The Home Front
BOHN, WILLIAM E.
THE HOME FRONT By William E. Bohn The Magic World Of Yosemite Valley Yosemite Valley is different from any other place in the world. You stand in the lush meadows on the valley floor, and it...
...They are not composed of masses of vari-colored rock climbing and retiring toward their distant peaks...
...The man smiled and replied: "Well, you can't keep people out of their own park...
...From the start, the report went out that here was something special, something worth going far to see, something which must on no account be injured or neglected...
...They replied: "We came here with our boy more than 25 years ago...
...Thousands of feet high on that smooth granite face, it was so removed, so distant, so deliberate in its movement, so sifted into mist and tinted rose-color by the early sun that it did not look like any water that had ever been seen or heard...
...We are endowing this park with our time...
...It was when I had almost finished my round of Yosemite's attractions that I came upon Professor and Mrs...
...Most of them are science teachers in colleges or high schools during the winter months...
...El Capitan, Half Dome and the others are not like any other mountains...
...And when the first glint of the sun streamed over a sculptured headland and laced the stately, 1,000-year-old giant sequoias with light, it would have been hard to convince me that I was down in the ordinary, humdrum world...
...He seeks to make a perfect combination of the two purposes of the Service: to preserve the beauties of nature for future generations and to make them available for the recreation and instruction of the people...
...He is a practical mountain man who has been toughened by years of climbing and planning and administration, but he came close to poetry when he said: "People come here and see these mountains and waterfalls and meadows, and something happens to them...
...Even the blue-jays and squirrels appeared to be of a superior breed...
...Just then, I heard a soft murmur high in the air and looked up to see Yosemite Falls...
...In 1864, President Lincoln found time in the midst of the Civil War to sign a law which set aside this spot as "inalienable" forever...
...Hood is one of those shining-eyed persons who can make people—especially young people—love or do anything...
...This valley, which a century ago belonged to the deer and the Indians, was visited last year by 1.1 million tourists...
...The circle which they form totally isolates this enchanted valley...
...I tried to dig out of this patient park superintendent his idea of the uses of natural beauty...
...The deer in search of their breakfast seemed lighter, daintier creatures than other animals...
...In summer, they lead nature walks or give talks in which they explain in simple terms the mysteries of rocks and birds and plants and animals...
...They are never quite the same again...
...And about a hundred persons of all ages, all of them ordinary Americans out to have a good time, listened with rapt attention...
...That Sunday morning when I set off across the meadow, it would have been difficult to convince me that I was treading common earth or that any except extraordinary experiences were to befall me...
...Education by allurement...
...On the morning when I took my unforgettable walk, I saw the breakfast fires of 5,000 campers who had spent the night in the park at very slight expense...
...And while they are touched and maybe changed, we show them things, we talk to them...
...Since the rising sun is barred by this mighty granite wall, the morning twilight lingers long...
...The grass seemed to be of a lusher green than any other...
...You stand in the lush meadows on the valley floor, and it seems as if the great granite heights all about were staring down at you...
...Here is a typical National Park Service official—tall, straight, a forester trained in the techniques of conservation and a patriot devoted to the service of his country...
...We try to teach them by allurement...
...I asked the Hoods why they work here summer after summer with no thought of salary...
...I asked the Superintendent, John C. Preston, whether this was not too many, whether all these people might not trample down the beauties which the Park Service is sworn to preserve...
...Just now, they are busy making over an old building into a visitors' center...
...Professor Hood teaches mathematics in one of the California colleges...
...No one knows how long the Indians have enjoyed the beauties of this paradise, but the first white men found their way here in 1851...
...I heard one of these young rangers explain the changes through which the valley itself came into being...
...Rich people endow institutions with their money...
...We have a right, then, to claim Lincoln as the first in our modern line of conservationists...
...They are sculptured masses of gleaming white, towering straight up into the air for thousands of feet and seeming close enough to topple over on you...
...A visitors' center in a national park is a museum which has come to life...
...For eight years, these two gifted scholars have been doing things at Yosemite...
...There is a fine list of ranger naturalists on the camp staff...
...Now we are trying to pay back what was given us...
...A. W. Hood...
Vol. 40 • August 1957 • No. 33
