SECRETARY'S PORTFOLIO. 409 



my 30 steps only once before four o'clock. But just as I was marking my 

 roll, I hear a fearful cry, and dainty little Freddy comes rushing in to tell me 

 that Pat has hid his hat, and keeps plaguing him so he can't go home. I go 

 down with the much-abused child, find his hat where Pat has thrown it, and 

 catch a twinkle of Pat's legs going down the hill; and as the coast is clear I 

 ascend my 30 steps and finish the task of the day. I have been up and down 

 only 690 steps during the day, for I am fortunate enough to occupy a room on 

 the second floor. If it had been on the third floor the number would have 

 reached 1,380. 



Please to remember that climbing steps is only a small share of our day's 

 work. And so I repeat, I should not have my model school-house more than 

 two stories high. About my building I should have grassy lawns, good walks, 

 large, open buildings for play on rainy days, and many trees under whose shade 

 happy, merry groups of children could sit in sunny days. Inside I should 

 have mattings over all the floors, for how cau noisy, restless children be ex- 

 pected to keep as quiet on bare, echoing floors, as staid, grown up folks on car- 

 pects. I should have the doors arranged to move as noiselessly as church doors, 

 for a great, slamming hall door is as apt to disturb a teacher in a recitation as 

 it would a minister in a sermon. And besides the effect on one's nerves is not 

 remarkably soothing. On the walls should hang beautiful pictures, by which 

 the eye of the child could be trained to forms of beauty, and on which it could 

 look when weary with study, and looking, learn some new lesson, perhaps bet- 

 ter than on the printed page. As far as practicable, I would have plants grow- 

 ing in the windows, if for nothing else than to note the eager interest with 

 which the child will watch each unfolding flower and growing leaf. Brackets, 

 pieces of statuary, delicates vines, ferns and autumn leaves, should make this 

 a charmed place, especially to the many who, living in dreary homes, never 

 taste of beauty elsewhere. 



How children love beauty ! How the poor, starved little souls hunger for it! 

 We talk much of great fields of labor, of noble deeds, of accomplishing some- 

 thing in the world for humanity. Eemembering our child life, with its mem- 

 ories of all things beautiful and lovely carefully cherished, what better work 

 can we do than to use our influence to make the spot where the child passes so 

 many hours of its life a place of beauty, a continued delight. 



MONEY IN TREE PLANTING. 



We may not as yet in Michigan feel the necessity or advisability of tree 

 planting for wood, but there is no question but it will pay to plant certain 

 kinds of timber for profit in the older parts of our State, to be used for 

 mechanical purposes. In Land and Home we find the following statements of 

 profits in tree planting in Massachusetts : 



Mr. R. S. Fay, on his estate near Lynn, Massachusetts, planted thirty years 

 ago larch and other European trees. During last winter the itemizing from 

 its plantation yielded him as follows: 



1 75 cords fire wood, sold at an average of 15. 50 $962 50 



500 larch posts, 25 cents 125 00 



51 larch telegraph poles, $1.00. . 51 00 



100 larch railroad sleepers, 50 cents 50 00 



$1,188 00 



