Give fools their gold, and knaves their power, Let fortune's bubbles rise and fall; Who sows a field, or trains a flower, Or plants a tree, is more than all. From the days of Cimon of Athens, who formed the groves which in process of time became the celebrated Academy, down to our own age, in which Forestry has become a science as well as an art, the planting and care of trees has been deemed one of the most graceful as well as one of the most beneficent of employments.

Fruit trees furnish grateful sustenance for man and beast. Shade trees refresh the student, the toiler, and the traveler. Ornamental trees heighten the beauty of the landscape. Forests help to condense the moisture of the air into rains and to retain it in the soil, thereby diminishing the frequency and destructiveness of freshets and floods. Railroad corporations, on account of the inconveniences resulting from an inadequate water supply, have ordered the preservation of the trees and shrubbery along the banks of streams under their control. The timbers of our forests are invaluable in the arts and industries of civilized life. Far-sighted owners of farms have ordered the planting of miles of walnut trees, under the conviction that in course of time these trees will grow into money" at the rate of a dollar an hour." Foreign countries have sent experts to study the kinds of wood used in America so that their people may plant trees for supplying the timber for the future markets of the New World.

In view of these facts the celebration of Arbor Day should not be omitted in our schools. And inasmuch as the Spring Arbor Day comes at a time of the year when very many schools are not in session, it is certainly advisable to perpetuate the custom of celebrating an Autumn Arbor Day. For

this purpose the Department of Public Instruction recommends the observance of

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 20TH,

and earnestly urges upon Superintendents, Teachers and School Officers throughout the State the adoption of a programme of exercises that shall be educative as well as interesting. The day occurs near the anniversary of the landing of Columbus; therefore, many patriotic and historic associations may be made to cluster around its celebration.

The trees that are planted may be named either by their correct common or botanical names, or after distinguished persons like Ferdinand, Isabella and others, whose names are specially brought to mind during this year of grace; and the name should be attached to the tree by a permanent label, so that the christening may become a real thing. It is further suggested that a large glass fruit-jar containing printed matter, manuscripts and essays upon the leading events of the year, may be buried several feet from the trunk of the tree, so as not to interfere with its subsequent growth. prophecy upon the future of our country, an oration upon the educational and other duties of a true patriot, and a statement giving the date and organization of the school, signed by the pupils in the order of their classes, may be read or spoken and then placed in the jar.

Α

Even where no tree-planting is possible, the afternoon of the Autumn Arbor Day may be spent in exercises consisting of declamations, essays and patriotic songs, to which the parents and friends are invited. Essays or talks upon the care, selection and utility of trees, upon the best methods of planting and transplanting, upon the wonderful arts of budding and grafting, upon the unselfishness of him who plants a tree for others to enjoy, may help the young to realize that the planting and care of a tree or trees may be as patriotic an act as the casting of a vote or the fighting of a battle.

NATHAN C. SCHAEFFER,
Supt. Public Instruction.

THE gladsome work of tree-planting can and should be carried on with the systematic care and intelligence befitting its necessity and importance. Its results are not ephemeral in character. Nor do they fade into nothingness with the close

of the passing ceremonies. They give to fruitful Mother Nature a starting point, whose beneficent results must often reach out into the future far beyond the allotted three-score years and ten of man's limited life on earth. "Oak, elm, maple and pine sing glad songs for him"-who plants them.

FROM the far-away Pacific comes this cheering word, taken from the Oregon Pedagogue: "Who can measure the good the celebration of Arbor Day will produce? We believe it would be hard to find a single school in Oregon that did not observe the day to some extent at least. So thorough has been the preparation for the seevents by our State Superintendent, supported by the hard-working County Superintendents, that every

nook and corner of the State has come under the progressive influence."

THE East Stroudsburg Normal School of the Fourth district, though the last of the State schools, takes up its work with great energy and excellent promise.

THE sudden death of Dr. R. A. Lamberton, President of Lehigh University, which occurred September 1st, of heart disease, at his home in South Bethlehem, came with a shock of surprise to a very wide circle of friends. He had just returned from a pleasant summer trip, and on the day of his death said to a friend that he had never felt better. Within a few hours thereafter he was gone! When Dr. Henry Coppee resigned from the presidency of Lehigh University in 1880, the Board of Trustees, recognizing the executive ability and brilliant attainments of Dr. Lamberton, invited him to the succession, and he accepted the position. The same year the University of Pennsylvania conferred upon him the degree of Doctor of Laws. His labors as president of Lehigh University will be a lasting monument to his ability and fidelity as an educator. From the 200 students on the rolls in 1880, the number in the institution has grown to 630, with a corps of 37 instructors and an endowment of $2,000,000. The students come from all parts of the world.

