Froebel would have sympathised deeply with the views of Peter as
expressed by Mr. Wells in regard to Ideals, which he, however, called
toys:

"The theory of Ideals played almost as important a part in the early
philosophy of Peter as it did in the philosophy of Plato. But Peter did
not call them Ideals, he called them 'toys.' Toys were the simplified
essences of things, pure, perfect and manageable. Real things were
troublesome, uncontrollable, over-complicated and largely irrelevant. A
Real Train, for example, was a poor, big, clumsy, limited thing that was
obliged to go to Redhill, or Croydon, or London, that was full of
unnecessary strangers, usually sitting firmly in the window seats, that
you could do nothing with at all. A Toy Train was your very own; it
took you wherever you wanted, to Fairyland, or Russia, or anywhere, at
whatever pace you chose."[15]

[Footnote 15: _Joan and Peter_, p. 77.]

Froebel asks what presents are most prized by the child and by mankind
in general, and answers, "Those which afford him a means of developing
his mind, of giving it freest activity, of expressing it clearly." For
her ideas as to educative material Dr. Montessori went, not to normal
life, not even to children, but to what may he called curative
appliances, to the material invented by Séguin to develop the dormant
powers of defective children. She herself came to the study of education
from the medical side, the curative. Froebel, with his belief in human
instinct, naturally went to what he called the mother's room, which we
should call the nursery, and to the garden where the child finds his
"bright round smooth pebble" and his "brilliant quaint leaf." No one
would seek to under-value the importance of sense discrimination, but it