St. Johnsbury Caledonian. [volume] (St. Johnsbury, Vt.) 1867-1919, 1896-05-01
ArbOr Day Lessons.

How many valuable and dry things
little folks have to hear on Arbor day
from the grown ups" Even the peren.
NAL candidate for everything, who Sc
seldom gets an audience now, will be
given chance at them, and the patron.
izing trustees will have their say Of
course, and influential citizens, who
slyly refer to vest pocket cards for their
statistics, and perhaps the local con-
gresham, who doesn't care whether his
figures are right or not, as he can blame
all errors on the reporters. There will
be pretty expressions of specific senti
ment concerning each particular plant
ing naturally, and perhaps some tender
"reminiscences of precedent celebrations
of the day, but the practical side of tree
planting in the abstract is not going to
be lost sight of
The children will be told the various
excellent reasons why trees should be
planted and forests preserved. In brief,
certain trees, such as the Australian
blue gum, make malarial districts salu-
brious, which is good to know if true
certain other trees grow rapidly, and in
a few years are profitable either for
their fruits or timber, which is perhaps
still better knowledge; land denuded
of it's forest growth becomes accursed
by droughts, where grain sears and
blights in the parched fields, flowers
wither and die and fish perish in the
diminished water courses, and so on.
All those things should be taught to the
young to give them such consciences
that they will frown upon the awful
lumber traffic when they grow old. But
perhaps there are other considerations
worthy of remembrance.
Is it not more than probable that in
our racial regard for the material and
practical we are liable to neglect what
might be an effective aid in impressing
upon the young an appreciative and last
ing apprehension of the lesson of Arbor
day? Love and imagination stir childish
hearts and make deep impressions long
before cold calculations of interest and
value can even command attention. 1t
would be bad augury for the future of
boy or girl that he or she should prefer
to figure the board measures in squared
log and their market value rather than
the "rowan" tree, or mountain ash, be-
ginning:
Oh, Roman tree; OH Roman tree,
Thou'll aye be dear to mel
Intwined thou art wi mony ties
o. hame and infancy.
Children should be taught to love
trees for their own sake, not for the
profit directly or indirectly derivable
from them. Help them to understand
and share the tender feeling for nature
in the heart of the eastern poet who
wrote, "The tree, like man, has its life
from the gods, is his father, his elder
brother, his FRIEND it shelters the kind
ly spirits who love men,"
In all ages, and in all lands, affection
for trees has been deeply rooted i'll the
hearts of men. Poets have woven count
less beautiful fancies through the leafy
mazes of the forest; trees afford fitting
symbols for the sublimest concepts Of
archaic philosophy and faith; hallowed
associations have endeared particular
trees and groves not merely to individ
uals, but to nations and even races.
Weird and quaint arborous legends have
held imperishable place in folklore,
from time immemorial perceptive souls,
feeling the sympathy of the solemn
woods with their moods of sorrow and
of joy, have learned to cherish what the
wise now call "superstitions, ineradi
cable as hope and love, concerning the
relations between men and their elder
brethren, " the trees.
No other myth is so universal as that
of the tree Of knowledge, which is also
the tree of life. Slightly changed or
modified, to adapt it for expression of
the thoughts of races far sundered as
the poles, " it is essentially everywhere
the same, demonstrating one common
origin fer all its forms, in an antiquity
perhaps as old as the world itself-older
indeed as mystics affirm and at least as
old as conscious humanity. The ash tree
Ygdrasyl of Morse mythology, the
"Tzite' of the Mexican Popal-Vuh, the
Aswatha of the Hindoos, the Hellenic
Gogard, Tibetan Zampun, Cabalistic
Sephirothal tree, the holy tree made by
Ahura- Mazda, and the tree of knowl-
edge in the garden of Eden are one and
the same. The first three at least are SO
ancient as to have been severally regard
ed as already of inconceivable antiquity
at the beginning of all known records
How remote, then, inust have been the
time when they were one?