This paperʼs aim is to clarify how nursery schools at Teachers College, Columbia University were accepted and developed under Hillʼs leadership, from the perspective of international exchanges with Margaret McMillan and Grace Owen in the 1920s.<br>　First, Hill was deeply impressed by Margaret McMillanʼs Open-Air Nursery School and learned the importance of nursery school education and methods suitable to the pre-kindergarten children, such as all young childrenʼs the right to education, a small teacher to student ratios, and care for childrenʼs health. Her desire was to establish a unique nursery school fitted to American national and educational needs.<br>　Secondly, Hill invited English educators Grace Owen and Kathleen Edwards to start an experimental nursery school and training program. During the summers of 1923 and 1924, Hill established a “Nursery school education” course for which Owen, called a “Progressive Froebelian”delivered lectures on English nursery-school education in the light of scientific research in child psychology and hygiene. This course deepened American educatorsʼ knowledges of nursery schools and played a pioneering role in the training of nursery school teachers.<br>　Thirdly, Edwards established the nursery school in the Manhattanville Day Nursery, 1924. She designed environments to meet childrenʼs developmental needs, based on her experiences in England. She also insisted that teachers should have a higher salary than nursemaids, with vacation every three months in order to maintain a high level of education and relieve teachers of mental and physical stress.<br>　Fourthly, the Teachers College received significant fundings from the Laura Spelman Rockefeller Memorial for child study and parent education, and established the Institute of Child Welfare Research in 1924. Two nursery schools attached to the Institute in 1926 served the pre-school children of well-do, well-educated parents. The institute nursery schools conducted child education, parent education, teacher training, and so on, utilizing the results of scientific research in psychology, psychiatry, nutrition, etc.

　The history of vocational education in the United States has focused primarily on secondary education. However, it is certain that Calvin M. Woodward, the father of “manual training”, and other advocates of “manual training” appreciated Froebelʼs kindergartens.<br>　What was the connection between Froebelʼs “occupation” （„Beschäftigung“） which was accepted in America, and “manual training” as a vocational program in secondary education? This paper reveals the relationship between “occupation” and “manual training” in the second half of the nineteenth century by examining the arguments of the Froebelists and of Woodward and other proponents of “manual training.”<br>　First, we review the history of the emergence of vocational education and the problems associated with it. Second, we focus on the prevalence of Froebelʼs educational theory in the context of the “New Education” in late-nineteenth-century America and summarize the history of the acceptance of “occupation” among the practices he advocated. In this section, we consider Angeline Brooks, Emma Jacobina Christiana Marwedel, and an 1891 Massachusetts state survey of “manual training.” Through these discourses, we demonstrate that “occupation,” initially discussed in America as an educational methodology for kindergarten, was referred to by some Froebelists as the basis for “manual training” as vocational education. Finally, we examine the controversy between Woodward and William T. Harris over the location of “manual training.” Through these disputes, we show how the connection between “occupation” and “manual training” was refuted.

　This study explores the practice of Yoji Seikatsu-dan, its characteristics and development in the Osaka Tomonokai from the 1950s to the 1960s. Yoji Seikatsu-dan is an early childhood education organization founded in January 1939 by Motoko Hani and her daughter, Setsuko, in order to realize the ideal of early childhood education. This organization was originally inspired by the exhibition of early childhood life in 1938 which was part of the events celebrating the 35th anniversary of a magazine called “Fuji no Tomo”. The Osaka Yoji Seikatsu-dan was founded in 1940 by a local group of Tomonokai（ a group of readers of “Fujin no Tomo”）.<br>　The examination of the primary sources reveals two main points.<br>　First, the Yoji Seikatsu-dan established a childrenʼs group meeting once a week and sought to form an autonomous life for children at home with the support of their guardians based on what the children learned during the weekly meeting.<br>　Second, the Osaka Yoji Seikatsu-dan has already developed science-related educational practices with animal breeding as a core content when the movement to incorporate science-related content and methods in childcare accelerated in the 1960s. Moreover, fostering childrenʼs basic lifestyle habits and challenging activities related to science and art, which were revealed by clarifying the practice of Yoji Seikatsu-dan in Osaka, brings two suggestions. First, the practice of Yoji Seikatsu-dan was not childcare, but rather education that prioritized the development of childrenʼs autonomy and their interests by bringing out their innate abilities. Second, the style of placing more emphasis on home care became a point of view that needed to be reconsidered over time.