Kindergarten: Garden Pedagogy from Romanticism to Reform

Author(s): Susan Herrington

Source: Landscape Journal , 2001, Vol. 20, No. 1 (2001), pp. 30-47
Published by: University of Wisconsin Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43324444

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 Kindergarten: Garden Pedagogy from Romanticism
to Reform
Susan Herrington
Susan Herrington is Assistant Profes-
sor of Landscape Architecture at the
University of British Columbia. She
received a Master of Landscape
Architecture degree from the Gradu-
ate School of Design at Harvard Uni-
versity and a Bachelor of Landscape
Architecture degree from the College
of Environmental Science and
Forestry at the State University of
New York. Her research involves the
history and theory of designed land-
scapes and the culture of childhood.
"She should never lose sight of the
ends to be accomplished by the cul-
ture of the garden." (Hailmann
1873, p. 95)
Romantic Kindergarten. Roots of the
Kindergarten.
Jean Jacques Rousseau (1712-1778)
put the education of the child at the
center of the romantic debate against
authoritarian ideology. For Rousseau,
the education of the child should take
place in a garden because it offered a
sensorial experience of the moral
dance between nature (the ethereal)
and property (the material), a requi-
site for romantic comprehension. In
Ěmile, ou Traité de l'éducation (1762), 2
Rousseau criticizes the lectures and
formalized games of conventional
education, and describes the upbring- settings, places where children could
ingofÉmile:
He presents natural necessity in
palpable form to the child so that
the child lives according to nature
before understanding it. . . . He
puts Emile in a garden where there
are no nos , no forbidden fruit, and
no Fall, and tries to show that in
the end his pupil is healthy, whole,
and of a purer morality. . . .
(Bloom 1979, p. 13)
30 Landscape Journal 20: 1-01
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Abstract:. Designed gardens and excursions into the outlying landscape were important
educational components of the original kindergartens begun by Friedrich Fröbel in the early
nineteenth century. Contact with nature via gardens and excursions provided vital keys to
understanding Naturphilosphie,1 and would ultimately reveal a child's divine essence . A quin-
tessential application of romantic thinking , kindergartens intertwined ethereal and material
worlds in an educational endeavor that appealed to the rising middle class eager to overcome the
absolute rule of the Prussian monarchy. By the early twentieth century , the incorporation of
kindergartens into the pubic school systems of North America coincided with the rationalism of
an emerging industrial society > a growing unskilled immigrant population , and deleterious
urban conditions. Professionals , eager to enfranchise themselves in the world of science, elabo-
rated FröbeVs garden work and excursions as a method of reform. Children's gardens were culti-
vated for economic profit and natural phenomena were identified, dissected , and consumed mak-
ing children educationally "fit" for the burgeoning capitalist nation. The following essay traces
the garden and excursion components of the kindergarten from its romantic origins to its reform
application , illuminating how changes in garden pedagogy reflect and reinforce broader views
held by society.
While Rousseau's work was agricultural instruction, but sources
hypothetical, it had a profound for spiritual, cognitive, and social
impact on the real education of development.
children, particularly in Switzerland
and Germany. Swiss educator, Johann
Heinrich Pestalozzi (1746-1827) was
one the earliest pedagogues to imple-
ment Rousseau's theories in an edu-
cational system for children. Drawing
from the theories of Locke and
Rousseau, Pestalozzi developed an
interactive teaching style that
engaged students in object learning,
song, and dance. His first school was
an experimental farm at Neuhof
where the children of poor families
learned basic agricultural tasks. For
Pestalozzi, the gardens and agricul-
tural lands at Neuhof were practical
master manual skills that contributed
to their own sustenance. However,
Pestalozzis German successor,
Friedrich Fröbel (1782-1852) (Figure
1), gave his school's gardens and land- Figure 1. This photograph serves as
scapes far more romantic roles, envi- the cover piece to an American Journal
sioning them as not only settings for of Education volume dedicated to
Friedrich Fröbel. The following intro-
ductory article, "Froebel's Principles
and Methods," is written by his
favorite student and niece Henrietta
Breymann Schräder ( American Journal
of Education Volume 31, 1881).
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 Romanticism is a broad move-
ment entailing the arts, politics, eco-
nomics, and ultimately the epistemo-
logica! orientation of western thought
during the late-eighteenth and early-
nineteenth centuries. In Raymond
Williams's Key Words , "Romantic"
implies a "free or liberated imagina-
tion ... a new valuation of folk cul-
tures and subjectivity" (Williams
1983, p. 275). The romantic move-
ment espoused a great interest in
experiencing natural phenomena as a
way to understand abstract concepts
like unity and individuality. According
to Denis Cosgrove, "Romantics
accepted the detailed observational
qualities of the emerging natural sci-
ences, but employed the findings with
a pre-positivist mode of reasoning
leading to a metaphysical rather than
strictly materialistic explanation"
(Cosgrove, p. 231). These romantic
proclivities towards the observation
and interpretation of natural phe-
Figure 2. Illustration of the garden at the first kindergarten in Bad Blankenburg,
nomena as analogues of individual Thüringen (Friedrich Fröbel Museum, Bad Blankenburg). This garden also con-
expression and unity are evident in tained an extensive view of the valley below. The garden area is currently a park-
Fröbel's early German kindergartens. ing lot.
Friedrich Fröbel was deeply
moved by the transcendental quali-
ties he found latent in plant life and
the potential for the garden to sym- deceased brother Christoph, one contained actual gardens that were
bolize children's growth and their daughter of Henrietta, and three tended by the children (ages 3 to 6
placement within social relations. children of his brother Christian). years old) and their teachers, kinder-
Fröbel was born and raised in Ober- While serving as Director at Keilhau, gartners (Figuře 2). These gardens
weissbach, a small German town Fröbel published the Education of Man not only provided food for the school,
known for its preparations of herbs (1826) and the school drew more but served as living metaphors of his
for medicinal use. After experiment- than seventy-five pupils by the mid- educational philosophy. Fröbel him-
ing with several professions, includ- 18208. At Keilhau he began work on a self designed the gardens for his early
ing surveying, forestry, and crystallog- series of educational objects called kindergartens, as shown in his plan
raphy, he eventually focused on devel- "gifts"5 that were presented to chil- drawing of the garden at Bad
oping his own ideas for educating dren at various stages in their devel- Blankenburg (Figure 3) and advo-
small children. During the first half opment. Fröbel also developed excur- cated the creation of gardens for all
of the nineteenth century he merged sion programs outdoors. For these kindergartens in his weekly Journal
romantic notions3 of the garden as a excursions, he proposed that teachers of Education (Figure 4).
place for individual expression, spiri-link actual experiences with the recog- Fröbel believed that children
tual and scientific contemplation, and nition of the symbolism inherent in should learn through sensorial expe-
social regeneration with his new edu- the experience. For Fröbel, education riences and not through "... the
cational concept: the kindergarten was attained by perceiving the unity mere explanation of words" (Fröbel,
(Herrington 1998, pp. 330-33). and harmony between the symbol and 1897 trans, byjarivs, p. 5). Plants,
Fröbel's kindergarten philoso- what was being experienced. wildlife, and other elements of the
phy grew from twelve years of work In 1839, Fröbel opened the first garden furnished young children with
at his communal school at Keilhau kindergarten in Bad Blankenburg, a direct experiences of natural phe-
(1817-1830), and at his school in town in the Thüringen Forest of Ger- nomena. The physical layout of the
Burgdorf, Switzerland(1831-1836). many. Fröbel's original kindergartens gardens served as the unworded texts
He founded Keilhau4 with his wife of an idealized garden culture, and
Henrietta, colleagues, and six chil- expressed two key romantic notions:
dren (two children from Fröbel's unity and individuality (Herrington
1998, p. 329). Expressing unity, the
communal plots of the school invari-

