This album contains the paper cutting and folding work done by Agnes Doyle for two of Froebel’s “Occupations” in this case paper cutting and folding. The materials in this occupation were scissors and papers, squares, triangles, and circles of white or colored paper. The papers were first folded and then cut according to either geometric progression or fancy, the pieces subsequently arranged in a design by the child. The child also cut flowers, fruit, animals or any complete form from the paper without folding, and the work subsequently mounted on cardboard. 

      This album is a particularly nice example of its kind.

      The present album grew out of the series of “gifts” and “occupations” devised by Friedrich Wilhelm Fröbel as part of his Kindergarten system of early childhood education. “Kindergarten has been around so long, and is so thoroughly familiar, that it is natural to assume personal expertise on the subject. But kindergarten for us, and for most of the generations born in this century, is a distortion, a diluted version of what Friedrich Wilhelm Fröbel (1782–1852) originated as a radical and highly spiritual system of abstract design activities developed to teach the recognition and appreciation of natural harmony. Kindergarten has always included singing and dancing, as well as observation of the workings of nature—the growth of plants, the symmetries of crystals and seashells. One’s teacher was usually a woman and she led the class in activities that would have been considered play outside the school. But long abandoned, and thus hardly known today, is the practical and philosophical heart of the system—Fröbel’s interconnected series of twenty play “gifts” using sticks, colored paper, mosaic tiles, sewing cards, as well as building blocks, drawing equipment, and the gridded tables at which the children sat.” – Norman Brosterman, https://www.cabinetmagazine.org/issues/9/brosterman.php

      See also: Brosterman, Norman, Inventing Kindergarten (New York: Abrams, 1997)