30 ARBOR DAY' ITS HISTORY AND OBSERVANCE. 



day, will, in the near future, by the incontestable proof of what the eye may beholfl , 

 establish the wisdom of those who have the honor to be numbered among thefound- 

 ers of this most excellent institution. With reference to this phase of the subject 

 the bearing it has upon the material prosperity of the country there can be no dif- 

 ference of opinion. Everyone who is familiar with the statistics showing the rapid 

 destruction of our forests will readily agree that there is urgent need that the pub- 

 lic attention should be directed to tree planting, and there is no other medium 

 through which this can be so effectually accomplished as through the public schools. 

 It was wisely ordered, therefore, that the public schools should be enlisted in the 

 work of conserving the material prosperity of the State in this important respect. 



But while there can be no doubt that Arbor Day owes its institution primarily to 

 economic considerations, and that upon this ground it met with so swift a response 

 of popular recognition and interest, it is equally certain that the founders of the 

 day builded better than they knew. For the broad and beneficent results flowing 

 from this movement are not to be estimated in their sum total by the impressive 

 array of cold figures in statistical tables not even though they reach the enormous 

 proportions of " 605, 000,000 trees planted in the single State of Nebraska, and now 

 thriving there, where a few years ago none could be seen except along the streams; 

 and this used to be called 'The Great American Desert/ where seventeen years ago 

 the geographies said trees would not grow and now the leading State of America 

 for tree planting." 



But this, though it be a matter for congratulation and rejoicing, conveys but a faint 

 idea of the importance of the day as touching the very springs of our social life by 

 its intimate connection with the public schools of the Commonwealth. More than 

 this, if merely utilitarian or purely commercial considerations are to dominate our 

 reflections upon this day, then we have no hesitation in saying that the day had bet- 

 ter not been instituted. For in the midst of the intense activity of the present age, 

 when all around us we see the plainly marked tracks of that myriad-shaped spirit 

 of the times, whose tendency is ever toward the practical and material side of life, 

 and which can see little or no good in anything that has not its immediate fruitage 

 in palpable results to be measured by the yardstick, weighed in scales, and counted 

 up in bank books; when, in the significant language of a thoughtful public school 

 man, "knowledge is no longer regarded as the wings wherewith we fly to Heaven, 

 but the claws with which we burrow into the earth in search of its glittering treas- 

 ures;" when, in a word, we are confronted on all sides by forces that irresistibly impel 

 us foward in the lines of practical pursuit with a natural leaning toward selfishness 

 and greed; under these circumstances, surely, there would seem to be no need to give 

 impetus to a stream that has such a strong current of its own by making a special 

 effort to set before the children of the Commonwealth the observance of this day, as 

 an object lesson in tree planting, upon grounds of thrift and public economy alone 



Happily there is another phase of the question which makes the celebration of 

 Arbor Day altogether commendable. I refer to the educational value it possesses, 

 which, indeed, is not to be estimated by the stores of useful knowledge clustering 

 around it and finding through this channel an easy Avay into the mental equipment 

 of the scholars. The wise teacher, to be sure, will not fail to utilize the occasion 

 as one of the best means placed at his disposal for the purpose of imparting prac- 

 tical instruction in the department of botanical science. The significance of this 

 feature is not to be underestimated. It is of unquestionable importance, but there 

 is still a higher importance attaching to the celebration of the day, viz, the cultiva- 

 tion of a feeling for nature, by bringing us into touch and sympathy with the won- 

 drous works of the Great Creator as revealed in the manifold forms of beauty the 

 endless variety of his handiwork throughout the vegetable kingdom. We are so 

 wrapped up in our daily pursuits, so immersed in the things of flesh and sense that 

 are of necessity involved in the unceasing struggle for existence and for a comforta- 

 ble living, that the deeper spiritual forces of our being are in constant danger of 