Herrington 31

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Figure 3. Fröbel's design for the first kindergarten in Bad Blankenburg, 1839 (Bibliothek für Bildungs Geschichte, Berlin).
ably encompassed the children's indi-
vidual plots: "The part for the gen-
eral is the enclosing, as it were the
protecting part; that for the children
the enclosed, protected part" (Fröbel
1850, trans, byjarvis, p. 218). This
composition was created with the
intention that the gardening children
would feel embraced by the adult
world, and at the same time feel that
they were separate, but also part of
this world. Fröbel's gardens at his
kindergarten in Bad Blankenburg and
at other locations depict this relation-
ship between individuals and the
whole. Here, the communal plots of
the school are on the outside edge
of the garden surrounding the chil-
dren's individual plots at the center
(Figure 5).
The communal plots contained veg-
etables and flowers while the chil-
dren's individual plots each contained
the child's name spelled with sticks
on a wood stake. While the children's
plots may have produced food and
flowers, these items were typically
given to local neighbors of the school
(Müller, conversation 1997). The true 1897 trans, byjarvis, p. 310). Roman-
intention of the children's plots was
educational and reflected Rousseau's
respect for the individual inclinations existence of the divine in nature, rea-
of a child (Herrington 1998, p. 333).
For Fröbel, children must learn "with-
out needing to be instructed by any
32 Landscape Journal
outward means," (Fröbel, trans, by
Jarvis, p. 5) and this ability would be
developed in children when they
Could think and reason for them-
selves. In the kindergarten garden,
children could do what they pleased
in their own individual plots; yet, this
freedom was always conditioned by
nature. As the nature of the garden
would reveal the nature of the child,
the garden plot would provide a tan-
gible artifact of a child's divine
essence. As a kindergarten historian
notes:
FroebePs romanticism about the
unity and goodness in nature which
he felt the child capable of compre-
hending and reflecting can be
summed up in his contention that:
"a child who seeks out flowers and
cares for them and protects them
can never be a base child." (Ross
1976, p. 7)
Fröbel also synthesized learning
experiences with daily excursions
into the nearby agricultural lands,
forests, and towns "in the spirit of
harmony, unity, and living oneness
with all natural phenomena" (Fröbel
tic thinking, according to Denis
Cosgrove, ". . . stressed the continued
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soning by analogy rather than by
cause" (Cosgrove 1998, p. 231).
Excursions into the siirrounding
landscape provided children with
physical symbols of Fröbel's educa-
tional philosophy. Observation and
exploration of natural processes and
cultural conditions in the landscape
inspired contemplation of their
abstract analogs:
Show him his valley in its whole; he
should explore its ramification; he
should follow his brook or rivulet
from its source to its mouth, and
study its local peculiarities in their
causes; he should explore the ele-
vated ridges, so that he may see the
ranges and spurs of mountains; he
should climb the highest summits,
so that he may know the entire
region in its unity. . . . This direct
and indirect observation of things
themselves, and their actual living
connections in nature, and not the
mere explanation of words and
ideas which are of no interest to a
boy, should waken in him, vaguely
at first but ever more clearly the
great thought of inner, constant,
living unity of all things and phe-
nomenon in nature. (Fröbel 1906,
trans, by Hailmann, p. 3 1 1)6
The landscape was a popular
conduit for romantic scholars. Many
creative individuals during the nine-
teenth century "gravitated to the
landscape when seeking this sense of

Figure 4. The plan for the typical kindergarten garden as shown in FröbePs
weekly publication, Journal of Education. This drawing is also accompanied by a
description of the garden that calls for the children's plots to be located at the
center {Journal of Education. 1850. Friedrich Fröbel Museum, Bad Blankenburg).
fusion between the material and the
ethereal realm" (Condon 1991, p. 4).
Associating the tangible he found in
the landscape with the ethereal he
found in nature, Fröbel invented
numerous outdoor activities that
encouraged the cognitive and sensor- background of these activities, Fröbel
ial interpretation of the physical
world. Activities involved categorizing
natural and artificial objects having
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similar forms, observing the physical
layout of a town as a reflection of its
social formation, following a stream
from its mountain origin to its river
descent, and comparing children's
growth to the growth of plants. In the
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also consistently stressed the reverent
capacity of the unknowable in these
experiences:
Again natural objects should be ref-
erenced to the time of their appear-
ance; yielding ideas of winter and
summer . . . the swallow a summer
bird, the lark a spring bird . . . thus,
he learns to observe and think . . .
varied knowledge of necessary liv-
ing connections never make one
proud, but causes man to reflect,
and teaches him how little he really
knows; thus he is lifted in his
humanity and adorned with that
most precious jewel modesty.
(Fröbel, trans, by Hailmann 1873,
pp. 257-264)
Nine years after the opening
of the first kindergarten, there were
sixty-one such schools throughout
Germany, plus training schools for
kindergartners in Berlin and Lieben-
stein. These kindergartens were
under the guidance of women (Taylor
Allen 1982) whose proclivities he felt
were of great value outside the family
realm (Reyer 1988). Fröbel produced
a weekly journal for parents and pub-
lished Mutter und Kose Lieder ( 1 844), a
song book for parents and children
that inspired contemporary nursery
rhymes (Figures 6 and 7). He also
codified more than twenty of his
"gifts." While FröbePs romantic peda-
gogy appears harmless from our con-
temporary perspective, many aspects
were considered radical at the time.7
His spiritual views which conflated
nature with God were considered
atheist by the church; his employ-
ment of women as kindergartners was
considered a threat to the family
structure; and the children's folk
clothing and long hair was forbidden
by the Prussian government.
The World-Wide Spread of Kinder-
gartens by Female Supporters. In 1851
kindergartens were banned by the
Prussian monarchy. Fröbel died a year
later, never to see his kindergartens
reopened. However, he developed a
devout circle of female supporters.
Women like the Baroness Bertha
Maria von Marenholtz-Bulow, Bertha
Ronge, and Margarethe Schurz8 were
educated women whose social and
economic standing enabled them to
spread the idea of the kindergarten
throughout the world. Kindergartens
Herrington 33
 S 6 7 0 9 io /t ¿z & JÇ ļt> n 19 TO 2i 22- 23 7-f 2S TC, 27 30 29 *C>
mini n i m m m m 2S ii 27 30 i 29 - *C>
2«

