Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-02-24
A Study That
Helps Patriotism
Nv GARRETT p. SERvISS

| fective than familiarity with what
may be imaginatively called the
| physiognomy, more scientifically the
! physiography. of ones native land.
The Frenchman loves his country as
he loves his mother. because he is
| familiar with every feature of its
countenances.
The French are not great travellers
| abroad, but they are great travellers
at home. When Frenchman feels
| the desire, or the necessity for "a
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 book" or like the face of
one very dear to him, and he carries
| into his wanderings over his home
land that zest for the little details
of life which seems to give the
French a greater fullness of enjoy
| ment, without any appearance of ex-
cess. than his journey in the same
way that he takes his dinner.
We need something of this in
America. and 1 have just been read
ing with delight an address made by
Professor C. IL. Perkins, of the Uni
versity of Vermont. on the physi-
ography of the Green Mountain
State.
am not a Vermonter. and have
seen far less of Vermont than 1
should like to see, but what Pro-
fessor Perkins points out fills me
with enthusiasm for that great lit
tie State. 1t is not that he has put
any literary charm into his address
its effect is of a different kind; it
throws open door, 1t lifts a cur
tain, it reveals a face that fasci-
mates. the face of a beautiful, ro-
mantle land filled with exquisite
valleys and swelling hills. many of
which have yet no names, and en-
riched with clear waters and with
stores of costly GRANTEES and mar
bles of matchless beauty.
an 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 in
/ France and ought not to have hap
pened in an American State. Every
hill that is big and high enough to
be noteworthy" should have a
name. Even 4 mere number. as we
have lately seen on the road to Metz
and around Verdun. may serve to
make hill immortal in history.
when, il it had had no individual
designation its glory would have
been lost in nameless oblivion.
From Professor Perkins descrip-
tion of Vermont. with it's double
system of mountains. the Green
Mountains and the TaEonic Noun
tains, its easy north-and- south roads
and it's hard east-and- roads,
it's 400 lakes, big and little. it's in
Vulnerable round-topped mountains,
many rising 5000 and 1000 feet e!e-
walton. its green valleys and dells
and dingles. it's memorials of the
days when it lay beneath a sea whose
western waves washed the feet OF
the $dirondacks. and it's Granite
Hills which enable Vermont to lead
the world in the production of this
stone as it does in marble"--from
these things one sees that here is
an admirable place to develop the
love of American home scenery.
I think with concern of those
nsmeless peaks that Professor Per-
kins tells of, like unchristened chill
dren of Mother Earth they stand
there, mute. waiting. shut out of the
their undeserved anonymity. Bright
eyes admire their baptised brothers.
and gay voices ask for theirs. but
the reply is only, They are name
less"
'"And maybe they hear, and wonder
And marvel. out in the cold"
The red men may have had names
for some of these. and if they could
be recovered they would be an
adornment to the Biographies and
an enrichment of the vocabulary of
the Vermonters.
I hope that no reader will think
that l am indulging in mere senti-
mentalism. There is the solidest
kind of reason behind the feeling
that the notable natural features of
every landscape should have indi-
vidual names. Monadnock because
it has name, and a sonorous one,
is not only known everywhere, but
is far dearer to the dwellers around
its feet than it would otherwise be.
Fancy Pixies Peak without a name!
Recall your youth. If you had the
fortune to be born in the country,
| and see how the names of the hills,
| whose high frost-crusted heads
sparllled in the Winter moonbeams.
cling in your memory. The starry
heavens would lose half their power
over the Imagination if the bright
est stars did not bear names. But
this is something that needs no ar
gument. What does. perhaps, need
enforcing upon the attention is the
immense pleasure and advantage of
studying the 'physiognomy" of your
country.