“A Better Crop of Boys and Girls”: The School Gardening Movement, 1890–1920

Abstract

In the 1890s progressive educators like John Dewey proposed expansive ideas about integrating school and society. Working to make the boundaries between classroom learning and pupils' natural environment more permeable, for example, Dewey urged teachers to connect intellectual and practical elements within their curricula. Highly visible and widespread examples of this integrative goal were the school gardens that flourished from the 1890s well into the twentieth century. Evidence of their presence is recorded in newspapers, national magazines, and annual school reports whose illustrations typically portrayed well-dressed children cultivating large gardens next to impressive urban school buildings. Whether in large cities or country settings, school gardens were expressions of modern and progressive education of the sort encouraged by Dewey. Gardens were encouraged in theory and in practice not only at the laboratory school affiliated with the University of Chicago but also in normal schools across the country (Figure 1).