1
J
37 3,t>'Ì5yò'tiLfi-l&LWL&ifrltl IQ ¿i9# S/ &- S3 & & ?7 <B *9 ca W ti ī

1. Blush rose 14. Runner pea 27. Nasturtium 40. Turkish bundle 53. Bear's ear
2. Corn 15. Sugar pea 28. Lettuce 41. Imperial crown 54. Snowdrop
3. Millet 16. Bean 29. Onion 42. Peony 55. Crocus
4. Legume 17. Dwarf bean 30. Leeks 43. White veil 56. Tulip
5. Wheal 18. Potato 31. Maijoram 44. Stock 57. Lily
6 Rye 19. Kohlrabi 32. Mint Balm 45. Lack 58. Mayflower
7. Barley 20. Swede 33. Yellow rose 46. Delphinium 59. Garden strawberry
8. Oat 21. Sauerkraut 34. White rose 47. Beliflower 60. Wood strawberry*
9. Spelt 22. Wirsing 35. Flax 48. Carnation 61. Purple Medic
10. Pea 23. Parsley 36. Hemp 49. White Forget me not 62. Sainfoin
11. Lentil 24. Celery 37. Sunflower 50. Blue Forget me not 63. Clover
12. Sweet pea 25. Chervil 38. Poppy 51. Tausendschön 64. Lavender
13 Spanish pea 26. Dill 39. Indian nasturtium 52. Tobacco 65. Hyssop
66. Blue rose

a. Adelheid f. Karolinc k. Luise p. Franz u. Gottlob z. Martin

b. Mela g. Minna 1. Alwina q. Bernhard v. Friedrich al. Paul
c.Flora h. Elise m. Katharina r. August w. Arthur bl. Anton
d. Pauline i. Auguste n. Marie s. Johann x. Karl
c. Ernestine j. Hulda o. Leopold t Wilhelm y. Ernst

Figure 5. A contemporary diagram showing the plant types used in Fröbel's design for the first kin
burg (Hoof 1977, English trans. Herrington 1998).

were opened by Bertha Ronge variety

in En- of small flower beds, each individuals, playing and learning in
gland as early as 1851, and in 1855
bearing the name of the child it espe- an outdoor environment (Figure 9).
the first kindergarten in Northcially
Amer-belongs to" (von Marenholtz- The first kindergarten pro-
Bulow 1855, p. 55). Miss Lyschinska
ica was opened. By the 1860s kinder- grams in the United States were
gartens would be permitted in Ger-explained the role of the garden and located in the homes of liberal Ger-
outdoor excursions in her kinder-
many and opened in Russia, France, man exiles. These early schools were
the Netherlands, Switzerland, Italy,
garten in London as well, stating that typically conducted in German and
and, in 1876, in Japan (Figure 8)."It is not the dry anatomy of Nature's limited to family members. In 1855
While Fröbel's symbolic garden
facets, but the personal relation in Margarethe Schurz, a former student
layout was not immediately trans-which the child finds himself to cer- of Fröbel, opened the first kinder-
lated,9 early iterations trf Fröbel's
tain objects that first awaken his garten in North America in Water-
kindergartens in Europe typicallyinterests" (Lyschinska 1880, p. 872). town, Wisconsin (Spencer-Wood 1991,
contained gardens. Describing The a early literature promoting p. 265). In 1859 during a portentous
kindergarten in London in 1854, the pedagogy to a European
Fröbel's meeting between transcendentalist
Countess Elizabeth Krockow von audience reinforced the kinder- Elizabeth Palmer Peabody and Mar-
Wickerode notes that ". . . here we garten's romantic roots. Children garethe Schurz, Peabody became
find ourselves in a garden which is were often portrayed as unrestrained enamored with the idea of kinder-
divided into a playground, the com- gartens. In 1860 Peabody established
mon property of the children and a the first English-speaking kinder-

34 Landscape Journal

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Figure 6. A page from FröbePs Mother-Play-and Nursery Song. (Fröbel, Friedrich.
1844. Mutter und Köse Lieder, Rudostalt, Germany). The illustrations for this finger
play and song book were drawn by Friedrich Unger who was interested in roman-
tic art. Many of his illustrations meld folk culture with bucolic landscapes and
neo-classical structures.
garten in the United States at 24 1/2
Winter Street (Spencer-Wood, 1994,
pp. 175-208; 1996, pp. 441-2) in
Boston.10 Later, she opened a kinder-
garten at 127 Charles Street which
had acquired room enough for a sub-
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stantial garden. As in FröbePs
schools, interpretive songs, games,
and the tending of individual garden
plots were indicative of Peabody's
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early kindergartens (Mann 1876,
p. 153). Excursions were also part of
the early American kindergarten
experience. In Peabody's description
of a kindergarten excursion in 1874,
she notes that "the freedom of the
woods brought the children into more
varied, and at the same time, more
closer in relations than occur in the
school-room" (Peabody 1874, p. 1).
Peabody was the initiator and
leader of the English-speaking
kindergarten movement in the
United States. Not only was Peabody
crucial to the development of kinder-
gartens, but she was instrumental in
establishing the Kindergarten Messenger
and the American Fröbel Union. By
the mid- 1870s every American publi-
cation concerning children's educa-
tion was buzzing with descriptions
of kindergartens. FröbePs book, The
Education of Man, was translated into
English by 1885, as were the kinder-
garten's weekly journal and his auto-
biography. While much attention was
given to the use of the Fröbeliän
blocks, gardens were also portrayed
as essential elements of the kinder-
garten. Mary Mann's description of
the kindergarten notes:
Thousands of moral precepts can
be illustrated by plants, from their
comparison of their care for them
and the kindergartners care of the
human plants that compose the
kindergarten, to the pruning, train-
ing and weeding of their flowers.
(Mann 1882, p. 250)
In 1875 there were over one
hundred kindergartens in the United
States. After the kindergarten was
featured at the Philadelphia Centen-
nial Exhibition of 1876, there were
four hundred kindergartens in the
United States, spanning from New
York to California by the early 1880s
(Cremin 1961, p. 57). Kindergartens
were situated in all types of physical
settings ranging from orphanages,
settlement houses, missions, and
eventually in public schools. Strapped
for space, many kindergartens used
window boxes, nearby vacant lots, or
the roof for gardening. In 1877, the
New England Journal of Education
praised the kindergarten established
by Mrs. Hill in Florence, Massachu-
setts, noting "There is enough
enclosed to furnish a garden-plat to
Herrington 35
 each of the children" (Mayo 1877,
p. 247). From 1878 to 1879 in the
Kindergarten Messenger, Dr. Erasmus
Schwab contributed a series of essays
concerning the installation of gardens
as a pedagogic setting. Schwab pro-
posed that "every school for children
ought to have a garden, however
small, because the child can be devel-
oped naturally only in contact with
nature, and because the relations of
nature to the mental life of man can
be explained most beautifully from
plants" (Schwab 1878, p. 2).
The romantic role of gardens in
the kindergarten was also reaffirmed
through recollections of former pupils
of Fröbel and American students
touring Germany. In the 1860s, the
ban closing kindergartens had been
lifted and some of these second-
generation German kindergartens
contained gardens (Figure 10).
A twentieth-century diagram of an
1870 garden in a kindergarten in
Gotha, Germany depicts the symbolic
layout recommended by Fröbel
(Figure 1 1 back cover). Maria Boelte,
a student of Fröbel's widow, fondly
recalls that "Each of us children
owned a little garden" (Boelte 1881,
p. 538). Likewise during Elizabeth
Harrison's tour of German kinder-
gartens, she notes that:
Nowhere in the land of Fröbel did
I find a kindergarten without its
little plot of ground where children
put their own seedlings, tended
their own plants, plucked their own
blossoms, and in the autumn gath-
ered and stored their own multi-
plied seeds." (Vanderwalker 1971,
p. 226)

