Armour Institute of Technology - Cycle Yearbook (Chicago, IL)

Page 15 text:

QYlemortaf ($bbre66 of (p. ©. ($rmour A majestic oak, upon which we have gazed for years, under whose shade we have found refreshing coolness, by whose roots the flowers of beauty and fragrance grew, has fallen. It is not ours to gather about a ruin and to unite in words of lament, for too much has been given to the world in the life of him we honor. Through him has come to us a new revelation of the power God has lodged in humanity. We must not sorrow, and sorrow only that the oak has fallen; so deeply do the roots of this life run into the earth, so grandly did this life unfold under the influences of heaven. Ours must not be a sigh or a tear save as it is accompanied with a song of thanksgiving. Neither is it ours to gather here, where this great tree shaded so many with its kindly and genial influences and pronounce words of eulogy: for this oak was too massive, too grand, too simple and too sublime to harmonize with our poor ex- pression in words of description or of praise. Least of all, look- ing up into the open heavens and standing on the spot where this oak ruled in the sovereignty of its expanding beauty, need we apologise for its gnarled and twisted trunk and its knotted limbs, as we seek to remember more kindly influences, the various airs which played through the branches in all the moving seasons, the drifting tides of sunlight which flooded the leaves, and the count- less happy memories and inspirations which associated themselves with the tall and sovereign growth ever lifting our eyes and thoughts toward the skies. It is very hard to part with Philip Danforth Armour. The effect of his going continues. We who remain are like the lesser craft in a great river, which widens to a harbor of departure, over whose surface there has gone out to sea a monarch of the deep. We like to feel the evidences of greatness. It is almost enough that we realize the displacement and movement of the waters upon which our smaller boats must sail. A mighty and kingly thing, a great ship, indeed, bearing many precious things, bound for a far