[Sidenote: Educational Beginnings.]

By the time he is four or five weeks old it is safe to play with him,
a little every day, and Froebel has made his "Play with the Limbs" one
of his first educational exercises. In this play the mother lays the
baby, undressed, upon a pillow and catches the little ankles in her
hands. Sometimes she prevents the baby from kicking, so that he has
to struggle to get his legs free; sometimes she helps him, so that
he kicks more freely and regularly; sometimes she lets him push hard
against her breast. All the time she laughs and sings to him, and
Froebel has made a little song for this purposes. Since consciousness
is roused and deepened by sensations, remembered, experienced, and
compared, it is evident that this is more than a fanciful play; that
it is what Froebel claimed for it--a real educational exercise. By
means, of it the child may gain some consciousness of companionship,
and thus, by contrast, a deeper self-consciousness.

[Sidenote: First Efforts]

The baby is at first unable to hold up its head, and in this he is
just like all other animals, for no animal, except man, holds up its
head constantly. The human baby apparently makes the effort, because
he desires to see more clearly--he could doubtless see clearly enough
for all physical purposes with his head hung down, but not enough to
satisfy his awakening mentality. The effort to hold the head up and to
look around is therefore regarded by most psychologists as one of
the first tokens of an awakening intellectual life. And this is true,
although the first effort seems to arise from an overplus of nervous
energy which makes the neck muscles contract, just as it makes other