Then we were all busy in making presents for our relatives.

The younger ones manufactured various cardboard trifles; the older pupils, as embryo cabinet-makers, all sorts of pretty and useful things, especially boxes.
Unluckily, I did not excel as a cabinet-maker, though I managed to finish tolerable boxes; but my mother had two made by the more skilful hands of Ludo, which were provided with locks and hinges, so neatly finished, veneered, and polished that many a trained cabinet-maker's apprentice could have done no better.

It was one of Froebel's principles--as I have already mentioned--to follow the "German taste for manual labor," and have us work with spades and pickaxes (in our plots of ground), and with squares, chisels, and saws (in the pasteboard and carving lessons).
A clever elderly man, the sapper, or Sabuim, already mentioned--I think I never heard his real name--instructed us in the trades of the book binder and cabinet-maker.

He was said to have served under Napoleon as a sapper, and afterwards settled in our neighbourhood, and found occupation in Keilhau.

He was skilful in all kinds of manual labour, and an excellent teacher.