Friedrich Froebel (1782-1852) was a German educator who introduced the concept of kindergarten. This book is a collection of fifteen essays, originally published in German in 1861, on the value of different stages of a child's play. Froebel found an educational value in every phase of the child's play, and in every object that engages its attention. Froebel finds all that the child does significant and of educational importance. In fact, he is the great pioneer and founder of child study as well as of the pedagogic theory of intellectual values. This book, originally published in 1908, was translated and annotated by Emilie Michaelis, Head Mistress of the Croydon Kindergarten and Preparatory School, and H. Keatley Moore, Examiner in Music to the Froebel Society, and Vice-Chairman of the Croydon Kindergarten Company.