e disturbed, and each child
can have the same opportunity for experimenting as his neighbor, there
will be no great harm done.

We are endeavoring to rouse all the latent energies of the child by
the presentation of these objects to his observation, and he must have
full liberty to make the various experiments which suggest themselves
to him. His desire to hear the sound of the objects is so manifest
that it would be folly to try and thwart it. It is far better to use
the desire for educational purposes and divert it into the channel of
systematized noise. Let us suppose that we are carpenters today and
pound the wooden objects on the floor in exact time with a building
song; let us play we are drummer boys and tap with our drumsticks for
the soldiers to march; or shall we make believe that the sphere is a
woodpecker and let it tap on the trees while we recite some simple
little rhyme?[24]

[24] For second gift songs, see _Kindergarten Chimes_ (Kate D.
Wiggin), pages 32, 33, Oliver Ditson Publishing Co.

"This craving of young children for information," says Bernard Perez,
"is an emotional and intellectual absorbing power, as dominant as the
appetite for nutrition, and equally needing to be watched over and
regulated."

It is not alone the noise of the sphere which delights the child,[25]
though this is always pleasing,--it is the knowledge he is gaining,
the new ideas that dawn upon him for the first time in recognizable
form. It is, in fact, a knowledge of cause and effect. He has often
dropped the woolen ball and pounded it on the table, and it produced
no sound. He does the same with the sphere and recognizes the
difference. He will begin to experiment with other objects, by and by
to classify his knowledge, and finally, he will see and remember that
like causes produce like effects, and in progressing thus far will
have made a tremendous stride. The child will see all the more
clearly, in comparing the woolen ball and wooden sphere, the
difference between soft and hard, rough and smooth, light and heavy,
if he is allowed to perform his own experiments.

[25] "The sound is a yet higher sign of life to the child,
as he then, and also later, likes to lend speech to all dumb
things; therefore he also desires to hear sound and speech
from everything."--Froebel's _Pedagogics_, page 72.

The Cube.

We will now turn to the investigation of the cube and open a new world
of information to