THE HORTICULTURAL PHASE OF " NATURE-STUDY." 115 



To find the school garden movement best developed we have to turn 

 to the Continent. Comenius in the seventeenth century maintained that 

 " a garden should be connected with every school, where children at times 

 can leisurely gaze on trees, flowers, and herbs, and be taught to enjoy 

 them." In the eighteenth century Rousseau advanced the school garden 

 idea in his " Kmile," while the idea was further advanced in the nineteenth 

 century by Pestalozzi and Froebel, the latter founding the first " kinder- 

 garten " in 1840, in which the larger children did light gardening in 

 connection with the play of the younger ones. The classical land of 

 school gardens is Austria-Hungary, where they are established and required 

 by law — a regulation issued in 1870 furthermore requiring that instruction 

 in natural history shall always be given in an appropriately arranged school 

 garden. In Sweden the interest in school gardens was manifested nearly 

 as early as in Austria, and national schools there must have a garden in 

 which the children work, and from which they obtain trees and shrubs to 

 plant at their own homes. In Belgium, the study of horticulture being com- 

 pulsory, all public elementary schools have gardens, and they are used in 

 connection with instruction given in botany, horticulture, and agriculture. 

 Since 1882 school gardens have played a very important part in the French 

 rural school system of education, and the school garden question has also 

 been alive in Switzerland for over twenty years. In Germany the school- 

 garden idea took root about twenty years ago. In many cases these 

 German school gardens are meant to serve for the maintenance of the 

 teacher. The gardens connected with many elementary schools are, 

 however, of a different type and are known, as partial school gardens, 

 in which only certain kinds of plants are cultivated, as they are 

 only established to furnish the. plants required for instruction. In 

 many of the large cities of Germany there exist large central school 

 gardens to furnish plant material to schools. The first of these was 

 established in Berlin and covers . nearly ten acres. Magdeburg has a 

 central school garden in the Herrenkrug park, and other cities, such as 

 Leipzig, Mannheim, Cologne, &c, have central gardens which vary in 

 extent from two to five acres. In the Berlin central school garden the 

 plants are arranged according to geographical zones ; usually they are 

 arranged according to families. Besides these, smaller gardens have been 

 established in connection with high schools, normal schools, and . agri- 

 cultural winter schools. School gardens are specially numerous in 

 Bavaria and fairly so in Saxony, where most of the elementary schools are 

 provided with gardens even in the large cities. Wiirtemberg proportionately 

 has few school gardens, and similar conditions prevail in the Grand Duchy 

 of Baden. 



"No instruction without observation " is the educational watchword of 

 our times that is thoroughly appreciated in Germany, and school gardens are 

 there considered to meet this demand. From an article on school gardens 

 in Rein's "Pedagogical Cyclopaedia " we learn that "in many cases they 

 furnish numerous specimens for object-lessons, or are themselves excellent 

 means for observation ; in others they give many points for comparison 

 that have the value of direct observation. . . . Instruction in gardens 

 appears partly as occasional lectures, partly as defined lessons, partly as 

 practical work, and partly as constant Nature-study. . . . Besides the 



