But it was now that the battle with austere conditions and scant equipment became the torment of his mind. The Trustees could give no material aid, and popular interest in education was too feeble to proffer financial help. It is simple truth to say that on this vestibule of his great enterprise, the gravest doubts and trepidations of his whole career assailed him. In moods of depression the heroic man feared that he had attempted the impossible. Was he unnerved or unstrung? Not for one minute. In these black days he fronted his task with the resourcefulness of an uncommon manhood. The stamina of his nature came to expression in a way that surprised even himself. He made imploring appeals to friends who were well to do in this world's goods. A good providence put him in touch with two noble spirits, Mr. John Hollins and his wife, of Lynchburg, Virginia, members of his own denomination. Mr. Hollins presented the Seminary with a gift of $5,000 cash, and then the daylight began to break. The good man proposed as a condition of his gift that the old management by an Education Society and its appointed Trustees must give way to a board of self-perpetuating Trustees. To all concerned the proposition seemed wise and just, and it was so ordered. It was then generously agreed that the name of the Institution should be changed, and that henceforth it should be known as "Hollins Institute." To Mr. Cocke and the dissolving Society, this appeared to be a compliment well deserved by the man and his wife who had saved the life of the school. The transfer of all the property of the Valley Union Education Society to the Trustees of Hollins Institute was made in March, 1855. Thus in the first nine years of his incumbency, Mr. Cocke saw two revisions of the original charter granted in January, 1844. By the first revision in 1852, the Seminary was made a school for girls. By the second, in December, 1855, the name of the Institution was changed, the old management was abolished, and its functions put into the hands of a self-perpetuating Board of Trustees. No friction arose; all was harmony. The old régime passed, but its personnel remained steadfast. In all the stress and tribulation of the past years, Mr. Cocke had been the central bolt that held the structure intact. Around his single heroic personality gathered all the forces that made possible the perpetuity of the Institution. His reward had now come, and a blessed assurance threw its foregleams on the future. He was now in his thirty-sixth year and athrill with that full health and masculine energy that was his blessing to the end of his life. CHAPTER III HOLLINS INSTITUTE IN STRUGGLE AND GROWTH 1855-1870