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FOR"

%e Ston/ of Hampton Institute

By FRANCIS G. PEABODY

THE LIBRARY

THE UNIVERSITY

OF CALIFORNIA

LOS ANGELES

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

Digitized by tine Internet Arciiive

in 2007 witin funding from

IVIicrosoft Corporation

http://www.archive.org/details/educationforlifeOOpeabiala

FOUNDER AND FIRST PRINCIPAL OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

(1868-1893)
Samuel Chapman Armstrong

Education for Life

The Story of Hampton Institute

Told in Connection with the Fiftieth

Anniversary of the Foundation

of the School

Francis Greenwood Peabody

Utmhtt oj the Btard 0/ TrutUtt

Illustrated

Garden City New York

Doubleday, Page & Company

1918

DOUBLEDAY, PaGE & CoMPANY

translation into foreign languages,

including the Scattdinavian

Collegt
Ubwy

THE PILOTS OF HAMPTON ^ g ^/

H3ZP3

Into what storms of sharp adversity

Our untried venture first put out to sea;

As new-launched ships their distant harbors seek

Beyond the eddies of the Chesapeake !

What ancient feuds sprang up to bar her way,

Like angry seas that surge across the Bay !

What perils met the course she had to shape,

Like gales that lurk beyond the sheltering Cape I

Yet through the tortuous channels of his time.

With fearless foresight and with faith sublime,

In risks rejoicing, and by truth made free,

Our pilot steered us toward our destiny.

With precious lives deep-laden, hastening home,
Her canvas lifting and her bow a-f6am,
Our vessel answers to the hand that steers
Straight to the harbor of her fifty years.
Serene the inward pilot is, and wise

To MARK the portents OF THE SEA AND SKIES;
As one who RUNNING FOR THE CaPES ONCE MORE

Sights the low land-marks of Virginia's shore,
so, through her calms and storms, of ill and g00i\
Our ship has weathered life's vicissitude;
Her outward voyage beset by hostile seas.
Her homeward passage with a following breeze.

Ill

Here, then, she waits for new adventurings
And restless at her straining cable swings;
While eagerly her new commander hears
His summons to explore the uncharted years.
Through the swift currents of the coming age
Clear be his sight and sure his pilotage ;
Strong be his faith and loyal be his crew.
And firm the hand that holds his rudder true !
Blow, winds of God, like the unswerving Trades,
While he fares sea-ward, and the coast-line fades;
Pacing his deck to know that all is well, —
Daring as Armstrong, prudent as Frissell.

CONTENTS

Introduction

CHAPTER

I. The Negro in the Civil War (1861-1865)

II. The Negro after the Civil War (1865-1868)

III. The Coming of Armstrong (1839-1868) .

IV. The Beginnings of Hampton (i 868-1 872)
V. The Years of Promise (1872-1878)

VI. The Coming of the Indians (1878)
VII. The Years of Fulfilment (i 878-1 890)
VIII. The End of an Era (1890-1893) .
IX. The Coming of Frissell (1880-1893)
X. The Expansion of Hampton (1893-19
XI. Hampton and the South .
XII. Hampton and the Future

Appendices

Index

PAGE

xi
3

127

145

178
208
227
242
282
304
327
391

Vll

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Founder and First Principal of Hampton Institute

(1868- 1 893) Frontispiece

FACING PAGE

Hampton Institute grounds in the Civil War \ 12

Map of the Hampton Peninsula in text 27

Town of Hampton at the beginning of the Civil War . 32

Burning of Hampton by General Magruder .... 32

The Butler School 44

A Contraband's cabin 44

Birthplace of Hampton's Founder 60

"Mansion House," Hampton Institute 60

Hampton Institute waterfront, 1868 no

Hampton Institute waterfront, 1878 no

Virginia Hall 128

Group of Indians on arrival at Hampton 148

Same group some months later 148

Map showing distribution of Hampton's returned Indians

(1917) in text 163

Reservation hospital built through the influence of an

Indian graduate 166

Hampton Indian breaking his own land 166

William Jones (Megasiawa) 170

Children of the Whittier Training School saluting the Flag 1 88

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

PAcnG TAom

Hampton's most distinguished graduate . . 194

Facsimile of a page of the Armstrong "Memoranda" in text 226

Grave of the Founder of Hampton Institute .... 226

Hampton's Second Principal (1893-1917) 234

The spirit of Hampton 240

Huntington Memorial Library 248

One wing of the Armstrong-Slater Memorial Trade School 248

The Anniversary Day Procession 252

Map showing distribution of Negro graduate teachers

(1894) in text 257

Map showing distribution of Negro graduates and ex-
students in text 262

A home of Hampton graduates 270

Robert Curtis Ogden 276

Present Principal of Tuskegee Institute 286

James Hall, a boys' dormitory 294

Robert C. Ogden Auditorium . 294

Hampton's Third Principal 304

Hampton Institute waterfront at the end of fifty years . 312

Hampton battalion of cadets 318

Carl Schurz Hall 318

INTRODUCTION

THE story of Hampton Institute has been often told
and is familiar to great numbers of appreciative friends.
The dramatic career of General Armstrong, the teachings
which he impressed in many striking aphorisms, the
reminiscences of devoted teachers, the impressions of
observant visitors from many lands, — these, with the
various publications of the school itself, have created
an extensive and widely disseminated literature. Few
educational institutions in the United States have re-
ceived, or have deserved to receive, so much scrutiny
or praise. It has seemed, however, to the Trustees ap-
propriate, and it was the special desire of the late Prin-
cipal, that at the end of a half-century of its life a general
survey should be made of the aims and achievements of
the school, and in the following pages the attempt is
made to sketch the history of its foundation and growth.
It is important at the outset to indicate what kind of
institution it is which thus appears to justify further
examination. A reader may easily be misled by some
preconception of its aims; and the multiplicity of de-
tails which must be considered may obstruct one's
general view, as though the trees shut out the forest.

INTRODUCTION

Hampton Institute may be studied as a well-organized
school for industrial training, or as an evidence of the
Negro's capacity for education, or as a contribution to
the economic welfare of the Southern States; and in
all these aspects it has important lessons to teach. Yet,
before approaching these contributions to economic and
educational progress, it must be pointed out that none
of these external or statistical results represents the
essential significance of Hampton, or gives it the place
which it has attained in the affection of its friends, and
which it is likely to hold in the social history of the
United States. This permanent distinction, which it is
the chief purpose of this volume to describe, is the con-
sequence of three characteristics, whose concurrent ac-
tion in institutional life is rare, if not unique.

It should be realized, in the first place, that Hampton
Institute is essentially a spiritual enterprise, conceived
as a form of missionary service, perpetuated as a school
of character, and maintained by a long series of self-
sacrificing teachers, who through the routine of their
work have communicated the spirit of their consecration
and have sanctified themselves for others' sakes. The
casual observer sees about him an imposing group of
buildings ; he visits academic classes, trade-schools,
laboratories for domestic science, and a dairy farm;
and he may not unreasonably infer that this busy and
diversified activity is not distinguishable from that of
any other academy or industrial college where technical
training is the recognized aim. In its outward form
xii

INTRODUCTION

Hampton is an educational institution. Four millions of
Negroes, of whom ninety per cent were illiterate, abruptly
led out of the darkness of slavery into the full sunshine
of liberty, had to be incorporated in the life of the nation,
or remain a permanent menace both to its welfare and its
self-respect. Repression, colonization, segregation, ex-
termination,— all had been seriously proposed as solu-
tions of this racial problem. It soon appeared, however,
that the only way of national security was through a
comprehensive scheme of education. "Ignorance," one
of the wisest of Southern statesmen, Dr. Curry, once
said, **is not a remedy for anything"; and to the same
effect were the ringing words of Booker Washington :
"A country which was not safe with ignorant slaves
cannot be safe with ignorant freemen." In this task
of training a backward race for citizenship, Hampton
Institute has had a leading part. "The only hope for
the future of the South," said General Armstrong, "is
in a vigorous attempt to lift the colored race by a prac-
tical education that shall fit them for life." Yet to de-
fine Hampton as an educational institution is to leave
the secret of its vitality undisclosed. Within the body
of instruction there is an institutional soul, a spiritual
tradition, which gives to the work a peculiar character,
and whose influence one feels about him like the gentle
air of spring-time in Virginia. Fidelity, conscientious-
ness, loyalty, cheerfulness, and sacrifice meet one on
every hand. Religion is healthy-minded and generous.
Moral lapses have been extremely rare. Work and

xiii

INTRODUCTION

prayer are daily companions. The visitor is as likely
to get good as to give it. In short, he finds himself
observing in a corner of the world the way in which the
entire world ought to be directed and controlled — a great
spiritual tradition penetrating and illuminating daily
life, lifting work into worship, and showing its faith in
its works. Not until this soul of Hampton has been
discerned through the forms of its industrial life is the
school seen as it really is.

The second characteristic which justifies this history
is a corollary of the first. The spiritual enterprise which
the school represents finds its special instrument and
immediate expression in industrial efficiency. This prop-
osition does not mean that Negroes should be denied
other forms of education, or debarred from professional
and administrative careers. The controversy which has
sprung up on this subject is superfluous and futile. No
race can rise unless the best is within its reach, and a
race which must work out its destiny without being
merged in other races has all the more imperative need
of its own physicians, lawyers, ministers, and teachers
of every grade, with competent training for a competitive
world. The growth of institutions devoted to these
ends is an essential element in the progress of any race.
Yet it is obvious that the vast majority of the Negro
race, as of other races, must continue to be hand-work-
ers, in the fields or in household or mechanic arts, and
that their training must be adapted to the rural and
industrial conditions in which they are to earn their
xiv

INTRODUCTION

living. The education, therefore, of those of their own
race who are to teach and guide them, should not only
cover the elements of culture, but also promote manual
industry and mechanical skill. The training of the mind
should be applied to the training of the hand. : Realizing
these conditions of its largest usefulness, Hampton in its
original organization accepted the title of a "Normal
and Agricultural Institute."

In this direction of effort, however, there is more than
may at first be appreciated. It means not merely
efl&ciency, but character. Its aim is not productive-
ness only, but personality. "Education for Life," which
was the constant theme of Armstrong's teaching, essential
though it be to secure to thousands of young men and
women their self-support, is not an end in itself, but a
means. The discovery which gives to the Founder of
Hampton a permanent place among the greatest names
in the history of education was the discovery that a
judicious training of the hand is at the same time a dis-
cipline of the mind and will; that industrial efficiency
has moral consequences. This high doctrine of the
spiritual significance of physical work has been taught
with reiterated emphasis in many Reports of the school.
"The moral advantages of industrial training over all
other methods justify the expense" (1872). "Experience
has strengthened my conviction of labor as a moral
force" (1888). "Character is the best outcome of the
labor system" (1891). "Honestly giving value for value,
labor becomes a stepping stone, a ladder, to education,

INTRODUCTION

to all higher things, to success, manhood, and character"
(1892). In other words, industrial education not only
increases wage-earning capacity, but promotes fidelity,
accuracy, honesty, persistency, and intelligence. The
capacity to make a living becomes enlarged into the
capacity to make a life. The busy scene, therefore,
which meets one at Hampton, of cooking and carpenter-
ing, of blacksmithing and agriculture, should be regarded,
not merely as a preparation for bread-winning, but as
the outward expression of that spiritual enterprise which
Hampton fundamentally represents — the way to trust-
worthy manhood and self-respecting womanhood. The
training of the hand is at the same time a clarifying of
the mind and a purifying of the heart. The class-room,
the trade-school, the farm, and the church are co-ordi-
nated agents of education as it is conceived at Hampton.
Education and religion meet in this attempt to deal
with the whole of life. Holiness is but another name
for wholeness. No life is whole that is not holy, and
no life is holy that is not whole. That is the daily con-
fession, in worship and in work, of Hampton's educational
creed.

Finally, among the characteristics of Hampton In-
stitute which give it a place of its own in the history of
education must be named the relation which it bears to
the two men who during the fifty years of its history
have directed its affairs. By a curious destiny the terms
of service of these two leaders were practically identical
in length. Armstrong died in the twenty-fifth year of
xvi

INTRODUCTION

the school which he had created ; his successor lived to
plan for the school's Fiftieth Anniversary, though not
to share in it. The first was the Founder; the second
was the Builder; and Hampton is the incarnation of
these two personalities — so different in type, yet so
wholly one in aim. An institution may rest on either
of two foundations — on a plan, or on a man. Some-
times it happens that a college, or a church, or a phil-
anthropic scheme, is first sketched on paper, then en-
dowed with money, and finally supplied with a man to
direct it. Such enterprises, however, move hesitatingly
and tentatively until the man arrives, and many a rich
endowment has failed of its intention because it has not
been able to secure as its administrator a leader of men.
Sometimes, on the other hand, such a work begins with
a man. He sees his vision and is obedient to it. He
begins just where he is and with what he has. He sets
his will to his task, as though daring to repeat the ma-
jestic saying : "Because I live, ye shall live also." Then
his work grows as nature grows. It is not built up from
without, but inspired from within. It may grow in time
to be a great institution, with much routine and detail
and mechanism, but the mechanism feels the interior
force of personality, as the whirling wheels of a factory
testify to the engine at its heart. In a degree almost
unparalleled Hampton was built, not upon a plan, but
upon a man. Its security is not in its educational scheme,
but in its personal tradition. Teachers and students
throughout its history have walked by faith in Arm-

xvii

INTRODUCTION

strong. When he died, the tradition of his leadership
and the precepts of his teaching were scrupulously pre-
served. His successor habitually stood in the shadow
of Armstrong's memory. The cult of the Founder has
been maintained as the most sacred possession of the
school. To have joined any other memory with his
would have seemed to the self-efFacing man on whom
Armstrong's mantle fell an act of irreverence or sacrilege.
Now, however, that for a second time the life of a
leader has been laid on the altar of the school, the lips
of the historian are unsealed, and that which could not
be said while HoUis Frissell was able to protest against
it as excessive praise, may be freely spoken.* Slowly,
through twenty-four years, at first within the inner
circle of the school and finally throughout the South
and the country, it has become evident that the loss of
Armstrong, which at first appeared irreparable, has been
succeeded by the gain of a personal influence, more
tranquil and restrained, yet not less pervasive and per-
manent. Never were two administrative officers more
unlike each other. Armstrong was impetuous, magnetic,
volcanic ; Frissell was reserved, sagacious, prudent. The
gifts of the one were those of action ; the strength of the
other was in discretion. Thus the first leader was or-
dained to direct the first quarter-century of Hampton,
and the second for the not less critical problems of the
years which followed. Initiative, originality, even au-

* Hollis Burke Frissell, Principal of Hampton Institute, died at Whitefield,
New Hampshire, August 5, 1917.

xviii

INTRODUCTION

dacity, were essential to begin such a work, and to in-
spire confidence in it ; but when a great institution had
been established and must be sustained and developed
without mishap, then the time had come for a peculiar
quality of wisdom, patience, tolerance, and foresight,
which could mediate between Negro education and
Southern sentiment, and apply to larger tasks the ideals
of the Founder.

The first evidence of this wisdom which was from
above was supplied in Frissell's habitual attitude toward
his predecessor. He had been for thirteen years Chap-
lain of the school under Armstrong, and had relieved his
Chief of many of those mendicant journeys to the North,
which have now cost both the school and the country
two precious lives. When, immediately after Arm-
strong's death, Frissell was elected Principal, his first
impulse — not followed as a policy but obeyed as an
imperative instinct — was to perpetuate what his leader
had begun. "In spirit, in reality," he said at Arm-
strong's funeral, "he is still with us, still our Leader,
our General." In one of the most appealing treatises
of Christian literature, the Theologia Germanica, the
unknown and mediaeval author writes that he would
"fain be to the Eternal Goodness what his own hand
is to a man." Something like this confession was ex-
pressed by the habitual yet unstudied devotion of Fris-
sell to his General. What his own hand is to a man,
he had been and continued to be to Armstrong. Walk-
ing with a friend one day from an Anniversary meeting,

xix

INTRODUCTION

he was asked how in the presence of so distinguished a
company he could remain wholly self-controlled, and in a
rare moment of self-disclosure he answered: "I have
for many years managed these affairs for the General,
and it seems as if I were doing so still." Yet this com-
pletely self-subordinating service brought its legitimate
reward. The generous self-restraint which demanded
nothing but to fulfil another's will, became converted
into a new and not less exceptional career. The power
to lead emerged from the willingness to follow. Firm-
ness, wisdom, even the gift of inspiration, were the
natural fruits of self-forgetfulness. **My meat," said
Jesus, *'is to do the will of Him that sent me, and to
finish His work." Frissell might have made the same
confession as he gave himself to finish the work which
was given him to do. Out of consecration grew capacity,
until at last, not his teachers and pupils only, but a
widening circle of fellow-workers, educators, and states-
men, both in the North and in the South, became aware
that a new leader was among them, and pressed upon
him the most responsible opportunities of national service.
He who had planned to be as a hand is to a man, became
through the discipline of unambitious service himself a
man on whose counsels great enterprises of benevolence
depended, and whose loss seems now as irreparable as
that of Armstrong.

Thus the relation of Hampton to personality is no
longer with one, but with two men. Two names, divid-
ing between them the period of fifty years which is now

INTRODUCTION

to be described, represent the history of the school.
What is to be recorded in this volume as a series of
events is in large part the story of two lives. What in
other institutions would be history, becomes here biog-
raphy. Hampton, as has been said, is a spiritual enter-
prise in an industrial form ; but both the enterprise and
its form bear the marks of personality. These young
men digging in the fields or sweating at the forge ; these
young women learning to wash or to sew; these back-
ward pupils wrestling with spelling or arithmetic, are
bearers of a great tradition. If this spiritual tradition
should perish, there would remain a well-ordered school
of industrial training and elementary education, but it
would cease to be what Hampton has thus far been.
This tradition has drawn to the school a long succession
of teachers whose compensation has been found in con-
secration, and whose service has brought them perfect
freedom. This is what sustains the graduates of Hamp-
ton as they pass from its sheltering companionships to
the isolation of country schoolhouses and the racial
exclusions of industrial life. Whatever may be left
unsaid in this book, this at least must be made manifest
— that the strength of Hampton Institute is in the per-
petuation of this tradition, and its chief lesson that of
the indestructible efficiency of consecrated lives. The
Prophet Ezekiel in his vision saw about him a bewildering
confusion of wheels, and of wheels in the middle of wheels.
Within the wheels, however, he discerned living creatures ;
and when the living creatures went, the wheels, he says,

xxi

INTRODUCTION

went by them ; "for the spirit of the living creatures was
in the wheels." That is the scene which meets one at
Hampton. There are many wheels of hurrying activity,
and wheels in the middle of wheels ; yet at the heart of
all there are memories, traditions, examples, and when
the wheels go,[they go by these ; for the spirit of the living
creatures is in the wheels.

In the following pages it has been attempted to de-
tach, so far as practicable, the general sketch of the
story of Hampton from the statistical study of its scope
and results, and to reserve the careful enumeration of
facts and figures for a series of Appendices. The narra-
tive itself may suffice for readers who wish only a cursory
acquaintance with the school and its place in American
civilization; while the serious student of Education for
Life should consult the elaborate Lists and Tables in
which various members of the Hampton staff report
with precision the changes in attendance, income, ex-
penditure, and other details of administration which tell
the story of fifty years.

