find for themselves. Considered in themselves, apart from the traditions
of formality, these are quite good play material or stimuli, and Froebel
meant the time to come "when we shall speak of the doll and the hobby
horse as the first plays of the awakening life of the girl and the boy,"
but he died before he had done so. In the _Mother Songs_, too, we find
quite a good list of toys which are now to be found in most
Kindergartens.

Toys for the playground should be provided--a sand-heap, a seesaw, a
substantial wheel-barrow, hoops, balls, reins and perhaps
skipping-ropes. Something on which the child can balance, logs or planks
which they can move about, and a trestle on which these can be
supported, are invaluable. It was while an addition was being made to
our place that we realised the importance of such things, and, as in
Froebel's case, "our teachers were the children themselves." They were
so supremely happy running up and down the plank roads laid by the
builders for their wheel-barrows, seesawing or balancing and sliding on
others, that we could not face the desolation of emptiness which would
come when the workmen removed their things. So, for a few pounds, all
that the children needed was secured, ordinary planks for seesawing,
narrower for balancing and a couple of trestles. One exercise the
children had specially enjoyed was jumping up and down on yielding
planks, and this the workmen had forbidden because the planks might
crack. But a sympathetic foreman told us what was needed: two planks of
special springy wood were fastened together by cross pieces at each end,
and besides making excellent slides, these made most exciting
springboards.

For representations of real life the children require dolls and the
simplest of furniture--a bed, which need only be a box, some means of