AN ESTIMATE OF THE MAN


realize that he was genuinely and wholesomely human. He
felt that religion and its resultant morality were for man, and
not man for them. He believed that the good, expressed in
the spiritual, was for the purpose of making good the material,
the human.
 His was a life of leadership. What of the qualities of
that leadership? His greatest success lay in the fact that he
could lead with tact and understanding. He studiously
avoided clashes of wills and purposes. Quarrels and misun-
derstandings distressed him immeasurably, and he shrank
from them as from a plague. Some may see beneath this trait
an element of weakness. Some may have sensed an unwill-
ingness to meet an issue.
 But always his avoidance of an issue or a problem was
but temporary, and due to his desire to allow a solution to
find itself in an atmosphere of peace and understanding. And
of this there can be no doubt: On any question involving prin-
ciples of right and wrong, he formulated a policy he believed
to be right, made up his mind, and remained firmly placed.
He was adamant in questions involving moral issues. With
a firmness that became grim if pressed he led along the path
he felt righteousness, justice and duty lay.
 From the hundreds of messages that poured in upon the
University staff and upon his family, expressive of grief and
sympathy at his passing, may be gleaned those sentiments
that, wrung spontaneously from hearts who knew him, set
forth the estimate of the man. Of course the outstanding
theme of those messages was the greatness of his success as an
educational leader, and the belief that the cause of education
in the south and in the nation had suffered an irreparable loss.
But of more interest in the measure of the man were the ex-
pressions of personal loss, of grief that a friend of such ster-
ling worth had been taken.
 "His high idealism and his thorough understanding of
youth made him a power in the spiritual life of the state. He
was a born leader, of noble character and scholarly attain-
ments," ran one message. "We had the keenest appreciation
of the intellectual, human and spiritual qualities of Dr. Mur-
phree," another declared. "I count him among my dearest