The indebtedness of the narrative itself to earlier pub-
lications is indicated by the Bibliography (Appendix I).
In addition to this printed material there have been
generously provided for the purpose of this book many
reminiscences and memoranda of teachers, graduates,
and friends, abounding in personal allusions and instruc-
tive suggestions. Among these the most considerable
is the manuscript of "Indian Days at Hampton" (104
xxll

INTRODUCTION

typewritten pages), in which Miss Cora M. Folsom has
recalled many dramatic experiences in the course of her
long and devoted service in behalf of Indian students.
For the first period of Hampton Institute the corner-
stone of its history is the voluminous manuscript of
"Personal Memories and Letters of General S. C. Arm-
strong," by Miss Helen W. Ludlow (1408 typewritten
pages, 1895), in which one of the earliest and most trusted
of Hampton teachers has not only collected the corre-
spondence of her Chief, but added many precious remi-
niscences of her own. Miss Ludlow has graciously
permitted the use of her material for this volume, and,
especially in Chapter III, it has been copiously cited.
Special mention should also be made of the biographical
study of General Armstrong by his daughter, Edith
Armstrong Talbot (New York, 1904), which enriches the
story with many details touched with filial affection.
Permission to use this material also has been generously
given. The monumental study of Negro Education,
made by the United States Bureau of Education (2 vols..
Government Printing Office, 191 7), under the direction
of Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones, has appeared just in time to
be utilized ; and this volume, especially in Chapter XI,
is deeply indebted to these elaborate and candid re-
searches. They provide a much needed and authorita-
tive "White List," which discriminates between worthy
and undeserving institutions, protecting uninformed ben-
efactors from plausible mendicants and indicating the
judicious uses of generosity.

xxiii

INTRODUCTION

The collection and arrangement of material for the
greater part of the following narrative has been under-
taken, at the request of the late Principal, and with
intimate knowledge of the facts concerned, by Miss J. E.
Davis, in charge of the Publication Office at Hampton
Institute, without whose devoted and skilful co-operation
this volume would not have been attempted and could
hardly have been completed.

XXIV

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

CHAPTER ONE

THE NEGRO IN THE CIVIL WAR (1861-1865)

TO SEE the beginnings of Hampton in a true perspective
it is necessary to set them against the dark background
of that tragic struggle, which is remembered at the North
as the War of the Rebellion and at the South as the War
between the States. That fratricidal conflict, though
precipitated by the issue of slavery, was in its earlier
phases regarded at the North, not so much as a war to
free the slaves as a war to save the Union. On July
26, 1 861, after the disaster of Bull Run, the Senate of the
United States, by a vote of 30 to 5, passed a Resolution :
"That this war is not prosecuted upon our part in any
spirit of oppression, nor for any purpose of conquest or
subjugation, nor purpose of overthrowing and interfering
with the rights and established institutions of those
[seceding] States, but to defend and maintain the su-
premacy of the Constitution and all laws made in pur-
suance thereof, and to preserve the Union with all
the dignity, equality and rights of the several States
unimpaired ; that, as soon as these advantages are
accomplished, the war ought to cease." * "A mention

* Congr. Globe, 37th Congress, ist Session, p. 257.

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

of slavery," the historian of this epoch affirms, "would
at once have given rise to partisan contentions." *

Of President Lincoln's personal convictions he had
for many years given ample testimony. As early as
1842 he wrote: "I have just told the folks here in
Springfield that the one victory we can ever call complete
will be that one which proclaims that there is not one
slave or one drunkard on the face of God's green earth."
Again, in 1858, in the course of the debate with Douglas,
Lincoln said : **I confess myself as belonging to that class
in the country which contemplates slavery as a moral,
social, and political evil, and looks hopefully to the time
when, as a wrong, it may come to an end." Still again,
in a letter of April 1864, he said : "I am naturally anti-
slavery. If slavery is not wrong, nothing is wrong. I
cannot remember when I did not so think and feel." f
Yet when the grave responsibilities of administration were
laid upon him, this ardent abolitionist was able to restrain
his desire, and postpone the problem of slavery until he
had dealt with the more immediate problem of an un-
divided Nation. "I have never understood," he writes
in the same letter of 1864, "that the Presidency conferred
upon me an unrestricted right to act upon this judgment
and feeling. ... I did understand that my oath to
preserve the Constitution to the best of my ability im-
plied in me the duty of preserving by every indispensable
means that government and that nation of which that

* J. F. Rhodes, " History of the Civil War," 1917, p. 35.

t Complete Works, ed. Nicolay and Hay, 1894; I, 192; IV, 276; X, 65.

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

Constitution was the organic law. ... I could not feel
that to the best of my ability I had even tried to preserve
the Constitution if to save slavery, or any minor matter^
I should permit the wreck of government, country, and
Constitution altogether." Still more explicitly and elo-
quently Lincoln wrote to Horace Greeley: "My para-
mount object in this struggle is to save the Union; and
is not either to save or to destroy slavery. If I could
save the Union without freeing any slave, I would do it ;
and if I could save it by freeing all the slaves, I would do
it ; and if I could save it by freeing some and leaving
others alone, I would also do that." With unfailing
patience and persistent magnanimity Lincoln stood
unmoved between the insults of radicals and the re-
proaches of conservatives. On the one hand he was
assailed by Wendell Phillips as "the slave-hound from
Illinois " ; and on the other hand by McClellan, who wrote
that "a declaration of radical views, especially upon
slavery, will rapidly disintegrate our armies." *

Yet Lincoln was but waiting until public sentiment
should overtake his own desire. A compensated and
gradual emancipation seemed to him at first as radical a
measure as was likely to commend itself. On March 6,
1 862, he therefore recommended to Congress the passage of
a Resolution : "That the United States ought to co-oper-
ate with any State which may adopt gradual aboHshment
of slavery, giving to such State pecuniary aid to be used
by such State in its discretion to compensate for the

*G. F. Merriam, "The Negro and the Nation," 1906, pp. 254, 255.

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

inconveniences, public and private, produced by such
change of system." * This Resolution, though adopted
in March by the House of Representatives (99-36),
and in April by the Senate (32-10), failed of concurrent
action by any of the States concerned ; and in July, at a
conference with representatives of the Border States,
Lincoln told them : "In my opinion, if you all had voted
for the resolution in the gradual emancipation message
of last March, the war would now be substantially
ended." f

Appeal to the States having thus proved fruitless,
the same project of compensated emancipation was pro-
posed by Lincoln to his Cabinet as a war-measure.
Pecuniary aid, he suggested, might be offered to those
States which should voluntarily undertake gradual action,
while in such States as still defied the authority of the
National Government an uncompensated emancipation
might be proclaimed. Even then but two members of
the Cabinet — Stanton and Bates — concurred with their
Chief; and Lincoln, accepting Seward's view that the
moment was inopportune, waited until military victory
should re-enforce his judgment. On September 22, 1862,
however, at that extraordinary Cabinet meeting when
Lincoln first read aloud a chapter from the professional
humorist known as Artemus Ward, J as though -the

* Congr. Globe, 37th Congress, 2d Session, p. 1102.

t J. Z. George, " Polit. Hist, of Slavery in the United States," 1915, p. 104.
X The passage, so moderate in wit as to justify Stanton in declining to laugh
with the rest, is preserved in Rhodes, "History of the Civil War," p. 173.

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

tension of his emotion must be relaxed or his self-control
broken, he utilized the retreat of the Southern forces
from Maryland as the occasion for definite decision. "I
said nothing to any one," he remarked, "but I made the
promise to myself and my Maker." In a Proclamation
issued that day he announced his purpose of advising
Congress to tender pecuniary aid to such States as were
"not then in rebellion against the United States, and
which States may then have voluntarily adopted, or
thereafter may voluntarily adopt, the immediate or
gradual abolishment of slavery within their respective
limits ; and that the effort to colonize persons of African
descent with their consent upon the continent or elsewhere
. . . will be continued ; that on the first day of January
in the year of our Lord 1863 all persons held as slaves with-
in any State or any designated part of a State, the people
whereof shall then be in rebellion against the United States
shall be thenceforward and forever free." "The way," he
said of this proposal, "is plain, peaceful, generous, just, —
a way which, if followed, the world will forever applaud,
and God must forever bless."

Following the way thus opened and accurately described
as generous and just, Lincoln soon accepted as President
full responsibility; and, on January i, 1863, issued his
Emancipation Proclamation, justifying it in solemn terms :
"by virtue of the power in me vested as Commander-in-
Chief of the army and navy of the United States in time
of actual armed rebellion against the authority of the gov-
ernment of the United States, and as a fit and necessary

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

war-measure for the suppression of said rebellion," and de-
claring the slaves in eight Southern States and the greater
portion of two others as "henceforward free." "And
upon this act," concluded the epoch-making document,
"sincerely beheved to be an act of justice, warranted by
the situation upon military necessity, I invoke the con-
siderate judgment of mankind and the gracious favor
of Almighty God."

Even at this point the patience of Lincoln did not fail.
As late as February 1865 he consented to meet three
Commissioners of the Confederacy on board a vessel
near Fortress Monroe, and to consider with them the
possible terms which might induce the South to surrender.
He urged on them the fruitlessness of further strjfe, and
the probable willingness of the North to remunerate
Southern slave-owners for their loss of property. He
even intimated that he should personally be in favor of
a grant of not less than ^400,000,0x30 for this purpose.
Undeterred by the stubborn opposition of the Southern
delegates, Lincoln returned to Washington and on the
next day drafted and submitted to his Cabinet a Mes-
sage, which he proposed to send to Congress, embodying
the propositions which he had informally made, rec-
ommending the payment to the Southern States of
$400,000,000, in six per cent Government Bonds, being
his estimate of the cost of two hundred days of war, —
"to be distributed among such States pro rata on their
respective slave-population as shown by the Census of
i860," the payment to be dependent on the "ceasing

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

of all resistance to the national authority on April ist."
"Is there in history," asks the historian, "another in-
stance of such magnanimity to a beaten foe ? An infinite
pity moves this great heart, that deigns not to exult,
but sinks all pride of success in an effort to enter into the
feelings of those who have lost." *

Not a single member of the Cabinet concurred in this
magnanimous proposal; but, undeterred by unanimous
opposition, Lincoln reaffirmed in his Second Inaugural
Address of March 4th the same generous hope, fortifying
it with that determined and glowing climax which is the
supreme utterance of the great Emancipator : " Fondly
do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty
scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet if God wills
that it continue until all the wealth piled up by the
bondsman's three hundred years of unrequited toil shall
be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn by the lash
shall be paid by another drawn by the sword, as was
said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said :
*The judgments of the Lord are true and righteous al-
together,'" Here was, indeed, as Lowell sang in his
Commemoration Ode : —

"The kindly-earnest, brave, foreseeing man,
Sagacious, patient, dreading praise, not blame,
New birth of our new soil, the first American."

This patient, yet resolute, action of the Executive,
though defensible as a war-measure, needed confirmation

* Rhodes, " History of the United States," 1904, V, 82.

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

by Constitutional Amendment before it could become a
permanent principle of National life. The final step was,
however, not taken without many hindrances and delays.
In April 1864, the Thirteenth Amendment secured the
necessary two-thirds vote of the Senate (38-6), but failed
in the House of Representatives (95-66). In the follow-
ing year, the re-election of Lincoln having revived the
confidence of the North, the Amendment received the
necessary two-thirds (115-56), though with a margin of
but three votes. At last, on December 18, 1865, twenty-
seven States out of thirty-six having voted for confirma-
tion, the Secretary of State certified "that the amendment
aforesaid has become valid, to all intents and purposes,
as a part of the Constitution of the United States" ; and
from that day it became the law of the land that "neither
slavery nor involuntary servitude, except as a punishment
for crime, whereof the party shall have been duly con-
victed, shall exist within the United States or any place
subject to their jurisdiction."

Such was the external course of events which culminated
in legal and permanent enfranchisement. And, mean-
time, what were the circumstances and prospects of the
four millions of Negroes, on whom this bewildering gift
of freedom had been so hesitatingly, yet in the end so
unqualifiedly, bestowed ? The vast majority of the race
were for the moment too abject in condition to have any
realizing sense of the new world which they were abruptly
called to enter. They had been so governed and driven
that they had become little more than patient and docile

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

animals, expecting no change of lot, proceeding with their
toil even when they might abandon it, and solacing them-
selves with picturesque imaginings of a freedom which
might be theirs in heaven. In April 1865, just after the
fall of Richmond, William Lloyd Garrison sailed for
Charleston to participate in the ceremony of raising the
National flag at Fort Sumter on the fourth anniversary
of its surrender. He used this opportunity to visit the
camp of the Fifty-fifth Massachusetts Regiment, where his
son was in service, and found gathered there twelve hun-
dred plantation slaves, whom his son's company had just
convoyed from the interior to the coast. "Well, my
friends," said Mr. Garrison to these Negroes, *'you are
free at last ; let us give three cheers for freedom !" "To
his amazement there was no response ; the poor creatures
looked at him in wonder; they did not know how to
cheer." *

Pitiful, however, as was this lethargy of mind and
will into which great numbers had sunk under the
blight of slavery, there were two respects in which those
who prophesied evil as likely to follow emancipation
were soon to be disappointed. By some alarmists it was
anticipated that the freedmen would at once wreak
vengeance on their old masters, and that a reign of terror
would ensue. By some sceptics it was believed, on the
other hand, that the hope of re-enforcing the Northern
armies by the enlistment of Negroes would prove futile

♦"William Lloyd Garrison, The Story of His Life," 1885-1889, IV, p.
149.

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

and that slaves could not be transformed into soldiers.
Neither of these discouraging prophecies was verified.
No incident of the war was more surprising or touching
than the loyalty of Negroes to their former masters,
even when compulsion could no longer be enforced or
compensation be proposed. "No race," a thoroughly
informed Southerner has recorded, "ever behaved better
than the Negroes behaved during the war. Not only
were there no massacres and no outbreaks, but even the
amount of defection was not large. . . . Many a master
going off to the war entrusted his wife and children to the
care of his servants with as much confidence as if they
had been of his own blood. They acted rather like clans-
men than like bondsmen. . . . They were the faithful
guardiahs of their masters' homes and families ; the
trusted agents and the shrewd counsellors of their mis-
tresses. . . . For years after the war the older Negroes,
men and women, remained the faithful guardians of the
white women and children of their masters' families. . . .
As Henry Grady once said : *A thousand torches would
have disbanded the Southern army, but there was not
one.'" * In February 1866, Alexander H. Stephens,
addressing the Legislature of Georgia, gave similar
testimony. "Consider," he said, "their [the Negroes'l
fidelity in the past. They cultivated your fields,
ministered to your personal wants and comforts, reared
and cared for your children; and even in the hour of

* Thomas Nelson Page, " The Negro the Southerner's Problem," 1904,
p. 21 ff.

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

danger and peril they were in the main true to you and
yours. . . . To them we owe a debt of gratitude as
well as acts of kindness." *

This extraordinary relationship of persistent fidelity
has been cited as evidence that the institution of slavery
was not in practice so shocking as Northern critics, have
assumed it to be ; and it undoubtedly presents a pic-
ture of household feudalism in many Southern homes
which is not without charm. The retainers of a family
of planters, where Negro men were body-servants, and
Negro women had tended the children of their masters,
were often treated without severity and not infre-
quently with affection and indulgence ; and their child-
like natures clung to their feudal lords. When, how-
ever, one turns from this domestic intimacy, and recalls
the vastly greater number of slaves whose work was
in the fields, whose immediate master was the overseer,
and whose obedience was enforced by the lash, it is
certainly an astonishing fact that liberty did not bring
with it license, and that servile insurrections did not
devastate the South. Whatever this fact may testify
concerning the kindly paternalism of many Southern
homes, it is a much more impressive testimony to the
patience, gentleness, and freedom from vindictiveness
which characterized the Negro race. Many of the more
venturesome spirits, it is true, had already escaped from
bondage by the tortuous and perilous routes of the Under-
ground Railroad ; and many, when freedom was pro-

* Rhodes, op, cii., V, p. 560.

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

claimed, took refuge from their sad lot within the
Northern Hnes; but the vast majority of Negroes re-
mained at their servile tasks and persisted in unbroken
attachment to their dispossessed masters.

The most extraordinary evidence of this childlike
loyalty is to be found in the fact, which has been almost
overlooked in Northern annals of the war, that the first
enlistment of Negroes in military service occurred, not in
the Northern armies, but in the cause of the Confederacy.
As early as i86i recruiting offices were opened in Nashville
and Memphis for "free people of color," and in November
of that year a regiment of fourteen hundred colored men
paraded in New Orleans.* In June 1861 the Legislature
of Tennessee authorized the Governor "to receive into the
military service of the State all male free persons of color
between the ages of fifteen and fifty, who shall receive
eight dollars per month, clothing, and rations." Incon-
ceivable as it may appear that Negroes should voluntarily
rally to defend a social order from which, often by their
own purchase-money, they had made themselves free, the
instincts of serfdom conspired with the terror of North-
ern barbarians to encourage this allegiance; and while
these recruits were seldom trusted in the front of battle,
they proved efficient allies in the digging of entrench-
ments, the bringing up of supplies, and the performance of
the more menial duties of a soldier's life.

During the last phases of the war Southern leaders
turned with even more confidence to this possibility of

* J. T. Wilson, "The Black Phalanx," 1888, p. 481.

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

arming the Negroes. In a message of November 7,

1864, President Davis said: "Should the alternative
ever be presented of subjugation or of the employment
of the slave as a soldier, there seems no reason to doubt
what would then be our decision"; and on January 11,

1865, General Lee declared his concurrence with this
view, "I think we must decide," he wrote, "whether
slavery shall be extinguished by our enemies and the
slaves be used against us, or use them ourselves at the
risk of the effects which may be produced upon our
social institutions. My opinion is that we should em-
ploy them without delay. . . . We should grant im-
mediate freedom to all who enlist, and freedom at the
end of the war to the families of those who discharged
their duties faithfully." In February 1865 the Senate
of the Confederacy defeated by a single vote the pro-
posal to enlist 200,000 Negroes in the army ; and hear-
ing of this discussion, Lincoln playfully remarked : "As
theylieed but one vote, I should be glad to send my
vote through the lines to help them out." The proposal
was indeed a counsel of despair. The logic of the case
was more clearly stated by Howell Cobb, who at the
beginning of the war owned one thousand Negroes, and
who wrote : "The day you make soldiers of them is the
beginning of the end of the revolution. If slaves make
good soldiers our whole theory of slavery is wrong"; *
and by the remarks of Senator Hunter, whose vote de-
feated the Negro-enlistment bill: "If we are right in

* Rhodes, "History of the Civil War," 1917, p, 417.

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

passing this measure we are wrong in denying to the old
government the right to emancipate slaves. If we
offer the slaves their freedom as a boon we confess that
we are insincere and hypocritical in saying that slavery
was the best state for the Negroes themselves. I believe
that arming and emancipating the slaves will be an
abandonment of the contest. To arm the Negroes is to
give them freedom." It was, as a clerk of the Confederate
Government wrote in his diary, "a desperate remedy for
a desperate case." *

If, however, the instincts of servitude proved so strong
that the Negroes not only remained loyal to their masters,
but even enlisted in that cause whose success would perpet-
uate their servitude, what, on the other hand, could be
expected of them as recruits for the Northern armies ?
If they would not rise in insurrection, would they fight
even for their own liberty ? Had not their tropical in-
dolence and the habits of slavery robbed them of courage,
endurance, and daring .? Would they not prove un-
disciplined, intractable, and cowardly soldiers ? It is
a curious and surprising fact that while the sentiment of
the South became steadily more inclined to utilize Negroes
in army-service, the same proposition, which might appear
logical and expedient for a Government pledged to emanci-
pation, was approached with great reluctance and against
repeated protests, at the North. An honored citizen of
Massachusetts, Colonel Henry Lee, in his Address at the
dedication of the Shaw Monument in Boston, spoke of the

* Wilson, op. cit., p. 494.
16

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

"antipathy and incredulity of the army and the public
at the employment of colored men as soldiers," and re-
ported Lincoln as saying to Grant: "I was opposed on
nearly every side when I first favored the raising of colored
regiments." * In the spring of 1862 General Hunter,
commanding the Department of the South, "of his own
motion and without any direct authority of law," enlisted
a regiment of black troops, and when called to account
for accepting "fugitive slaves" as recruits, replied that
no such persons were to be found in his force, but that
he had "a fine regiment of men whose late masters were
fugitive rebels," and that " the experiment of arming the
blacks, so far as I have made it, has been a complete and
even marvelous success." This resolute action was,
however, repudiated by the National Government, and
violently denounced in the Northern press, f

The hesitating attitude of the North was confronted by
undisguised and violent threats from the South, where the
enlistment of Negroes at the North was not unreasonably
regarded as a most alarming omen. Such recruits, it
was soon declared, would not be regarded as legitimate
members of the Northern armies, but as slaves defying
the law, whose officers should be dealt with as instigators
of lawlessness. On May i, 1863, a Joint Resolution was
adopted by the Confederate Congress to the effect that
** Every white person, being a commissioned officer or

* "The Monument to Robert Gould Shaw," 1897, p. 58.
t Wilson, op. cit., p. 146. T. W. Higginson, " Army Life in a Black Regi-
ment," Appendix B.

