AN 'ARBOR DAY" FOR ENGLAND.
[To vas Exerox cv Tea .Svrerwror...]
Srit,—The interesting suggestion as to a national Arbor Day for schools, which is contained in last week's Spectator in the letter signed Sophia H. E. Langmaid, is one which many of your readers may be glad to hear is already embodied-4n the germ at any rote—in an official publication just issued by a Government Department. In St. David's Day, a well- illustrated booklet of some thirty-six pages, published by the Welsh Department of the Board of Education for the use of teachers and others in connexion with the celebration, in the schools and colleges of Wales, of the festival of the patron saint of that country, will be found the following item in a special programme which, it is stated, the Board are prepared to allow to be substituted for the ordinary school time-table on the national anniversary
"Planting of trees or shrubs in the school precincts, or to beautify or mark some bare or ugly spot in the district; with some reference—by way of an address—to the beautiful in nature,'
scenery, and our duty not to spoil it."
The idea of thus connecting a national anniversary with a practical step for the beautification of our countryside is surely a happy one. But the Welsh Department's very suggestive little publication does not atop there. It goes on "to inculcate the duty of every patriotic Welsh child not to be a vandal, i.e., not to destroy or deface public buildings, trees, seats, &c., by carving or scribbling names or initials thereon, and to respect ancient monuments (e.g., Druidical atones, cromlechs, &c.)—the silent witnesses to Wales' historic past."
Those of your readers to whom these ideas commend themselves may perhaps like to know that a copy of the interesting publication in which they and others like them are set forth may be had for 3d. (post free, 4d.), either directly or through any bookseller, of the Government sale agents, Messrs. Wyman and Sons, Limited, Fetter Lane, B.C. I understand that, although only issued leas than three weeks ago, an extraordinary demand has arisen for this Government publication, the firat edition of which, amounting to ten thousand copies, was exhausted within a few days of Ha
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