Chapter II: Foreword: In the statutes of the state will be found the following

The day in each year known as Arbor Day shall be suitably observed in the public schools. The Commissioner of Education shall from time to time prepare and issue to schools such circulars of information, advice and instruction with reference to the day as he may deem necessary.

For the purpose of encouraging the planting of shade and forest trees, the second Friday of April in each year is hereby designated as a day for the general observance of such purpose, and to be known as Arbor Day.

On said day appropriate exercises shall be introduced in all the schools of the State, and it shall be the duty of the several county and city superintendents to prepare a program of exercises for that day in all the schools under their respective jurisdiction.

In all public schools there shall be held on the last school day preceding the following holidays, namely, Lincoln's Birthday, Washington's Birthday, Decoration or Memorial Day and Thanksgiving Day, and on such other patriotic holidays as shall be established by law, appropriate exercises for the development of a higher spirit of patriotism.

It shall be the duty of the principals and teachers in the public schools of this State to make suitable arrangements for the celebration, by appropriate exercises among the pupils in said schools, on the fourteenth day of June, in each year, as the day of the adoption of the American flag by the Continental Congress.

The provisions of these statutes have been carried out in the schools of the state. They are believed in and supported heartily by the public opinion of the state.

In order that greater assistance may be rendered to teachers and school officers in preparing for these special days, this pamphlet on _Special Days and their Observance_ has been prepared by the Department, chiefly through the efforts of Mr. Z. E. Scott, Assistant Commissioner in charge of Elementary Education.

The pamphlet also contains suggestions concerning the opening exercises of schools.

Mr. Scott has been assisted in this work by the following persons, the school officers having in turn been aided by their teachers. To all these grateful acknowledgment is hereby made.

George C. Baker, Supervising Principal, Moorestown
Louis H. Burch, Principal Bangs Avenue School, Asbury Park
Hannah Chew, Principal Culver School, Cumberland County
K. C. Davis, formerly of State Agricultural College, New Brunswick
Florence Farber, Helping Teacher, Sussex County
Henry W. Foster, Supervising Principal, South Orange
Alfred Gaskill, State Forester
Jennie Haver, Helping Teacher, Hunterdon County
J. Cayce Morrison, Supervising Principal, Leonia
Charles A. Philhower, Supervising Principal, Westfield
Katharine B. Rogers, Reference Librarian, State Library
Roy L. Shaffer, Supervisor of Practice, Newark State Normal School

It has been the aim of Mr. Scott and his associates to suggest exercises which would be appropriate for the observance of these several days, which would be of interest to pupils, and which at the same time would be of a character worthy of the dignity of the public schools of the state.

Calvin N. Kendall
_Commissioner of Education_

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

Grateful acknowledgment is hereby made to the following publishers and authors for permission to use copyrighted selections:

American Book Company, New York, for extract from Green's "Short
History of the English People."

D. Appleton & Company, New York, for Bryant's "America" and extract
from Edward S. Holden's "Our Country's Flag."

Henry Holcomb Bennett for "The Flag Goes By."

Bobbs-Merrill Company, Indianapolis, for "The Name of Old Glory,"
by James Whitcomb Riley.

Boosey & Company, New York, for "We'll keep Old Glory Flying," by
Carleton S. Montanye.

Dr. Frank Crane for "After the Great Companions."

Thomas Y. Crowell Company, New York, for extract from "The Book of
Holidays," by J. Walker McSpadden. Reprinted by permission of
the publishers. Copyright 1917 by Thomas Y. Crowell Company.

Joseph Fulford Folsom for "The Unfinished Work."

Harper & Brothers, New York, for extract from "The Americanism of
Washington," by Henry van Dyke.

Caroline Hazard for "The Western Land."

Houghton Mifflin Company, Boston, for Bret Harte's "The Reveille"
and extract from "Our National Ideals," by William Backus
Gitteau.

Kindergarten Magazine Publishing Company, Manistee, Michigan, for
nine selections, including two by Laura Rountree Smith and one
by Mary R. Campbell.

Macmillan Company, New York, for extract from "The Making of an
American," by Jacob A. Riis, and "On a Portrait of Columbus,"
by George Edward Woodberry, used by permission of and special
arrangement with the publishers.

Moffat, Yard & Co., New York, for extract from "Memorial Day," by
Robert Haven Schauffler.

New England Publishing Company, Boston, for "Columbus Day" and Walt
Whitman's "Address to America." From "Journal of Education."

New York Evening Post for "America's Answer," by R. W. Lillard.

New York Herald for Mrs. Josephine Fabricant's "The Service Flag."

New York State Department of Education, Albany, for "The Boy
Columbus" and an extract from speech of Chauncey M. Depew.

Theodore Presser Company, Philadelphia, for "Our Country's Flag,"
by Mrs. Florence L. Dresser.

G. P. Putnam's Sons, New York, for "In Flanders Fields," by John
McCrae.

Saturday Evening Post, Philadelphia, for "I Have a Son," by Emory
Pottle.

Charles Scribner's Sons, New York, for extract from "With Americans
of Past and Present Days," by J. J. Jusserand, copyright 1916;
used by permission of the publishers.