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

acting as such, who during the present war shall command
Negroes or mulattoes in arms against the Confederate
States, or who shall arm, train, organize, or prepare
Negroes or mulattoes for military service against the
Confederate States, or who shall volunteer aid to Negroes
or mulattoes in any military enterprise, attack, or con-
flict in such service, shall be deemed as exciting insurrec-
tion, and shall, if captured, be put to death or otherwise
punished at the discretion of the Court." "Officers who
undertook this duty entered it" — as Colonel Higginson
remarked, "with ropes round our necks"; * and Negroes
who served under them were liable to be hung, shot, or
returned to slavery.

Yet neither anticipations of incapacity nor threats of
vengeance could check the enlistment of Negroes in the
Northern cause. In August 1862, General Butler re-
cruited in New Orleans three regiments and two batteries
of artillery from free Negroes, and reported them as
"inteUigent, obedient, highly appreciating their position,
and fully maintaining its dignity." f In November 1862,
General Saxton, at Beaufort, South Carolina, organized
the First Regiment of South Carolina Volunteers, and
gave the command of this Negro force to Colonel T. W,
Higginson of the Fifty-first Massachusetts Regiment,
who affirms that his regiment "was unquestionably the
first mustered into the service of the United States." %

* Higginson, op. cit., p. 267.

t Booker T. Washington, "The Story of the Negro," 1909; I, p. 321.

X Higginson, op. cit.. Appendix B.

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

In January 1863 the First Kansas Colored Regiment was
mustered in, and on January 26, 1863, the Secretary of
War authorized the Governor of Massachusetts to raise
two Negro regiments from that State.

The record of these and many later enlistments is one
of the miracles of military history. What had appeared
to many observers a hopelessly submissive race, incapable
of discipline, and tempted to savagery, provided a body
of troops which was not only of unquestioned courage in
battle, but self-restrained both in victory and among the
more insidious temptations of camp life. There were en-
rolled in the Northern armies 187,000 Negroes, 70,000 of
whom were killed or wounded, and these recruits partici-
pated in not less than two hundred engagements. "No
troops," General Banks reported after the siege of Port
Hudson, "could be more determined or more daring."
"By arming the Negro," Grant wrote to Lincoln in
1863, "we have added a powerful ally; they will make
good soldiers." *

Evidences of this ejSiciency multiplied as enlist-
ment proceeded. The white Colonel of the Fourteenth
United States Colored Infantry, being asked in 1864 by
his commanding General whether he thought the Ne-

* Rhodes, V, pp. 333-336. (An extended foot-note of corroborative testi-
mony.) Dana to Stanton, June 10, 1863: "* It is impossible,' says General
Dennis, ' for men to show greater gallantry than the Negro troops in this fight.
[Milliken's Bend.]' Grant to Halleck, July 24, 1863: 'The Negro troops are
easier to preserve discipline among than our white troops, and I doubt not will
prove equally good for garrison duty. All that have been tried have fought
bravely.' Lincoln to Grant, August 9, 1863 : * I believe it is a resource which,
if vigorously applied now, will soon end this contest.'"

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

groes would fight, asked for a chance to prove them,
and soon, at the battle of Nashville, black men and white
fell side by side. **As General Thomas and staff rode
over the field after the battle, and looked upon the fallen
black soldiers, he said to his officers : 'The question is
settled. Negro soldiers will fight.'"* On September
29, 1864, the Seventh Regiment of United States Colored
Troops was ordered to attack Fort Gilmer near Richmond,
and advanced without hesitation to the assault, although
convinced that the position was impregnable. "Upon
arriving at the ditch there was no wavering, but every man
jumped into the trap from which but one man returned
that day. . . . Four companies annihilated, 70 killed,
no wounded, and 129 missing, tells the story of Fort
Gilmer. Upon arriving at Libby Prison the officer in
charge asked the Commander of our Guard whether the
'niggers' would fight. His answer was: *By God, if
you had been there you would have thought so. They
marched up just as if they had been on drill.'" f Again,
in a battle at Dalton, Georgia, General Steedman ex-
pressed some apprehension lest the Fourteenth United
States Infantry of Colored Troops should break, and one
of his aides reported : "The Negro regiment is holding
dress-parade over there under fire." J Indeed, these
fresh allies soon became, in Lincoln's judgment, an
essential factor in the determination of the war. "The

* T. J. Morgan, " The Negro in America," 1898, p. 66.

t Southern Workman, Nov. 1878, p. 86.

X K. Coman, in Southern Workman, Dec. 1898.

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

slightest knowledge of arithmetic," he said, "will prove
to any man that the rebel armies cannot be destroyed
with Democratic strategy. It would sacrifice all the
white men of the North to do it. There are now in
the service of the United States near two hundred thou-
sand able-bodied colored men. . . . Abandon all the
posts now garrisoned by black men, take two hundred
thousand men from our side and put them in the battle-
field or corn-field against us, and we would be compelled
to abandon the war in three weeks." * "The Negro
soldier," said a Confederate general on his return from
Appomattox, "was the winning card of the Union
Army." f

The dramatic climax of this story of soldierliness was
reached in the heroism of the Fifty-fourth Massachusetts
Regiment, and the martyrdom of its Colonel, Robert
Gould Shaw. It is a story which has been eloquently told,
both in prose and verse, and which is commemorated in
monumental bronze ; but it cannot be repeated too often.
This youth of but twenty-five years, just married, and
serving as a Captain in the Second Massachusetts Regi-
ment, was summoned by Governor Andrew in 1863 to
take command of the first Regiment of Negro troops
enlisted at the North. He was, as his friend William
James said, "a blue-eyed child of fortune, upon whose
happy youth every divinity had smiled. . . . The grace
of nature was united in h'im in the happiest way with a

♦ Du Bois, "The Negro," 1915, p. 204.

t S. C. Armstrong, in Southern Workman, Jan. 1884.

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

filial heart and a judgment that was true and fair." * He
had hardly arrived with his untried recruits at the
front in South Carolina when they were ordered to lead a
charge, which proved to be hopeless, on Fort Wagner
near Charleston. Two-thirds of the officers and nearly
one-half of the men fell, and Shaw himself died on the
parapet of the Fort. "The Negroes fought gallantly,"
a Confederate officer was magnanimous enough to
report, "and were headed by as brave a Colonel as ever
lived."

"Right in the van.
On the red rampart's slippery swell.
With heart that beat a charge, he fell,
Foeward, as befits a man." f

"His body," said his eulogist, "was flung with those
of his black soldiers into a common trench, and the sand
shovelled over them without a stake or stone to signalize
the spot. In death as in life the Fifty-fourth were witness
to the brotherhood of man." "We would not," wrote
Shaw's father, "have the burial elsewhere if we could."
On the monument it is written of the Negroes who followed
Shaw, that they "volunteered when desertion clouded
the Union cause, served without pay for eighteen months
till given that of white troops, faced threatening enslave-
ment if captured, were brave in action, patient under
heavy and dangerous labor, and cheerful amid hardships

* William James, " Memories and Studies," 191 1, pp. 37 ff.

t From the verses of J. R. Lowell, inscribed on the Shaw Monument.

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

and privations. They gave to the nations of the world
undying proof that Americans of African descent
possessed the pride, courage, and devotion of the patriot
soldier." *

Such, then, was the race which was abruptly bidden
to take its place in the ranks of American citizenship.
It was, for the most part, illiterate, backward, and dis-
heartened. The docility which had kept it loyal to its
former masters might easily be misled by false friends,
and was soon to be exploited by scheming adventurers ;
the habits of slavery had discouraged self-reliance, per-
sistency, and initiative ; false notions of liberty had en-
couraged the childlike impression that freedom meant
freedom from work. Yet with all these native and
inbred deficiencies, the conduct of the Negroes through
the critical years of war, whether as workers or as sol-
diers, had demonstrated that there were racial qualities
on which a firm civilization could be safely, even if
slowly, built. Teachableness, gratitude, absence of re-
sentment and animosity, a rare gift of playfulness and
humor, and above all a dominant strain of genuine,
even if emotional, religion, — these were traits which
had in them great possibilities both of character and of
capacity. A race which had remained loyal even to
slave-owners might be trusted to exhibit similar loyalty
to teachers and friends ; a race which had been brave

* The inscription is the tribute of President Charles W. Eliot. Further
details concerning Shaw and his regiment are given by W. A. Sinclair, "The
Aftermath of Slavery," 1905, pp. 24 ff.

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

enough to make good soldiers might be wilHng to wrestle
with the rudiments of education ; a race which was es-
sentially religious might be led to develop an unstable
and intermittent piety into a rational and ethical faith.
The time had come to which Lincoln had looked for-
ward, but which he was not permitted to see, when, as
he said : "There will be some black men who can re-
member that with silent tongue and clenched teeth and
stern eye and well-poised bayonet they have helped
mankind on to this great consummation." * In re-
calling his own experience with Negro troops, Colonel
T. W. Higginson wrote: "I often asked myself why it
was that, with this capacity for daring and endurance,
they had not kept the land in a perpetual flame of in-
surrection. . . . The answer was to be found in the
peculiar temperament of the race, in their religious
faith, and in the habit of patience that centuries had
fortified. . . . They were the most affectionate people
among whom I ever lived. . . . On the other hand,
they rarely showed one gleam of revenge." f

This, then, is the background against which the story of
Hampton Institute must be set — the dusky outline of a
backward and discouraged, yet a patient, affectionate,
forgiving, and religious race, without "one gleam -of
revenge"; a race whose qualities had been tested by
the stern ordeal of war, and which had gained the right
to survive and flourish. Its character was to be con-

* Complete Works, ed. Nicolay and Hay, 1894; II, 398.
t Op. cit., p. 248.

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

fronted by new demands ; the teachableness which it
had shown in servitude, and the courage which it had
shown in war, were to meet the severer tests of the
years of reconstruction. Yet the way of hope was
plain. Out from this dark background soon emerged
the plan of an education adapted to the special needs
of an undeveloped, yet not unpromising, race. The
desire for such an education soon filled the foreground
of the Negro's picture of life, and in the centre of this
untried and difficult enterprise was set the work of
Hampton Institute.

CHAPTER TWO

THE NEGRO AFTER THE CIVIL WAR

(1865-1868)

AS ONE passes from the years of Civil War to the not
less momentous period of National reconstruction^ he is
impressed by the historical importance of that small
area of Virginia which lies about the town of Hampton.
Great events are associated with the names of Gettys-
burg and Appomattox, but for an epitome of progress
in those eventful years one may turn to the story of
that peninsula which lies like a clenched hand thrust
between the James and York rivers into the broad ex-
panse of Chesapeake Bay. At its slender wrist are
Jamestown, where American history began, and York-
town, where it began anew; and on its bent finger is
set the massive ring of Fortress Monroe. Only nine
miles from the Fort, on June 10, 1861, the Northern
forces met one of their earliest and most disheartening
disasters at Big Bethel, in that ill-advised assault, of
which even General Butler said: "Everything was
utterly mismanaged." * In the roadstead before the
Fort, on March 9, 1862, the battle between the Merri-
mac and the Monitor revolutionized naval science; and

* " Butler's Book," 1892, p. 276.
26

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

at almost precisely the same point, on Feb. 3, 1865,
Lincoln and Seward met in conference the Commis-
sioners of the Confederacy and made a last and futile
attempt at reconciliation. In the neighboring town of
Hampton was given the first evidence of that fiery deter-
mination among Southern leaders, which could permit even
the destruction of their own homes for the sake of their
cause ; and at Fortress Monroe itself the Negro race re-
ceived the first recognition of its rights and took a share in
the defence of its freedom. It is one of the most fortunate
circumstances of Hampton Institute that it was established
on this historic ground, and that its students may be in-
structed in these local traditions of suffering and victory.
On May 22, 1861, General Benjamin F. Butler as-
sumed command of the Department of Virginia at
Fortress Monroe. The bridge to the mainland was
held by Southern troops, and a Confederate flag waved
within sight of the Fort. On May 24, the day after
Virginia had ratified the ordinance of secession, three
Negro field-hands, slaves of Colonel Mallory, a lawyer
of Hampton, were brought before General Butler; and
with the adroitness of which his legal experience had
made him a master, he applied to them the doctrine of
"contraband of war." * The term, in international law,

* The most trustworthy contemporary account {Atlantic Monthly, Nov.
1861, pp. 626 ff.) is of permanent interest. Its author, Edward L. Pierce, a
Boston lawyer and later the biographer of Charles Sumner, had enlisted as a
private in the Third Massachusetts Regiment. He was detailed to direct the
work of Negroes at Hampton, and, when his term of enlistment expired, was
appointed Superintendent of the refugees at Port Royal.

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

had been ordinarily applied, not to the relation between
belligerents, but to that which exists between a belligerent
and a neutral. Goods directly contributory to military
operations, if sent in time of war by a neutral to an
enemy's country, were liable to seizure as contraband.
When, however, the representatives of Colonel Mallory
appeared with a flag of truce, demanding that his Negroes
should be returned under the terms of the Fugitive Slave
Law, General Butler pointed out to them that Virginia
now regarded herself as a Foreign State and must take •
the consequences. The Negroes, he said, had been
"employed in the construction of your battery, and are
now claimed as your property." He was, therefore,
"under no constitutional obligation to a foreign country,
which Virginia now claims to be." * It was in its legal
aspects a dubious proposition, and the assertion by
General Butler that he originated the expanded doctrine
has been warmly denied. In any event, it was a drastic
war-measure whose real defence was indicated by the
coarse comment made by General Butler to a subor-
dinate : "At any rate, Haggerty, it is a good enough
reason to stop the rebels' mouths with, especially as I
should have held the Negroes anyway."

These first arrivals were soon followed by other refugees
in "twenties, thirties, and forties," seeking the "Freedom-
Fort," until, in July 1861, there were not less than nine
hundred "contrabands" camped in the neighborhood and
described by General Butler as "if not free-born, free-

• " Butler's Book," 1892, p. 257.

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

manumitted, sent forth from the hand that held them,
never to return." On May 27 he called the attention
of the War Department to his action and received a
guarded approval. "It is the desire of the President,"
wrote the Secretary of War, "that all existing rights in
all the States be fully respected. ... In the disloyal
States the Confiscation Acts of Congress must be your
guide." Meantime other commanders had acted at
their own discretion and in various ways. General
McDowell had forbidden slaves to enter his lines. Gen-
eral Halleck "expressly excluded fugitive slaves from
the Union lines within his Department." Other com-
manders "were especially commended by a Confederate
newspaper correspondent for courtesies extended to a
slave-hunter within their lines." * Finally, on July 6th,
Congress declared that "any person employing the labor
of another against the Government of the United States
shall forfeit his claim to such labor."

Fortified by this legislative encouragement General
Butler proceeded with more active measures. The Fed-
eral forces had already occupied the town of Hampton,
which had been deserted by all but "a dozen white men
and about three hundred Negroes"; and as it became
necessary to throw up breastworks, Negroes were set to
work on this task on July 8, 1861, being "the first day
on which Negroes were employed upon the military
works of the army." "The contrabands worked well,"
reports their Superintendent; "I did not hear a profane

* Eaton, " Grant, Lincoln and the Freedmen," 1907, p. 48.
30

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

or vulgar word spoken during my superintendence; a
remark which it will be difficult to make of any sixty-
four men taken together anywhere in our army." "As
a race," he concludes, "they may be less vigorous than
the Saxons, but they are more social, docile, and affec-
tionate." And of their later conduct he adds, "History
will not fail to record that on the i8th day of August,
1861, when the Rebel forces were bombarded by the
Federal army and navy under the command of Major-
General Butler and Commodore Stringham, fourteen
Negroes, lately Virginian slaves, now contraband of war,
faithfully and without panic, worked the after-gun of
the upper deck of the Minnesota, and hailed with a
victor's pride the Stars and Stripes as they again waved
on the soil of the CaroHnas." *

On the night of August 7, 1861, and as a sacrificial
testimony to their own cause, the Confederate forces
set fire to the town of Hampton. "It became neces-
sary," an officer engaged in this Quixotic enterprise has
written, "to disabuse the Northern mind of its miscon-
ception of the actual condition of affairs; and it was
supposed that a scene, such as the burning of a town
by its own inhabitants rather than have it occupied
by an invading foe, would tend greatly to the accom-
plishment of this end. This step had several times
been suggested to General Magruder, commanding on
the peninsula, and this, too, by residents of the town
and county. . . . That nothing of its moral effect

* Atlantic Monthly, Nov. 1861, p. 630.

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

should be lost ... he commanded that the town should
be fired as far as possible only by such companies as
were raised in and around it." *

Such were some of the momentous incidents which
give to the Hampton peninsula its peculiar place in the
history of the Negro race. Here, in 1619, the first cargo
of Negro slaves was landed on the American continent ;
here, in 1861, Negro refugees first found asylum and the
demands of their owners were denied ; here Negroes
were for the first time employed both as wage-earners
and as allies of the Northern cause ; and from this point,
as the war drew to its close, the news of freedom and
opportunity spread from cabin to cabin throughout the
South and drew thither an increasing multitude of
homeless wanderers, without resources and plans, but
vaguely trusting in the beneficence of "Massar Linkum's
men" to provide for their needs and show them their
way. Thus the entire drama of emancipation and re-
construction may be seen, as on a small but well-appointed
stage, in this corner of Virginia, and the touching story
of the Negro after the Civil War is soon followed by the
more reassuring scene of the beginnings of Hampton
Institute.

The first act in this drama of redemption presented,
in 1 861, a situation which was disheartening enough to
satisfy the severest critic of the Negro race. A throng
of refugees "were huddled up in the neighborhood of

* S. W. Armstead, " Campaign of the Southern Army," Southern Workman,
April 1875.

TOWN OF HAMPTON AT THE BEGINNING OF lllK CIVIL WAR

From IIurixTs " Pictorliil History of the Great Rebellion.
Copyright l«6G, 1894, by Harper and Brothers

BURNING OF HAMPTON BY GENERAL MAGRUDER

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

the Fort," with "insufficient food and clothing, after
long exposure and privation on the journey, and ig-
norant of the simplest decencies of life. . . . Some-
times they brought with them a few household goods
done up in a bundle; more often they came with abso-
lutely nothing, not even sufficient clothing to cover
them. . . . They travelled through the woods or by
night; they endured hardships manifold, and overcame
obstacles well-nigh insurmountable, with that dogged
patience which is one of the prevailing characteristics
of their race ; and they pushed their way at last by
hundreds and eventually by thousands into the Union
lines and under the protection of 'Linkum's soldiers.'
Then they sat down helpless but hopeful, and waited for
something to be done for them. There was a prevaihng
impression among them that if they were free they
would at once come into the possession of all the neces-
saries and even luxuries of life without need to work
any more." *

An eye-witness thus describes these early arrivals :
"There had come within the enclosure of the Fort what
appeared to be men, women, and children, beings that
could not only walk and run, but talk, and with panting
breath begged protection from those who claimed them
as their property. . . . They were set to work on the
defenses . . . and the orders required that they should
be recompensed for their labor, but no money reached
them for a long time, and it is no wonder that to them,

* Southern Workman, Dec. 1886.

