the material by itself, and in connection with
sticks and tablets to give out in visible form whatever aesthetic
impressions he had received through the preceding gifts. The office of
the kindergartner is hardly now more than to suggest, merely to watch
the child in his creative work, and to advise when necessary as to
the most artistic disposition of the simple material. She may here, if
she adopts this attitude, have the experience of seeing the direct
result of her teachings, for the child's work will be a mirror in
which she can see reflected her successes or her failures.

Froebel's Idea.

The idea of Froebel in devising all these gifts was not, it seems
hardly necessary to say, to instruct the child in abstractions, which
do not properly belong to childhood, but to lead him early in life to
the practical knowledge of thing