garten for all the children, to precede the school proper. The conditions prevailing in the kindergarten are peculiarly favorable to the study of color, because of the opportunities afforded for introducing it in connection with the manual exercises of the gifts and occupations.
The first gift of the kindergarten, as originally introduced by Froebel, consists of six soft worsted balls in six colors, which he seems to have selected as standards without care or knowledge regarding the theory of "three primaries and three secondaries," although no doubt he may have indifferently accepted it, because it was the only one in his day suggesting any logical scheme of color combinations.
The use of colored papers educationally in a systematic way originated in the kindergarten, and comprised folding, cutting, pasting and weaving, from which some color instruction was incidentally derived by the children. But with the papers formerly in the market little special training in the selecting, matching and naming of colors, such as is of so great value at the present time, was possible. The call for better colors in papers came first from the kindergartners, and the diversity of ideas expressed by them caused the writer to institute a series of investigations which have resulted in the system to which this book is devoted. The occupations of paper folding, cutting and pasting have been adopted into the primary school from the kindergarten, and there is uo question but the occupation of paper mat weaving as practiced in the kindergarten should also be introduced in the lowest primary grades for those who have not had kindergarten training, because of its value in simple manual work and in designing symmetrical patterns and harmonious color combinations.
By general consent colored papers have been chosen as the most available material for this work, because while relatively cheap, the purest colors possible in pigments are secured, and the material is adapted to the most elementary manual training and education in form as well as color.
