GARDENING 
CHAPTER ONE 
OBJECTIVES AND METHODS? 
A school garden worth the name is not a teacher’s gar- 
den, or a philanthropist’s garden, but a garden worked out 
in thought and act by happy, purposeful children, 
Dora WILLIAMS 
PROBABLY the first systematic elementary instruction 
in gardening in the United States was given at Roxbury, 
Massachusetts, in the year 1891 in the school conducted 
by Mr. H. L. Clapp. Eleven years later (1902) Mrs. 
Henry Parsons started the first children’s ‘‘ school farm ” 
in New York City in connection with the Park Depart- 
ment. Since then, gardening in one form or another 
has become a part of the education and training of chil- 
dren in many cities. Recently, under the stimulus of 
the war-time necessity for increased food production, 
various national, state, city, and other agencies through- 
out the United States joined in efforts to provide instruc- 
tion in gardening, especially in connection with the 
schools. According to records collected by the ‘United 
States Bureau of Education from 2258 towns and cities, 
at the close of 1919 there were 2,500,000 pupils enrolled 
in the garden work. 
In some states the instruction is more or less organized 
for the entire state, and in at least one state, New Hamp- 
shire, there has been adopted a definite plan for teaching 
gardening to all children in the elementary schools of 
1 This opening chapter is intended for teachers and school officials 
and is not for study by pupils. 
I 
