CHARACTERISTICS
There was nothing angular or disproportionate in the structure of Mr.
Cocke's mind. The photograph of it may be said to have been reflected in
his face, with its fine assemblage of strong and well-balanced features.
The intellect was clear, the will robust, and the feeling intense. One
never saw him when he did not know what he wanted to do; never found him
irresolute or languid of purpose; and never knew him indifferent or
unresponsive. Along every line of enterprise that summoned him, these
powers were joined in unity and concert of action. He was not in the
smallest degree visionary or quixotic. Illusions, phantasms, Utopian
dreams, perished in the light of his large common sense. Yet this man
was a true idealist. In his youth he saw a vision. At first he saw it
dimly, but as time passed it grew in clarity, until it materialized in a
better system for the higher education of young women. Had he failed, we
might have called him a dreamer; but as he succeeded gloriously, we
rank him with the adventurous thinkers who have blessed the world. He
followed the gleam and domesticated it in society. In his early days
Hollins Institute was to him what the Holy Grail was to the Knights of
King Arthur, or what the Golden Fleece was to the ancient Argonauts. The
thing that makes a man great, is a great idea seized and brought into
beneficent application. He is greatest that is servant of all. When Mr.
Cocke said that his habit was to think thirty years ahead, he was hardly
conscious that it was a fine feat of imagination. Yet this is his title
to the crown of the Legion of Honor. Intellectual and moral heroism must
have its reward.
[Illustration: CHARLES L. COCKE]
He would not have us say that his scholarship was broad. Too honest was
he to make pretense of much learning. Broadly intelligent and well
informed he was, and an efficient teacher of mathematics, but he made no
claim to extended acquaintance with literature, science or philosophy.
It is interesting to know that he was fond of Milton's "Paradise Lost"
and Pollock's "Course of Time," and could quote long passages from each.
He deplored inability to devote himself more assiduously to wide reading
and deep study. The scholarly instinct and craving was in him, but the
engrossing cares of his Institution absolutely monopolized his
attention. Pathetic necessity barred him from the fuller measures of
intellectual culture. On administrative burden bearing depended the life
and growth of the school, and with perfect intelligence of the personal
sacrifice involved, the responsibility was accepted. However, he was
keen to discover scholarship, and quick, with the wisdom of a master, to
add it to his Faculty.
It was sometimes said that he was autocratic, and he himself admitted
that there was some ground for the charge. How could it be otherwise? He
was the informing soul and energy of the Institution, and in that fact
was the sole guaranty of its development and perpetuity. He knew his
plans and hopes, he had bold confidence in his own judgment, and he
possessed an indomitable will. He had to speak with decision and
authority. All confessed his right to command and understood the certain
penalties of faulty service or of disobedience. The harassments of
interminable worries and of defeated hopes may at times have resulted in
a look of sternness, or have given his manner a touch of unpleasing
abruptness; but, withal, it was far from him to inflict intentional
pain. Austerity of manner, incidentally of expression, was balanced by
as kind a heart as ever beat. He was a superb gentleman, and in his
prevailing gentler moods, had pleasant greetings for all. He was at the
helm, and the necessity was on him to guide and direct, but behind the
flash of those keen blue eyes lay a wealth of human kindness and
affection. All Hollins knew it. Tyrant he could not be, but master he
was. Never did it pass from his thought that he was a servant of God and
that the mind of the Master was the goal of his life. He had the bearing
of a lord, but the child in his heart never died. Then, if ruggedness
appeared, it was but a surface exhibition, the fatherly feeling being
the deep inextinguishable fact within. For this, his pupils and friends
gave him a life-long devotion, and his children loved him, almost to
adoration. This man was no autocrat.
He was conspicuous for his liberality. Owing to the fact that his
earnings and that of his family were constantly swallowed up by
improvements in the Institution, he was never a wealthy man. Yet that
fact did not close the door of his compassions and generosities. Gifts
went to the poor, contributions unstinted went to his church and to the
benevolences of his denomination. Once, when attending the Baptist State
Association at Petersburg, Virginia, after several speeches had been
made on missions, he arose and said: "Now let us do something. I wish
right here to subscribe $100." The suggestion struck the body and a
handsome subscription was taken. Mrs. Cocke said, some time after the
event: "Charles came home and sold a horse to pay that subscription."
At an educational gathering in Enon Church, when the inevitable
subscription was taken, his young son, Lucian, signalized his immature
and reckless enthusiasm by saying: "Put me down for $100." The cautious
collector called out to the father what the boy had done. "All right,"
said the acquiescent father; "he has a pony." In dismay the youth saw
the meaning, and the pony went to education.
Not often did he relate jokes and anecdotes, but he enjoyed them at the
hands of his friends. He had a saving sense of humor and could relish a
flash of it even at his own expense. This incident he told on himself.
At one of the Valley meetings of ministers and laymen, he made a
stirring speech. His oratory was of the spontaneous, practical type,
often impassioned and tremendously moving. When he closed an admiring
brother arose and paid compliment to the speaker for his "exhaustive"
address. The modest orator meekly protested the extravagant language.
