Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - John Milton Gregory Memorial Convocation (1898) [PAGE 19]

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JOHN MILTON GREGORY.

17

course of instruction of this n a t u r e

He had been for many

years the editor oi a successful educational periods al, and for five years was State Superintendent of Public Instruction in Michigan, and a member of the Hoard of Regents of the State University, For four years, next preceding his election as

Regent here, he was president of K a l a m a z o o College. 1 le never

became an investigator in natural science, but he followed with

the keenest relish t h e results of t h e labors of o t h e r s , and held himself ready to accept conclusions so r e a c h e d . A d d e d to all this, p e r h a p s in some respects above all this, he was capable upon short notice of masterly efforts upon t h e platform. If he was not an orator, he had a wonderful gift of utterance, and h a d t h e power of lucid p r e s e n t a t i o n of ideas so that audiences large a n d small, upon c o m m o n or upon e x a l t e d themes, were held in r a p t a t t e n t i o n and tireless m e n t a l following. His chapel talks w e r e g e m s of diction and models of stirring helpfulness. In his efforts before agricultural societies, at the county fairs, in t h e c o u n t r y school houses, in t e a c h e r s ' assemblies, before t h e l e a r n e d a n d before those of little scholastic a t t a i n m e n t , he was ever t h e forceful, t h e instructive, t h e convincing, a n d t h e inspiring m a s t e r of t h e hour. In t h e pulpit his p o w e r was n o n e t h e less, for t h e plain t r u t h s of a practical and consoling C h r i s t i a n i t y c a m e from his lips in r a r e ^weetne-s and in h o p e - i n s p i r i n g power. It r e m a i n s , however, to m e n t i o n t h e e l e m e n t of fitness which, p e r h a p s , m o r e than any o t h e r d e s i g n a t e d him for, and probably b r o u g h t him to, t h e high office which he held. T h a t was his intelligent, b r o a d - m i n d e d , and sincere conception of t h e n e e d s and possibilities of the p r o p o s e d new lines of educational activity. N o o n e who knew him as a man could read t h a t first report, to which I again refer, and his o t h e r p a p e r s and s p e e c h e s of a similar import, including his n u m e r o u s recommendations to the T r u s t e e s , without g a i n i n g the conviction t h a t his b u r n i n g rhetoric and cumulative logic c a m e from the well-springs of his heart ; t h o u g h it is p r o p e r to say that it was just her*- tli t o p p o n e n t s m a d e their most serious c h a r g e s a n d

most dt tructive assaults. Because especially he clunu tena ciously to what he belies d to be of value in classical educa tion, those of different thought pronounced him unsafe a a