| The Life of Dr. J.R. Miller |
Chapter 1 |
Page 8 |
In a letter written in 1911 to Daniel W. Fisher, D.D., concerning Calvin W. Mateer, D.D., long a missionary in China, he said:
“Dr. Mateer was my first teacher in Latin and Greek. I never can forget how he received me when I first went to the academy at Beaver. I was a bashful country boy, full of enthusiasm and eager to learn, but knowing almost nothing. There was no room ready for me in the academy the first night and the young principal took me into his own bed. The impression he made upon me that night, especially at the time of prayer before we went to bed, is one I never shall lose from memory.”
At once he became known as a good student. It was not long before he was asked to assist in teaching some of the lower classes in the academy. Later he taught also in the Beaver Female Seminary. Always he was diligent and painstaking in the performance of his double duties as student and tutor.
Rev. J.A. McGill, then principal of the academy, was still living when his pupil teacher of those days closed his life on earth, and he wrote this testimony:
“Mr. Miller gave himself heartily to everything that was for the good of the academy. He was diligent student, a genial companion, a trustworthy friend.”
He was not content to study merely to make recitations and pass examinations, but he inspired those he taught with a like spirit. He not only thoroughly mastered the subject in hand, but so far as his time would permit he made himself familiar with the general literature that came within his reach. The poets were his great delight, and his mind and soul were enriched by many of their treasures. He seldom attempted to phrase his own thoughts in rime, yet all that he wrote revealed the true spirit of the poet. It was his habit to try to reproduce from memory sentences and paragraphs which had impressed him, thus making them his own. Then he would write original sentences and paragraphs modeled on those of the masters. He was a painstaking composer, often making many drafts of his compositions, until they reached as nearly as possible the high standard which he set for himself. His ideal was simplicity and purity of diction, and he was fond of illustrations that would be like windows through which the visions of the soul might become real to others.
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