a beautiful anniversary.  To the common schools of the country I confide its perpetuation and usefulness with the same abiding faith that I would commit the acorn to the earth, the tree to the soil, or transmit the light on the shore to far off ships on the waves beyond, knowing certainly that loveliness, comfort, and great contentment shall come to humanity everywhere because of its thoughtful and practical observance by all the civilized peoples of the earth.

J. Sterling Morton.

[Illustration]

Leaves, and what they do.

The leaves of the trees afford an almost endless study and a constant delight.  Frail, fragile things, easily crumpled and torn, they are wonderful in their delicate structure, and more wonderful if possible on account of the work which they perform.

They are among the most beautiful things offered to our sight.  Some one has well said that the beauty of the world depends as much upon leaves as upon flowers.  We think of the bright colors of flowers and are apt to forget or fail to notice the coloring of leaves.  But what a picture of color, beyond anything that flowers can give us, is spread before our sight for weeks every autumn, when the leaves ripen and take on hues like those of the most gorgeous sunset skies, and the wide landscape is all aglow with them.  A wise observer has called attention also to the fact that the various kinds of trees have in the early springtime also, only in a more subdued tone, the same colors which they put on in the autumn.  If we notice the leaves carefully, we shall see that there is a great variety of color in them all through the year.  While the prevailing color, or the body color so to speak, is green, and the general tone of the trees seen in masses is green—­the most pleasant of all colors to be abidingly before the sight—­this is prevented from becoming dull or somber because it comprises almost innumerable tints and shades of the self-same color, while other distinct colors are mingled with it to such an extent as to enliven the whole foliage mass.  Spots of yellow, of red, of white, and of intermediate colors are dashed upon the green leaves or become the characteristic hues of entire trees, and so there is brought about an endless variety and beauty of color.

Then there is the beauty of form, size, position, and arrangement.  Of the one hundred and fifty thousand or more known species of trees, the leaves of each have a characteristic shape.  The leaves of no two species are precisely alike in form.  More than this is also true.  No two leaves upon the same tree are in this respect alike.  While there is a close resemblance among the leaves of a given tree, so that one familiar with trees would not be in doubt of their belonging to the same tree, though he should see them only when detached, yet there is more or less variation, some subtle difference in the notching or curving of the leaf-edge perhaps, so that each leaf has a form of its own.  These differences of shape in the leaves are a constant source of beauty.