12 ARBOR DAY ITS HISTORY AND OBSERVANCE. 



the popular need was heartily responded to, and it was reported that 

 many millions of trees were planted that year in Nebraska. This 

 successful inauguration of Arbor Day led to its institution the same 

 year by the horticultural society in Iowa, to be followed quickly by its 

 adoption in Minnesota, Ohio, and other Western States. 



A few years later Arbor Day assumed a new character and acquired 

 a wider interest with the people as it became 'connected in its observ- 

 ance with the public schools. This it did for the first time during the 

 sessions of a national forestry convention at Cincinnati in the year 

 1882. The sessions of the convention were continued through five days, 

 on one of which there was a public parade, civic and military, with a 

 march to Eden Park, where groves were planted and single trees in 

 memory of distinguished men poets, orators, governors, and others. 

 The school children and their teachers formed a conspicuous feature of 

 the pageant and the planting of the trees was done principally by them. 

 Tree planting thus became a festivity, combining at once pleasure and 

 utility. That Cincinnati observance was an object lesson for the coun- 

 try, as the report of it was published far and wide. 



. A national forestry association was formed at the time of the Cincin- 

 nati convention, and at its meeting in St. Paul the following year a 

 resolution was adopted favoring the observance of Arbor Day by the 

 schools of the country. A standing committee on Arbor Day was also 

 appointed, and such a committee has been appointed at nearly every 

 annual meeting of the association. Wherever since then Arbor Day 

 has been adopted its observance has been connected with the schools, 

 as it has been also in the States where it had been established before. 

 Thus it has become a school festival, as it has also become a national 

 one. It was only what might have been expected, therefore, that at 

 the meeting of the National Education Association, at Saratoga, in 

 July, 1892, when the subject had been brought to its attention by the 

 Hon. B. G. Northrop, the committee to whom it was referred should 

 report as follows : 



Your committee reports with pleasure that Arbor Day is now observed in accord- 

 ance with legislative act, or annual public proclamation, in forty States and Terri- 

 tories. We recommend that the observance be universal, that village and district 

 improvement associations be formed, that memorial trees be planted, and that appro- 

 priate means be employed to inspire in pupils and parents the love of beauty and a 

 desire for home and landscape adornment. 



Arbor Day is educational in the best and largest sense. By engag- 

 ing the pupils of the schools in the study of trees, not merely from 

 books but by actual observation and handling of them in their living 

 state, the observing faculties of the pupils are appealed to and culti- 

 vated, and their minds are easily led on from the study of trees to that 

 of shrubs and flowering plants and all natural objects. There can be 

 no better training than this. It forms one of the best equipments for 

 success in life in whatever employments one may be engaged, and is a 



