Page:Suggestive programs for special day exercises.djvu/56

Rh &ldquo;How it rests one to see those trees!&rdquo; &ldquo;I never appreciated trees before!&rdquo; are heard on every side.

Now of their use as homes for birds and animals: See that nest on the top bough? Hear those robins twittering from the leafy sprays above our heads, while from bough to bough dart the nimble squirrels, peering at us with sharp eyes as much as to say,&mdash;&ldquo;O, you poor people, you have to be shut up in boards and bricks and roofings. You are to be pitied! Don&rsquo;t you envy us, and wish you were as free as we?&rdquo; And the woodpecker taps, taps away on the old trunk industriously getting his dinner. Ah, these, our lesser brothers and sisters, would be bereft indeed were they deprived of their leafy habitations!

 On Arbor Day some thought should be given to a study of the best plans for beautifying school grounds and adorning school buildings, as well as to the planting of trees and the proper care of those already added. If the tree planting is attended by some ceremony, and the tree perhaps named to commemorate some noted hero or statesman, the children will be more apt to take personal note of its growth. And beyond question our boys and girls should be more familiar with the habits of the abundant tree growth all about them. It would be well if the teacher should often propound such queries as the following:

The custom in some schools is to have the tree planting in the morning and the exercises in the evening. In the latter case it makes a beautiful closing scene to have the given by little girls dressed in white. An impressive conclusion to the tree planting is the singing of the following words written by the author of America and sung to the same tune:&mdash;



 