The pedagogical uses for vari-

ous plants in a Berlin kindergarten
were described by an American
kindergartner, Mrs. Aldrich, to the
American Journal of Education in 1880.
Aldrich not only witnessed the indi-
Figure 7. A page from Fröbel's Mother-Play-and Nursery Song. (Fröbel, Friedrich.
vidual plots of the children, but she
1844 . Mutter und Köse Lieder, Rudostalt, Germany). The illustrations for this finger
also revealed the pedagogical uses of
play and song book were drawn by Friedrich Unger, a former pupil and drawing
corn growing in their gardens. Empha-
teacher. The environments are drawn from the Thüringen region in Germany
sizing analogy, narrative, questioning,
(Schwarzatal, Rudostalt) and his imagination (UNESCO 1982, p. 28)
and experimentation the kindergarten
teacher used corn as a material text
for understanding the abstract
through the tangible. For example,
Aldrich notes that the corn was first
introduced to the class through a nar-
rative experience with "a story being

36 Landscape Journal

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Figure 8. Kindergartners in Edinburgh note gardening programs at the heart of
their curriculum, with children spending most of the day outdoors when weather
permitted (Hardy 1917, p. 2).
told of how the Kindergartner had
played at hide-and-seek with a little
boy in a corn field." Using the ideas
of a known spatial analogy, the house,
she states, "the ear is a great house in
which there are many rooms" and "in
each room there lives a single grain."
The kindergarten class also used corn
to ascertain scientific questions about
gravity that the kindergartner pro-
posed to the children: "The ear of
corn hangs its head. Why? (This led
to an examination of an empty and
full ear)." The children themselves
explored the corn experimentally,
noting "The hollowness of the stalk
(the children learned this by blowing
soap bubbles; some children having
been allowed to break the straw in
the spaces between the knots, they
found they could not use them)."
Aldrich concludes by extending this
exploration to the corn's use, stating,
"Of What use is the grain? (They had
sown it in the Spring, they were now
about to learn its use experimen-
tally)" (Aldrich 1880, pp. 890-1).
The first American kinder-
gartners, with the help of Elizabeth
Palmer Peabody, were devoted to mak-
ing an accurate re-creation of Fröbel's
kindergarten concept, ". . . describing
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it not as a German method but the
'human method'" (Ross 1976, p. 10).
Transcendentalism had many ties to
the Romantic notions espoused by
Fröbel's kindergarten. Both New En-
gland transcendentalism and Roman-
ticism embraced the spiritual over
the material, and the transcendent
over the empirical. Under the guid-
ance of Peabody, the gardens in early
American kindergartens held true to
their romantic origins, emblematic of
an ideal social order and a verdant
expression of children's development. plish the object: for the training of
These philosophies also portrayed the muscles. . . . Two weeks practice of
garden and landscape as ideal peda-
gogical settings for the growing child. will make the infant, in his first year,
Rational Seeds of Reform. By the
late nineteenth century the idea of
the kindergarten had been assimi-
lated by an expanded circle of philan-
thropists, evangelists, and educa-
tional reformers who did not share
the idyllic views of Peabody and her
colleagues. Remarking on the signs
of the time, Mrs. D. H. Cruttenden
observing kindergartens in Boston
notes, "could anything be more sen-
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sible and noteworthy than to teach
children to love and pet flowers in
this too matter-of-fact, money mak-
ing age?" (Cruttenden 1877, p. 248).
Yet, this revelry in the garden as a
romantic retreat from capitalist trap-
pings would be short-lived.
The expanded circle of kinder-
garten supporters brought fundamen-
tal changes to kindergarten ideology,
and to the use of its garden (Figure
12). The Midwestern kindergartners,
enlivened by the pragmatic dimen-
sions of Fröbel's work, criticized
Peabody's kindergartens for their
overtly romantic sentiments and lack
of practical instruction (Shapiro 1983,
p. 86). Although kindergartner Susan
Blow had trained in New York City
with Maria Boelte (who had been
hand-picked by Peabody in Europe),
Blow aligned her kindergartens with
Hegelian philosophy.12 Under the
mentorship of Hegel scholar and St.
Louis school superintendent William
Torrey Harris, Susan Blow opened
kindergartens as part of the public
school system in 1873. By 1878 there
were thirty-eight kindergartens in St.
Louis (Commissioner of Education
1878, pp. 144-5). With a commanding
tone, Harris promoted his kinder-
garten programs as rational instru-
ments for shaping the child's supple
body and mind for a life of industrial-
ized work: "Here it becomes evident
that, if the school is to prepare espe-
cially for the arts and trades, it is
the kindergarten which is to accom-
holding objects in the right-hand
right-handed for life" (Harris 1880,
p. 519).
For this new breed of kinder-
gartners, revealing the hidden nature
of a child became secondary to shap-
ing their characters to fit American
standards (Rice 1893, p. 15). In the
service of an emphasis on rationalism
and service to the state, the garden in
the kindergarten was redefined as a
training ground for future workers
in the growing American industry.
Although Aldolf Douai, whom
Peabody later denounced, proposed as
early as 1875 that the kindergarten
"garden plot may be advantageously
combined with the labor garden"
Herrington 37

