No More Learning

[Illustration: _Fallen Leaves_]

THE SUGAR MAPLE

But think not that the splendor of the year is over; for as one leaf
does not make a summer, neither does one falling leaf make an autumn.
The smallest sugar maples in our streets make a great show as early as
the fifth of October, more than any other trees there. As I look up
the main street, they appear like painted screens standing before the
houses; yet many are green. But now, or generally by the seventeenth
of October, when almost all red maples and some white maples are bare,
the large sugar maples also are in their glory, glowing with yellow
and red, and show unexpectedly bright and delicate tints. They are
remarkable for the contrast they often afford of deep blushing red on
one half and green on the other. They become at length dense masses of
rich yellow with a deep scarlet blush, or more than blush, on the
exposed surfaces. They are the brightest trees now in the street.

The large ones on our Common are particularly beautiful. A delicate
but warmer than golden yellow is now the prevailing color, with
scarlet cheeks. Yet, standing on the east side of the Common just
before sundown, when the western light is transmitted through them, I
see that their yellow even, compared with the pale lemon yellow of an
elm close by, amounts to a scarlet, without noticing the bright
scarlet portions. Generally, they are great regular oval masses of
yellow and scarlet. All the sunny warmth of the season, the Indian
summer, seems to be absorbed in their leaves. The lowest and inmost
leaves next the bole are, as usual, of the most delicate yellow and
green, like the complexion of young men brought up in the house. There
is an auction on the Common to-day, but its red flag is hard to be
discerned amid this blaze of color.

Little did the fathers of the town anticipate this brilliant success,
when they caused to be imported from farther in the country some
straight poles with their tops cut off, which they called sugar
maples; and, as I remember, after they were set out, a neighboring
merchant's clerk, by way of jest, planted beans about them.
Those
which were then jestingly called bean-poles are to-day far the most
beautiful objects noticeable in our streets. They are worth all and
more than they have cost,--though one of the selectmen, while setting
them out, took the cold which occasioned his death,--if only because
they have filled the open eyes of children with their rich color
unstintedly so many Octobers. We will not ask them to yield us sugar
in the spring, while they afford us so fair a prospect in the autumn.
Wealth indoors may be the inheritance of few, but it is equally
distributed on the Common. All children alike can revel in this golden
harvest.

Surely trees should be set in our streets with a view to their October
splendor, though I doubt whether this is ever considered by the "Tree
Society. " Do you not think it will make some odds to these children
that they were brought up under the maples? Hundreds of eyes are
steadily drinking in this color, and by these teachers even the
truants are caught and educated the moment they step abroad. Indeed,
neither the truant nor the studious is at present taught color in the
schools. These are instead of the bright colors in apothecaries'
shops and city windows. It is a pity that we have no more _red_
maples, and some hickories, in our streets as well. Our paint-box is
very imperfectly filled. Instead of, or beside, supplying such
paint-boxes as we do, we might supply these natural colors to the
young. Where else will they study color under greater advantages? What
School of Design can vie with this? Think how much the eyes of
painters of all kinds, and of manufacturers of cloth and paper, and
paper-stainers, and countless others, are to be educated by these
autumnal colors.