From his first walk he is the geographer. "Each little walk is a tour
of discovery; each object--the chair, the wall--is an America, a new
world, which he either goes around to see if it be an island, or whose
coast he follows to discover if it be a continent. Each new phenomenon
is a discovery in the child's small and yet rich world, _e.g._ one may
go round the chair; one may stand before it, behind it, but one cannot
go behind the bench or the wall."

Then comes an inquiry into the physical properties of surrounding
objects. "The effort to reach a particular object may have its source in
the child's desire to hold himself firm and upright by it, but we also
observe that it gives him pleasure to touch, to feel, to grasp, and
perhaps also--which is a new phase of activity--to be able to move
it.... The chair is hard or soft; the seat is smooth; the corner is
pointed; the edge is sharp." The business of the adult, Froebel goes on
to say, is to supply these names, "not primarily to develop the child's
power of speech," but "to define his sense impressions."

Next, the scientist must stock his laboratory with material for
experiment.

"The child is attracted by the bright round smooth pebble, by the gaily
fluttering bit of paper, by the smooth bit of board, by the rectangular
block, by the brilliant quaint leaf. Look at the child that can scarcely
keep himself erect, that can walk only with the greatest care--he sees a
twig, a bit of straw; painfully he secures it, and like the bird carries
it to his nest. See him again, laboriously stooping and slowly going
forward on the ground, under the eaves of the roof (the deep eaves of
the Thuringian peasant house). The force of the rain has washed out of