Figure 9. Frontispiece for Baroness Bertha von Marenholtz-Bulow. 1855. Women's
Educational Mission-Being An Explanation of Friedrich FröbeVs System of Infant Gardens.
London: Darton. Here, children are shown playing Fröbelian games in an
unstructured landscape.
(Douai 1875, p. 1), it was the kinder-
gartners in St. Louis who would pro-
foundly change the nature of the gar-
den in the kindergarten. Gardening
programs at the St. Louis kinder-
gartens were categorized under the
industrial training section of the cur-
38 Landscape Journal
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ricula as attention shifted away from
children's development to discussions
on skill attainment and production
levels (Hughes 1881, p. 620).
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The Absorption of the Kindergarten
into European School Gardens. The idea
of the garden as a vocational setting
had gained momentum in Europe as
well. By the 1890s Sweden, Austria,
Germany, Belgium, and Russia made
gardens a mandatory school require-
ment (Weir 1937). The schools' gar-
dens provided visible measures of
educational advancement and eco-
nomic progress. In parts of England,
teachers' salaries were determined by
the productivity levels of their school
gardens. Kindergartens were often
located within the primary school
grounds and eventually their gardens
began to assimilate the goals of the
school garden as a place for agricul-
tural instruction. Describing the
planting beds and ornamental gar-
dens of a kindergarten in Switzer-
land, Caroline Progler reports to
the American Journal of Education
(Figure 12) that "What is especially
wanted is a garden, or a cultivated
open space, attached to the
premises. . . . Around the shaded por-
tion should be benches and we should
like to see a fountain in the middle
furnished with lock which could be
closed at pleasure
must be situated in the midst of a
garden. . . . The wall around the play-
yard should be adorned with climbing
plants, and the little gardens should
be partially shaded, where the chil-
dren can plant seeds" (Progler 1881,
pp. 771-73).
The initial paragraphs of
Progler's report resonate with the
romantic ideas espoused by Fröbel.
In fact, her description of the foun-
tain garden matches precisely a gar-
den drawing from his Mutter und Köse
Lieder (Figure 7); however, her conclu-
sion gives Fröbel's garden culture a
telling twist. Progler notes, "The chil-
dren should be taught to respect
these gardens which no one is to
invade but the teachers. The children
who receives [sic] in the Spring one of
these little beds . . . will dig it, rake it,
sow it, water it under the direction of
the teacher, and what he reaps of it
will be his own property" (Progler
1881, pp. 771-773).
Progler's romantic veneer is
exposed as she places the garden
under the sole direction of the teach-
ers and the "reaps of it" for the
 child's own profit. In FröbePs kinder-
garten, children gardened through
modeling or self initiation, and con-
sistent with an exchange-use society,
surplus produce was given away. A
similar re-interpretation of FröbePs
work appeared again in the English
translation of his Mutter und Köse
Lieder in 1899. Susan Blow explained
to a North American audience that
the English version of the finger play,
"Little Gardener," intentionally
removed the verse encouraging chil-
dren to give food to the less fortunate
(Blow 1894, p. 229; Herrington 1998,
p. 333).
These changes in the romantic
ideology of the garden did not go
unnoticed. Erasmus Schwab who
had recently toured kindergartens
in Europe vehemently protests these
new kindergarten gardens. In the
Kindergarten Messenger he noted that
"The intelligence and morality of
the people will benefit little by train-
ing the children in the processes of
horticulture. ... I protest emphati-
cally against agricultural societies
that wish to make the school garden
an agricultural trial field" (Schwab
1879, p. 3). Likewise, Peabody and her
supporters engaged in numerous
arguments with their Midwestern col-
leagues. In a letter to the American
Journal of Education, Peabody protests
that FröbePs work ". . . has been trav-
estied in this country by numerous
schools called Kindergartens which
have disgraced its principle ..."
(Peabody 1880, p. 874). For Peabody,
the garden was not an agricultural
plot, but a symbolic setting; part work,
part play, and full of the present.
In the St. Louis schools, the gar-
den was a means to harness children's
bodies and souls in preparation for
industrial labor; in Peabody's mind
the garden metaphor inspired nurtur-
ing and prepared children to contem-
plate nature. In a letter to William T.
Harris she proposed a connection
between the work of Emerson and
Figure 10. An imaginative drawing by Beate Hahn uses the plan view as a concep-
tual device to explain FröbePs contribution (shown as a clearing) to the develop- FröbePs kindergarten philosophy.
ment of gardening programs in Europe (Hahn 1936, p. 13). It is significant to note Peabody writes, "But Fröbel has a
that while conducting the research for this paper, I discovered that Beate Hahn deeper secret still in letting action
was the mother of Canadian landscape architect Cornelia Hahn Oberlander. precede thinking & then thinking go
back to appreciate action , which pre-
pares the mind to analyze Nature
truly" (Peabody 1870, letter).
With its emphasis on vocation-

Herrington 39

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Figure 12. Kindergarten garden in Los Angeles around 1900. A teacher-centered garden (Brosterman 1997, p. 37).
alism and shaping children to fit soci-
ety, the St. Louis model proved most
influential in defining the American
kindergarten in the twentieth century
(Figure 13). Capitalizing on the suc-
cess of Susan Blow's kindergartens in
St. Louis, Harris became the United
States Commissioner on Education.
A presentation made by Harris
addressing the relationship between
the kindergarten and the primary
school foretells the vocational role of
the garden in American education.
"The kindergarten gives us two years
more of education than we have now,
and trains the pupil in an industrial
direction" (Harris 1879, p. 87). Child
40 Landscape Journal
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labor laws and mandatory education
legislation brought unprecedented
numbers of children into the public
school system by the twentieth cen-
tury. Kindergartens were subsumed
under the umbrella of educational
reform, and eventually made part of
the public school systems in many
states. Children's gardening pro-
grams became key to reform in both
the urban and rural context. They
provided vocational skills and moral
training for immigrants in the city,
and aimed to keep American rural
children on the farm.
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The Absorption of the Kindergarten
into American School Gardens. As Ameri-
can kindergartens were incorporated
into public schools, classic kinder-
garten features, like gardening and
craft work, were adopted by elemen-
tary school systems (Vanderwalker
1971, p. 219), while characteristics of
the public schools, such as standard-
ization and efficiency, were impressed
upon the kindergarten. This hybrid-
ization between the kindergarten and
the American primary public school
system contributed to the develop-
ment of the school garden movement.
School gardens were vegetable gar-
dens, decorative gardens, and
orchards that were tended by chil-
 dren. Gardening programs occupied
a special place in the reform move-
ment. Emphasizing economics,
science, and civic pride, children's
gardening programs were seen as an
opportunity to instill the moral and
practical skills important to rural
life. 13

The plots of the American

school garden were laid out produc-
tion-style in a uniform grid pattern
(Figure 14). A typical garden for one
class was approximately 150 square
feet containing vegetables like
radishes, lettuce, onions, and spinach,
or flowers. In contrast to FröbePs
designs, each plot was numbered for
record keeping of the different plant
types. Children were instructed to
properly stake-out, till, hoe, plant,
water, prune, and harvest fruits and
vegetables. Accurate records were
maintained for each plot over a
Figure 13. Plan of kindergarten gardens and playgrounds in Switzerland (Progler course of several years to determine
1881, p. 51). which crop was most profitable (Fig-
ures 15 and 16). The children's crops
were sold to local restaurants and
families, and agricultural societies
and companies, like the National
Cash Register Company of Ohio,
granted awards to the most profitable
gardens.
Ultimately, the absorption of
the kindergarten within the school
garden ideology was detrimental to
its romantic aspects. The use of the
garden as an agricultural training
ground diminished the importance of
the garden as a place for individual
growth through exploration, discov-
ery, and contemplation. Now that the
purpose of the garden was narrowed
in scope to skill development and eco-
nomic output, small children could
Figure 14. School garden at Fairview Garden School, Yonkers, NY (Greene 1910). hardly compete with the motor abili-
ties and productivity of school-aged
children (Figure 17). By the first
decade of the twentieth century, most
outdoor garden spaces were allotted
That is the sum of Speed to grades 3-6, while garden activities
in the kindergarten were reduced to
Annoyance ►- $2.00 per hour. planting seeds in Dixie cups. A Coun-
Danger try Life survey on kindergartens
reports that "toddlers cooped up
When lhe same class of labor indoors were more likely to suffer
from enlarged glands, rickets and
with these elements removed J other defects" (M.R. 1925, p. 97). The
survey found a lack of outdoor facili-
ties for children two to six years of
age in most
Figure 15. The logic of the school garden could be summed up in a formula schools, and proposed
(Par-
sons 1910, p. 21).

