The Brattleboro daily reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1913-1955, 1919-03-08
SHOULD NAME
! VERMONT HILLS
Garrett P. Serviss Says 1t
Would Increase Love of
State ~
MANY NOTEWORTHY
PEAKS UNIDENTIFIED
Address by Acting President Perkins
of University of Vermont Makes
Him Want to See the Hills, Valleys
and Lakes of This State.

Every high Hill should have name,
says Garrett p. .Serviss in an article in
which he tells of how much he learned
of Vermont through an address delivered
by Acting President c. II. Perkins of
the University of Vermont He says
ITO promote love of country patriot
ism, nothing can be more effective than
familiarity with what may be magma
lively called the physiognomy, or sclentii
fically the photography, of ones native
land. The Frenchman loves his country
as he loves his mother, because he is
familiar with every feature of its coun-
tenance. q
The. French, are not great travellers
abroad, but they are great travellers at
nome When Frenchman feels the de-
size, or the necessity, for change of
air, he does not cross the frontiers or
the ocean; he goes to look at some other
part OF his own country, and usually a
part where he has often been before.
Thus he comes to know France like a
book, or like the face of one very dear
Il
irgs over his homeland that zest for the
little details of life which seems to give
the French greater fullness of enjoy
ment, than any other people have. he
makes his journey in the same way that
lie takes his dinner.
I'VE need something of TINS IN America,
and | have just been reading with de-
| light an address made by Professor G, ii.
Perkins of the University Of Vermont on
the photography of the Green Mountain
State
II am not Nermonter, and i have
seen far less of Vermont than | should
/ like to see, but what Professor Perkins
/ points out fills me with enthusiasm for
that great little state 1t is not that he
has put any literary charm into his ad-
dless-its effect is a different kind; it
istHroxs open a door, II lifts a. curtain, it
reveals IA face that fascinates, the face
OF a beautiful romantic land filed with
exquisite valleys and swelling hills, many
OF which have yet no names, and enriched
with clear waters, and with stores oil
costly GRANTEES and marbles of matches
beauty.
In single townships there are thirty
or forty peaks of noteworthy size, and in
some instances more than half of these
have never been named
That could not have happened il
France and ought not to have happened
in an American state Every hill that Is
big and high enough to be noteworthy
should have name Even a mere mum
Der, as we have lately seen on the roaC
to Metz and around Verdun, may serve
to make hill immortal in history, wheI
if it had had no individual designation
it's glory would have been lost in name
less oblivion
From Professor Perbins's description
of Vermont, with its double system o
mountains, the Green Mountains and thu
Taconic Mountains, its easy north-anC
south and its hard east-and-west road
its 400 lakes, big and little, its innumer
able roundtopped mountains, many lis
ing 5000 and 1000 feet, its green valley
and dells and dingles, its memorials o
the days when it lay beneath a sea who's
western waves washed the feet of tn
Adirondacks and its Granite Hills whicl
enable Vermont to lead the world in tn
production Of this stone as it does i
marble-from these things one sees tina
here is an admirable place to develop tn
love of American home scenery.
II think with concern of those name
less peaks that Professor Perkins tell
! of Like unchristened children of Mothe
Earth they stood there, mute, waiting
shut out of the fold of the nominate
5. abashed by their undeserved anonymit!
e Bright eyes admire their baptized br,
e theirs, and gay voices ask for theirs, bt
the reply is only, They are nameless
S, And maybe they hear, and wonde
5, why,
And marvel out in the cold
The red man may have had names f
some ,of these, and if they could be +
covered they would be an adornment I
the geographic and an enrichment of Il
- vocabulary of the Vermonters.
"A II hope that no reader will think TIL
3 am ndulgng in mere sentimentalisr
There is the solidest kind of reason b
Is hind the feeling that the notable natur
features of every landscape should ha
individual names Monadnock, liecau
it has name and "a sonorous one, is n
n only known everywhere, but is far dea
er to the dwellers around its feet thi
it would otherwise be. Fancy Pike
Peak without name Recall your yout
81 i you had the fortune to be born In t
r country, and see how the names of t
hills, whose high frost-crusted hea
sparkled in the winter moonbeams, eli
to your memory. The starry heave
would lose half their power over t
~ imagination if the brightest stars d
= not bear names. But tins is somethi
that needs no argument What do
perhaps, need enforcing upon the attt
ton is the immense pleasure and advs
tage of studying the physiognomy of yo
y country"