28 ARBOR DAY ITS HISTORY AND OBSERVANCE. 



schools. When agent of the board of education of Massachusetts I sometimes took 

 to the schools and institutes a collection of our common woods, as an object lesson, 

 one of many aids in observation, discriminating wood by the grain. The same plan 

 was occasionally tried in Connecticut, and with good results. To give one of many 

 illustrations: A citizen of Norfolk, Conn., offered eighteen volumes of Appleton's 

 Science Primers to any pupil who should gather and arrange the largest and best 

 collection of the different kinds of wood, shrub, or vine growing in that town. 

 Great interest was awakened, and 135 varieties were gathered by all the competitors, 

 of which the collection of Washington Beach (who Avon the prize) numbered 125. 

 What a discipline in quickness and accuracy of perception those schoolboys gained 

 while exploring the fields, hills, and mountains of this large town, and discriminat- 

 ing all these varieties by the grain or bark ! With no interruption of studies, there 

 was a quickened zest and vigor for school work, and, best of all, that rare and price- 

 less attainment, a trained eye. * * * 



Those talks on trees, which Superintendent Peasleesays "were the most profitable 

 lessons the pupils of Cincinnati ever had in a single day/' occupied only the morning 

 of Arbor Day, the afternoon being given to the practical work. Since 1883 our 

 schools have rendered new service to the State as well as to their pupils by leading 

 them to study the habits of trees, and appreciate their value and beauty thus tend- 

 ing to make practical horticulturists and arborists. How many of these children in 

 maturer years Avill learn from happy experience that trees, like grateful children, 

 bring rich filial returns, and compensate a thousand fold for all the care they cost. 

 George William Curtis says, "Arbor Day will make the country visibly more beauti- 

 ful year by year. Every school district will contribute to the good work. The 

 schoolhouse will gradually become an ornament of the village and the children will 

 be put in the way of living upon more friendly and intelligent terms with the bounti- 

 ful nature which is so friendly to us." 



Kindred in sentiment with the address of Secretary Morton and the 

 remarks of Dr. Northrop are the following words of Dr. E. E. Higbee, 

 the late distinguished State superintendent of public instruction of 

 Pennsylvania: 



ARBOR DAY FOR THE COMMONWEALTH. 



Recognizing the peculiar fitness of the executive proclamation fixing an Arbor Day 

 for the Commonwealth, it has been our effort and pleasure to make it in every way 

 as efficient for good as possible in relation to our public schools. Here, among the 

 children, habits of thought and feeling in regard to the benefits and uses of tree 

 planting can be formed, which will deter them, it is hoped, from that destructive 

 greed which has forgotten the value and beauty of green woodlands and parks, and 

 the glory of shadowy hills and leaf-hidden streams where the trout snaps the unwary 

 fly and the liverworts peep out from the dewy moss and wake-robins nod their heads 

 to the answering ferns. Children need, in their innocent up-springing, to have room 

 to get away from the garish sun and rest, as upon a mother's bosom, in the twilight 

 silence of the growing woods. We have endeavored to keep in view, so far as pos- 

 sible, the educational power of such things by urging that our school grounds be 

 supplied with shade trees and shrubs and flowers, and that the naked walls of our 

 school buildings be trellised over with vines. Children feel most deeply the ministry 

 of that which charms the eye. 



We are what sun and winds and water make us ; 

 The mountains are our sponsors, and the rills 

 Fashion and win their nursling with their smiles. 



Unconsciously each impression of such character sinks into the tender depths of 

 their souls and there it remains as in reflection do the willows in the placid stream. 

 In fact, the scenes of nature are perennial companions, growing more friendly from 