THE Arbor Day League, organized by Supt. Brecht, of Lancaster county, with a large membership among the teachers and pupils under his supervision, is a

very practical plan to secure the end in view. When men are interested and capable, they get the work done. A full account of the League was given in the October issue of The Journal last year. The requirement in a certain part of Germany that no pupil shall receive graduation papers who has not planted one or more growing trees, is wise and full of suggestion.

SCHOOL ARBOR DAY.

SPRING

PRING and Fall succeed each other as of old, and, with the punctuality of the seasons, Arbor Day again comes round. The schools are closed in many localities before the observance of the

day in April. The lesson of tree-planting would, therefore, be lost to most of them were it not that the day is again observed, after their re-opening in the Fall, by appointment of the Superintendent of Public Instruction. We trust they will make this Columbian Arbor Day a red-letter date in their history, with tree-planting at home and upon the school grounds where trees are needed, with the planting of seeds and nuts whose sprouting and growth may be watched and cared for in anticipation of future plantings, and with such programme of readings, recitations, songs, and addresses as shall be appropriate to the festal occasion.

This genial holiday has become so well established that teachers and pupils, and the public generally, should be quite familiar with at least a part of the literature of the subject. But the great thing is the trees and shrubs, roses and vines. When the school grounds have been well planted, and set their finished example, teaching all summer long their lesson of use and beauty to every passer-by, let trees be planted along the highways and lanes leading thereto, so that within a few years shaded walks may render the locality more attractive from every point of view.

In Arcadia, the children in the schools, after seeing that their immediate surroundings and the grassy lanes about them are made pleasant with fruit and shade trees, are said, in a spirit of frolicsome gladness, to select one near-by home after another in that country of good-will, and plant about it until the entire neighborhood has caught the charm

of the human kindliness which in such a land spreads from the school house as a centre, while sylvan beauty follows in its track. One day there may be spots in Pennsylvania to suggest this Arcadia of the poet's dream.

We leave the analogy between plant life and human life, ascending step by step to spiritual life and life eternal, to the various local speakers, who will find. enough in the subject and the occasion to inspire their most thoughtful and impressive eloquence. May it impress the hearts and influence the minds of their youthful auditors for a life-time of good to themselves and their fellows.

Arbor Day is a blessed day in the history of our State. Let it be observed and cherished with the prophetic joy and gladness that befit a sylvan festival upon which all good men, good angels, and God himself, can look with unqualified approval.

OUR SUBSCRIPTION LIST.

relation

HE relation between the publisher and the patron is reciprocal, and if equilibrium is not maintained there may be mutual loss. The editor and publisher of The School Journal endeavor in good faith to give its readers as large an amount and as great variety of suggestive material as can be put into its prescribed number of pages, and it is believed with a fair degree of success. At all events their conscience does not reproach them for any lack of good intentions; and for any unintentional shortcomings-they are willing to have them overlooked and forgiven.

But the motive power of such a periodical as this is not purely patriotic, although that is the prime controlling motive-the desire to do some little good in our day and generation, to further the interests of a great cause which underlies and overshadows all others in this golden age of the world's history. And never has better opportunity been afforded to render service to his kind than each good man enjoys to-day in this radiant land of religious and political freedom. Business profit also is a subordinate consideration. Whether the incredulous believe it or not, our subscription list is a feature of no small importance in the publication of such a periodical as The Journal. There is room on our mailing lists for many more names. We have not grown "rich" in

publishing The Journal, but pay interest on the same old mortgages as ten years ago, and have always the same interesting problem of how to make annual income equal expenses.

More teachers should read The Journal. They need it, and they should have it. More School Directors should see it monthly, for the good they may find in it, and that they may know what is going on in school affairs throughout the State. It will aid them in keeping more fully abreast of the times, as all should do who are entrusted with the care and oversight of educational work. As a bit of School Board experience we quote from a letter received a short time since, in which the writer says: "Enclosed find our order for copies of The Journal for our full Board. Last year I had some difficulty in persuading the members to subscribe, but now they would not be without it for many times its price. Every Director in the State should take it. I subscribe for several educational journals, but in my judgment none of them equals The Pennsylvania School Journal. Long may it live!"