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

and to us who sympathized and worked with them,
seeing their toil and their needs, it seemed sometimes
that they had but changed one slavery for another.
One of the more intelligent among them stated it thus :
*Dey said that we, de able-body men, was to get $S a
month, an' de women, $4 and de ration ; only we was to
allow ^i de month to help de poor an' de old — ^which
we don't 'gret — an' one dollar for de sick ones, an' den
anudder dollar for Gen^l Purposes. We don't zactly
know who dat Gen'l is, but 'pears like dar was a heap
o' dem Gen'ls, an' it takes all dar is to pay 'em, 'cause
we don't get nuffins.' " *

These human derelicts, thus stranded on the peninsula
by the tidal wave of war, became, as this reporter adds,
"sadly depressed and discouraged"; but the instincts
of religion which had been their solace in slavery, soon
found new utterance in the hardly more hopeful cir-
cumstances of destitution and uncertainty. They would
meet "in a dirty, gloomy room, some seated on old
boards, some standing, seeking some dim interpretation
of their troubles and even recalling the homes, from
which they had abruptly fled, with a persistent affection.
An aged woman prays, all bowing low, many prostrate
to the ground : *0 God, be pleased to bress my dear
children now away in slavery. And, oh, bress de ole
massa an' missus' — sobs and wails and groans all over
the room. A brother rises and says, 'Brudderin, we's
now right in de Red Sea — looks dark, but I b'leves de

* Southern Workman, April 1884 — "Among the Contrabands."
34

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

Gubberment '11 bring us outen it. We must trust in de
good Lord.' Another shakes his head and says, 'Maybe
dat brudder can trust, but I sees no light. Nebber seen
no such darkness befo' de war. Seems like ebry ting
gits worser an' worser.' Then a prayer — 'Gubberment
ob dese Unitum States. Carry deir arms for 'em an'
gib 'em full victories.' Another says, 'I don't see how
we can pray for de Gubberment. 'Pears hke dey just
done bring us h'yer to work fur dem, an' its de fact,
brudderin an' sisteren, my old massa nebber treat me
so hard as I'se been treated sense I come widin de Union
lines.'

"Another says, 'Bredren, we must be patient and
wait. God am seems like tryin' on us. We does has
our trials. I has to work hard, an' I don't get nothin'
'cept de rations, but I means to be faithful, an' if I dies
in de cause an' never sees freedom, p'raps my chillun
now in slavery may get to d.e land of promise. Remem-
ber de Bible done says, " Godliness wid 'tentment is de
great gains." I know it seems hard to be treated as
we is, but I specs de Gubberment ain't to blame, but
it's some o' dese ole army officers. We must work an'
do all we can ; pray for de President an' de Gubber-
ment, an' believe in God, who is much more mightier
dan all de enemies.'"

What could be done for this pathetic and increasing
multitude, which had drifted from the plantations to the
seaboard, allured by false hopes and escaping from forced
labor ? What agencies could be set to work for the amel-

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

ioration of a lot which had been thrust upon the Negro
race in the guise of national benevolence ? These refugees
were like little children who had prayed at night for more
time to play, and waked to find no answer to their prayer
but hunger and work. "Well, Auntie," said a Northern
traveller of unusual discernment,* "a convention has just
said there shall be no more slavery. ... *Is dat ar
true, Massa?' answered the Negro woman. 'I'se done
gone pray dat dese yere forty years, I'se hope de Lord
come in my time, but 'pears like he idle by de way.'"
"What are you going to do there?" the same inquirer
asked, as he met "scores of Negroes trudging along to
the coast, with their whole earthly possessions in a bundle
on their heads," and the only answer was : "Dun know."
Many were convinced that the Government intended to
give them the land, and asked : "Wen is de land goin'
fer to be dewided ?" and one old man was shrewd enough
to hope for a desirable lot, and remained on the planta-
tion, remarking : " De home-house might come to me, ye
see, sah, in de dewision." In short, as this student of
the migration concludes, "It is painfully certain that
next to teaching the whites that the Negro is a free man
and not an animal, the hardest work before the North
now is to teach the Negro what constitutes his freedom."
In this appealing situation there were but two sources
from which it could be reasonably expected that relief
might come. The Southern whites were not only crushed

* Sidney Andrews, "The South since the War," 1866, pp. 68-98; a corre-
spondent of the Boston Advertiser and the Chicago Tribune.

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

by misfortune and smarting under defeat, but they were
for the most part frankly sceptical of the Negro's capacity
for self-help or voluntary labor or education. "Three-
fourths of the people," concludes the Northern observer
already cited, "assume that the Negro will not work
except on compulsion." Here and there the colored
people themselves made pathetic attempts at mutual
helpfulness and the elements of schooling, but they
could offer to each other little beyond good intentions.
In the town of Hampton, for example, after it had been
deserted by its white inhabitants, an aged contraband,
who had been a slave of ex-President Tyler and who
remained in charge of his master's property, established
a primary school in the cellar of the Tyler mansion.
His procedure has been thus described: "Uncle Peter
is seated in a large armchair; some twenty-five little
'contrabands' around him; a 'class' standing at his
knee; he is trying to teach them the alphabet. Hold-
ing up before them an old, well-worn spelling book,
bowed over it and turning it so that he can see the letters
himself — they to see if they can — pointing with his finger
as he finds the place, he announces, 'That's A.' *A,'
responds the 'class' — looking everywhere but at the
letter, which they could hardly see if they tried. 'That's
B.' *B,' they shout. So on, down the line. 'Wait a
moment. Uncle,' intervenes a visitor, 'that is answering
pretty well. Now try them on the up-grade. Begin at
the bottom.' Looking over his glasses, then under, then
through them, Uncle Peter announces frankly, 'I don't

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

zackly know 'em up dat yer way, boss, but I done knows
*em all down dis yer way' — ^with finger suiting action to
the word." *

A more constructive contribution to missionary service
was made by an educated and pious woman, Mary Peake,
whose name is still cherished on the Hampton peninsula.
She was the daughter of a free colored woman and an
Englishman, and became the wife of a free and intelligent
Negro. She had been given before the War opportunities
of education such as few of her race and sex had received,
and when the rush of contrabands to the Fort and the
burning of the town of Hampton brought destitution
and despair to great numbers of the colored people, the
model school established in her little home near the
present site of Hampton Institute became a centre of cour-
age and faith. There still stands a great live-oak, known
in the neighborhood as the "Emancipation Oak," near the
Whittier School, and under this tree Mrs. Peake, according
to tradition, taught the first class of contraband children.
In rapidly failing health, she persisted, even on her death-
bed, both in teaching and in religious exhortation, and her
Christian self-sacrifice remains a vivid memory.

There remained, then, as possible agents of relief, only
the machinery of the National Government and the
benevolence of Northern friends. The Government,
which had dictated this abrupt change in the condition
of the Negro race, was now compelled, both by its sense
of duty and by considerations of its own security, to

* Southern Workman, April 1884.
38

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

protect its wards from new disasters, and to give them a
foothold in a new world ; and the philanthropists and
missionaries of the North, who had propagated their
faith in the brotherhood of man, were now confronted
with a new and vast opportunity to show their faith
through their works. Both of these agencies of ameliora-
tion promptly undertook their constructive tasks, and
in spite of many blunders, much wastefulness, and some
of the corrupt practices which in a Democracy seem
inevitably associated with novel and gigantic enterprises,
finally brought the Negro population over, as by a long
and often tottering bridge, from mendicancy and ig-
norance to self-support and the rudiments of education.

The first steps in this work of reconstruction were
taken by the National Government. While the War was
still in progress it had become necessary to appoint
superintendents to administer in various districts of the
South the affairs of "contrabands." Thus, after the
capture of Port Royal in 1861, Edward L. Pierce of
Massachusetts became responsible for more than ten
thousand refugees and nearly two hundred plantations
in and near the Sea Islands, enforcing discipline and
promoting the establishment of schools, of which the
Penn School is a still surviving and flourishing witness.
In November 1862, General Grant appointed as super-
intendent of Negro affairs in the Mississippi Valley,
Chaplain John Eaton, Jr., who in this service prepared
himself for a distinguished career in the Freedmen's
Bureau and as Commissioner of Education.

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

In January 1863, General Banks, commanding the
Department of the Gulf, introduced a scheme of compul-
sory labor at fixed compensation, which he described as,
"if not the best, is now the only practicable system." *
"The public interest," Banks had announced, "peremp-
torily demands that all persons without other means of
support be required to maintain themselves by labor.
Negroes are not exceptions from this law. Those who
leave their employers will be compelled to support them-
selves and families by labor upon the public works.
Under no circumstances whatever can they be main-
tained in idleness, . . . The Sequestration Commission
is hereby authorized and directed, upon conference with
planters and other parties, to propose and establish a
yearly system of Negro labor, which shall provide for it
food, clothing, proper treatment, and just compensation
for the Negroes at fixed rates, or an equitable proportion
of the yearly crop, as may be deemed advisable. It
should be just, but not exorbitant or onerous." f

This undertaking, though it might now be described
as "scientific charity," found the North unprepared
for so restrained and disciplinary a plan. It was
generally condemned by the Press as a new slavery, and
was described by the London Times as "a change from
slavery to serfdom." In September 1863, a more com-
prehensive scheme of supervision was undertaken. The

* N. P. Banks, " Emancipated Labor in Louisiana," an Address at Boston,
Oct. 30, 1884, p. 19.

t General Order No. 12, Jan. 30, 1863.

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

States still in rebellion were divided into five districts,
and again in July 1864 into seven districts, each with its
special agent for freedmen, and certain tracts in each dis-
trict were set apart as "Freedmen's Labor Colonies." *
These governmental regulations were, however, sadly
hampered, not only by the vast dimensions of the prob-
lem, but by inefficiency and inexperience in many agents.
Military men disputed the authority of Treasury officials,
and competent Treasury officials were not easy to find
for so perplexing and compHcated a task. "Some of
the agents became corrupt despite every effort to prevent
corruption. . . . No sure calculation could be made
upon the integrity of any man. ... In a word, the
times were out of joint." f A harmonious and effective
system could not, in fact, be established until the National
authority was again recognized and obeyed throughout
the South.

Meantime the pitiful condition of the freedmen had
touched the heart of the North, and there began to flow
Southward that stream of money and missionary service
which has continued in increasing volume for fifty years.
The first organization to meet this new demand on benef-
icence was the American Missionary Association, which
had been incorporated specifically for evangelistic work.
Its agents observed the inadequacy of governmental
relief. "All that has been done for them [the Negroes],"

* P. G. Peirce, " The Freedmen's Bureau," 1904, p. 24. (Bulletin of State
Univ. of Iowa, No. 74.)

t J. W. Schuckers, « Life of S. P. Chase," 1874, p. 328.

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

reported the Agent at Fortress Monroe, "has been to
supply those employed by Government with quarters,
rations, and some clothing, and in some instances one
or two dollars cash for the last month's services. . . .
The vast mass of families who are on the west side of
the bridge leading to the Fort have received nothing
from the Government." * Missions and schools were
soon established near the Fort, at Newport News, Hamp-
ton, and many other points in the South ; and in July
1862 a military commission, appointed by General Wool,
then in command at Fortress Monroe, recommended that
"Governmental aid be rigidly discriminated from philan-
thropic service, and that provision for moral and intellec-
tual culture be left to societies at the North." f

On February 22, 1862, the work thus maintained by
one group of Christian missionaries was enlarged by the
creation, at a meeting in New York, of the National
Freedmen's Relief Association, which undertook "the
relief and improvement of the freedmen of the colored
race, to teach them civilization and Christianity, to
imbue them with motives of order, industry, and self-
reliance, and to elevate them in the scale of humanity
by inspiring them with self-respect." Similar enter-
prises were soon undertaken by a Freedmen's Aid Com-
mission, a Contraband Relief Society, as well as by the
Sanitary Commission, Christian Commission, and repre-
sentatives of many other Christian communions. Co-oper-
ation, however, was imperfect and rivalry not unknown.

* American Missionary, Feb. l86l. ^ Ibid., July 1862.

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

Finally, in March 1865, the American Freedmen's Union
Commission was incorporated to standardize relief and
economize in administration.* It was, in short, a situa-
tion curiously anticipating the story of the relief-measures
suddenly demanded a half-century later in the greater
exigency of a World War ; when for a time zeal outran
discretion, and prodigality reduced efficiency. As the
end of the war came in sight, the necessity for centralized
and National control of the vast legacy of helplessness be-
queathed by emancipation became generally recognized ;
and out of this necessity for a uniform and stable system
issued at last, through many obstacles of hostile criticism
and ill-considered schemes, the gigantic enterprise of the
Freedmen's Bureau.

The first proposition for such an undertaking was made
as early as January 1863 in the Senate by Henry Wilson,
and in the House of Representatives by Thomas Dawes
Eliot of Massachusetts. Debate was hot in Congress
as to the scope, limit, and probable effect of this govern-
mental paternaHsm. Should it be controlled by the
War Department as a military measure, or by the Treas-
ury as an economic scheme ? Would it be likely to pro-
mote self-help among the Negroes, or encourage their
inclination to thriftlessness .? Did it not place a perilous
amount of despotic power in the hands of one man .?
Would it not create a new type of "overseers and Negro
drivers, too lazy to work themselves, and just a little too

* Lyman Abbott, " Results of Emancipation," Congregationalist, Dec. 30,
1864.

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

honest to steal"? All these anticipations and appre-
hensions were expressed with the same divergence of
opinion which has again become familiar when, under the
strain of a greater war, an even greater expansion of cen-
tralized control became essential for efficiency. It was
not until March 3, 1865, one month before the death of
President Lincoln, that the bitter opposition to the
scheme was overcome and a " Bureau of Refugees, Freed-
men, and Abandoned Lands" was estabhshed, "to con-
tinue during the present war of rebellion, and for one
year thereafter." It was to be a division of the War
Department, controlled by a single Commissioner, who
should appoint assistant commissioners, through whom
provisions, clothing, and fuel for freed men should be
distributed. Abandoned or confiscated lands in the
States in rebellion might be assigned in tracts of forty
acres to refugees for a term of three years, at a rental of
six per cent on an appraised valuation ; and at the end
of that time the occupant might purchase the land at
its appraised value and receive title from the United
States. It was, in short, an extension, at that time un-
precedented, of governmental authority, delegating to a
single administrator paternal control over four millions
of singularly helpless and thriftless wards.

Such an autocracy, benevolent as its intention might be,
was therefore completely dependent on the character and
capacity of its administrative head; and the appoint-
ment of General Oliver O. Howard, Commander of the
Army of the Tennessee, as Commissioner, seemed to

THE BUTLER SCHOOL
Built by General Butler for "Contraband of War"

A CONTRABAND'S CABIN
Note the "Virginia Creeper" before the door

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

guarantee both moral and executive leadership. Gen-
eral Howard had won distinction at Gettysburg, and
had commanded the right wing of Sherman's army on
its march to the sea. He was conscientious, serious-
minded, and devout. General Sherman had said of
him: "I cannot imagine that matters that may involve
the future of four millions of souls could have been put
in more charitable or more benevolent hands." * His
power was to be absolute. "Mr. Stanton," he said in
an address at Hampton in 1889, "held out to me a great
basketful of papers, saying: 'There is your Bureau,
General, take it.' I took my Bureau and walked out
with it. I think now that God led me and assigned that
work to me." General Howard at once appointed ten
assistant commissioners, all of whom were army officers,
and these in turn organized in the ten districts of the
South their subordinate departments of subsistence,
land, court, education, medical relief, and other necessities
of orderly life. " It was impossible at the outset," General
Howard testified, "to do more than lay down a few gen-
eral principles to guide the officers assigned as assistant
commissioners. ... I therefore left it to my subor-
dinates to devise suitable measures for effecting their
objects."

The project thus auspiciously launched was soon beset
by a storm of criticism. It had been undertaken as a
temporary measure, and its prolonged activity appeared
to Southern sentiment both threatening and unconstitu-

» Peirce, op. cit., pp. 47-65.

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

tional. It had established an autocracy within a de-
mocracy, and might easily become a tool of party politics,
aligning the Negro vote against the Southern whites. Its
operations had become vast in scope, committing to
thousands of agents grave responsibilities concerning the
ownership of land, the administration of justice, and the
appropriation of many millions of dollars for the relief
of destitution, the transportation of refugees, and the
establishing or subsidizing of schools and colleges. Ru-
mors of maladministration, political partisanship, and
financial speculation on the part of agents multiplied,
until by direction of President Johnson three formal
investigations were made in succession by the most
competent of counsellors.

The first survey was that of General Grant in 1865,
who reported : " Everywhere General Howard, the able
Head of the Bureau, made friends by the just and fair
instructions he gave, but the complaint in South Carolina
was that when he left, things went on as before." The
second journey of observation was made by Carl Schurz,
also in 1865, and his conclusions were in the main quite as
favorable. The rights of the Negro, he urged, made
it essential to continue "the control of the National
Government in the States lately in rebellion, until free
labor is fully developed and firmly established." * "Not
half of the labor that has been done at the South this
year, or will be done this next year, would have been,
or would be, done but for the exertions of the Freed men's

* Peirce, op. cit., pp. 56-65.
46

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

Bureau. . . . No other agency except one placed there
by the National Government could have wielded that
moral power, whose interposition was so necessary to pre-
vent Southern States from falling at once into the chaos
of a general collision." The third inspection was under-
taken by two other Northern officers, General Steedman
and General Fullerton, who testified that while General
Howard should be highly commended, and while the
Bureau had done much to preserve order and to organize
labor, many agents " by arbitrary, unnecessary, and offen-
sive interference " had increased racial antagonism, and
some had used their position to their own advantage.
Finally, in 1870, General Howard himself became the ob-
ject oL political attack and was charged in Congress with
"malversation and dereliction of duty." A distressing
and partisan investigation ensued, which, while it resulted
in the complete exoneration of the Commissioner, dis-
closed irregularities and defalcations by certain subordi-
nates and encouraged the conclusion that the term of
usefulness of so exceptional and so vast a scheme of
paternalism had expired. On June 30, 1872, the Freed-
men's Bureau was discontinued.

The story of this humane and generous enterprise has
important and permanent lessons to teach. A country
at war, or at the close of a war, may be necessarily led
to adopt autocratic methods of administration. De-
mocracy as a political instrument is more applicable to
the dilatory procedures of peace than to the prompt
and sweeping decisions of military necessity. A benevo-

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

lent despotism, like a general at the head of his army,
acts with the quickness of a single will. On the other
hand, a military system applied to civil life involves an
inevitable loss of free initiative and delegates its despot-
ism to great numbers of hastily selected subordinates.
No Chief could have been better chosen than General
Howard. Speaking of him to the students of Hampton
Institute in 1869, General Armstrong said: "You ought
to know that providential work for your race which
General Howard was brought into the world to do."
Many of his assistants also were both competent and
consecrated. **The trouble," wrote an observant in-
vestigator, "arose from the fact that it is impossible for
the State Commissioner or his chief deputies to personally
know all or even one-half of the local agents. ... I
need not add that the probabilities are that one-half the
aggregate number on duty at any given time are wholly
unfit for their work." * It was, in short, as one of the
most discerning of Southern commentators has said, "a
period of reconstruction, of much administrative failure,
but also of memorable heroism among the numbers of
men and women who undertook the freedmen's initiation
into the experiences of citizenship." f "The time will
come," wrote General Eaton, one of the most efficient
of the assistant commissioners, "when the work of the
Freedmen's Bureau will be more justly estimated, and
we shall discriminate between the immense service it

* Andrews, op. cit., p. 23.

t Edgar Gardner Murphy, " Problems of the Present South," 1904, p. 261.

