the study of forms,[65] of which I shall speak in its
proper place.

I must, however, permit myself to dwell a little upon this extremely
simple occupation of impressing forms on paper, because at the proper
age it quite absorbs a boy, and completely fills and contents the
demands of his faculties. Why is this? It gives the boy, easily and
spontaneously, and yet at the same time imperceptibly, precise, clear,
and many-sided results due to his own creative power.

Man is compelled not only to recognise Nature in her manifold forms and
appearances, but also to understand her in the unity of her inner
working, of her effective force. Therefore he himself follows Nature's
methods in the course of his own development and culture, and in his
games he imitates Nature at her work of creation. The earliest natural
formations, the fixed forms of crystals, seem as if driven together by
some secret power external to themselves; and the boy in his first games
gladly imitates these first activities of nature, so that by the one he
may learn to comprehend the other. Does not the boy take pleasure in
building, and what else are the earliest fixed forms of Nature but
built-up forms? However, this indication that a higher meaning underlies
the occupation and games which children choose out for themselves must
for the present suffice. And since these spontaneous activities of
children have not yet been thoroughly thought out from a high point of
view, and have not yet been regarded from what I might almost call their
cosmical and anthropological side, we may from day to day expect some
philosopher to write a comprehensive and important book about them.[66]
From the love, the attention, the continued interest and the
cheerfulness with which these occupations are plied by children other
important considerations also arise, of quite a different character.

A boy's game necessarily brings him into some wider or fuller
relationship, into relationship with some more elevated group of ideas.
Is he building a house?--he builds it so that he may dwell in it like
grown-up people do, and have just such another cupboard, and so forth,
as they have, and be able to give people things out of it just as they
do. And one must always take care of this: that the child who receives a
present shall not have his nature cramped and stunted thereby; according
to the measure of how much he receives, so much must he be able to give
away. In fact, this is a neces