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agriculture and gardening, gardens were officially provided for, 
and several years ago it was estimated that about fifty thousand 
French schools had gardens. However, many American ob- 
servers have questioned whether a considerable proportion of 
these French gardens have been of much educational value to the 
pupils; but some of them have helped reduce the schoolmaster’s 
cost of living. In Holland, the gardens for small children are 
apparently for nature-study, rather than for training in the busi- 
ness of gardening as originally intended in other countries where 
official interest was based entirely upon vocational considerations. 
Fifteen years ago there were only a few dozen children’s educa- 
tional gardens in Great Britain, and these were not officially con- 
nected with the school system, but since 1904 gardens have been 
encouraged by special grants to the schools. Many gardens 
have been established in connection with English elementary day 
schools and also in evening schools for pupils who must work 
during the day. In the day schools the nature-study aims seemed 
to prevail. England has often been criticised for slow develop- 
ment of school-gardens, but it should not be forgotten that a 
widespread popular interest in home gardening has probably been 
a good substitute for the average of the school-gardens officially 
established on the continent of Europe and often of very doubtful 
efficiency. 
Thus rapidly surveying the history of children’s gardens in 
connection with European schools, it seems clear that while origi- 
nally and officially most of them were planned and defended on 
vocational grounds, that is, as preparation for the vocation of 
agriculture in its plant-growing phases, there has been a decided 
tendency towards gardening for general educational or agricul- 
tural ends, in fact as one of the best phases of what, in American 
elementary schools, we call nature-study. 
Turning now to America, most of the children’s educational 
gardens in the United States and in Canada have been organized 
during the past twenty years. Among the pioneer gardens which 
attracted general attention were the wild-flower garden at Rox- 
bury, Mass., in 1891; the gardens of the National Cash Register 
Company at Dayton, O., 1897; the garden of the Hyannis ( Mass.) 
Normal School, 1897; the home gardens at Cleveland, O., 1900;- 