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

performed and the individual elements of corruption
which without doubt existed." *

In other words, the limitations of administrative effi-
ciency proved to be not so much mechanical as moral.
The Freedmen's Bureau was a skilfully devised machine,
but the machine was at the mercy of its engineers, and
could be easily wrecked or set to work mischief if con-
trolled by incompetent or self-interested agents. The
problem of democracy was thus disclosed behind that
of efficiency. It was the problem of promoting a quality of
character and capacity which should be ready for applica-
tion to* the emergencies of national life. War-measures
must use as their instrument those personal agencies which
the ordinary demands of peace have created ; and, as the
United States has learned a half century later by costly
and bitter experience, if a democracy has not acquired in
times of peace the virtues of integrity and efficiency, then
it cannot without vast disadvantage and waste accept
abruptly the untried and prodigious responsibilities of war.

In one respect, however, the Freedmen's Bureau made
an indelible mark on American history. Its original
intention had not included any expenditure for educa-
tion ; and no appropriation for that purpose was made
during the first years of its operation. The disposition
of abandoned plantations, the promotion of free labor,
the relief of poverty and disease, and the protection of
the infirm and of children, seemed the most pressing
problems set before the friends of the colored race. Yet

*" Grant, Lincoln and the Freedmen," 1907, p. 241.

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

the educational work of the Bureau soon became of great
extent, and has remained its most permanent monu-
ment. General Howard himself has testified to his own
appreciation of the place which education must play in
the redemption of the colored race, and incidentally has
indicated the source from which the first expenditure for
this purpose was derived. "The main point we had to
attend to," he said at Hampton in 1889, "was the care
of the schools. When Mr. Stanton first gave me my
commission, I said to him : * Mr. Stanton, the true relief
for these people is in education.' *Yes,' he said, 'I be-
lieve it is; what do you propose to do V 'Well,' I said,
'you know that churches and missionary societies have
already started schools, but sometimes they do not pull
together exactly. I believe the Bureau ought to aid
their work by some comprehensive scheme and take
general charge of it.' So we went at it. . . . You
will wonder where I got so much money. Now the idea
of education did not commend itself to Congress, but
the idea of transportation was immensely popular at
once. 'Transportation, transportation ! that is the idea !*
'Transport them anywhere, if to Africa, so much the
better.' So I got large appropriations for that purpose
without any trouble . . . [then] I simply asked Congress
that I might transfer what funds were left to educational
purposes, and the request was granted without any
thought as to what it all meant. ... All as a result of
that quiet flanking operation." *

* Address at Hampton Institute, 1889; Ludlow Mss., pp. 515 flF.
50

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

Beginning in this inconspicuous "flanking operation"
the assault of the Bureau on the dense mass of ignorance
among the Negroes which confronted it soon became a
frontal attack. In 1865 the modest total of $27,000 was
assigned for purposes of education ; but in 1870 this item
had reached nearly one million dollars ; and for the six
years ending in September 1871, out of a total expenditure
of $14,996,480 the appropriation for education had reached
the sum of $5,262,511.* The greater part of this sum
was applied either to the subsidizing of schools already
established, or to the rebuilding of schoolhouses destroyed
by the war. "I laid down the principle," said General
Howard, "that for every dollar the Government gives,
there must come a dollar from the people." Thus by
October 1869 he was able to report that at least one
normal school for colored people was in operation in
each Southern State, and that more than twenty char-
tered colleges had been either established or revived.
In 1870 there were, under the direction of the Bureau,
2039 schools with 2563 teachers and 114,516 pupils.
Of these teachers 1251 were white and 1312 were colored.
Among these educational enterprises the most conspicuous
was that of Howard University, incorporated in 1867
"for the education of youths in the liberal arts and
sciences," with six departments — normal, collegiate,
theological, legal, medical, and commercial. During
its early history the University became the mark of
much hostile criticism; but it remains an appropriate

* Peirce, op. cit., p. 82.

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

monument of that gallant and much-wronged friend
of the colored race whose name it bears.

Such were the beginnings of the great movement of
Negro education, which was at first met by much hos-
tility and scepticism, as though misleading for one race
and dangerous for the other, but which has become
recognized in the South as at the North as the main
support both of loyal citizenship and of economic effi-
ciency among the multiplying millions of the colored
race. The Freedmen's Bureau "set going," Professor
DuBois has justly said, "a system of free labor; it es-
tablished the black peasant proprietor; it secured the
recognition of black free men before courts of law; it
provided free public schools for the South. ... Its
failure was the result of bad local agents, inherent diffi-
culties of the work, and National neglect." *

It was at the outset much obstructed also by the pious
attempt of Northern teachers to apply to an untutored
and tropical race their own methods and traditions.
"Men have tried," as Booker Washington has said, "to
use with that simple people, just free from slavery and
with no past, no inherited tradition of learning, the same
methods of education which they have used in New Eng-
land with all its inherited traditions and desires." f Yet,
in spite of much misdirected devotion within and much
persistent scepticism without, the educational work of
the Freedmen's Bureau, originally a by-product of its

* Atlantic Monthly^ Vol. 87, p. 361.
t " Future of the American Negro," 1899, p. 25.

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

plan, and approached by a ** flanking attack," accelerated
by at least a generation the progress of the colored race.
Instead of disconnected and competing groups of local
enterprises, meagrely sustained by private benevolence,
the training of Negroes, from elementary schools to
colleges and universities, had become recognized as a
comprehensive and national problem, which must be
standardized in form and adapted to special needs.
The principle had become confirmed enough to prove,
as Dr. Curry later said, that the Negro "could be both
Christianized and educated, and that upon his Christian-
ization and his right education rested the hope of his
race and the safety and prosperity of the white race with
whom he dwelt." *

More important than all, the dependence of the Freed-
men's Bureau on an exceptional quality of public-spirited
and self-effacing service, had brought into the ranks of
its agents many teachers and administrators whose per-
sonal influence has outlived by many years the organiza-
tion which called them to their task. The Bureau, as
Professor DuBois has justly said, "helped to discover
these men and women." Thus it had provided, not only
a scheme of salvation for the colored race, but in many
instances the more essential gift of saviours ; and among
these agents of redemption, not only discovered by the
Freedmen's Bureau but through it discovered to them-
selves, the most epoch-making was the founder of Hamp-
ton Institute. Through a series of dramatic experiences,

* op. cit.y p. 336.

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

which are next to be described, he had been led, across
sea and land, through peace and war, following the
dreams of his youth and the visions of his maturity,
until when the war closed he stood disheartened at the
door of the Freedmen's Bureau in Washington, where he
had already applied in vain for work to do. He had
"sat in the President's waiting-room" proposing to ask for
some appointment, but "his nature rose in revolt; he
would not sit in that throng of political office-seekers."
He left the office, walked toward the station, but con-
cluded to change his course and call at the office of the
Freedmen's Bureau for a moment "to take advantage of
anything which might possibly have occurred in the last
few hours." As he entered the office, one of General
Howard's aides looked up and said : "We have a great
lot of contrabands down on the Virginia Peninsula, and
cannot manage them. No one has had any success in
keeping them straight. General Howard thinks you
might try it." The man and the opportunity had met ;
and even if the Freedmen's Bureau could find no other
justification for its multifarious enterprises, its existence
and expenditure would be sufficiently vindicated by its
discovery of Samuel Chapman Armstrong.

CHAPTER THREE

THE COMING OF ARMSTRONG

THE scene of this narrative abruptly shifts across a space
of four thousand miles and a period of twenty-six years,
and instead of the tragic desolation of war and the be-
wildering confusion of reconstruction presents a picture
of tropical loveliness and Christian piety. The Hawaiian
Islands, twenty-one hundred miles from San Francisco
and three thousand four hundred miles from Yokohama,
are justly described by lovers of nature as the Paradise
of the Pacific, and by students of politics as the Key
of that vast area of opportunity. The gentle climate
and luxuriant vegetation, the vivid colors and extraordi-
nary beauty both of land and sea, together with the ease
of procuring the necessities of life, all contribute to create
a hospitable, kindly, and nature-worshipping population ;
and when, in 1820, American missionaries undertook the
spiritual conquest of the Islands, they found both chiefs
and people plastic to the firm touch of Christian truth.
In 1830 Richard Armstrong, a youth born in Phila-
delphia of Scotch-Irish stock and a student at Princeton
Seminary, felt himself called of God to the work of a
foreign missionary, and after attending a few medical
lectures in Philadelphia as a part of his preparation, was

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

appointed by the American Board for Foreign Missions
to serve in the Hawaiian Islands. In September 1830,
he married Clarissa Chapman, the child of a typical New
England family, bred on a farm in Massachusetts, accus-
tomed to all forms of housework, but cultivating a taste
for water-color painting, and training herself to be a
school-teacher. Her brother Reuben, bred in the same
early environment of simplicity and discipline, became in
1868 Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachu-
setts and held that high office until his death in 1873.
The young married couple, surrendering as they believed
all worldly prospects in answer to the call of God, sailed
together on a whaling-ship from New Bedford for Honolulu
in November 1831. Their voyage round Cape Horn was
prolonged by storms and imperilled by mutiny; and
within a year after their arrival at Honolulu they were
again despatched with their infant daughter on a further
mission to the Marquesas Islands, where among converts
not yet redeemed from cannibalism they lived as calmly
as if in New England. "Mr. Armstrong," his son records,
"having to go on a journey, left my mother and the two
young children (the second, a boy, having been born in
this remote spot, and dying soon after their return to
Honolulu) in charge of the head chief, Hope, a typical
savage, indescribably horrid in his appearance. The man
lay down every night across and outside mother's house,
so that no one could injure her without killing him. . . .
On our departure he suggested to father an exchange of
wives, but fortunately did not insist on it."
56

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

Returning from this daring enterprise, the young mis-
sionaries were again transferred to the Island of Maui,
three days from Honolulu by sea, where for seven years
Richard Armstrong was not only the pastor of a flock of
25,000 natives, but the physician of their bodies and the
administrator of their industrial life. Saw-mills, sugar-
planting, and scientific agriculture became forms of mis-
sionary activity. Of two churches, "each to hold 1500
people, he planned and superintended the whole work
without any carpenter." His practice of medicine was
more casual in its character than his patients were prob-
ably aware. "With natural aptitude and an experience
afforded by his own children," his son writes, "he could
attend to all ordinary cases, even performing minor
operations, and being especially skilful with babies. The
popular dose was castor oil, which to the Hawaiians was
a luxury." His professional salary was $400 a year, with
$50 extra for each child. "The natives brought their
tribute of fruit, vegetables, sugar cane, and guavas, com-
ing in a minimum of costume from far and near." Mean-
time his wife, in addition to much "practical preaching,
which ranged from prayer and Bible reading to cooking
and carpentry," contributed to the family income, accord-
ing to the regulations of the Home Board, by bearing ten
children, of whom Samuel was the sixth.

The reminiscences which his missionary colleagues have
left of Richard Armstrong are suggestive of his son.
"His strong personal magnetism," it is said, "attracted
and opened to his genial sway the hearts of his fellow-

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

men. . . . Practical good sense and magnetic earnestness
were his permanent characteristics. . . . The thrill of
life, which he imparted to us all, scarcely yet has spent
its force." Here, in short, was foreign missionary work
at its best, — the father alert, vivacious, and efficient;
the mother conscientious, restrained, and devout; and
both of them absolutely fearless, tireless, happy in their
devotion to a backward race, and in obedience to a call
from God. Their scheme of salvation covered the whole
of life. If the heathen were to be made Christians, they
must be sound in body and controlled in will as well as
moved in heart. "All things are yours," the Apostle
had said to these apostolic teachers, "whether the Church,
or the world, or life, or death, or things present, or things
to come." It is not surprising that from this completely
heroic and self-abnegating stock should have sprung the
most discerning and inspiring leader of another backward
race.

The work of Richard Armstrong had demonstrated to
the Missionary Board in Boston his special gift for admin-
istration, and in 1840 he was transferred to the care of the
principal church in Honolulu ; but was soon summoned
with other missionaries to advise the native Government,
and became Minister of Public Instruction, and later
President of the Board of Education. It was an extraor-
dinary relationship which had been established between
Church and State. The missionaries had not only con-
verted the natives to the Christian religion, but had con-
verted their rulers to forms of representative govern-

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

ment ; and when practical measures of an American type
were welcomed, the same men whose original purpose was
to preach the Gospel were summoned to administer a
kingdom and to become statesmen as well as missionaries.
Richard Armstrong, **in connection with Mr. Richards
and Dr. Judd, the Minister of Finance, and, later, Messrs.
Ricord and WyHe and Chief Justice Lee, may be said
to have reared the government structure. Few kings of
the earth have ever had more disinterested counsellors.'*
At Richard Armstrong's sudden death in i860, the
reigning king, Kamehameha IV, wrote of him: "When
we have spoken of Dr. Armstrong as Minister of Public
Instruction and, subsequently. President of the Board
of Education, we have but partially described the im-
portant offices which he filled. He was a member of the
House of Nobles, of the King's Privy Council, Secretary
of the Board of Trustees of Oahu College, Trustee of the
Queen's Hospital, and Executive Officer of the Bible and
Tract Society, and deeply interested in developing the
agricultural resources of the kingdom. No other govern-
ment officer or missionary was brought into such close
intimacy with the nation as a whole." *

Such were the antecedents of Samuel Chapman Arm-
strong. He was born on the Island of Maui on January
30, 1839; but his boyhood and youth were passed among
the more humanizing opportunities of Honolulu. The
rules of his home were rigid and there was much of Bible
lessons and Sunday-school. "Father's chief work," his

* Ludlow Mss., pp. 15 ff. <

EDUCATION FOR LIFE ,

son reports, "was preaching, and although we always
attended services, the part we took in them was some-
times far from creditable. ... I remember that once
father took two of us into the pulpit, and was obliged to
interrupt his sermon in order to settle a quarrel between
us. . . . But the service was interesting. . . . Some-
times when I stand outside a Negro church I get precisely
the effect of a Hawaiian congregation, the same fulness
and heartiness and occasionally exquisite voices, and am
instantly transplanted ten thousand miles away to the
great church where father used to preach to twenty-five
hundred people, who swarmed in on foot and horseback,
from shore and valley and mountain for miles around.
Outside it was like an encampment; inside it was a sea
of dusky faces. On one side was the King's pew with
scarlet hangings, the royal family always distinguishing
themselves by coming in very late with the loudest
squeaking shoes. The more the shoes squeaked, the
better was the wearer pleased ; and often a man, after
walking noisily in, would sit down and pass his shoes
through the window for his wife to wear in, thus doubling
the family glory. Non-musical shoes were hardly sale-
able."

Yet the restraint of a Puritan home could not
check the animal spirits of this growing lad, and his
nature responded to the appealing environment of a land
of summer and a sea of turquoise blue. An out-of-doors
boyhood confirmed both his constitution and his self-
confidence. Missionary journeys with his father by
60

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Principal's residence

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

whaleboats and oxcarts, the building of his own boat
and the acquiring from native teachers of great skill in
swimming, the exploring of the lovely canyons of the
island and the bathing in its cascades, — these diversified
forms of athletics quickened his instinct for the venture-
some and the heroic, and made tolerable to him the daily
drill in Virgil and algebra. His diary of 1856 recalls the
impression made by nature on a boy seventeen years old,
"In the afternoon," he says, ** we came to a lovely valley
in which was a beautiful sheet of water which we called
'Pauline's Mirror*; exploring the valley a little farther
we found the finest falls we had ever seen, at least 200
feet high, the basin large and very deep. Joe and I
swam under the falls ; it was grand and terrible, and the
beauty of it made it all the more impressive." And
again, "After an excellent night's rest we went up to
explore the valley, and suddenly came on the grandest
scene in our whole journey. It was a cataract, about
400 feet high, falling exactly perpendicularly; the basin
was about 130 feet in diameter, and standing on the lower
side the spray drenched us." And again, November 18,
"Went to bathe in the afternoon, and led the crowd in
sailing over the great Falls of the Wailuku — did it three
times. Worked at my schooner till long after breakfast,
putting in two new sails. The fleet consisted of Hitch-
cock's vessel. Mills' schooner, David's schooner, and my
schooner. We sailed first in the sea, my vessel ran out of
my reach twice, and I had to pursue her in a canoe and
got capsized." Thus a mingled skein of domestic piety

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

and eager athletics was wrought into his early life, and
it is not surprising that when later asked what career he
was likely to prefer, he answered: "Missionary or
pirate I" Both classes of society were familiar to him in
Honolulu.

The impressions early received of the privileges and the
defects of missionary service sank meantime into his
character and gave direction to his later career. Writing
many years later, and after testing under other conditions
the teachings of his early life, he said, in words which judi-
cious missionary Boards have come to welcome more than
in earlier generations, as expressing their working faith :
"The one great lesson of the Hawaiian mission is, I believe,
that we must more and more recognize the value and
necessity of practical training of the whole Hfe. . . .
Ideas take root in a moment, habits only in a generation.
This means the uplifting of the whole man by God's
grace, and by every means that human wisdom suggests,
and then by protecting him from harm until he is
thoroughly established in well-doing and can aid himself,
which must be a matter of time and habit." His father, as
Minister of Education, had established a "Royal School,"
later known as Oahu College. It was specifically designed
for the education of future rulers of the kingdom ; and
a graduate of Williams College and Andover Seminary,
Rev. E. G. Beckwith, was imported as teacher. Fifteen
young chiefs were submitted to his instruction, and about
fifty children of the leading missionaries were permitted
to enroll themselves in the school. The teachers of the
62

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

school thus wielded, according to young Armstrong, "an
almost world-wide influence, and they taught me that the
work of a teacher, while often obscure and weak, may
be the most vital and far-reaching that a man can do."

In 1 860 his father was suddenly killed by a fall from his
horse, and the paternal wish that the son Samuel should
finish his education at Williams College determined the
youth to an immediate departure, and he was admitted at
the age of twenty to the Junior Class. " It was, I think,
in the winter of i860," writes a classmate, "when I was
rooming in East College at Williams, that into my intro-
spective life Nature flung a sort of cataclysm of health
named Sam Armstrong, like other cyclones, from the
South Seas; a Sandwich Islander, son of a missionary.
Until Miss Murfree wrote her * Prophet of the Great
Smoky Mountains,* it would have been impossible to
describe Armstrong's immediate personal effect. There
was a quality in it that defied the ordinary English
vocabulary. To use the eastern Tennessee dialect, which
alone could do him justice, he was 'plumb survigrous.*
To begin with, as Mark Twain might express it, he had
been fortunate in the selection of his parents. The roots
of his nature struck deep into the soil of two strong races.
. . . Then, too, he was an Islander; his constitution
smacked of the seas. There was about him something of
the high courage and jollity of the tar ; he carried with
him the vitalities of the ocean. Like all those South Sea
Islanders, he had been brought up to the water; it had
imparted to him a kind of mental as well as physical

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

amphibiousness. It seemed natural for him to strike
out in any element.

" But what impressed one most was his schooling. Not
but that it was in unison with the man ; it was, in fact,
remarkably so ; but it was so entirely out of the com-
mon— so free-handed and virile. His father had been
minister of public instruction at Hawaii. The son ac-
companied him on his official tours and had been let
into the business. He could manage a boat in a storm,
teach school, edit a newspaper, assist in carrying on a
government, take up a mechanical industry at will, under-
stand the natives, sympathize with missionaries, talk
with profound theorists, recite well in Greek or mathe-
matics, conduct an advanced class in geometry, and make
no end of fun for little children. In short, he was a
striking illustration of the Robinson-Crusoe-like multi-
formity of function that grows up perforce under the
necessities of a missionary station. New England energy,
oceanic breeziness, missionary environment, disclosed
themselves in him.

