We can never
tell all that he meant to us. Gropingly we turn to little pictures
in memory. We see him crossing Cope Field in the green and gold of
spring mornings, on his way to class. We see him sitting on the
verandah steps of his home on sunny afternoons, full of gay and
eager talk on a thousand diverse topics. He little knew, I think,
how we hung upon his words. I can think of no more genuine tribute
than this: that in my own class--which was a notoriously cynical and
scoffish band of young sophisters--when any question of religious
doubt or dogma arose for discussion among some midnight group,
someone was sure to say, "I wish I knew what Doctor Gummere thought
about it!" We felt instinctively that what he thought would have
been convincing enough for us.
He was a truly great man. A greater man than we deserved, and there
is a heavy burden upon us to justify the life that he gave to our
little college. He has passed into the quiet and lovely tradition
that surrounds and nourishes that place we all love so well. Little
by little she grows, drawing strength and beauty from human lives
around her, confirming herself in honour and remembrance. The
teacher is justified by his scholars. Doctor Gummere might have gone
elsewhere, surrounded by a greater and more ambitiously documented
band of pupils. He whom we knew as the greatest man we had ever
seen, moved little outside the world of learning.
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