We give in this part of our manual a programme for Arbor Day observance. It is presented not so much in the expectation that it will be exactly copied as that it may serve as suggestion of what may be done. We have added various selections from poets and prose writers which may help those who are preparing for the proper observance of Arbor Day. But these are only a few specimens from the great stores of our literature. A little care and painstaking beforehand will furnish an ample supply of the desired material, for our literature abounds in such. Not the least of the benefits of the observance of Arbor Day is the opportunity it gives for making the young familiar with the best thoughts of the best writers and thus giving them a literary culture in the pleasantest manner. Thus while preparing to plant trees we may be planting in the young mind and heart growths more precious and lasting than they.
I.—Exercises In the School-Room.
1. READING. (BY THE TEACHER, OR BY CLASSES.)
"And God said, Let the earth bring forth grass, the herb yielding seed, and the fruit tree yielding fruit after his kind, whose seed is in itself, upon the earth: and it was so. And the earth brought forth grass, and herb yielding seed after his kind, and the tree yielding fruit, whose seed was in itself after his kind."
"And out of the ground made the Lord God to grow every tree that is pleasant to the sight, and good for food; the tree of life also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of knowledge of good and evil."
"Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit."
"I will plant in the wilderness the cedar, the shittah tree, and the myrtle, and the oil tree; I will set in the desert the fir tree, and the pine, and the box tree together: that they may see, and know, and consider, and understand together, that the hand of the Lord hath done this, and the Holy One of Israel hath created it."
"He that trusteth in his riches shall fall: but the righteous shall flourish as a branch."
"Wisdom is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon her, and happy is everyone that retaineth her."