Repository: UIHistories Project: Book - John Milton Gregory Memorial Convocation (1898) [PAGE 10]

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versify that is to be, will hold him in tender rc< llection 1 r what he did for it. Indeed, his work is r«-spe< t.d and i,is m e m > ory lias become alreadj .1 sa< 1 d inflnen in our lif- hut their

value ami their beaut) will be more mani I to tin: University,

the State and the Country, with each < i the > nin« rarswhicl is yet unwound from the gr< •' reel ol infinite tim< We may take such formal steps as \ • 1 an to honor hh memorj now; but what we do will seem f ind the University is his monument. Hereceived from the State wlu e citizen and benefactor he became at middle life m ny marks of esteem : he was sent abroad upon Impor mi missions and

called to high public service by the ( e n ral ( - o w n i m c n t m re than o n c e : but the honors which will be most subst mtial am last the longest will be the minds he quickened and the soul he inspired through personal contact, and yet mor through the form which he was able to give and the spirit which he wa able to breathe into the University. T h e s e will be reproduced and multiplied infinitely. T h e University is honored by his desire that his mortal body should rest forever in the soil of the institu: >n which his genius, his generosity, and his courage went far to establish upon broad and enduring foundations. It is hardly too much to say that, without knowing it, he paid for the high right with his brain and his blood. So the University o p e n s its gates to receive him again to its own and to his own. Its T r u s t e e s , instructors, and students convene in convocation ; hi\ thentributes upon his bier. It welcomes to the sad service- hidistinguished successor in office and others who have been of the instructional force, and the students of other davs who come by common impulse to testify of their love. In doin r a l) this we can not but feel that we are indeed making histVn now, for we are rounding out the first great cycle in the \{{v 0 f the University. It shall remind us that the ordinary incidents of daily life are relatively of but little moment, and it shaM register a resolution that the ashes of the d e p a r t e d shall h tenderly g u a r d e d ; that the best years of his life shall not have been gi\ • n to us in vain; and that the great results which hi noble spirit conceived and longed for shall be secured in tl mOSl abundant measure.