Froebel supplies the means for bringing about the result in a
simple system of symbolic songs and games, appealing to the child's
activities and sensibilities. These he argues, ought to contain the
germ of all later instruction and thought; for physical and sensuous
perceptions are the points of departure of all knowledge.

When the child imitates, he begins to understand. Let him imitate the
airy flight of the bird, and he enters partially into bird life. Let
the little girl personate the hen with her feathery brood of chickens,
and her own maternal instinct is quickened, as she guards and guides
the wayward motion of the little flock. Let the child play the
carpenter, the wheelwright, the wood-sawyer, the farmer, and his
intelligence is immediately awakened; he will see the force, the
meaning, the power, and the need of labor. In short, let him mirror in
his play all the different aspects of universal life, and his thought
will begin to grasp their significance.

Thus kindergarten play may be defined as a "systematized sequence of
experiences through which the child grows into self-knowledge,
clear observation, and conscious perception of the whole circle of
relationships," and the symbols of his play become at length the truth
itself, bound fast and deep in heart knowledge, which is deeper and
rarer than head knowledge, after all.

To the class occupied exclusively with material things, this phase of
Froebel's idea may perhaps seem mystical. There is nothing mystical
to children, however; all is real, for their visions have not been
dispelled.

"Turn wheresoe'er I may,