There have also been many noted and learned professors, filling their respective chairs in these educational institutions since their foundation, with distinction. These institutions have maintained educational standards so high that they have exerted a marked influence on the culture and refinement of people residing in and outside of the valley. Other educational institutions have also made their influence felt on students coming from the Champlain valley, as well as on their graduates returning to it, thereby contributing materially to the intellectual uplift of the people of the territory. All this is evidenced by the large number of liberally educated men and women who have gone forth to fill civic, technical, professional, political and other positions with marked ability, in various parts of the country.
Representatives of the Champlain valley are found in the Army, the Navy and in all departments of the national Government, as well as in the various state governments. They will also be found in the learned professions, in commercial, technical, engineering, mechanical and electrical pursuits, and are thus spreading abroad the professional, technical and general information, which they have received in the institutions of the Champlain valley and in the institutions outside of the Champlain valley, which they attended.
If space permitted, it might be of interest to submit a bibliography of the works of the authors, who have at various times lived in the Champlain valley. A few only need be cited to show their character and scope.
In addition to his services as a civilian and a Major-General of the State Militia, Ira Allen wrote the “National and Political History of the State of Vermont,” and many state papers, wherein were treated matters in controversy between the State of New York and the people under the New Hampshire grants.
The state papers of Governor George Clinton of New York, and Governor Thomas Chittenden of Vermont, in relation to matters in dispute between New York and Vermont, and the correspondence between Nathaniel Chipman and Alexander Hamilton in relation to the boundary dispute, and the speech of Alexander Hamilton before a committee of the Assembly in relation to the same matter, and the controversy as to the boundary line between the two states, and other matters of interest to both commonwealths, form a most important chapter in the early history of the two states, and are contained in the Documentary History of New York and the publications of the Vermont Historical Society.
As an evidence of the intellectual and moral culture of the people of the Champlain valley, attention is called to the writings of James Marsh, President of the University of Vermont, including his Preliminary Essay to Samuel Taylor Coleridge’s “Aids to Reflection.”
Dr. Joseph Torrey, President of the University of Vermont, read an important paper on “The Discovery and Occupation of Lake Champlain,” before the Vermont Historical Society, on October 16, 1860, and he also wrote a work, which had an extensive sale, known as “A Theory of Fine Art,” but he is widely known as the translator of Neander’s “General History of the Christian Religion and Church.”
The works of George P. Marsh, for many years United States Minister to Turkey and Italy, include “Lectures on the English Language,” published in 1861, “The Origin and History of the English Language,” published in 1862, “The Earth as Modified by Human Action,” published in 1874, some of which were standard treatises.
Judge Edmund Hatch Bennett was the author of an edition of the works of Judge Joseph Story and also of an hundred volumes of law reports.
Rev. William G. T. Shedd, lecturer at the University of Vermont, was a prolific writer on historical, philosophical and literary subjects, and his works became standard authorities on the subjects treated.