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ways of introducing outdoor programs
for the youngest children in elemen-
tary schools.
Gardening programs for older
children continued to flourish as
exemplary facets of reform until
the Depression. Even the legacy of
Peabody's Boston kindergarten was
transformed to suit the school garden
objectives. In keeping with recent
production-style practices, the Eliza-
beth Peabody Settlement House's
annual report from 1908 notes that
"Lettuce and radishes, even unto a
third crop in some cases were pro-
duced in the 220 garden plots, and
there were other more long lasting
harvests than those of the vegetable
and flowers (Elizabeth Peabody
42 Landscape Journal
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House 1914, p. II).14 Dozens of chil-
dren's' gardening publications, with
titles like How to Make the Garden Pay ,
were produced, while only vestiges of
Fröbel's garden culture surfaced.15
Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin was one
of the last of the romantic kindergart-
ners to keep the garden alive as a
place of self-revelation, not forma-
tion. In her autobiography, My Garden
of Memory, she recalls the aromatic
gardens of rose bushes and eucalyp-
tus trees at her California kinder-
gartens. "The acquisition of facts is
not the most important desidera-
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tum. . . . Let children soak themselves
in the atmosphere of nature" she con-
tends (Wiggin 1893, p. 29).
The Immersion of Kindergarten
Education into University Instruction .
Another facet of the reform move-
ment was the emerging field of
education as a scientific endeavor
requiring a college degree. With the
evolution of pedagogy as a subject
of scientific study, the discussion of
kindergartens was relocated from
women's organizations to univer-
sities.16 Scholars like Francis Parker,
G. Stanley Hall, and John Dewey
often embraced Fröbel's child-cen-
tered approach, but found his roman-
tic texts burdensome and outdated.
They were particularly critical of his
ideas concerning nature and the role
of plant material. The transcendent
qualities that Fröbel found in the gar-
den could hardly be validated to a sci-
entific community. Debunking many
of Fröbel's roîhantic tendencies as
mysticism, progressive scholars inter-
preted the garden of the kindergarten
for its social and scientific potential
to a modern society.
John Dewey expressed an early
interest in Fröbel's work in 1879 with
his presentation to the National Edu-
cation Association called "Kinder-
garten and Child Study." Dewey
believed that learning was a social
process that required children to
cooperatively do things like weave,
draw, cook, and garden. Founding the
Chicago Laboratory School in 1896, -
he made gardening a special activity,
reporting that "the whole community
has become tremendously interested
in starting a garden using every avail-
able ground" (Dewey 1900, p. 99).
Dewey's use of the gardens as a peda-
gogic space was strictly for coopera-
tion and scientific study (Figure 18).
In Schools ofTo-MorroWy written with
Evelyn Dewey, they stressed the
importance of observing the life-cycle
of plants. They note that gardening
"plays a large part in the curriculum
of the younger children for it seems
to belong particularly to their world;
to the world of definite concrete
objects which they see every day,
which they can handle and play, and
which consequently arouse curiosity
(Dewey 1915, p. 32).
 Dewey disregarded the symbolic
imagery of the kindergarten garden
culture. He rationalized that Fröbel
invented this social order because
the oppressive political conditions
of nineteenth century Thüringen
"... were too restrictive and authori-
tative to serve as worthy models. . . .
The general and social conditions of
Germany were such that it was
impossible to conceive continuity
between the free, cooperative social
life of the kindergarten and that of
the world outside "(Dewey 1900,
p. 1 1 7). For Dewey, kindergartens in
twentieth-century America should be
"more natural, more direct, and more
real representations of current life
than FröbePs disciples have done"
(Dewey 1900, p. 117).
Thus, Dewey reinvented many
of the outdoor activities of the kinder-
Figure 17. Judging day for a school garden in Portland, Oregon {The Playground
1914, p. 89). garten to fit modern notions of
nature and education. For example,
FröbePs excursions were defined as
"nature walks" where children
learned to identify and label natural
phenomena. Embracing the scientific
method that was a hallmark of pro-
gressive thinking, Dewey's approach
dissected and classified nature into a
digestible system for memorization.
In the new American schools, nature
walks became a place "where they
learned the meaning of words like
pistils, stamens, and petals" (Dewey
1915, p. 31), vocabulary words which
could be easily tested. This approach
contrasted with that of Fröbel who
stressed the revelatory powers of
these excursions.
William Heard Kilpatrick's
interpretation of the kindergarten
gardens and excursions was far more
critical than Dewey's. In Froebel's
Kindergarten Principles Critically Exam-
ined , he scoffed at Fröbel's symbolic
use of the garden, noting that "it was
to plants that Froebel's heart espe-
cially inclined. Nowhere was he more
a mystic than here" (Kilpatrick 1916,
p. 187). He states, "Froebel's presen-
tation of nature study, it must be
admitted, on the whole, that the good
preponderates, and the useless is
easily dropped out (Kilpatrick 1916,
Figure 18. Dewey's garden for children (Harms, William and Ida DePencier.
p. 194). Describing Fröbel's digres-
1996, p. 12).
sions into the spiritual nature of
plants as pure mysticism, Kilpatrick
promotes the kindergarten gardens

