From these forms impressed upon paper we rose to making forms out of
paper itself, and then to producing forms in paste-board, and finally in
wood. My later experience has taught me much more as to the best shapes
and materials for the study of forms,[65] of which I shall speak in its
proper place.
I must, however, permit myself to dwell a little upon this extremely
simple occupation of impressing forms on paper, because at the proper
age it quite absorbs a boy, and completely fills and contents the
demands of his faculties. Why is this? It gives the boy, easily and
spontaneously, and yet at the same time imperceptibly, precise, clear,
and many-sided results due to his own creative power.
Man is compelled not only to recognise Nature in her manifold forms and
appearances, but also to understand her in the unity of her inner
working, of her effective force. Therefore he himself follows Nature's
methods in the course of his own development and culture, and in his
games he imitates Nature at her work of creation. The earliest natural
formations, the fixed forms of crystals, seem as if driven together by
some secret power external to themselves; and the boy in his first games
gladly imitates these first activities of nature, so that by the one he
may learn to comprehend the other.
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