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PROCLAMATION OF THE PRESIDENT TO THE SCHOOL 

 CHILDREN OF THE UNITED STATES. 



[This letter from the President of the United States would be a tine thing for one of 

 the older pupils to deliver slowly, thoughtfully, earnestly HS an oration ; or four pupils 

 could give it, one paragraph for each.] 



THE SCHOOL CHILDREN OF THE UNITED STATES: 



Arbor Day (which means simply "Tree Da} 7 ") is 

 now observed in every State in our Union and 

 mainly in the schools. At various times from Janu- 

 ary to December, but chiefly in this month of April, 

 you give a day or part of a day to special exercises 

 and perhaps to actual tree planting, in recognition of the importance of 

 trees to us as a Nation, and of what they yield in adornment, comfort, 

 and useful products to the communities in which you live. 



It is well that you should celebrate your Arbor Day thoughtfully, for 

 within your lifetime the Nation's need of trees will become serious. We 

 of an older generation can get along with what we have though with 

 growing hardship; but in your full manhood and womanhood you will 

 want what nature once so bountifully supplied and man so thought- 

 lessly destroyed; and because of that want you will reproach us, not for 

 what we have used, but for what we have wasted. 



For the nation as for the man or woman and the boy or girl, the road 

 to success is the right use of what we have and the improvement of 

 present opportunity. If you neglect to prepare yourselves now for the 

 duties and responsibilities which will fall upon you later, if you do not 

 learn the things which you will need to know when your school days 

 are over, you will surfer the consequences. So any nation which in its 

 youth lives only for the day, reaps without sowing, and consumes with- 

 out husbanding, must expect the penalty of the prodigal, whose labor 

 could with difficulty find him the bare means of life. 



A people without children would face a hopeless future; a country 

 without trees is almost as hopeless; forests which are so used that they 

 can not renew themselves will soon vanish, and with them all their 

 benefits. A true forest is not merely a storehouse full of wood, but, as 

 it were, a factory of wood, and at the same time a reservoir of water. 

 When you help to preserve our forests or to plant new ones you are 

 acting the part of good citizens. The value of forestry deserves, there- 

 fore, to be taught in the schools, which aim to make good citizens of 

 you. If your Arbor Day exercises help you to realize what benefits 

 each one of you receives from the forests, and how by your assistance 

 these benefits may continue, they will serve a good end. 



THEODORE ROOSEVELT. 

 The White House.- 