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Figure 19. Learning outdoors at the Chicago Normal School (circa 1930).
as tools for motivating children to
understand the connection between
effort and economic gains, and to
clarify his belief that what is ". . .par-
ticularly helpful at this period of life
is the cultivation of gardens for the
sake of produce" (Kilpatrick 1916 , dropped. Kindergartens in England,
p. 189). Referring to FröbePs 1850 the Netherlands, and Japan, still
passage concerning the garden of the maintained some gardening and
kindergarten, he states:
The reciprocal activity between
one and a few, a part and a whole
is nowhere more beautifully vividly
and definitely expressed than in
the associated cultivation of plants
(5:218). To carry this out fully there
should be a general garden, which
children cultivate in common and
individual beds. In this connection
Frederick Fröbel suffers one of the
worst lapses into symbolism: The
respective beds of the children
must be surrounded buy the garden
of the whole, as the particular
always rests protected in the gen-
eral, and the general protectingly
surrounds the particular (5:21).
But pass this by. (Kilpatrick 1916,
p. 193)17
44 Landscape Journal
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Kindergartens succeeded in
name only in the modern American
educational system because many of
their romantic tendencies, like the
symbolic gardens and contemplative
excursions, were reinvented or simply
nature study programs; however, gar-
den and excursion components were
eliminated from most kindergarten
programs in the United States. Since
elementary schools based their gar-
den pedagogy on agricultural and
economic skills, the school gardens
fell out of favor as well. Technological
advancements in agriculture and the
proliferation of grocery stores made
small-scale hand gardening not a very
marketable skill.18 By the late 1920s
teachers protested that gardening
was taking too much time away from
their increasingly demanding acade-
mic curricula. In a 1937 issue of Land-
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scape and Garden , in an article entitled
"The Problem of the School Garden,"
an architect notes that school gar-
dens are "admitted failures, that
teachers did not like them and they
degenerated into mud plots" (Shipp
1937, p. 32). The author divulges
the complexity of outdoor spaces
demanded by the modern K-6 school.
He also notes that new schools built
as better schools have athletic fields
and play apparatus, but do not have a
garden.
Other inventions of the kinder-
garten fared better in the twentieth
century, although they were emptied
of their romantic content and sym-
bolic meaning. Eventually, FröbePs
gifts were mass-produced by Milton
Bradley, and became the progenitors
of contemporary play blocks; and his
songs and finger plays can be seen
and heard in kindergartens today.
The outdoor components of the
kindergarten held direct references
to nature, although the cultural defi-
nition of nature has undergone pro-
found changes since the early nine-
teenth century. Far too mystical for
contemporary minds, the kinder-
garten gardens and excursions were
forgotten19 as the kindergarten
entered the contested grounds of
the modern school yard, unaware
of its romantic roots (Figure 19).
Conclusion
During the past two centuries
both gardens and young children
have emerged as raw materials for
cultural transformation. Because they
both require human nurture and are
subject to the processes of nature,
they are to some extent always unfin-
ished as their means of cultivation
offer alternatives to the future. In
both centuries, education was essen-
tial to releasing the emerging middle
class from the burdens of an the
inheritance-based economy (Calvert
1992, p. 58). Yet, for the romantics
this new social and economic order
was not organic, and needed valida-
tion from a higher source than
human reason. As Denis Cosgrove
notes, "romantics failed to locate its
origins in the new social relations of
production. . . it had to be found in a
natural, moral order which harmo-
nized the individual soul with
unspoiled external nature" (Cosgrove
1998, p. 231). The garden was the
ideal setting in which to naturalize
education and to unify children's
development with external nature.
The kindergarten was exemplary of
this logic.
When kindergartens were inter-
preted for twentieth-century Ameri-
can society, nature was not a mystical,
external force and a child did not har-
bor a divine essence. Both nature and
childhood could be explained and
exploited, making obsolete Fröbel's
symbolic use of the garden and his
transcendental contemplation of the
landscape. While kindergartens were
perpetuated in name, the ideological
potency of gardens and children dur-
ing the early twentieth century
reached its zenith in the schools' gar-
dens, not the kindergartens. Indeed,
the empirical experience of natural
phenomena was a reality for Dewey
as much as their transcendent experi-
ence was a reality to Fröbel. Yet, at
the threshold of the millennium,
when individuals are questioning the
empirical apprehension of nature as
a coherent reflection of reality, land-
scapes and gardens are being sought
out for their healing and mnemonic
dimensions. Likewise, over the past
ten years, theorists such as James
Corner, Catherine Howett, and Marc
Treib have noted a concerted effort
on the part of landscape architects to
attribute their designs with signifi-
cance that lies beyond rational expla-
nation and formulation.20
Therapeutic gardens, land art,
memorial gardens, and eco-revelatory Kindergarten for documentation of the gifts.
landscapes are only a few examples of Here, Brosterman proposes that these educa-
late twentieth-century designed land- tional objects were the seeds of abstract art
scapes. These landscapes suggest and modern architecture because they pre-
emotive and reflective environments
that echo many of Fröbel's aims. In
"Radical Romanticism" Patrick Con-
don notes that in these attempts to
resonate "human relations with the
earth itself," landscape architects are
calling upon their more romantic
practices (Condon 1991, p. 8). Like
the kindergarten, landscape architec-
ture was born in the heart of the
romantic movement when gardens
and landscapes were designed to pro-
193.5.58.170 on Thu, 29 Sep 2022 12:18:59 UTC
vide epiphanic experiences with
nature. As landscapes for both chil-
dren and adults are designed for the
twenty-first century, it is significant
to understand the romantic origins of
the kindergartens within this new vein
of landscape architectural practice.
Notes
1 . Naturphilosphie is a nineteenth-century Ger-
man philosophy that speculated an organic
union between God and all living things. See
Ann Taylor Allen (1988) "'Let Us Live With
Our Children. 'Kindergarten Movements in
Germany and the United States, 1840-1914."
History of Education Quarterly 28 (1): 23-47.
2. Here, I put an emphasis on Rousseau's use
of the garden as a pedagogical setting, which is
only a small part of his lengthy educational
theory. See Rousseau, Jean Jacques. 1979.
Emile, or On Education (translation by Allan
Bloom). New York: Basic Books, Inc.
3. The intention's of Fröbel's pedagogy and
the reflection of this pedagogy in the garden is
romantic. Romanticism was very much influ-
enced by the neo-classical movement, particu-
larly as it related to formal issues of design.
Fröbel's use of simple geometrical forms in his
garden designs is evidence of this connection.
There are also neo-classical buildings and clas-
sical plant material, such as cypress trees
(which do not grow in Thüringen), in the illus-
trations of his kindergarten books.
4. Keilhau was re-opened in the 1990s, and
Fröbel's great nephew is archiving the books,
children's work, and photographs of the school
(Müller 1997, conversation).
5. The "gifts" were a series of twenty educa-
tional objects invented by Fröbel. The objects
ranged from wood blocks (the most famous of
these gifts and still produced today), paper,
tiles, peas, and clay. By chance, Milton Bradley
attended a seminar by Elizabeth Peabody and
began mass-producing the gifts in the United
States. See Norman Brosterman's Inventing
pared children to admire geometric abstraction
(Brosterman 1997, p. 104).
6. Although both Fröbel and his translators
used the male pronoun when describing the
child, both girls and boys were part of the
kindergarten. See also Reyer, "Friedrich Fröbel,
der Beruf der Kindergärtnerin und die bürger-
liche Frauenbewegung," Sozial Pädagogische
Blätter 2(1988), pp. 3-4.
7. I'd like to thank Dr. Gert Groening for point-
ing out the radical dimension of the kinder-
garten in nineteenth-century Thüringen. As
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Douglas Chambers notes, the discussion of
plants in the eighteenth and early nineteenth
centuries was not considered a proper subject
matter for women or children because of the
Linnean nomenclature. This nomenclature
used words that were sometimes derived from
the human anatomy and not considered appro-
priate for female ears. This may have been
another factor contributing to the suspicion
of kindergartens.
8. The garden was not easily translated when
the kindergarten was banned. Matilda Kreige
describes the panic in the kindergarten when
the ban was enforced. Leaving Germany for
other countries, kindergartners packed their
knapsacks with the gifts. However, the garden
was not transportable and exact replication of
his symbolic layout might have been difficult to
create from memory.
9. Margarethe and Bertha were sisters. Leav-
ing Germany after the revolution of 1848,
Margarethe Meyer married Carl Schurz and
Bertha Meyer married Johann Ronge.
10. In 1838, at the age of 32, Miss Caroline
Louise Frankenberg opened a Fröbel-based
school on Rich Street in Columbus, Ohio.
Frankenberg and her brother Aldof had been
proponents of Fröbel's work in Germany and
Switzerland. The Ohio school was called The
Institute for the Culture of Occupational Incli-
nations of Children and Youth, and was estab-
lished prior to Fröbel's coining of the name
"kindergarten." Frankenberg's school reflected
the philosophy of Fröbel, but the school failed,
and in 1840 Frankenburg returned to Germany
to pursue further study with Fröbel. Eighteen
years later she returned to the United States,
opening kindergartens again in Columbus,
Ohio and in Pennsylvania where she was visited
by Elizabeth Palmer Peabody. See Elizabeth
Palmer Peabody, Kindergarten Pioneer by Ruth Bay-
lor and Friedrich Wilhelm August Froebel
1782-1852 "Come, let us live for our children !" 100th
anniversary book, by the National Commission
for UNESCO of the German Democratic
Republic and the Froebel Committee of the
German Democratic Republic.
1 1 . Originally I found the drawings in Figures
10 and 11 in an archive in Berlin where the
librarians had told me that the author had dis-
appeared during World War II. In truth, the
author, Beate Hahn, had escaped the Nazis in
1938 and, with her children, moved to a farm
in New Hampshire. What a surprise it was to
discover that this author was the mother of our
famous landscape architect Cornelia Hahn
Oberlander.
12. The Transcendentalist/Hegelian debate
concerning the kindergarten is a lengthy one,
and not the subject of this paper. See Cremin,
Lawrence (1961) and Michael Steven Shapiro
(1983). Essentially, early kindergartners felt
Fröbel's philosophy was aligned with Schiller
and Goethe, while later kindergartners saw the
philosophy of Hegel in the Kindergarten work.
In the United States, Hegelians differed from
the Transcendentalists in the belief that "The
Angelic nature of the child was only implicit
and not explicit, and had to be actualized in
social institutions . . . spirituality was subordi-
nate to rationality" (Cremin 1961, p. 57).
13. Funded at a federal level, school gardens in
the United States were also sponsored by
women's groups and progressivists, and were
Herrington 45
relevant to both the city beautiful and country Brosterman, Norman. 1997in .Council. Annual Meeting Kinder-
Inventing of the
garten. New York: Harry NationalN.Education Association -
Ābrams.
life movements. They were used to teach chil-
dren basic agricultural skills, lessons in botany, Calvert, Karin. 1992. Children Mr. Harris's
in Paper:
the The Relations of
House: The
Material Culture of Earlythe Kindergarten to the School." New-
Childhood
and they purportedly engendered civic pride.
1600-1900. Boston: Northeastern Uni- England Journal of Education August,
Children's decoration gardens sought to galva-
nize local pride by planting ornamental flowers versity Press. 21.10(5): 87.
at school entrances, local parks, and street Chambers, Douglas. 1998. "Book Review of
medians. See Trelstad (1997). Cultivating Women." Studies in the His- School System." American Jo
14. The Elizabeth Peabody House used a tory of Gardens & Designed Landscapes cation 30: 513-519.

