ember that on a carefully prepared plan of procedure
depends much of the value of any system of education; therefore we
must decide, when the child comes under our tutelage, what we wish to
accomplish and what shall be our method of accomplishing it; and yet
as the first gift is not the last, as it is but the first link in a
chain of related objects, it is obvious that it must be chiefly useful
as a starting-point. Each lesson should be carefully studied by the
teacher, for the foundation is being laid for all future acquisition.

The kindergarten gifts are designed to lead to the mastery of material
objects, but at the same time they are always connected with the
child's experience and affection by being often transported into the
region of fancy and feeling in a blending of realism and symbolism.
Omitting everything which has reference to the moral and physical
development, and speaking now only of that which is intellectual, what
we should strive for at the beginning is that the child may acquire a
habit of quick observation, with clear and precise expression; that in
due time he may see not only quickly, but accurately; in short, that a
slight degree of judgment may begin to attend his perceptions, so that
he may know as well as observe. It is not enough to awaken the
curiosity of a child, and to heap up in his memory a mass of good
materials which will combine of themselves in due time, and which the
brain when more highly developed will arrange in systematic groups; we
should endeavor as far as possible to control the first impressions
which sink unconsciously into a child's mind, but still more careful
should we be in the selection of those later ones which we try to
inculcate, and of the links which we wish to establish between such
and such perceptions, sentiments, or actions.

We should seek to develop, side by side with the perceptions, the
faculty of judging and acting rightly.

To give a child very little to observe at a time, but to make him
observe that little well and rightly, is the true way of forming and
storing his mind.

The process of receiving an idea must be through sensation, attention,
and perception, conception and judgment being later processes. The
curiosity to know must be kept alive, for it is our greatest ally, and
the imagination must be fed, for the child remembers only what
interests him.

Recognizing what is to be accomplished, we say, then:--

_a._ The ball is one of the f