Sending city children to the country: vacations in “nature” ca. 1870–1900

Abstract

ABSTRACTThe last quarter of the nineteenth century witnessed a new but rapidly spreading perspective on the link between education and nature: middle-class philanthropists joining together to provide summer vacations in the countryside for poor, sickly, urban children. Drawing on numerous examples of such work in Europe and the United States, this essay highlights the common traits and local variations of these programmes designed to improve the physical health and often the moral tone of such endangered children. It highlights in particular the fundamental disagreements over whether it was better to house such children in the homes of rural families or to keep them together in groups under the supervision of teachers or other adults. In conclusion, it examines the important role of a single patron, the Prussian/German Crown Princess Victoria.