The most important period in the history of the American school garden movement began in the 1890s.  Foreshadowing today's experience, the capacity of school gardens to facilitate numerous - and varied - social, moral, and educational objectives proved problematic.  While there was nearly universal agreement on the inherent value and importance of school gardens, there was little consensus about what the primary agenda for these gardens ought to be, and this made developing a standard curricula or approach to school gardening nearly impossible to accomplish.  Those with social reform impulses focused on the ability of nature study to ameliorate the "negative" effects of urban life, or as a means to beautify schools and civic space.  Other reformers saw gardens as a way to "Americanize" immigrants.  Some saw gardens as a direct route to improving dietary and health practices, and viewed "school-supervised" home gardens as a way to strengthen American families in a period of national transformation.  Still other gardening proponents saw school gardens as a means to instill traditional character and moral values, and as a means to recapture an older, producer ethic with roots in America's agrarian past.  Others saw gardens as a place to teach science, or to provide more vocationally-oriented training - "practical work" - in the interests of social efficiency.  Other educators saw gardens as a way to support a variety of academic subjects.  There was little ability, then, to formulate a single agenda, curricula, or "best practice" that would address all needs.

The attached link leads to the 4-H Center for Youth Development's monographs page.  A suggested reading is the monograph written by Center researcher Aarti Subramaniam in Summer 2002.