ABSTRACT
Friedrich Froebel’s principle of unity, and his emphasis on self activity and language, have much to say which is of value in justifying the study of the arts and nature, as well as reading, writing and arithmetic. This chapter explores the difference between interfering and intervening when we look at Froebel’s approach to play. Play, like Froebel’s attitude to discipline, gives children an opportunity to reflect on things, to assimilate learning as Piaget would say, to learn from repetition. Plainly, children need time and appropriate experiences to make permanent their acquired knowledge. Froebel said, “At every stage, be that stage.” The Froebel accent is not on tranquillity and joy with the polarisation of the attention as in Montessori’s classroom, but spontaneity and joy. Froebel spoke in rather mystical terms of the relation of the inner and the outer, but in essence he is concerned with enriching the inner life of the child.