"Such was Armstrong, as he came into my life, bring-
ing his ozone with him. . . . He was a trifle above middle
height, broad-shouldered, with large, well-poised head,
forehead high and wide, deep-set flashing eyes, a long
mane of light-brown hair, his face very brown and sailor-
like. He bore his head high and carried about an air of
insolent good health. . . . Intellectually he was a leader.
Spiritually he was religious, with a deep reverence for his
father's life and work. . . . Yet all felt him to be under
64

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

great terrestrial headway. Sometimes he seemed to have
little respect for the spiritual ; he shocked people by his
levity and irreverence. Yet there was about him at all
times a profound reverence of spirit for God, manhood,
womanhood, and all sacred realities. Indeed, with him
reverence and religion alike were matters not of form,
but of inward principle whose application he had not yet
mastered. Other men were original in thought; he was
original in character; but above all there was an im-
mediacy of nature." *

It was his father's dying wish that the youth should
be committed to the direction of Mark Hopkins, the
distinguished President of Williams College, who was, as
Armstrong's friend Denison described him, "a great
philosopher, a skilled dialectician, an illuminating
preacher, a devoted Christian, but above all with a
genius for teaching." f Early in 1861 Armstrong was
permitted to share a room in Dr. Hopkins's house with
the son of the President, and his consequent intimacy
with the great teacher became the most formative influ-
ence of young Armstrong's life. "I am," he wrote, "the
first student who has roomed in Prexy's new house."
"I never saw his equal," the pupil later said. "What-
ever good teaching I may have done, has been Mark
Hopkins teaching through me."

In the spring of 1861 there swept through this tranquil
community at Williams College, like a black thunder-cloud

* J. H. Denison, In Atlantic Monthly, Feb. 1894.
t Southern Workman, March 1903, p. 166.

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

settling over Greylock, the storm of Civil War. "The
students," wrote Armstrong, "are all drilling in military
manoeuvres; there will be fighting soon." Curiously
enough, however, the athletic and daring young Islander
did not at once feel the call of patriotism. The happy
associations and domestic intimacies of his boyhood's
home had made of him a man with a very small country.
"I shall go to the war," he wrote, "if I am needed, but
not till then. Were I an American, as I am a Hawaiian,
I should be off in a hurry." Writing again of his brother,
he says: "People take Will for an American, and think
he must do an American's duty." "On the whole,"
he writes as late as September 15, 1861, "there is very
little prospect of Will's and my going to the war." Thus
he began his senior year at Williamstown, 1861-62, as
though the war were no aflPair of his, and yielded his mind
to the metaphysics of Dr. Hopkins. "This," he wrote,
"is going to be a glorious term for me; we have come
to the cream of our college course ; the greatest mind in
New England will take and train us. . . . Politics and
war matters are progressing steadily, but the excitement
is not nearly as intense as you imagine."

On October 15, 1861, however, the wave of national-
ism threatened to overwhelm him. "This evening," he
writes, "during class prayer-meeting, while a fellow was
praying, I took a notion that I'd enlist for three months
in McClellan's Body Guard, for I have a chance to get
in as a private there. But talking it over with Prex, he
told me that I could not honestly get out of the army
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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

after getting in, and I gave up the idea, as I am not willing
to lose my senior year." The Christmas holidays of this
winter were spent by young Armstrong in New York,
where he visited various institutions for missionary service
and found himself as a missionary's son called on to speak
of religion. "Most unexpectedly," he writes of such a
meeting, "the Chairman called on me to speak, and I
had to get up and say something. I spoke over half an
hour, principally on the duties and relations of commercial
men. ... I tell this rather as a confession than a boast."
His last term in college was preoccupied with study, inter-
rupted by little of the restlessness which would have
seemed natural in so active a mind. He was still a Ha-
waiian, and his judgments of Negro slavery were softened
by his recollection of the gentle paternalism which he had
witnessed among the natives of the Pacific, where the
harsher methods of the Southern States had been un-
known. Yet when one considers the excitement which
prevailed, and the rush of youths to the colors, the self-
restraint and sense of neutrality exhibited by a young
man who was in every fibre of his temperament a soldier,
is an extraordinary evidence of maturity and poise.

No sooner had he received his degree than he wrote :
"I am in for the army." He proposed to enlist as a pri-
vate, but his friends assured him, in words which a greater
war has made familiar, "that educated men were needed
for responsible positions"; and with the consent of a
regimental officer. Colonel Willard, the young graduate
hastened to Troy, N. Y., pitched a tent in a public square,

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

and called for recruits, "stumping it," as he writes, "in the
small towns of the neighborhood."^ His missionary ante-
cedents made him welcome in the neighboring churches,
and confidence in his character promoted enlistment
under him. His recruits numbered, as he wrote in his
diary, "some of the very meanest and the very best men;
some enlist for money, and some for love of country;
sometimes men of means and family come forward and
enter the ranks as privates."

Crude and elementary as such volunteering must have
been, it had the merit of establishing from the outset a
singular intimacy between officers and men. Nobody
knew much about soldiering. All were groping their way
into unknown perils. All were conscious of ignorance and
eager to learn. Yet it was the best of opportunities for
a natural leader. Uninstructed as he might be in military
science, the fundamental qualities of decision, self-dis-
cipline, courage, and cheerfulness made their immediate
impression. Meantime he studied tactics under Colonel
Willard, and, having completed the enlistment of a hun-
dred men, was sworn in as captain. As their regiment,
the One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth New York, was
about to leave Troy, a sword was presented to him in
one of the churches, and following a practice to which
many more experienced orators might confess that they
had yielded, he utilized — as he records — for his reply,
what he had prepared for Commencement at Williams
College, but had not been able to deliver. "I succeeded,"
he wrote, "in giving that blood-and-thunder speech, but
68

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

it was in a church and not in a college." Reaching New
York the regiment encamped in City Hall Park, where one
of his men, with the intimacy of a volunteer, approached
his officer and remarked : " I say, Captain, where can
I get a drink of water?" Captain Armstrong, as his
brother relates, "started off to get water for him, but I
said: *It seems to me not very good miHtary discipline
to be running round for water for your men.' Captain
Armstrong, however, replied : 'The men must have water,
and I am bound to see that they get it.' " His regiment
left for the front that night.

The first undertaking of these raw recruits was patheti-
cally futile. Hurried to the front on August 30, 1862,
the One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth New York reached
Harper's Ferry on September 2d, just in time to be
"bagged with more than 12,000 Northern troops by the
raid of Stonewall Jackson. It was absurd," he wrote his
mother later, "to send our raw recruits to such a place. . . .
I stood up in full view of the enemy's guns, my men hidden
in a little ravine. . . . Some of our colonels advised that
we cut our way out that night, and we could have done it,
but our generals would not allow it. All the cavalry, some
two thousand men, escaped. . . . Our helplessness be-
came apparent; our artillery had exhausted their muni-
tions. . . . Our Colonel wept bitterly at the sight. I
have talked much with the rebels since our surrender, and
they are very civil and intelligent, though most miserably
dressed. I saw the famous Stonewall Jackson, my captor.
He dresses like the rest in dirty gray clothes, but he is a

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

trump. He wore a hat, which his men called his new hat,
but it was war-worn enough. . . . Not a syllable of exul-
tation did we hear from them, and with good reason per-
haps. McClellan's guns had been roaring all day, and a
huge battle was surging some miles away. There might be
a slip 'twixt cup and lip. . . . Jackson was very anxious
to get us off, in fact, so very anxious that he galloped
off and left us with his generals. No paroles were signed
by us. We were paroled as a regiment, and even that
parole was left incomplete." * Back from their first
battle-field trudged the One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth,
less unruly than many of their companions, but encoun-
tering many hardships, and with difficulty restrained from
insubordination, for they found themselves despatched,
not, as they had anticipated, to their homes, but to a
parole-camp near Lake Michigan. It was a melancholy
ending of a march which began amid the shouting and
cheers of thousands of people, "waving their handker-
chiefs and little flags," not more than a month before.
Captain Armstrong was detained in this exasperating
inaction until November, when his regiment was ordered
to strengthen the reserves of McClellan's army, and
remained in this position while Burnside lost the Battle
of Fredericksburg and Hooker the Battle of Chancellors-
ville. Not until the decisive days of Gettysburg arrived,
in July, 1863, did the One Hundred and Twenty-Fifth
New York have its fighting chance, or Armstrong an op-
portunity to prove himself a commander. " On the second

* Ludlow Mss., p. 243.
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of July," he wrote immediately after the battle, "we were
drawn up between two batteries, and sustained a violent
cannonade, lying on our faces in an orchard — that is, most
of us. I preferred to take my chance standing and watch-
ing the fight. After some time our brigade was marched
off to the left centre, fell into line, and charged into a valley
full of rebels, who were sheltered by a dense growth of
underbrush. As we advanced with fixed bayonets and
began to fire, they yelled out from the trees, * Do not fire
on your own men.' We ceased to fire and the *rebs' who
had so deceived us gave us Hail Columbia, and dropped
some of our best men. Those fellows were the famous
Louisiana Tigers ; but we rushed at them with fixed bayo-
nets, drove them out of the brush, and plunged our fire
into them as they ran. This was our first fight — my first
— and a long curiosity was satisfied ; men fell dead all
around me ; a sergeant who stood behind me in line was
killed ; and heaps were wounded in the charge ; I was
pleasantly, though perhaps dangerously, situated ; I did
not allow a man to get ahead of me."

The following day was that of Pickett's charge. In
a confidential letter to his mother Armstrong thus de-
scribed it : "We were ordered to charge the rebel skir-
mishers ; it was a foolish order, a fatal one. I led that
charge if any did, jumping on my feet and waving my
sword for the men to follow. . . . The bullets flew like
hail over my head, and it was not safe lying down. . . .
Finally the rebels came out of the woods in three long lines
several hundred yards apart, with glittering bayonets

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

and battle-flags flying. It was grand to see those lines
going up, and I trembled for our cause. I felt no fear,
though I never forgot that at any moment I might fall.
The responsibility and the high duty assigned to me sus-
tained me, and it was wonderful that my own men did
not shoot me, they were so excited. Well, we turned the
rebel flank, and no wonder, for we did terrible execution.
The first line broke and ran ; the second came on and also
broke and scattered, though they were brave as lions, and
their dead lay close up to their line, and one of their color-
bearers fell over one of our field-pieces. . . . Keep this
letter in the family," he adds in a postscript, "it is too
egotistical to show." *

The Battle of Gettysburg, which had saved the North
from invasion, had not less definitely saved Captain Arm-
strong from the self-distrust and nervous tension which
had been developed by inactivity. He had found himself,
and still more conspicuously, he had been discovered by
his men. Writing again in confidence to his mother, he
said of his men: "At first for months they hated me;
... it was because I was strict and paid no respect to
their unmilitary and unmanly humors. But finally, es-
pecially after Gettysburg, all this changed, . . . and now
I have the utmost confidence of almost every man in the
regiment. ... I know it and I love them. They have
said they would * go to the devil ' for me." His fearlessness
in the face of death, his daring leadership in attack, and
the judicious disposition of his men in battle, not only

• Ludlow Mss., p. 351.
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marked him for promotion, but gave him confidence in
those abrupt decisions and daring ventures which marked
his later Hfe. The regimental history of the One Hun-
dred and Twenty-Fifth New York, in its account of
Pickett's repulse, remarked: "Distinct record should go
into general history of Captain Armstrong's brave and
skilful action at that important point of battle. ... Of
the five officers who served with Captain Armstrong in
his brave action, he was the only survivor."

The fortune of war contributed to Armstrong's advance-
ment. His Colonel was killed at Gettysburg, and his
Lieutenant Colonel was summoned to Washington by the
illness of his wife. Armstrong was therefore made Major,
his commission to date from July 2d, and was left in
command of the regiment. On July 27 he was detailed
for recruiting service, and was again condemned to in-
action and to an irksome task. Again, however, he was
led by an unwelcomed way to an unsought end. The
comparative leisure of these months in the North, and
the discussions which he heard on every side concerning
the Emancipation Proclamation turned his thoughts
with increasing seriousness to the cause of the Negro.
As at the beginning of the war itself, so here again his
sympathies were not quickly roused. Early experience
of a dependent and indolent people in the mid-Pacific
inclined him to a tolerant view of white domination, and
to a limited confidence in the capacity of a tropical race
for self-development. Writing to Archibald Hopkins
in December 1862, he said : "I am a sort of Abolitionist,

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

but I have not learned to love the Negro. I believe in
universal freedom ; I believe the whole world cannot
buy a single soul. The Almighty has set, or rather limited,
the price of one man, and until worlds can be paid for a
single soul, I do not believe in selling or buying them.
So I go in for freeing them, more on account of their
souls than their bodies." In a letter to his mother
January 2, 1863, while the Emancipation Proclamation
was ringing in his ears, he reached a somewhat more
sanguine view. "The slaves are free, and as long as the
war is to sustain the President's Proclamation, I am in for
it. If his Proclamation shall be cancelled in any way,
I think I shall resign." Finally, writing from New York
to Hopkins in September 1863, he had reached a point
where he was able to say: **I hope that until every
slave can call himself his own, and his wife and chil-
dren his own, the sword will not cease from among us,
and I care not how many the evils that attend it ; it
will all be just."

That a nature so precipitate and impetuous should
have approached the mission of its later life with so
gradual a change of heart is a most impressive evidence
of an interior tranquillity of mind. Just as Arm-
strong had at first regarded the war itself as not in-
volving a Hawaiian, and by sober reflection was led on
to passionate loyalty and fearless service, so now his
devotion to the colored troops was not that of a fanatic,
but the slowly reasoned conclusion of his observation of
events and the logical outcome of his faith in Hberty.
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The work to which his later life was dedicated was not
based on emotional sympathies, nor on the traditions of
Abolitionism, but on a maturing view of life and duty.
With high satisfaction he returned to his regiment in
October 1863, but the problem of utilizing Negroes as
soldiers repeatedly recurred to his mind, and roused
the missionary impulses in his blood. The call which
soon came to him was the more appealing because it
involved peculiar risks. Officers of Negro troops were,
it had been announced by Confederate leaders, to be dealt
with, if captured, as "inciting servile insurrection."
That was enough to determine Armstrong's action. He
applied for a command in a black regiment, "passed a
rigid examination, for only men of special fitness were
deemed qualified to lead in a service demanding not only
intelligence, skill, and patience, but unusual daring,"*
and in November was appointed Lieutenant Colonel of the
Ninth regiment of United States Colored Troops, joining
his new command in Maryland. At last, without con-
sciousness of its significance, and obeying his conscience
rather than his inclination, the young soldier stood face
to face with the purpose of his life.

The first impression made on him by his new recruits
in their camp life was of the dramatic quality which dis-
tinguished them from white soldiers. Playfulness, pathos,
quick emotion, and appealing music met him on every
hand. The contrast with the more prosaic Northern
soldiers excited his sense of the picturesque. A private

* Ludlow Mss., p. 347.

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soldier dies, and Armstrong writes of the funeral : "The
same service that is read at the funeral of sovereigns was
read at the grave of the slave-soldier, . . . the humblest
man in the army, . . . who, had it not been for the free-
dom we gave him, might have been beaten to death and
tumbled into a pit." His men need recreation, and ath-
letic sports are planned for them, and an "ox roasted whole
for the regiment." He listens to them singing round the
camp fire, and for the first time feels the poignancy of the
Negro "Spirituals." "Much of it," he writes, "was rude,
uncouth music, and the officers complained of it. One
night I was drawn out of my tent by a wonderful chorus.
The men had struck up an old church hymn : *They look
like men of war ; all arm'd and dress'd in uniform, they
look like men of war.' It fitted the scene, and their
hearty singing of it sent through me a sensation I shall
never forget. It became their battle-hymn. These
were the dramatics of war." * Such was the first hearing
of that thrilling lyric, in which militarism was translated
into piety, and which throughout the history of Hampton
Institute has been treasured as the Founder's favorite
hymn.

Thus, by successive experiences of sympathy and
fellowship his heart was won to a new loyalty, and the
perilous venture of an officer of Negro troops became to
him a high and happy privilege. In March 1864 he
sailed with 1300 colored soldiers for Hilton Head in

* Edith Armstrong Talbot, " Samuel Chapman Armstrong, A Biographical
Study," 1904, pp. 106 flF.

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South Carolina, and writing on shipboard to his mother
makes private confession of his newly attained faith in the
Negro race. "Since entering this branch of the service,
I have felt the high duty and sacredness of my position.
It is no sacrifice for me to be here ; it is rather a glorious
opportunity, and I would be nowhere else if I could, and
nothing else than an officer of colored troops if I could.
. . . Do not let such things as this," he adds, "be read
or told out of the family." That was a long way to
come in fifteen months, since the same young man had
written: "I have not learned to love the Negro."

The expedition to South Carolina was for defensive
rather than offensive purposes, and Armstrong's regiment
was detained there for four months without serious fight-
ing. "I am in command of a picket line," he writes, "not
over a mile from the enemy. . . . But it is very probable
that there will be no fighting here. . . . Just in front of
my camp two causeways run out to meet, and . . . there
are a rebel and a Union picket post on either end and the
men frequently talk to each other. . . . This chagrins
me terribly — to feel what glorious things the Northern
Army is doing and to think of our inactivity. ... I
would have sacrificed rank, pay, and everything for a
musket and a place in the line of the Army of the
Potomac. ... I would rather grind a hand-organ for
the edification of the mule-teams of the Army of the
Potomac, thai receive a dress parade of a regiment down
here."

His longing for action was satisfied in August 1864,

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

when his command was "suddenly ordered to Virginia
as part of a Colored Brigade, and posted on the defense
line of earthworks on the James River, in full view of the
rebels and their works, which were some 600 yards dis-
tant." Within a week he could write to his mother:
"I have been in three small fights, lost about icx) men,
killed and wounded, out of my regiment. . . . We are
bound for glory with a fair wind. . . . There is nothing
but working and fighting ahead." He felt to the full the
passion of battle and this is his report to his mother of a
futile charge: "Next day there was a bloody assault
on the enemy's works, which were captured and my Reg't
was sent to occupy a portion of them. I went in under
a heavy front and flank-fire — got into position in the rifle
pits, and for fifteen minutes or more we had it hot and
heavy. My men fell fast but never flinched — they fired
coolly and won great praise. I walked along the line
3 or 4 times and as the work was hardly breast-high was
much exposed. I passed many killed along my path and
the wounded went in numbers to the rear. Finally,
however, the rebs flanked us on the left and forced us out.
We retired in good order and finally got together as tired
as we could well be, as the timber near the rebel works was
all slashed (cut down to impede marching) and we had
marched fast a mile to fight — in fact we were worn out,
I was wholly exhausted from my efforts at the rifle pit
and could hardly stand. But orders came and off" we
went to retake the rifle pits. My worn-out regiment and
half another were ordered to do what a whole white Brigade
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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

had done before, and to take works which twice their
number had just failed to hold against the enemy. We
were to attack 5 times our number, and that too, behind
strong works protected by timber felled in front. It
was madness in our General — it was death to us — sure
death — total annihilation. The order was given — 'For-
ward.' Off we went, cheerfully, to our doom. I never
felt more calm and ready for anything — but just as we
had advanced a few yards, another General came up
and ordered us to halt and not attack. He saved us.
He was Gen. Terry."

