Augusta Military Academy - Recall Yearbook (Fort Defiance, VA)

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“When such men die, it is well to pause, and looking at what they have been, calling up their virtues, their achievements, their characters, fix in our hearts the memory of these and thus put our- selves to fresh obligations for their existence. And just this is the explanation of our gathering here today where our friend won love and respect by his well-spent life of industry, integrity and devotion to the cause of education and human progress, and as I address myself to the delectable task assigned me, well may I borrow those ele- quent words of John Temple Graves spoken of Henry Grady when he said: ‘No fire that can be kindled upon the altar of speech can resume the radiant spark that perished. No blaze born in all eulogy can burn beside the sunlight of his useful life. After all, there is nothing grander than such living—the grandest thing next to the radiance that flows from the Almighty throne is the light of a noble and beautiful life wrapping itself in benediction around the desti- nies of men and finding its home in the blessed bosom of the ever- lasting God.’ “Charles Summerville Roller was a fair representative of the age in which he lived; an age which forms one of the greatest and brightest eras in the history of man; an age teeming with new dis- coveries and developments, extending in all directions the limits of human knowledge: an age of marvelous growth of the brotherhood of man in the amalgamation of the different races of the world. The spirit of that age found a happy personification in the founder of this Academy. Providence was kind to him even in birth. “He was fortunate in starting out in life with the enviable asset of having mingled in his ancestry the blood of English, Scotch-Irish and German stock; hardy, pure-minded and stout-hearted men and women who sought in this new world that liberty of conscience and freedom of worship denied them by the state and the church of their respective mother countries. Moreover from both his paternal and maternal side he sprang from heroic soldiers of the American Revo- lution. The eldest son of Jacob Roller, a prominent and influential citizen of independent means of Augusta County, and blessed with a mother of rare accomplishments and a superior character, he began life under most favorable circumstances, having made his advent 6

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dreds think and feel, I thanked you for the proud privilege you had conferred upon me and the invitation appealed so irresistibly to my friendship and gratitude to our beloved teacher we had lost, that I could not decline it. I am delighted to have this opportunity of placing a simple wildflower of his own cultivation upon his memory in token of my humble love. I might well hesitate to stand here if I did not know that, enriched by the sympathy of this large, repre- sentative gathering, my words will seem to your generous hearts to prolong for a while the requiem that you would not willingly let die. “Nothing appears so transitory and fleeting as the life of man when compared with the apparent permanence of his surroundings. But things are not as they seem. There is a sense in which man has something like an earthly immortality. The generations come and go, but they do not take all of themselves with them in their going. They leave something behind them for weal or woe to those who come after them. A thousand men breathe, move, and live, pass off the stage of life and are heard of no more. Why? They did not a particle of good in the world; and none were blest by them, none could point to them as the instrument of their re- demption; not a line they wrote, not a word they spoke, could be recalled and so they perished—their light went out in darkness and they were not remembered more than the insects of yesterday. But ever and anon there comes a man of power who leaves a benediction to the world by making an impression for good upon its intellectual and moral life, which goes ringing down through the shifting’ scenes of time and the fleeting generations of men. For to be cold and breathless—to feel not and speak not—this is not the end of existence to the men who have breathed their spirit into the insti- tutions of their country, who have stamped their characters upon the human pillars of their age, who have poured their heart’s blood into channels of public prosperity. ‘These shall resist the empire of decay, When time is o’er and worlds have passed away; Cold in the dust the perished heart may lie, But that which warmed it once can never die.’

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into life at Mt. Sidney, a small town one mile north of here, on May 8, 1889. A native product of our soul, he may very truly be called an American of Americans. His memorializers tell us that ‘he was a bright, hopeful and athletic boy, with an inquiring, eager mind that drew attention.’ From his earliest years he was noted for his thoroughness and his progressive views and for a certain self-reliance. “The Creator endowed him with a strong mind and a retentive memory which he early began to develop. To this end he diligently used the advantages of school and college. To many youth itself is so sweet a siren that in hearing her voice they forget all but the pleasure of listening to it. But the sibyl saved no scroll from young Roller; he had the wisdom to seize themall. His class-mates, gayly returning late at night, saw the student’s light shining through his window. The boy was hard at work, already in the plastic years storing his mind and memory with the best of literature and historic lore. He seems to have acted upon the teaching of Gay when he sings ‘“Learning by study must be won; ’T was n’er entailed from son to son.’ “So faithfully did he apply himself while attending Parkins Classical School and later the Mossy Creek Academy, that when, in 1859, he became a student of the University of Virginia at the ten- der age of twenty years, he was found prepared for its course as a few of its students have ever been. In each of these three institu- tions he ranked high and graduated with distinction. “But his life of mental discipline did not cease with his gradua- tion. No doubt he had, during his student days found and laid to heart those sane lines of Pope! ““A little learning is a dangerous thing, Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring, There shallow draughts intoxicate the brain, And drinking largely sobers us again.’ “Practically to the end of this earthly existence he was a con- stant, patient, and devoted student. He was a great lover of books. They were his most intimate life companions. He had a fine judg- ment in their selection. -The great English classics he read and re-