In the heart of Jamaica Plain lies a sprawling garden that is visited almost daily by wide-eyed apprentice gardeners who are generally under four feet tall.

They are grade school students, for the most part, and they are visiting Harvard's Arnold Arboretum to compare its lush greenery with the miniature plots they tend in their schoolyards.

As the recently-appointed director of Harvard's Arnold Arboretum leads the conservatory into a new phase of its 117-year history, the institution seems to be bolstering its commitment to teaching and research.

Arboretum director Robert E. Cook '68, named last December, says one of his top priorities will be an emphasis on early science education "and the role we might play reaching out to schools."

Having so many types of plants together in one place provides students from all over Boston and New England with an opportunity to study botanic specimens first-hand. For the past six years, the arboretum has run programs with Boston and Cambridge public schools that teach plant and tree identification to grade school students.

The arboretum's land--265 acres that are three blocks from the T's Arborway stop on the green line--is owned by the city of Boston but is leased by Harvard for the nominal fee of $1 per year. The property houses more than 7,000 kinds of trees, shrubs and other plants.

The arboretum has increasingly stressed hands-on education since it began working with Boston-area schools in 1983, when 450 school children came to the arboretum for special classes. Since then the number of children visiting annually has increased to more than 4,000.

Although the arboretum sponsors professional symposiums each year and runs mini-courses for adults, which have attracted more than 5,000 people annually during the past three years, programs for grade school students have remained its main educational focus.

Cook, who oversaw the development of a plant science curriculum for elementary school children while at Cornell Plantations, came to Harvard after directing Cornell's arboretum and botanical gardens. The curriculum he helped develop is now used in schools throughout New York State.

While Cook says that fundraising will be one of his priorities, he emphasizes that he he has no immediate plans to initiate a fund drive. The arboretum currently has an annual operating budget of $2.8 million--70 percent of which comes from its endowment--and depends for the remainder upon both public and private grants, income from education programs, membership fees and donations and revenues from the arboretum shop.

Since his arrival here, Cook says, he has been trying to familiarize himself with his new stomping grounds. "I've spent much of my time just making progress in knowing the elements of the arboretum's structure," Cook says. "I want to try to make the Arnold Arboretum more financially sound and reach out to the community."

Much of Cook's plans follow themes that the previous arboretum director, Professor of Dendrology Peter Ashton, set during his five-year tenure. Cook points out Ashton's administration instituted the cooperative programs with Boston-area schools.

"For one thing, the state of science education in this country is one of my concerns," says Cook. "I'm going to be looking for funding for expanding our teaching capacities and reaching out to area schools to assist them in devising better elementary plant science education programs."

Diane Sylverson, coordinator for the arboretum's programs for Boston-area students, says the work that schools do with the arboretum ranges from annual field trips to coordinated year-long programs. In the long-term programs, which the arboretum conducts mainly with local schools, Sylverson and other arboretum staffers visit the classroom and teach about the flora with which students later have contact.

Sylverson notes that one of the most successful programs last year involved bringing handicapped and special-needs children from Cambridge schools to the arboretum, along with older students. The older students helped the special-needs children with the classification of plants that the students examined. The program was discontinued this year due to a lack of funds.