8 ARBOR DAY 



persons. Watching to see how Bryant and Long- 

 fellow are growing, whether Abraham Lincoln wants 

 water, or George Washington promises to flower 

 early, or Benjamin Franklin is drying up, whether 

 Robert Fulton is budding, or General Grant begin- 

 ning to sprout, the pupil will find that a tree may be 

 as interesting as the squirrel that skims along its 

 trunk, or the bird that calls from its top like a 

 muezzin from a minaret. 



The future orators of Arbor Day will draw the 

 morals that lie in the resemblance of all life. It is 

 by care and diligent cultivation that the wild crab 

 is subdued to bear sweet fruit, and by skilful grafting 

 and budding that the same stock produces different 

 varieties. And so you, Master Leonard or Miss 

 Alice, if you are cross and spiteful and selfish and 

 bullying, you also must be budded and trained. 

 Just as the twig is bent the tree's inclined, young 

 gentlemen, and you must start straight if you would 

 not grow up crooked. Just as the boy begins, the 

 man turns out. 



So, trained by Arbor Day, as the children cease 

 to be children they will feel the spiritual and refining 

 influence, the symbolical beauty, of the trees. Like 

 men, they begin tenderly and grow larger and larger, 

 in greater strength, more deeply rooted, more 

 widely spreading, stretching leafy boughs for birds 

 to build in, shading the cattle that chew the cud 

 and graze in peace, decking themselves in blossoms 



