Oklahoma Arbor and Bird Day, Friday, March Twelfth, 1909/Part One: Arbor Day/To the Teachers of Oklahoma

TO THE TEACHERS OF OKLAHOMA:

Permit me to call your attention to the provision in our statutes which designates the Friday following the second Monday in March as Arbor Day, and to urge you to suspend your regular exercises on that occasion and observe the day with appropriate ceremonies.

This year Arbor Day accordingly will come on Friday, March 12, and I wish to call on you and all progressive citizens everywhere to observe the day by providing for and conducting such exercises as will tend to encourage tree planting and also to provide for the protection, and preservation of trees and shrubs, and to acquaint yourselves with the best methods to be adopted to accomplish such results. Let this be an occasion not only for beautifying and ornamenting the school grounds, but also for beautifying and adorning our roads and highways, and the yards and walks around our own homes.

In view of the fact that no provision has been made in our statutes for Bird Day, I also wish to recommend that a part of Arbor Day be set aside for this purpose. I would suggest that special prominence be given to the subject of bird study and that on this occasion Audubon Societies be organized for protecting and taking care of our birds. Impress upon your pupils the folly of killing birds for past-time and for gratifying the whims of women who desire the plumage of our feathered friends for the adornment of their hats. Caution the boys against wantonly destroying the nests and stealing the eggs of our beautiful birds, and urge them rather to protect these innocent creatures that do so much by destroying injurious insects and eating the seeds of so many troublesome weeds. Teach them to look upon birds as their friends and that they should love and protect them instead of destroying them.

Show your pupils the beautiful colored plates of the American Bird and Nature Chart and explain to them the names and habits of the different birds shown on these plates. Valuable information and suggestions about birds may be found in Hodge's splendid book on Nature Study, which may be used in connection with the chart mentioned above. Please do all you can to create and interest in birds and urge your patrons to insist that our present Legislature pass some law before adjourning that will protect our birds from wholesale and useless slaughter.

Yours sincerely,
E. D. CAMERON,
State Superintendent of Public Instruction.