"Find out things for yourself, and you will know them better than if I were to tell you beforehand."
"I am afraid that the average teacher of the present day prepares the students for examinations, not for life."
"All higher education is essentially self-education."
"Can anyone who himself neither intelligently observes, reflects, nor reasons, aid others in so doing?"
Washington and Lee University gave him the degree of LL.D. in 1907. He gave up his work as teacher in 1912, having spent sixty years in the service. On November 26th, 1914, he passed away, lacking only two months of fulfilling his eighty-fourth year. He sleeps with his kindred in the little cemetery on the hill.
Professor Joseph A. Turner
Professor Turner was born in Greenville County, Virginia, August 6th, 1839; was a B.A. of Richmond College in 1858, and an M.A. of the University of Virginia, in 1860. He served in Mahone's Brigade, Army of Northern Virginia, during the entire war, and in 1866 accepted the chair of English and Modern Languages at Hollins Institute, which position he held to the time of his death, May 5th, 1878. Hollins has had many able and popular teachers, but it is simple truth to say that none ever stirred more enthusiastic admiration and devotion than he. Indeed, after hearing and reading his eulogies, one is almost forced to the conclusion that he was one of the most remarkable teachers the Institution has ever known. Of high character, broad scholarly sympathies, and passion for teaching, he made his classroom electric with literary contagions and enthusiasms. Not only did he teach, but he magnetized and inspired the student. His teaching was largely by lecture, punctuated with pointed questions. Intellectually honest, accurate, painstaking, he cultivated the same qualities in the student. He published a valuable treatise on Punctuation and left several works in manuscript on his special subjects of English literature and philosophy. He contributed occasionally to Appleton's Journal and The Atlantic Monthly, and regularly to the editorial columns of The Nation.
Mr. Cocke honored and loved him, and the tribute he paid to the lost teacher in his annual report to the Trustees in 1878, is probably the finest ever given by him:
"Mr. Turner was a man of no ordinary type. When a boy, he was a mark among boys; when he became a man, he was a man among men. He hesitated long between law and teaching, and when the question was settled, he gave all the energies of his soul to his chosen calling. Prompt, able, faithful and enthusiastic, he carried his pupils to the highest standards of improvement of which they were capable, opening the fields of Literature, where they might wander, explore and gather the richest fruits in after years. Not only did he give them knowledge and culture, but he inspired a zest for knowledge which would carry them beyond the ordinary confines of female acquirements. As an officer in a school for girls, his eminent literary attainments, his temperament, manners and very person, inspired respect and affection. His purpose was to make this a prominent Institution for young ladies, and accordingly he was engaged in preparation of textbooks adapted to that end. Among literary men, Mr. Turner was regarded as a scholar of mark, and destined to become a figure in the literary world."