The regiment lay before Petersburg from the end of
August until October, with varied experiences of skir-
mishing raids and picketing. "Our arrangement is
not to fire at night, but to kill all we can during the
day. (This has been agreed to by the rebs.). . . The
rebels have a funny way of having prayer-meetings
in their trenches, and praying so loud that we can
hear them." On one occasion he foregathered with
Confederate officers under a flag of truce. "I forgot in
my last to tell you," he writes, "about the flag of truce
in our Campaign at Deep Bottom, over the James River
— it was to bury our dead, and, being in command of our
picket line that day, I was present. We met the rebels
half way between the lines; I saw thousands of them
swarming their works and scored came to meet us, bring-
ing on stretchers the ghastly, horribly mutilated dead
whom we had lost in the charge of the day previous.
The sight — and smell — would have made you wild, but

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

we are used to it, I had no particular business and so I
talked with the rebel officers and found myself conversing
with Colonel Little, of the Eleventh Georgia Reg't, and
with the rebel Gen. Gary. They were very gentlemanly
and we had a delightful chat, or rather argument, of two
hours ; the Colonel being very social and jovial, and the
General trying hard to convince me that slavery is Divine
and that I was wrong. I frankly told him that I was a
foreigner, a Sandwich Islander, who had no local sym-
pathies, but, seeing the great issue to be that of freedom
or slavery for 4,000,000 souls, had given myself to the war
cheerfully and counted no sacrifice too great for the cause.
I told them I commanded a Colored Regiment, and all
this, instead of disgusting them seemed to win their
respect — rather unusual, since officers of Negro troops
are commonly despised in the. South. The General said
he thought it more reasonable to fight as I was doing for
a principle than to fight merely to restore a Union which
was only a compact, and to which they were not morally
bound when they considered the other side had violated
the agreement. The truth is, I partially agreed with him.
The Union is to me little or nothing ; I see no great prin-
ciple necessarily involved in it. I see only the 4,000,000
slaves, and for and with them I fight. The rebs told me
they buried a good many of our colored men, for they
were the very men we had fought the day before."

In October 1864 the strain of this continuous service in
the trenches, and "the extreme vigilance we are obliged to
keep night and day," had so undermined his strength that
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he was ordered to the Chesapeake Hospital with "a
slow intermittent fever, well-nigh exhausted"; and there
he found himself on almost the precise spot where his
school was later to stand. Meantime, while he chafed
in convalescence, his men were severely tested by a futile
charge on one of the defences of Richmond, and were
forced to retreat, "cursing," as Armstrong writes to his
brother, "the General who managed them so badly,
and thanking God that Colonel Armstrong was not there,
for if he had been there they would all have been in Hell
or Richmond. They don't expect to get the order to
retreat from me."

During this invalidism he was promoted to be Colonel of
the Eighth Regiment of United States Colored Troops, *' a
fine regiment," he says, "that has lost over three hundred
men in action since February last." He joined this new
command in November. "I can sit at my tent door and
see their [the enemy's] long line of earthworks with im-
mensely strong forts thrown in every quarter of a mile;
. . . but both sides seem to have tacitly agreed not to
fire, and so we live on, perfectly at ease and always ready.
The pickets stand watching each other, some 300 yards
apart — often much less." Thus the conflict dragged
itself through its last winter, with its trench warfare
anticipating the strategy of the World War which was
later to come, but with a decency and almost a frater-
nalism of procedure which makes the unmitigated ruth-
lessness of the twentieth century appear all the more
barbarous. What was then described as a "cruel war"

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seems now in comparison almost merciful. Both sides
habitually fought like gentlemen.

Spring came, and Armstrong wrote : "I do not see
how the rebels can hold out much longer"; and on
April 9 he writes : " Dear Mother, God is great ! To-
day by His help, the great Confederate General and
his army have surrendered unconditionally. I have
just been viewing from an eminence the captive
host, the artillery and wagon trains. Yesterday General
Custer took all the supplies sent from Lynchburg to
Lee's army; our army closed in around the rebels,
and this morning they found themselves surrounded
and without provisions. Early we advanced and our
skirmish lines met those of the enemy. Mine drove not
only the rebel skirmishers, but also their line of battle;
we expected a fight ; I never felt more like it, I mounted
my noble stallion and was ready to lead on at the word —
a few bullets whistled around, a few shells passed over,
the rebs gave way — all was quiet, there was a rumor of
surrender — ^we waited — other rumors came, and finally
it was certain that the cruel war was over. The first
inkling I had of it was the continuous cheering of troops
on our right — soon staff officers galloped up with the
news that Lee was making terms of surrender — the
firing ceased ; it was impossible to realize that the terrible
army of Lee was in existence no longer; the truth was
stunning. As for myself, I felt a sadness — a feeling that
the colored troops had not done enough, been sufficiently
proved. We just missed a splendid chance of taking
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a rebel battery an hour before Sheridan's cavalry came
tumbling back — the rebs were driving them, and we were
put in to arrest their advance, which we easily did, for
they no sooner saw us than they halted and retired before
our skirmishers. This delay cost us our chance. In fact,
we lay right across the only road Lee could take to get
away. He knew Grant's army was, the day before,
35 miles away, and supposed he could escape easily, but
our forced march of 32 miles that day threw an immense
force around him and he was forced to capitulate. Lee
was conquered by marching, and his advancing column
was headed off by the Fifth Army Corps, and by black
troops. On both sides there were prolonged and ringing
cheers ; especially on ours ; yet I heard the rebels yelling,
for they are going home. The rebel bands have been
playing the National airs of both sides. I think both
sides will meet on the best terms — all are tired of fighting
— are fought out. I am told that some I5,(X)0 or 20,000
rebels have thus surrendered — we shall get particulars
hereafter. I tell you we have had hard work."

By the strange fortune of war, on April 24, 1865, weeks
after hostilities ceased, Armstrong's horse fell on him,
broke the bone of his right forearm, and so disabled him
that his handwriting was for the rest of his life trans-
formed into a large, and often illegible, script. On
about the same date, and without solicitation on his
part, he was appointed a Brevet-Brigadier-General of
Volunteers.

His army life did not, however, immediately end.

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Disturbances in Mexico appeared to demand the presence
of American troops on the frontier, and a force which in-
cluded the Eighth Colored Regiment was despatched by
sea to Mobile, and thence to the settlement of Brazos
Santiago, near the mouth of the Rio Grande. "We
expect," Armstrong wrote, "to start for Texas to-morrow
morning — what is to be our service I have no idea.'*
Arriving at the harborless landing-place he found his
experience as an Islander serving him well. "The sea
running high," he records, "it was very difficult to get
ashore ; however, I went ashore, selected a camp ground,
and then took my position on a pile of lumber to watch
my regiment come ashore; it having been transferred
to a large schooner in order to get over the bar, which is
very shallow and across which the surf breaks. Indeed
this is an ugly coast and is strewn with wrecks ; there is
a sand bar and a line of breakers for hundreds of miles
along this shore. The surf was running high ; and lying
well over, under a stiff breeze, the vessel stood in for the
bar. I had heard it stated that she drew too much water
to pass the bar, and knew that the best pilot in port re-
fused to bring her in. The schooner came tearing in,
but all at once she stopped, her sails shivered, and there
she lay among the breakers, with my Reg't on board, and
darkness just coming on. I never in my life was more
distressed — or helpless. Got a boat's crew to pull me
out towards the wreck, but it was impossible to reach her
— she was fairly crowded with men, and I expected to
lose half at least of them. She drifted and thumped
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along, however, towards the remains of an old steamer,
the 'Nassau,' formerly wrecked in Banks's expedition,
and whose engine was partly out of water ; the greatest
danger was that the schooner would drift against this
wreck and break to pieces.

"After great efforts I got a boat and crew to pull
out to the wreck — this was at ii o'clock at night;
the boatmen were Italian sailors from the Rio Grande
and by great skill got me over the breakers to the
schooner, which had then drifted close to the steamer
wreck and nearer shore. I found that there was little
probability of the ship's moving before morning, and
that no immediate danger was apprehended on board
as the vessel was new and staunch ; so I passed a line
ashore — this was on Padre Island — crossed to Brazos,
procured a supply of boats and cordage and about lOO
men — then went to the point nearest the wreck, lay down
and waited for daylight. At early dawn, we fastened
with great difficulty a large hawser from the ship to the
shore and slipped a good-sized boat along this, backwards
and forwards from the schooner to the shore — filled
with men. The surf was high, but owing to the skill of
my Italians, she did not swamp. The vessel was about
250 yards from shore.

" As we were slowly getting the men off, I found a fine
metallic life-boat which had drifted ashore, perfectly
sound. I manned it with my own officers and men,
took the steering oar myself, and put out to the schooner
and helped unload her; it was most exciting and difficult,

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

as my right arm is nearly useless for hard work. The
rollers would come in and pick up my boat and carry
it like a shot for a few rods, and as it was so short and
light, it was difficult to keep it in the right position. I
wonder I did not break my arm or get stunned or swamped,
for the oar would sometimes be snapped out of my hand
and the boat would slew round, and I could barely fix
her for the next wave. The surf kept increasing and my
little boat would sometimes stand up almost, or be lost
in spray, but nothing serious happened till the schooner
broke away and drifted up so close that the men jumped
off. The discipline of the men never broke, but every
man stood at his post till called for ; those on shore were
organized into parties for seizing the boats as the waves
swept them in, generally half full of water — helped the
men out, bailed out the boats and started us off again
for the ship; others were boiling coffee for the wet and
drenched troops — the Chaplain dealt out whiskey. All
those working were stripped to the waist and barefoot —
officers and men pulled oars side by side — it was exciting.
At last, after I had got about 400 men off in boats, the
schooner drifted close in and the troops jumped off,
throwing their knapsacks overboard and jumping after
them. I only lost about ten guns and twenty knapsacks
all told, and no lives."

They had landed on "a long, low, island — entirely
destitute of verdure — no trees, nor grass, nor rocks,
nor any living thing. . . . There is no wood to be
had — no water in the region. . . . Some of my Reg't
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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

walked to the Rio Grande, nine miles off, loaded with
canteens and dragging a barrel for water." Ill-con-
sidered and hasty plans for camping on the Mexican
border were, it would appear, not reserved for a later
generation to undertake. In spite of the lessons which it
would seem the conduct of the Civil War might have
taught, Armstrong's expedition had been shipped to the
extreme South late in June, to a port where disembarka-
tion was at the risk of life, where supplies were inacces-
sible, and strategic action out of the question. "When
the Lord pronounced Creation 'very good,'" wrote Arm-
strong, "this place must have been under a cloud where
it could not be seen. . . . We are encamped on the
bottom of the sea — a low, flat, sandy plain which, when
the tide is flood and the northers blow, is covered with
water four feet deep, where sharks make their hunting
ground."

Finally, in August, the force was transferred to
Ringgold Barracks, i8o miles up the Rio Grande, "a
dull place, but very healthy," opposite the Mexican vil-
lage of Camargo, and there he remained on terms of
friendly intimacy with the Mexican officers across the
river until, in October 1865, he and his men were sent
North and discharged. It was a trying anti-climax for
Armstrong's experience of soldiering. The intense ani-
mation of trench-fighting, and the thrilling scenes of
Appomattox, had been succeeded by the dreariness of a
torrid, sandy shore, and the inactivity of barrack life ;
and the vigorous young man of twenty-six longed to be

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

free. Yet he was able to recall these days in Texas as on
the whole singularly "varied . . . and valuable." **I will
tell you," he writes to his mother, "something which may
please you. . . . The Board appointed for the Twenty-
Fifth Army Corps placed me first on the list of Colonels
and Regimental officers in the Corps — a most extraordi-
nary and unexpected honor. . . I go out of the service
one of the most fortunate of those who entered it."

One reminiscence, however, often recalled by him later,
gave to this fruitless prolongation of army service a per-
manent place in Armstrong's spiritual history. On the
voyage to Mobile, surrounded by his black soldiers,
"the western sky draped in the most gorgeous cloud
tapestry — the ship gliding swiftly through a glassy sea
— a brass band discoursed rich music, and it was a scene
of life and pleasure on board. The nights were warm
and many of us slept on deck, subject, however, to the
inconvenience of being roused very early when the ship
was washed down." It was here, while borne "between
the twin glories of sky and Gulf, through the splendor
of sunset and the grandeur of the southern night, his
thoughts now wandering to his Island home, now called
back to his black troops on the deck below, now roving
through the excitements and successes of the heroic past
and now turning towards the uncertain future," * that
his thoughts recurred to the home of his boyhood and
to the Manual Labor School at Hilo (The New Moon),
the point on the Island of Hawaii at which visitors dis-

* Ludlow Mss., p. 441.
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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

embark to visit the astonishing spectacle of the volcano
Kilauea. The school is still in operation, training boys
of a dark-skinned race, who are temperamentally dis-
inclined to industry and unskilled in manual dexterity,
in the elements of those mechanic arts through which
alone they can adjust themselves to a modern world.

Dreaming thus of his past, there came to Armstrong
his new vision — ^the thought of a similar school which
might be adapted to the needs of another race, with some-
thing of the same defects of disposition and confronted by
the same demands of modern life. The whole plan of
such an enterprise lifted itself before him as if in the
clouds of sunset, and the throng of Negro soldiers lying
on the deck beneath seemed to rise and meet their new
redemption. It was one of those creative moments
which have often determined destiny, like the cross in
the sky which was a sign to Constantine ; like the voice,
" Rise, and go into Damascus," which changed the history
of the world through the Apostle Paul. "Your young
men," said the Prophet Joel, "shall see visions," not that
their sanity may be disturbed, or that visions shall sup-
plant sagacious and prudent plans, but that the door of
the future may be opened and the dream of life given color
and form. Armstrong was not a mystic enthusiast,
but, on the contrary, singularly unclouded in judgment;
a soldier, accustomed to disciplinary and administrative
tasks; yet in this quiet moment of exaltation his future
stood before him in completeness, and the fulfilment of his
hope was but an act of obedience to this heavenly vision.

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

Here, then, the story of Armstrong's life meets the
story which has been briefly traced, of the Negro after
the war. The young Brevet-Brigadier-General of Colored
Troops found himself, like so many discharged officers,
set adrift in a world which seemed to have no place for
him. For three years he had been a master of men, say-
ing— like the Roman captain in the Gospel — to one man :
Go, and to another : Come, and to his servant : Do this.
Now he was suddenly reduced, not only to the ranks of
industry, but to the ranks of the unemployed. He had
no experience or influence which could secure him a foot-
hold in business life. The tradition in which he had been
trained directed his mind to the ministry, but his soldier-
ing had confirmed a temperamental inclination to tasks
of organization and practical leadership. "Action, and
not preaching," he writes to his mother, "is plainly my
sphere, though a little talking is occasionally allowable."

In his later life he was called to speak much about reli-
gion, but he was never a preacher of finished sermons.
His talk was like the action of a rapid-fire gun — a series
of quick and penetrating aphorisms, each one of which
might carry a message of life or death. It was evident
that he must administer or originate plans of action, and
apply his military instincts to works of peace. It seemed
to him not unnatural that the National Government
which he had served as a soldier might use him as a public
servant, and he went to Washington intending to apply
for a position. But the spectacle of office-seekers waiting
to press their claims was so repulsive to him that he with-
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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

drew. Finally it occurred to him that the newly estab-
lished Freedmen's Bureau might open the way to that
service of the Negro of which he had dreamed, and he
presented himself to General Howard, who said of the
interview: "Though already a general. General Arm-
strong seemed to me very young. His quick motions and
nervous energy were apparent then. He spoke rapidly
and wanted matters decided, if possible, on the spot." *
At the moment no place as agent was vacant, but a few
days later the fifth sub-district of Virginia, covering ten
counties, with headquarters at Hampton, was offered to
him, and he became responsible for 10,000 Negroes, whose
influx had made that region a vast camp of dependent
"contrabands." "Colored squatters," he says, "by
thousands come into my district," f and into the un-
organized and bewildering task confronting him Arm-
strong threw himself as into a new war. "My post,"
he writes in March 1866, "is the hardest in the State. . . .
Howard told me it was the most delicate point in his
Bureau and himself assigned me to it. . . . There are
7000 Negroes in a radius of three miles from my office,
and some 35,000 in my district. . . . We issue 18,000
rations a day to those who would die of starvation if it
were not for this." He promptly appealed to the
philanthropic women of the North to receive into their
households some of these dependents who might be qual-
ified for domestic service, and was able to report to the
Commissioner that nearly one thousand refugees had

* Talbot, op. cit.y p. 136. f Ludlow Mss., p. 523.

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

been placed with families in Massachusetts. He pro-
moted the work of the American Missionary Association,
which had already entered on this field of service, and co-
operated with missionaries and teachers of other North-
ern Boards.

Yet it soon became evident that the methods of the
Freedmen's Bureau were essentially temporary, a relief of
that immediate suffering which was the legacy of the war,
rather than an establishing of the Negro race in self-
respect and self-support. More and rnore his thoughts
turned to education as the path to racial progress, and one
day, as he rode through "Wood Farm," the spot where
Hampton Institute later stood, looking, as he says, "at
the swarming camps of the contrabands," he recalled his
vision of the way out of helplessness for these dependent
lives, and felt the added conviction that he was looking on
the very spot where that way must be opened toward
self-help and racial hope. In his Report to the Bureau
in June 1866, this conviction found expression. "The
education of the Freedmen," he writes, "is the great work
of the day. It is their only hope, the only power that
can lift them as a people. . . . The South will do noth-
ing for the education of the Negroes, the North cannot
very long conduct it ; they must do it for themselves.
From such a self-rehant, self-supporting course the hap-
piest results might be anticipated."

Thus, although he gave himself for two years with
loyal enthusiasm to the task of alleviating temporary
conditions, he recognized it as paUiative only; and
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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

though he wrote with entire sincerity: "I beheve the
continuance of the Bureau desirable," he foresaw that
it was Httle more than a war-measure and must soon
be discontinued. In July 1867 he made a formal appli-
cation to the American Missionary Association, the
strongest organization sustaining teachers in the district,
that this society should establish a school on the Wood
Farm, with the anticipation that the Freedmen's
Bureau might erect its buildings. The Secretary of the
society. Dr. Whipple, inspected and approved the site,
on which already stood a Mansion and a "millhouse."
General Howard appropriated ^2000 from his Construc-
tion Fund. It did not apparently occur to Armstrong
that he was likely to be appointed Principal of the school.
"My future," he writes in the same letter which describes
the proposed school, "is uncertain. . . . Do not give
out that I will run for Congress, for the chance is very
slim. E. B. Parsons, '59 or '60 at Williams, has been
secured by the American Missionary Association to run
the machine [the school]." Finally, on October 10, 1867,
he writes to his friend Archibald Hopkins, "I have been
asked to run the Normal School here, and have consented
to take it in addition to present duty, if that will suit.
I will do nothing else. Parsons backed out."

Such was the coming of Armstrong to Hampton.
Across the great spaces of ocean and continent, and the
still greater changes of conviction and desire, he had been
led to a mission which, even when it confronted him,
seemed a by-product of his activity, and to be accepted

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

"in addition to present duty." From a boy's allegiance
to his native land to a man's allegiance to his adopted
country ; from indifference toward the Negro race to the
giving of his life for their sakes; from the exhilaration
of the Berkshire Hills to the sandy shore of the Gulf of
Mexico ; from the discipline of the trenches to the still
sterner discipline of an undetermined career, — his vigor-
ous, unstained, and responsive nature had been driven
by influences which seemed fortuitous and even unwel-
come, but which were all the time guiding him to a single
end. It was like that miracle of nature, the migration of
the birds, which bears the frail creatures of the sky from
their winter refuge in the bayous of Florida to the glades
of New England, where Nature waits for their arrival to
be assured that summer is near. So the migratory
spirit of Armstrong, following an instinct which was more
infallible than any scheme of life could be, brought him
at last to the spot where the summer of his career was
soon to bloom.

