the sand table,
where the objects may be treated symbolically, and likened to a
hundred different things. With the second gift beads, which in the
natural wood color are admirable supplements to the larger forms, the
children are always charmed, assorting and stringing them according to
fancy or dictation, and with the addition of sticks making them into
rows of soldiers, trees in flowerpots, kitchen utensils, churns,
stoves, lamps, and divers other household objects.

The kindergartner may give many a lesson in the simple principles of
mechanics with the second gift and its rods and standards, allowing
the children to experiment freely as well as to follow her
suggestions. The pulley, the steelyard, the capstan, the pump, the
mechanical churn, the wheelbarrow, etc., may all be made, adding the
beads where necessary, and thus the child gain a real working
knowledge of simple machinery.

Treatment of Previous Gifts when passed over.

The preceding gift need not entirely disappear, but be used
occasionally for a pleasing review as a bond of friendly intercourse
between older and younger pupils.[29] This will convey an indirect
hint, perhaps, to the little ones that it is not well to neglect old
friends for new ones, but that they should still love and value the
playthings and playmates of former days.

[29] "The giving of a new play by no means precludes the
further use of the preceding and earlier plays. But, on the
contrary, the use of the preceding play for some time longer
with the new play, and alternating with it, makes the
application of the new play so much the easier and more
widely significant."--Froebel's _Pedagogics_, page 145.

Second Gift Forms in Architecture and Cube in Ancient Times.

These three objects, the sphere, cylinder, and cube, constitute a
triad of forms united in architecture and sculpture producing the
column, which is made up of the pedestal or base (the cube), the shaft
(the cylinder), and the capital (the sphere).

In a book on Egyptian antiquities we find that, in the beginning of
the culture of that country, the three Graces, or goddesses of beauty,
were represented by three cubes leaning upon each other. The Egyptians
did not, of course, know that it was the first regular form of solid
bodies in nature or crystallization; but the significant fact again
brings us to the thought expressed in the first lecture: "It would
seem, indeed, as though Froebel,