ARBOR DAY ITS HISTORY AND OBSERVANCE. 



19 



STATES AND TERRITORIES OBSERVING ARBOR DAY Continued. 



Only the following three States or Territories fail to observe Arbor 

 Day: Delaware, Indian Territory, and Utah. In Delaware the day is 

 observed in some localities, and the same is probably true in Utah and 

 the Indian Territory. 



ARBOR DAY CELEBRATIONS. 



While the object of Arbor Day, as originally 

 instituted, was to secure the planting of trees 

 on a large scale and for economic purposes, in a 

 region nearly destitute of trees and where the 

 need of them for fuel as well as for shelter was 

 strongly felt, now that its observance has spread 

 all over the country and has become almost uni- 

 versally connected with the schools, nowhere is the 

 day welcomed with more of zest and enjoyment than in 

 those parts of the country where trees are most abundant. 

 The value of Arbor Day observances in connection with our 

 schools, therefore, is not to be measured so much by the number of 

 trees planted at a given time as by the tree spirit implanted in those 

 engaged in the observance, by the knowledge of tree life incidentally 

 gained, and the feelings and principles engendered or promoted and 

 their after influence upon life and character. The value of Arbor Day 

 is not so much in its present enjoyments for a day as in what it does by 

 preparing our growing youth to be useful and happy men and women 

 when they reach the position of influence and responsibility, when the 

 duties of public and social life and the molding and direction of social 

 and political affairs are to be transferred from those who now control 

 them and are to be assumed by themselves. 