It is gratifying to know that good men so regard it. If they are not in error, then we need ten thousand more readers in Pennsylvania! Teachers who want stimulating thought, or who desire to refresh their minds, will find in these monthly numbers much that will brighten their way and aid them in the routine of the school-room. Teachers who do not read -and their name is Legion—are apt to get into ruts that grow deeper as they are more worn, and in spite of themselves they cease to be progressive. Every man or woman, boy or girl, who is employed as an instructor in a school-room anywhere, would be the better teacher for reading an educational magazine.

But far more effective than individual action is official authority. Supt. Whitaker, of Shenandoah, in our last issue, reports in his monthly items, that the School Board "has subscribed for a copy of The Pennsylvania School Journal for each member and for each teacher for the coming year." The number of teachers employed by the School Board of Shenandoah is fifty-one, and under this orderconceived in a spirit of wise generosity awake to the highest public interestThe Journal goes monthly to the personal address of each one of them, to be suggestive and helpful in routine school-work,

and, what is of still greater importance, in the building of character. It would not surprise us to know that it is one of the best items of outlay in the expense account of the schools of Shenandoah for the current year.

This is a legitimate expenditure in the interest of good schools, and but follows the practice of other School Boards in years past. It is a safe example to follow for School Directors who have not yet taken the subject under consideration. If the Secretary of the School Board to whom the official copy of The Journal is sent will call the attention of the Board to this matter at their next meeting, he will be doing the teachers a personal kindness and the schools a valuable service, and he will at the same time be aiding our subscription list in a practical way.

If our readers generally think well of The Journal, will they not mention it to such of their friends who are not subscribers, as may be interested in the work of education at home or in school, so that enlarging patronage may enable us to make it still more worthy of support?

IMPORTANCE OF THE CLASS

IN READING.

COUNT TOLSTOI-not Leo, the great writer, but the Russian Minister of the Interior-proposes to stop the growth of Nihilism by putting an end to the higher education of any members of the poorer classes. In 1887 he issued an order from which Dr. Strong, in his book entitled "The New Era, "makes the following

extract:

"The gymnasia, high schools, and universities will henceforth refuse to receive as pupils or students the children of domestic servants, peasants, tradesmen, petty shopkeepers, farmers, and others of like condition, whose progeny should not be raised from the circle to which they belong, and be thereby led, as long experience has shown, . . . to become discontented with their lot and irritated against the inevitable inequalities of the existing social positions."

It can not be denied that the schools are to be blamed for part of the discontent which prevails among the masses, but not unfrequently it is that "divine discontent" of which the poet speaks, and in the enjoyment of which all good men are blessed. Teach a man to read, and you

widen his vision and his aspirations. He sees new forms of life and longs to realize them for himself and his family. On the lower plane, it is true, if his eye is fixed upon luxuries which can not be purchased with his earnings, he may grow dissatisfied, and this discontent may ripen into strikes or mob violence, causing loss to himself and others. These experiences are, however, but incidents on the way of progress, the fermentation which in time ceases, leaving "the good wine" of commerce-here, it may be, the very wine of life.

The ability to read should increase the sum of human happiness, because it multiplies the possible sources of enjoyment. The application of steam to the printing press has brought the great dailies within the reach of the poor man's purse, and has cheapened the works of standard authors to such an extent that a collection of classic writers is possible in every workingman's home. In the library the reader can associate with men of wit and genius when they are at their best, and can choose his company from the authors of every clime and country. Here the rich man has no vantage ground over the man who tills the soil or toils with his hands. The former may have more expensive binding, but of the real essence of the book he can enjoy no more than any other reader. Indeed, in one respect, the man who eats his bread in the sweat of his brow has the advantage over those engaged in a profession. The lawyer, the physician and the clergyman exhaust their mental energy in professional duties, and when evening comes they must seek rest and recreation in physical exertion and in a change of occupation. The laborer, on the other hand, can find rest and an agreeable change at the close of the day in literary pursuits or in the study of art, or of natural science in one or another of its many fields. The time may come when those who have read and studied most widely and to the best purpose will be found not among the specialists in professional life, but among the toilers of the land.

The most conspicuous example we know in Pennsylvania of such a toiler in the dust of the shop, as artisan and artist, for the ten hours and more of each working day, and then for five or six hours of each night among his books and his world-wide correspondence, surrounded by the largest, most valuable, and most