Yet this old master was not a school-room tyrant. The well-disposed among his pupils held him in affectionate regard, and even the turbulent respected the justice of his decisions and the firmness and sincerity of his rule. He did not take pleasure in inflicting pain. He “trounced” a bad or unruly boy because he regarded trouncing as a necessary and wholesome discipline, which would make him a better man and a better citizen. And the punishments he inflicted were rarely, if ever, undeserved. He was as just as he was stern.
As an instructor, he had mastered the branches he taught. He rarely held a book in his hand while hearing a class. With the range of text-books then in use, he was thoroughly familiar. Every rule or principle or fact they contained was at his tongue’s end. He had a real love for his work, and an affectionate interest in the progress of his pupils. The old, weather-beaten brick school house on the “Commons,” with its rude pine desks and benches, whittled by the jack-knives of more than one generation of boys, and its painted black-board on the wall, was the soul of his earthly interests and ambition.
Amid such surroundings he lived for more than sixty years, engaged in a laborious, often perplexing and wearisome, but always useful work. He sent out into the world thousands of men, disciplined, instructed and moulded by his firm but kindly hands—men who are scattered, to-day, from ocean to ocean, and many of whom have achieved the most distinguished success in life. For among his pupils were James G. Blaine, Senator McMillan, of Minnesota, ex-Congressman Townsend, of Ohio, and a host of others eminent in law, in medicine, in literature, and in business.
He reached a venerable age, dying at eighty-four. And I am sure that his pupils, wheresoever they had wandered, received the news of his death with profound sorrow. For the mention of his name would call up a thousand recollections of him—of his tall, athletic person, of his massive head and shaggy eye-brows, of his homely but intellectual face and his keen and kindly eyes, of his quick, firm, dominating voice, and of his relish for every physical as well as mental enjoyment. For the stern master of the school-room was, on the “Commons,” a boy with the boys—the surest catch, the strongest hand at the bat, and the swiftest runner of them all. Remembering Master Joshua V. Gibbons thus, is it strange that his old pupils, grown to manhood and scattered far and wide, should hold his memory in reverent and tender recollection?
I sincerely hope and trust that the Normal will send out hundreds of teachers who, though they may lack the ample physical powers of Master Gibbons, will possess, in full measure, his strong will and just judgment, his admirable perspicuity and precision as an instructor, his wide range of information, and, above all, his ardent, inspiring, never-flagging love for his work. The influence of even a dozen such teachers, scattered throughout Kansas, would amply repay the State for all the expenditures it has ever made in behalf of this Institution, and spread far and wide the reputation of the Normal as a deserving and useful training school for educators.
GENERAL GRANT—MEMORIAL ADDRESS.
[At Atchison, Kansas, on Saturday, August 8, 1885, the memorial exercises in honor of General Grant were participated in by all the civic societies, including the Grand Army of the Republic, Knights of Pythias, Ancient Order of United Workmen, Catholic Knights of America, Independent Order of Odd Fellows, Knights of Labor, Irish Benevolent Society, and others. After the funeral parade, fully five thousand people gathered at Turner Hall Garden. Mayor Samuel H. Kelsey presided, and addresses were delivered by Gov. John A. Martin, and Col. Aaron S. Averest. The address of Gov. Martin is as follows:]
Mr. Chairman, and Ladies and Gentlemen: I appear before this audience with more than ordinary distrust and solicitude. Keenly sensible, at all times, of my deficiencies as a speaker, this consciousness is intensified by the reflection that I am to speak, to-day, of one who is enshrined in the hearts of the American people as no other man, except Washington or Lincoln, ever was; of one whose fame, like the sunlight, flooded all the world, and whose example will warm patriotic hearts and stimulate noble ambitions until the end of recorded time.
And how can I describe, as all men knew him, the great soldier who was to-day borne to his last resting-place with a great Nation as his sorrowful mourners, and the funeral bells of the civilized world tolling the universal sympathy of the brotherhood of men? How can I fittingly testify the tender affection, the reverent respect in which the loyal people of Kansas held Ulysses S. Grant? How can I give expression to the feeling of bereavement which shadows every home and hearth in this great Commonwealth, where live a hundred thousand men who, during the dark days of the civil war, gladly and proudly hailed him as their commander, and made him heir to the honor and glory their valor and patriotism, directed by his consummate ability, had won for the Nation?
The North, at the outbreak of the civil war, was like a blind giant. Its strength was at once revealed. Never before, in any age or country, had there been such a magnificent uprising as was that following the attack on Sumter. From country fields and city workshops, from schools, offices, and marts of commerce, a great host—the very blossom and flower of the youth and manhood of the land—swarmed to the recruiting stations, eager to dare and suffer all things for the cause of the Republic. But leaders were lacking. Engrossed in business, and devoting all its energies to the arts and industries of peace, the loyal North had drawn many of its trained soldiers into civil pursuits, where they had been swallowed up in the rush and clangor of commerce. The South had kept many of its brightest intellects in the army, where such men as Albert Sidney Johnson, Robert E. Lee, Joseph E. Johnston, and many others equally brilliant, held high positions. These men at once cast their lot against the Nation that had educated them. And the Republic, thus deserted by the soldiers it had trained, groped blindly through many months of sore disaster, waiting for the leaders who were to direct its heroic armies to final victory.