The Foundling Hospital has large green courts, on which the merry but sombrely-clad little children are seen running about, through the fine iron gates which face Guildford Street. This was founded in 1739 by Captain Thomas Coram, who gave so much of his wealth to objects of charity and philanthropy that a subscription had to be raised to support him in his old age. Theodore Jacobson (died 1772) was the architect of the building. A colonnade runs round the whole length of the forecourt up to the gates, part of which is used as laundries, or other things necessary to the institution. A writer in 1773 describes the “large area between the gates and the hospital” as “adorned with grass plats, gravel walks, and lamps erected upon handsome posts: beside which there are two convenient gardens,” and exactly the same description holds good to-day. Brunswick Square lies to the west, and Mecklenburgh Square to the east, so the Hospital grounds are still airy. There is a small garden at the back of the building in front of the Infirmary; on the east is the Treasurer’s Garden, a fair-sized enclosure, and on the other side, with the poplars growing in Brunswick Square overhanging it, lies the other and larger of the two “convenient gardens.” There is nothing old-fashioned or attractive in these gardens left; merely a green lawn, a weeping ash, and a few commonplace “bedding-out” plants; not altogether in keeping with the age or dignity of the building and spacious forecourt. Less well known is the delightful Garden of the Grey-coat School in Westminster. Most of the old foundations in Westminster have vanished, such as Emanuel Hospital and the “Blue-coat School,” which disappeared a few years ago, but so far this charming old house has been respected. Quaint figures of the children in the dress of the time--it was founded by the citizens of Westminster in 1698--stand on either side of the entrance. The children from the parishes of St. Margaret and St. John the Evangelist, who have attended the elementary schools for three years, are eligible for admission, up to the age of ten. The school was reconstituted as a day school for 300 girls in 1873, and, in spite of all educational vicissitudes, has been allowed to survive, and the sweet and wholesome influence of those old-fashioned surroundings would be a great loss, should it ever be swept away. The Garden is delightful. It is practical as well as ornamental, as it furnishes the staff of teachers with a good supply of vegetables. They have each a small flower-bed too, tended with great care, and the children are allowed a place of their own, where they work, dig, and plant. Down the centre runs a wide gravel walk, with a deep herbaceous border along either side, sweet-scented pinks and low-growing plants near the front, then a long row of spiderwort, and behind that a regiment of magnificent hollyhocks. The spiderwort or Tradescantia is a flower eminently suited to London