692 THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



time the school in the open air, face to face with Nature and her most 

 healthful and instructive agencies. 



It was only a little while after that scene in Cincinnati that the 

 superintendent of the schools of West Virginia, moved alike by a de- 

 sire to arouse a proper sentiment in behalf of forestry and to promote 

 the interests of education, signalized his administration by designating 

 an Arbor-day and inviting its special observance by the schools of the 

 State. His appeal met a ready response, and the day was widely ob- 

 served. 



And by all means should Arbor-day invite the children to engage 

 in its observance. It was a most happy thought to connect the schools 

 with it and thus enlarge its scope. It was so, whether we consider the 

 interests of forestry or the interests of education. The pupils in the 

 schools to-day will soon be the men and women, the householders and 

 citizens of the country, holding its character and destiny in their hands. 

 They will be all-powerful. It is most important, therefore, that they 

 should come into their influential place in society prepared to use their 

 influence in the best manner and for the best ends. And this is to be 

 secured by the best training in their school-days ; such a training as 

 will fit them to deal wisely with the facts and conditions of practical 

 life. Their education should be so conducted as to be not a drudgery 

 but a delight. And this it will be made, if the mind of the pupil is 

 engaged with objects which interest it, with objects close about it, 

 rather than those far away and with which it has no concern. Set 

 the child to study the geography of his own town, or first his own 

 school-house grounds, instead of that of Kamchatka, and he will be 

 interested. Engage him in noticing the forms of the trees that grow 

 about the school-place — the birds, the flowers, the rocks which he sees 

 every day — and his mind will become all alive with interest in them. 

 They are akin to his own nature. He lays hold of them as by an in- 

 stinct. Give him these objects of study in place of much of the cus- 

 tomary task-work of arithmetic and grammar, for instance, and you 

 inspire within him such a loving and ardent desire of knowledge, and 

 such an awakening of faculties, that the world around him will be his 

 school-room so long as he lives, in which he will be studying to the 

 last, and in which he will find perpetual delight. It is sad to know 

 that so much of our school-time has been and still is wasted, and that 

 the children so frequently have come out from the place of education, 

 as it is called, with so little knowledge of the world in which they live 

 and in which they are so soon to occupy positions of influence and re- 

 sponsibility. 



There are no studies in which the young are so much interested as 

 those which relate to the natural world, and there are none which 

 better serve the purpose of disciplining the mind for the work of com- 

 ing life. The general adoption of Arbor-day, therefore, and its con- 

 nection with our schools would be a pleasant starting-point for the 



