Kindergarten, or “children’s garden” was first developed in Germany in the 1830s by Friedrich Fröbel (1782-1852). By the end of the century his educational system for preschoolers had spread to most European countries and their colonies, the United States, and the Far East. A proponent of active learning in children, Fröbel created a set of teaching objects which he called Gaben or “gifts”. These two and three dimensional objects were presented to young pupils in an ordered sequence. Progressing from wholes to planes, to lines, and finally to points, these play objects introduced the child to the notion of part and whole and permitted the child to assimilate Nature’s inherent spatial relationships. For future architects such as Frank Lloyd Wright (1867-1959), who credited Fröbel’s toys with his own first introduction to the principles of architecture, the Kindergarten gifts fostered an understanding of the elementary geometric forms from which all architecture ultimately is built.

Fröbel considered his Gift no. 2 to embody the very essence of his educational philosophy, claiming that to understand the second gift would be to understand Kindergarten itself. Fröbel believed in the interconnectedness of all things, of an underlying unity even in the most disparate of objects. With its sphere, cylinder, and cube, Gift no. 2 reflects a synthesis of opposites.

The Kindergarten Gift no. 2 pictured here was manufactured by Milton Bradley & Co. around 1870, and is one of more than 750 architectural toys and games in the CCA Collection. These toys and games have been gathered from over 15 countries and date from the early 19th century through to the present day. These play objects serve as a record of the architectural and social Zeitgeist of their times. More of these items may be viewed by searching the CCA Library Catalogue (general keyword search ‘toys’). Images of select toys are available in the Artefacts Canada database on the Canadian Heritage website.