Then a wit of a preacher stood up to explain to Mr. Cocke that the
brother did not mean that the speaker had "exhausted" the subject, but
that he had "exhausted" himself! The house was instantly in a roar of
laughter, in which the orator himself as heartily joined. His brethren
knew they could take innocent liberties with him, because they loved him
so. At Walnut Grove Baptist Church in Bedford County, Virginia, a
meeting was in progress in the fall of 1881. The house was crowded when
Mr. Cocke arose. The good genius of speech was upon him and that address
on education was memorable for power. Later, in the church yard, a good
mother was talking to a minister about the speech. A flush was on her
face and tears glistened in her eyes as she said, "Oh, I wish I was able
to send my daughter to Hollins." Now he had not said one word about
Hollins, his effort being to magnify the importance of the education of
young women, and to fasten conviction on parental hearts. At another
time, while he was attending a Baptist meeting in Southern Virginia, he
spoke before the body. A college professor in the audience inquired as
to the personality of the speaker. On being told, he said: "I want to
meet him, for he said more forcible things in five minutes than all the
speakers before him in fifteen." An interview followed, with the result
that the distinguished Professor Kusian spent twenty-eight years in
teaching at Hollins.
Self-conceit Mr. Cocke regarded as a sort of vulgarity. With all
sincerity, his soul responded to the sentiment of him who asked: "Why
should the spirit of mortal be proud?" His friends thought that in some
instances his humility was overdone. Richmond College gave him the
degree of LL.D., but he declined it, silently and unostentatiously. His
frank reverence for truth disallowed acceptance. The degree, in his
view, stood for a measure of learning which he regarded himself as
lacking. His modesty wronged him. The compliment has come to be bestowed
on high civic merit and achievement as well as on broad scholarship. In
the former virtues, Mr. Cocke stood pre-eminent. His standard, if
applied, would strip a multitude of names of this honorary title.
Interest in making money seems never to have touched him. Not once did
he venture on an investment. The material prosperity of men gratified
him. He knew that most men ought to make money, but he had no time for
it. "This one thing I do." On one thing, the gifts, plans and powers of
his long life were literally and undividedly centered.
He loathed the feeling of jealousy. He would have despised himself if he
had been unable to hear the praise of other college presidents and of
their institutions without inward pangs. Eulogize his brethren, and you
smote on no chord of envy. He was a large man. He bore no grudges and
carried no enmities, the common luggage of proud and envious minds.
What a good and generous neighbor this man was! The successes and
sorrows of the countryside round about Hollins touched him sensibly. He
was their counsellor in times of perplexity; their comforter in seasons
of grief. Frequent were the times when a minister not being accessible,
he conducted funerals and buried the dead. He loved the people as do all
who really love God. The religion that attempts to terminate on God,
ignoring human beings, is as sounding brass and a clanging cymbal. Of
such worship this man knew nothing. He expressed love to the divine in
even-handed justice and in benevolent sympathy among men. Perhaps the
finest tribute paid at his funeral was spoken by the Lutheran minister,
Dr. F. V. N. Painter, a part of which is as follows:
"Dr. Cocke was a great educator. He was great both in theory and
practice. He had not made, I think, an elaborate study of the science
and history of education, as they are presented in text-books. His
knowledge was deeper than the knowledge acquired in that way. In the
educational work of more than fifty years, his strong intellect worked
out independent views of educational principles and methods. In no small
degree he helped to make the educational history of Virginia and of the
South.
"Dr. Cocke always impressed me as a large man. His stalwart frame was
but the counterpart of a vigorous intellect. There was nothing petty,
narrow, cynical, in his views or aims or methods. He loved to deal with
fundamental principles and great facts; and in his discussion of any
subject, there was always a breadth of view and a vigor of utterance
that commanded attention. In his great, absorbing concern for truth, he
cared but little for that delicacy of diction and that refinement of
phrasing which so often, in the hands of smaller men, become an end in
themselves. He was a strong earnest man, wrapped about with invincible
integrity, reminding us of Carlyle's words on Luther, 'Great, not as a
hewn obelisk, but as an Alpine mountain, yet in the clefts of it
beautiful valleys with flowers'.
"Dr. Cocke was a man of sterling integrity of character. A brief
acquaintance was sufficient to elicit our highest confidence. He was
straightforward and honest in his aims and methods of work. He attempted
to deceive neither himself nor others; and it is impossible now to
associate an insincere or crafty diplomacy with his character. His
native integrity of soul, which must have come as a rich inheritance
from worthy ancestors, was strengthened by his deep religious life. He
recognized his supreme obligations to God; and he took the life of Jesus
Christ as his model. Thus he stood before us as a beautiful example of
Christian manhood. In character and in life he reflected credit on our
common humanity."
It is the divine way to do mighty works through consecrated men and
women. Christian faith so identifies one with the life of God that the
eternal energies can flow onward to great consummations, even to the
casting of mountains of difficulty into the sea. Nothing evil was ever
charged against Mr. Cocke. The absolute open purity of the man shamed
all envy, and paralyzed misrepresentation. Misunderstood and
unappreciated at times he doubtless was, but this he accepted as one of
the inevitable assets of an ongoing, achieving career. He was not
perfect, but he pressed far up the heights of resplendent manhood. The
signature of a divine call was upon him, and he honored it to the end.
His long labor fell far short of his dreams, but it was crowned with the
blessings of Heaven.
"All I could never be,
All, men ignored in me,
That was I worth to God."
Hollins College is his monument. There it stands, a thing of beauty, by
the little Sulphur Spring. There may it stand forever!