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ARBOR DA Y MANUAL. 
TREE-PLANTING. 
I T is gratifying to see such deep interest in tree-planting, which is begin¬ 
ning so strongly to attract public attention. Setting apart one day for 
this purpose and making it a general holiday will add attractiveness to utility, 
and give it a deeper hold on the popular heart. But the happiest thought of 
all was to make it a holiday for the public schools, and have the children 
practically take part in it and set out groups of trees for their favorite authors. 
You thus not only connect trees with the associations of childhood and their 
pleasantest holidays, but with authors from whom they receive their earliest 
and best impressions. 
We sometimes forget that the highest aim of education is to form right 
character — and that is accomplished more by impressions made upon the 
heart than by knowledge imparted to the mind. 
The awakening of our best sympathies — the cultivation of our best and 
purest tastes — strengthening the desire to be useful and good, and directing 
youthful ambition to unselfish ends — such are the objects of true education. 
Surely nothing can be better calculated to procure these ends than the holiday 
set apart for the public schools. 
J. T. Headley. Extract from Letter. 
THE GOURD AND THE PALM. 
OW old art thou ?” said the garrulous gourd, 
As o’er the palm-tree’s crest it poured 
Its spreading leaves and tendrils fine, 
And hung a bloom in the morning shine. 
“ A hundred years ! ” the palm-tree sighed; 
‘‘And I,” the saucy gourd replied, 
“Am at the most a hundred hours, 
And overtop thee in the bowers.” 
Through all the palm-tree’s leaves there went 
A tremor as of self-content. 
“ I live my life,” it, whispering, said; 
“See what I see, and count the dead ; 
And every year,, of all I’ve knQwn, 
A gourd above my head has grown, 
And made a boast, like thine to-day, 
Yet here I stand — but where are they?” 
A Persian Fable. 
’Twas Easter Sunday. The full-blossomed trees 
Filled all the air with fragrance and with joy. 
Longfellow. Spanish Student. 