vacant lot at Poplar and Charles for the garden
until 1914 when the Peabody House was
rebuilt, relocating the garden space to the roof
area where container plants were maintained
by the children. Also on Peabody see Baylor
(1965).
15. It is interesting to note that Gertrude J ekyll
in her book Children and Gardens (1908) reflects
upon her childhood gardening experiences.
Providing drawings of her early garden designs,
she also describes the crafts she made from her
garden. Gardening crafts like primrose balls,
daisy chains, and flower garlands were often
products of a girl's own garden, and they are
similar to the garden crafts produced by
Fröbel's students in Germany (Keilhau).
16. The dialogue concerning kindergartens
from their invention in 1839 to the turn of the
twentieth century was dominated by women.
By the first decade of the twentieth century,
kindergartens became the discourse of men in
academia. Spencer-Wood, Suzanne M.(1994).
17. In Kilpatrick's systematic account of
Fröbel's texts, he uses numbers to reference
both the German page number and the English
translation's page number. A conversion chart,
much like a scientific table, at the back of the
book locates the lines in both languages.
18. See the Hughes Act, Cremin (1961), and
Trelstad (1997).
19. 1 realize as I write this that there are
kindergarten programs where children do tend
plants and take walks, but these activities are
not standard inclusions in contemporary
kindergartens (Herrington 1997). See Spodek,
(1988).Currently, a kindergarten in Dessau,
Germany is recreating a Fröbelian garden for
their children.
20. See Patrick Condon (1991), James Corner
18(4): 370. Herrington, Susan. 1997. "The Received View
Commissioner of Education. 1878. "Report on of Play and the Subculture of Infants."
Elementary Instruction." American Jour- Landscape Journal 16(2): 149-160.
nal of Education 29: 9-12.
Condon, Patrick. 1991. "Radical Romanticism." garten: Beyond the M
Landscape Journal. 10(1): 3-8. in the History of Garden
Corner, James. 1991. "Discourse in Theory II: scapes 18(4): 33-36.
Hermeneutics." Landscape Journal 10(2): Hoof, Dieter. 1977. "Die
115-133. Kindergarten. Ein did
Cosgrove, Denis. 1998. Social Formation and Sym- von Fröbel." In Handbu
bolic Landscape. Madison: The University Fröbel. Braunschweig:
of Wisconsin Press. mann.
Cremin, Lawrence. 1961. The Transformation of Howett, Catherine. 1998. "Ecological V
the School. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. Twentieth-Century Landscape Des
Cruttenden, D. H. 1877. "A Model Kinder- A History and Hermeneutics." Land
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5(21): 248. Nature Constructed Nature Revealed-. 8
Dewey, John. 1900. The School and Society. Hughes, James L. 1881. "The Kindergart
Chicago: University of Illinois. tem." American Journal of Education 3
620.
Morrow. New York: E. P. Dutton & Com- Jarvis, Josephine. 1897. Friedrich FroebeVs
pany. gogic of the Kindergarten , or His Ideas Co
Douai, Aldof. 1875. "The Organic Connections cerning the Play and Playthings of the Ch
of the Kindergarten and the School. New New York: D. Appleton and Compan
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Kindergarten Gardens.in The New-England
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mittee.

(1991), Catherine Howett (1998), and Marc
Treib (1995).
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Herrington 47

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