The real educator does more than to impart knowledge and acquaint with principles with which to translate this knowledge into practical use—he imparts himself. No youth falls under the influence of a great teacher without taking with himself thereafter somewhat of that instructor. He is not the great and successful educator who merely knows, but one who does, as well.

This was pre-eminently the dominant power of James Thomas Murfee, LL.D., whose station in life and whose labors within the realm of education made him distinguished throughout the South, and beyond. To him education was a passion, not of the spasmodic sort which spends its force at theoretical random, but which he built into constructive character in such way as wisely to direct the instruction obtained. His idea was to build knowledge into character, making the one a component of the other, and thus construct manhood, not alone for usefulness in the ordinary humdrum of life, but in order to invest the entire man with an atmosphere conducive to making life radiant, delightful and useful—to teach one not alone to do, but to be. This was the conception which Dr. Murfee had of a thorough education.

Swayed by this purpose, Dr. Murfee for a long period of years, taught in several states, but the bulk of his lifework was done in Alabama. One never met him without finding him buoyant with enthusiasm concerning education. Nor did he expend his theories in mere phrasing, but reduced them to actual practice. His was the enthusiasm of patience. His passion was to make men, and to turn to practical account every advantage afforded in the drill of the classroom to this end. He sought to excite assertion of a salutary sort, and then to impart the power for its execution. There are hundreds of men adorning the different vocations in this state and in others, including the preacher in the pulpit, who gratefully trace the inception of their success to this great teacher of youth.

Indeed, the rule is well nigh universal that a genuinely successful man is able to date the turning point of his life to the vital touch with some superior character, from which thrill has been derived, and as life broadens into stern practicalness, additional ingredients from the same source are appropriated which continue to tincture and temper for good throughout. While the recipients of these advantages may not be always conscious of the derivation of these augmenting and contributory forces, yet the fact remains that without the abiding presence of this once dominant force, life might have been vastly different.

There would come under the sway of this master of men, at the different institutions in which he served, raw lads from obscure rural retreats, unskilled, gawky, and awkward, yet within whom were powerful possibilities, which the student of character and the incisive teacher would detect, and, like the opaque diamond in the hand of the lapidary, the crude youth would yield results often the most astonishing.Thus through multitudes who sat at his feet Dr. Murfee has been instrumental in changing the faces of many communities, as his students have taken their places in life. This expression is attributed to Alexander the Great: “I am indebted to my father for living, but to my teacher for living well.”

All this is suggested by the life and career of the great teacher now under review. A life so long and so useful was necessarily varied. Born in Southampton County, Virginia, on September 13, 1833, Dr. Murfee lived through a number of the most stirring periods of our national history. His collegiate career was at the Virginia Military Institute, from which he was graduated with the rare distinction of never having received a demerit in a school, the most rigid and exacting in scholastic work and discipline. It is not surprising that the result was that he bore away the highest honors of his class, which occurred in 1853.

Dr. Murfee’s gifts and disposition led him to the adoption of the vocation of teaching, and he was called first to Lynchburg, Va., in that capacity; then, later, to the chair of physical science in Madison College, Pennsylvania. In 1860 he came to Alabama as professor of mathematics and commandant of cadets at our state university. During the war that followed, soon after his advent into the state, he became the lieutenant colonel of the Forty-first Alabama Regiment, but resigned to resume his duties at the University of Alabama. Near the close of the war, when the state was overrun by the federals, he commanded the cadets in an engagement at Tuscaloosa.After the close of the war Dr. Murfee was engaged as architect to design and erect new buildings for the university, in place of the magnificent edifices destroyed by the enemy, to which stupendous task he set his hand and mind, recommending at the same time a new scheme of university organization, all of which was accepted by the board of trustees, but he was thwarted in his efforts by the reconstruction rÉgime.

Called in 1871 to the presidency of Howard College, then at Marion, which institution had writhed in the throes incident to those troublous times, he brought it to the front as one of the best institutions of its grade then in the South. On the removal of Howard to Birmingham, in 1887, Dr. Murfee was tendered the presidency of the college in its new location, but preferred to remain at Marion, where he founded, in the original college buildings, the Marion Institute, of which he was the superintendent until 1906, when he retired from active service on an annuity from the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching. This annuity was granted on the basis of “long and distinguished service to the cause of education in Alabama.”

In 1882, Dr. Murfee was appointed by President Harrison, a member of the board of visitors to the West Point Military Academy. After his retirement from active service, Dr. Murfee devoted his time leisurely to the development of the educational foundation at Marion, that it might become a source of perpetual strength to the state and to the South. On April 23, 1912, Dr. Murfee died at Miami, Fla., at the advanced age of seventy-nine years.