s of mathematics, with elements of construction,
reproduction, and design, and with unrelated bits of knowledge.

Froebel says in the motto to one of the poems in the "Mutter-Spiel und
Kose-Lieder,"--

"Whatever singly with a child you've played,
Weave it together till a whole you've made.
. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
"Thus it will dawn upon his childish soul:
The smallest thing belongs to some great whole."

And again,--

"Silently cherish your Baby's dim thought,
That Life in itself is as unity wrought."

Nothing is more evident in all his writings, in his more formal works
as well as in his autobiography, his volumes of letters and his
reminiscences, than that his lifelong struggle was for unity in all
things. He would have this unity expressed in simple concrete form in
the kindergarten by a complete interrelation of all the activities of
the child; and the gifts as "outward representations of his internal
mental world" may be trusted to furnish us with an absolute test as to
how far we are carrying out this principle in our teaching.

Whether or not the necessity of correlation decreases as age increases
we need not discuss here, but that there is absolute need of it in the
kindergarten probably no one will deny. If a single aim does not unify
the kindergarten day, (or month, or season), it will be a succession
of scrappy experiences, of surface impressions, no one of which can be
permanent, because it was slight by itself and received no
reinforcement from others. Such instruction only serves to dissipate
the mind, to blot out the dim feeling of unity inscribed there by its
maker, and to render the child incapable and undesirous of binding his
thoughts into a whole.[87]

[87] "In the broad view we are safe in affirming that all
truth is congruous, and that truth in one department of human
knowledge will always reinforce truth in any other
department. There is a unity in all truth. While it is true,
as Dr. Harris affirms in his Report on the Correlation of
Studies, that the student does not come into the full
consciousness of this fact before he attains the university,
is it not also true that he can be so taught that he will
_feel_ this unity before he can think it, and that his
feeling it will hasten the development of the power to think
it?"--Geo. P. Brown, "Congruence in Teaching," _Public School
Journal_, Sept., 1895.