Hon George B Rose, the eminent counselor-at-law and
litterature of Little Rock, who was a pupil of Col Gray in the historic
St John's College, pays his memory the following beautiful tribute: 

The death of Col Gray has brought a pang of sorrow to
countless hearts. He was so long and so honorably connected with the
educational institutions of our state, he helped so many young men and
women up the steep path of culture, that those who will mourn his loss
as a personal grief are many indeed. 

 Of all the benefactors of humanity, the great teacher,
he who can inspire in the youth entrusted to his charge a true love of
learning and high ideals of manhood and womanhood, is perhaps the
greatest. To him the future owes a debit that it can never repay. His
work rarely wins brilliant recognition, and its financial reward is
usually meagre, often niggardly; but in the quiet of the school-room he
is laying deep and strong the foundations of our country's greatness. 

  The sphere of Col Gay's activity was often too narrow,
but he was truly a great teacher. In his power to impart his knowledge
and to make others understand, he had few equals. His favorite was
mathematics, and no youth who has seen him explain a problem in geometry
or trigonometry can ever forget it. In is hands it became as lucid as
daylight, and the very dunce of the school was made to comprehend. 

But his extraordinary power exposition was not his
greatest merit as a teacher. That lay in his faculty of interesting his
scholars, of winning their affection and esteem, of inspiring noble
ideals in their breasts. Countless are the young men and young women who
sat at his feet in the course of his long and honorable career, and
there was not one of them who was not elevated in spirit by his
companionship and example. He was so strong, so healthy in body and
mind, so noncrable[?] in his conduct, so sane and wholesome, so perfect
a gentleman, that association with him was a constant incitement to
higher and better thing. He was a splendid disciplinarian. His long and
admirable service as an officer in our Civil war had made him every inch
a soldier, not merely in appearance but in his comprehension of his
importance of discipline and his power to enforce it. But at the same
time he was never harsh, and he had a remarkable power of maintaining
the strictest order yet inspiring feelings of personal affection in his
scholars. 

Perhaps the time he has the best opportunity to show
his capacity was when he was at the head of St John's College in this
city; and the numerous men of our state who in the old days attended
that institution all regarded him with a love and respect that were only
strengthened with the passing of the years, and with a ripened
experience that enabled them to appreciate even more fully the value of
his services and magnitude of their debt to him. A military school, it
gave him an opportunity to display his fine qualities as a soldier; and
while he never forgot his dignity as commandant, he took a personal
interest in each cadet, and bound them to him with hooks of steal, whose
grip time only tightened. In this solemn hour when the guide and
instructor of or youth lies cold in death many a strong heart is bowed
with grief for his loss, and from every corner of our state there go
forth blessings from grateful hearts. 

Though in order to maintain discipline over a crowd of
turbulent youths it was necessary for him at times to show severity, his
strongest feeling was ever one of loving kindness and as he mellowed by
advancing years this trait in his character became even more
conspicuous, and made him finally the ideal head of our Institution for
the Blind. 

There, among those afflicted ones to whom God's most
glorious gift is denied, whose days must be passed in a night that knows
no dawn, he had the best possible opportunity to grow that noble
humanity which was his highest crown; and there he did all that man
could do to illumine the darkness that brooded over them and to cheer
their gloom. Hard indeed, will it be to supply his place; hard to find
one who will be so wise, so kind, so patient and so helpful in dealing
with those sorely afflicted ones. 

It is love that begets love, and the reason that Col
Gray inspired so strong an attachment in his pupils was that he felt for
them a sincere affection which did not stop at the doors of the college,
but which followed them out into the world, rejoicing in their success
and grieving for their sins and errors. He was what every teacher ought
to be and what so few are, a large hearted man and one who realized that
the most essential factor in education is not mere instruction but the
building of character, the making of noble men and women, pure in heart,
healthy in mind and body, who will do well and conscientiously the task
which their hands find to do. 

   And Col Gray was not merely a great teacher; he
was a model in every relation of life. Strong as was the feeling of
kindness in his bosom, his sense of justice was equally strong. A man
could not have been a better husband and father than he, a kinder
neighbor, a truer friend. As a citizen he was patriotic, taking an
active and intelligent interest in public affairs, and his voice was
always on the side of justice, decency and truth. After a long,
laborious and most useful life, a life full of kind and gentle deeds and
animated by a noble ambition to benefit his fellow and especially the
youth of the land, he has passed to his reward, and many are they who
were arise and call him blest. 

    ~~~~~~~<>~~~~~~~ 
George B Rose (1851-1943) s/o U M Rose, one of two Arkansans with
statute in Capitol Building's, Statuary Hall, Washington D C, and as of
1881, of famed Rose Law Firm, Little Rock, oldest west of Mississippi
River. 

See: 
http://www.rootsweb.com/~arpulask/Col.MrsOCGray.html