CHAPTER FOUR

THE BEGINNINGS OF HAMPTON (1868-1872)

THE "Negro College," thus undertaken by the American
Missionary Association and accepted by General Arm-
strong as a temporary charge, did not at first appear to
compel his retirement from the Freedmen's Bureau,
but the very energy with which he applied himself to
the new undertaking soon involved consequences from
which he could not escape. In 1867 the Association
proposed to buy 40 acres near the town of Hampton,
including a building occupied before the war by the Ches-
apeake Female Seminary, on land where now stands
the National Soldiers' Home. Armstrong opposed this
purchase, arguing that the Seminary building had been
utilized as a military hospital and might be a source of
contagion. A Committee of Inquiry, including in its
membership the distinguished names of President Hopkins
and General Garfield, made a journey to the spot to dis-
cuss the question. The Committee leaned to the plan of
using the existing building, and said : "That is the thing
to do, to buy the Seminary building" ; but as Dr. Strieby,
one of the Secretaries of the Association, has recorded :
"At last President Hopkins took me aside, and said : 'We
had better let this young man have his way,' and we did."

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

Further aid soon began to flow in from unexpected
sources. A visitor from Pittsburg, Hon. Josiah King,
who was executor of an estate bequeathed for the
benefit of the colored race, was taken in hand by Arm-
strong, shown the lay of the land from the top of a
neighboring building, and surrendered to the magnetism
of the young enthusiast, contributing $10,000 toward
the purchase of the "Wood Farm," of 160 acres, on
which stood a mansion [still the Principal's House], a
flour-mill [later converted into Griggs Hall],.' and
about forty hospital-barracks which provided build-
ing material. The American Missionary Association
added the necessary balance of $9000 to complete this
purchase, the Freedmen's Bureau appropriated a further
grant of $13,000 for buildings, and a Northern woman,
Mrs. Stephen Griggs of New York, who had never visited
the school, was moved to make, through the American
Missionary Association, a subscription of $10,000 as a
memorial of her husband. The financial foundation of
the scheme had thus become more firmly established than
even Armstrong had imagined practicable, and it soon
became evident that he must devote his entire energy
to the superintendence of the school. "However it
[the Freedmen's Bureau] goes," he writes in June 1868,
"I am too firmly anchored here to be moved or greatly
disappointed by its failure. The chances are that my
life-work is here, and I shall not regret it." *

Even a call received at this time to the presidency of

* Talbot, op. cit., p. 169.
96

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

Howard University did not divert him from the more dif-
ficult and unrequited service of the school as yet only on
paper at Hampton. *' I was desired," he writes in January
1868, "and very urgently and persistently asked to take
hold of this institution [Howard University]. T met
the trustees twice, looked over the whole ground care-
fully, and refused, for two reasons. First, I was in
honor bound to the American Missionary Association.
Secondly, I considered that my own enterprise was the
sounder thing. It had better possibilities, was more
central with reference to freedmen, and had important
advantages. Howard is one of the noblest, bravest,
kindest, gentlest of men, a true Christian, wholly unself-
ish. He has used me remarkably well. . . . After re-
fusing General Howard's offer, I took care to urge my own
scheme. . . . We are ahead and alone. The ground is
new. The enterprise is as full of bad possibilities as of
good ones ; most embarrassing conditions will occur
from time to time; all is experiment, but all is hopeful."
Meantime, in the midst of these arduous and engross-
ing plans, Armstrong's ardent and susceptible nature
found its satisfaction in love, and he wrote to his sister
in January 1868 : "I met a charming young woman there
[in Stockbridge, Mass.], and you will hear more later";
and again to his mother : "I am in love, of a truth ; have
seemed to meet as sweet a fate as ever befell a man.
The difficulties of distance are great. She lives in a
lovely village not far from Great Barrington. There is
no engagement — there may never be — whether I win

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

or lose remains to be seen. This is a family secret, of
course," "When I look at her," he writes to his friend
Hopkins, "I say, 'Angel'; when I look at myself, I say,
*Ass'!"

Armstrong was, however, not in the habit of losing,
and soon won the heart of his "sweet fate," Miss
Emma Dean Walker of Stockbridge, Mass, He wrote
to his mother in August 1868 of their engagement; and
the pair were married at Stockbridge in October 1869.
Armstrong at once brought his young bride to the old
Mansion House on the Wood Farm, where a devoted
union of nine short years, blessed with two children, but
saddened by Mrs. Armstrong's failing health, began.
"When the young Principal," records Miss Ludlow,
"brought his young bride to share his interests and
lighten his burdens, the only way in which rooms could
be provided for the newly married pair was by boarding-
in one of the broad piazzas, which gave two small rooms
on each story, rooms always occupied thereafter by the
General and his family." Their few years of married
life were broken by absences of the husband on his jour-
neys to the North and South and West ; but his intimate
letters reveal the tenderest relationship of mutual affec-
tion. He unveils his own moods of self-distrust and
leans on his frail wife for strength. "My cup has been
richly filled," he writes; "the only bitterness has been
added by my own wilful folly. You have come to me
with such sacred sweetness and happiness as the world
has not much of. . . . You are a daily strength and com-
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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

fort, and I depend more and more upon you. . . . There
are large blessings given to us and a power given to you
to create peace and comfort and rest and make people
happy that few possess." So the strong man finds
himself sustained by the spiritual tranquillity of his in-
vaHd wife, as though she said: "My grace is sufficient
for thee," and he answered: "My strength is made
perfect in weakness."

What, then, were the immediate problems which con-
fronted Armstrong in this bold venture of a " Negro
College " ? The first was to frame a definite conception
of the plan and purpose of the school, and this from the
beginning lay with distinctness before Armstrong's
mind. "The thing to be done was clear," he said: "to
train selected Negro youths who should go out and teach
and lead their people, first by example, by getting land
and homes ; to give them not a dollar that they could
earn for themselves; to teach respect for labor, to re-
place stupid drudgery with skilled hands, and in this way
to build up an industrial system for the sake, not only
of self-support and intelligent labor, but also for the
sake of character." With this declared intention the
school was opened on April i, 1868, converting the hos-
pital barracks into temporary dormitories, employing
one teacher and one matron, and enrolling fifteen stu-
dents.

In June 1870 it was incorporated under the laws of
Virginia with the title, which seemed at the time am-
bitious, of "The Hampton Normal and Agricultural

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

Institute, for the instruction of youth in the various
common-school, academic and collegiate branches, the
best methods of teaching the same, and the best mode
of practical industry in its application to agriculture and
the mechanic arts ; and for the carrying out of these
purposes, the said Trustees may establish any depart-
ments or schools in the said institution." The original
staff of teachers was in the main recruited from the
missionaries of the American Missionary Association, who
served for the modest stipend of $15 a month. It was
not until June 1870 that this Association surrendered its
executive control, and an independent Board of Trus-
tees was created, without sectarian limitation or other
condition than that "the teaching should be forever evan-
gelical." The good-will of the Association was, however,
perpetuated by membership of some of its officers in the
first Board of Trustees, a relationship of confidence and
intimacy which has continued for nearly a half-century.

The second problem confronting the enterprise was
to find competent colleagues for the administration and
instruction of the school. The devoted missionaries
who were the first allies, while cordially undertaking
their new responsibilities, could not be regarded as pri-
marily or permanently enlisted in the service of the
school; and its welfare could not be insured without
discovering assistants who felt themselves specifically
called to the new undertaking. From very varied sources,
and from the most unexpected quarters, Armstrong's
irrepressible enthusiasm summoned these lieutenants
100

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

to his new campaign ; and the names of those early pio-
neers who ventured with him into the first years of the
school are enshrined among the precious memories of
Hampton.

Early in 1870 the correspondence of the school began
to bear the following letter-head, which indicates that
an organic existence had already begun, and a skeleton
regiment of workers was already enrolled.

HAMPTON NORMAL and AGRICULTURAL IN-
STITUTE

Incorporated by Special Act of the General Assembly
of Virginia. Opened April 1868

S. C. Armstrong, Principal Miss R. T. Bacon, Asst.

Principal

Albert Howe, Farm Manager Miss Jane Stuart Wool-

sey, Manag., Girls' In-
dustrial Dept.

It was a singular collocation of names which thus an-
nounced to the public the character of the new school —
a General fresh from the battle-fields of Virginia; a
sturdy New England farmer, tireless, versatile, and
upright; and two young women from among the elect
of New Haven and New York.

Albert Howe was a rugged, unassuming Yankee, who
had enlisted in 1861 in the Northern army, had fought
in many battles and been taken prisoner at Fort Donel-
son, and finally, in broken health, had entered the service

lOI

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

of the Freedmen's Bureau at Fortress Monroe. At the
end of the war he began "keeping store" at Hampton.
On Armstrong's arrival he entered Howe's store and asked
him where the Freedmen's Bureau was to be found. "I
sold him a Scotch cap," recalls the storekeeper, "before he
had been there two minutes." Then began a lifelong
intimacy of mutual affection. Armstrong boarded for a
time with Howe and his wife, sleeping in a room of the
hospital ward near by. "One evening," reports Howe
in his Reminiscences, "the General came over while I
was at supper, and said, *Howe, I have come after you;
the American Missionary Association sent down two
carpenters to put up some cheap wooden buildings, but
they tore down three of the long wards and the lumber
was hauled and scattered all over the lawn. Then they
got disgusted with the country and left.' I told him I
had just bought an interest in the store and could not
go. Finally I promised to go till he could get someone
else. But he never did, and I am here yet." Mr. Howe
became farm-manager and superintendent of buildings,
bringing to that service the most complete devotion, both
to the plans and to the person of his Chief. After fifty
years of uninterrupted and unselfish labor, of serious
responsibilities and domestic trials, this precious link
with the beginnings of Hampton still remains unbroken,
and Mr. Howe continues to be to all who love or serve
the school a wise counsellor and a delightful friend.

Rebecca Bacon was the daughter of the distinguished
theologian. Dr. Leonard Bacon of New Haven, and for

I02

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

two years (1869-1871), served the school as a volunteer,
with the title of Assistant Principal. Of her Miss Wool-
sey, one of her colleagues, interpreting one New England
character through another, wrote in 1869: "General
Armstrong is very busy with outside matters, and goes
to the North for various purposes, among others to raise
money for the school. Miss Bacon has entire charge.
She has newly created the whole place, submitting her
plans to General Armstrong after they are matured.
Her processes of thinking are very deliberate, but she
thinks clearly and acts decisively when she reaches her
conclusion. She is thoroughly capable and has a great
deal to test her capacity. The whole routine of the
school — the course of instruction and division into classes,
assigning the teachers to classes, the direction of the
Butler and Lincoln Schools, which are the practice schools
for the normal scholars, the Sunday-schools and the
weekly religious instruction — all this has been her work-
ing sphere, and it is well done." One cannot but reflect
how much satisfaction such an estimate of his daughter's
efficiency might have given to Miss Bacon's "very de-
liberate," but "clear thinking" and "decisively acting"
father.

Jane Stuart Woolsey is first spoken of in Armstrong's
letters as one of the "splendid Woolsey family of New
York, who have been so kind to me."* In 1869 she
enlisted without compensation as a teacher at Hamp-
ton and became for four years (i 869-1 872) Director of

* Talbot, op. cit., p. 163.

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the girls' industries. Writing of her in 1869, General
Armstrong says: "Miss Woolsey has been invaluable;
she is wise and true, a strong and faithful friend ; a kind
Providence brought her to Hampton. She has helped
in many ways, and the work is the better for her presence."

To this original staff there were soon added further
allies from among whose names a few must be specifically
recorded as among the creators of Hampton Institute.
The most notable recruit was General James F. B. Mar-
shall, who had been during Armstrong's boyhood a resi-
dent of Hawaii and an intimate friend of the Armstrong
family. In his personal reminiscences he speaks of
** young Samuel" as a "restless member of my Sunday-
school class of eight-year-old boys in the only English
church in Honolulu." Since returning to the United
States he had been Quartermaster-General of the State
of Massachusetts and an agent of the Sanitary Commis-
sion. In 1869 he undertook as Treasurer the financial
administration of the school, and for fourteen years
General and Mrs. Marshall, a benignant and efficient
pair, devoted their lives to Hampton. Their home "was
a centre of sweetness and light," and his "rare business
skill and administrative ability, his sound judgment,
and his great heart made him an invaluable counsellor
and friend to the Principal." *

One function, which it was hoped by the Trustees of
the school that General Marshall would discharge, was
defined by Mr. Howe as "holding General Armstrong

* Ludlow Mss., p. 647.
IQ4

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

back"; or, in General Marshall's own language, as **a
kind of tail to Armstrong's kite, to keep it from flying
away altogether." "They were afraid of the General,"
said Mr. Howe, "because he spent so much money. But
as well try to stop a whirlwind ! As soon as one building
was done, his fertile brain was planning another." Re-
signing his post in 1884 General Marshall remained at
the North an eflFective advocate of the school, until in
1 89 1 he and his devoted wife died within a single week. Of
him Armstrong said in his Report of that year: "He
organized our system of accounts, trained students to be
efficient clerks, and the good condition of our business
affairs is largely due to him. But his influence and
value extended far beyond his office duties. He gave
tone to the entire work, and impressed his noble, kindly
character on hundreds of students, who will always look
on him as a father and true friend. . . . He will be
remembered and mourned by many in this and other
lands."

To this important accession were soon added other
valuable allies. Two sisters, Mary and Charlotte
Mackie, who had been reared in circumstances of refine-
ment and ease, gave themselves to every form of service,
from the duties of teaching to the more prosaic tasks of
household-management. The first succeeded Miss Bacon
as Assistant-Principal in 1871, and continued in that
office until 1891. The second was steward and house-
keeper of the Teachers' Home from 1870 to 1886. Of
Charlotte Mackie, Armstrong said on her retirement :

105

EDUCATION FOR LIFE .

**Her many years of efficient care have been a noble
contribution to the colored race" ; and of her sister Mary,
"She is a part of all that the Hampton School has been
or is, and will always be held in long and grateful re-
membrance." Curiously enough, however, the most
notable incident in the service of this versatile and
self-effacing colleague was a characteristic decision,
which she made among hundreds of others in the course
of her daily work. There presented himself one day
to Miss Mackie a young Negro, who later described
himself as looking like "a worthless loafer or tramp,"
and she hesitated to admit so unpromising an applicant.
Something in his persistency arrested her attention,
however, and after detaining him for some hours she
said : "Take this broom and sweep the recitation room."
**I swept that room," reports the candidate, " three times " ;
and the fidelity exhibited seemed to warrant for him a
chance to stay. This "entrance examination" of Booker
Washington remains a monument of Miss Mackie's
sagacity and insight.*

Among many other important contributions to these
beginnings of Hampton must be mentioned the devoted
service of Dr. M. M. Waldron, a thoroughly trained
physician, who in 1872 enlisted, at first as an academic
teacher and later as the beneficent and skilful Resident-
Physician (1881-1910) ; and the distinguished career of
Miss Helen W. Ludlow, who became a teacher in the
academic department in 1872. The summons of General

*"Up from Slavery," 1901, pp. 51, 52.
106

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

Armstrong to her remains one of the classic passages of
Hampton literature.

"Hampton, September 27, 1872.
Dear Miss Ludlow:

Five millions of ex-slaves appeal to you. Will you
come } Please telegraph if you can.

There's work here and brave souls are needed. If
you care to sail into a good hearty battle, where there's
no scratching and pin-sticking but great guns and heavy
shot only used, come here. If you like to lend a hand
where a good cause is shorthanded, come here. - <^^ *^|

We are growing rapidly ; there is an inundation of stu-
dents and we need more force. We want you as teacher.

'Shall we whose souls are lighted?' — etc. Please
sing three verses before you decide, and then dip your
pen in the rays of the morning light and say to this call,
like the gallant old Col. Newcome, *Adsum.'

Sincerely yours,

S. C. Armstrong."

The letter was like a bugle-call, and Miss Ludlow obeyed
it as though summoned into action; and from 1872 to
1910 gave an unremitting devotion, adding her literary
gifts to the assets of the school. The constantly en-
larging circle of loyal teachers, of which these two were
representative, and whom Armstrong playfully described
as "the noble army of martyrs," were, in fact, not con-
sciously martyrs at all, but found in happy companion-
ship an experience of privilege and joy.

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

What kind of school, then, was this which called to its
service so remarkable a group of devoted servants ? In
the first circular which General Armstrong prepared,
he sets forth his plan. It was to be an institution where
"in the home, or the farm, or the schoolroom, students
were to have the opportunity to learn the three great
lessons of life — how to love, how to labor, and how to
teach others. . . . Those who are in earnest and who
come with a stout heart and two willing hands, may feel
that it is entirely possible for them to push their way to
a good preparation for the life-work before them." Thirty
young men and twenty-two young women answered this
call during the first year, most of them from Virginia,
but a number from North and South Carolina, and one
from West Virginia. It is interesting to note that this
solitary migrant, Henry Clay Payne of Charleston, West
Virginia, venturing on what must have appeared to him
a serious journey for the sake of education, became in
his turn teacher of a little district school, where a young
coal-miner, Booker T. Washington, was first taught,
and inspired to make his own way to Hampton. The
same circular announced to prospective students: "Farm
or mechanical labor from three to five hours n. day will
nearly pay current expenses" ; but it soon became obvious
that the total cost must far outrun the probable receipts.

Then began, in 1870, that long series of meetings at
the North, with the addresses, visitations, and appeals,
which, while they consumed Armstrong's vitality, gained
for him and his work appreciation and honor. The
108

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

first of these Hampton meetings was in the Music Hall
at Boston. } ,It was, as Armstrong later said, the starting-
point of Hampton work in New England. "Those Bos-
ton people," he remarked, "stay converted, and their
children take up the parents' work." With a confidence
which seemed extravagant a building of considerable
dimensions, to be known as Academic Hall, had already
been undertaken, the students making the bricks, and a
distinguished New York architect, Richard M. Hunt,
contributing the design. It was estimated to cost $33,000
and of this sum the Freedmen's Bureau had contributed
$20,000. "It will be," remarks Armstrong, with an
allusion which indicates the touching poverty of the
South after the War, "the most complete and tasteful
school building in the Southern States. ... I have to
raise some $13,000 in the best way I can." It was for
this purpose that the Boston meeting was held ; and Mr.
Howe, the Superintendent of Buildings, thus reports
the campaign : "After Academic Hall was begun, we had
at last no more money to pay the hands. 'How much
do we owe on the building.?' said the General to me.
The bricks were all made. We footed up the bills and
found we owed $17,000. 'Well,' said the General, 'I
am going North. If I don't get that money, you'll never
see me again.' He went to General Howard and to
Boston friends, and the money came, as it always did."
The friendships thus created were perhaps of even more
permanent importance than the building, and among
them as a beneficent source of continuous and wise gen-

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

erosity was that of Mrs. Augustus Hemenway of Boston.
"She has had," wrote Armstrong, "many trials in her
life, but has issued from her experiences with as noble-
hearted, cheery, and charitable a soul as I ever knew,
loves all her kind, is thoroughly democratic, hates airs
and nonsense, and her three surviving children are won-
derfully well trained, clear-headed, sensible, and true-
hearted."

From Boston Armstrong proceeded to hold a long
series of meetings through Eastern New England. "I
was forced to get money to pay the pressing way of the
school or let it go to the wall ; and at it I went with all
my might, and haven't had a day's rest for two months.
It is hard, this begging — it takes all one's nervous and*
physical strength even when people are kind and polite,
as they usually are. It is never, and never can be, easy,
and I have always to use all my strength — fire every gun
— in order to bring to the hurried, worried business men
that powerful influence which alone can secure money
in a place like Boston, where for every dollar even the
richest are able to give there are ten chances to put it to
good use and twenty demands for it from one source or
another. It is amazing how hard is the pressure of
appeal, and yet how polite and good-natured most people
are, how patiently they listen, and how many give up
their last spare dollar. Boston has been educated to
giving and jgives splendidly. In all this howling appeal
and fearful competition of charities, I have been making
the best fight I could — watching every chance, following
no

HAMPTON INSTITUTE WATERFRONT, 1868

HAMPION INSIITUIE VVA lERFRON 1", 1878

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

every chance, finding out new people, making new friends
to the cause, talking in houses and in churches, at parties
and dinner tables — in season and out of season, pushing
my case and, on the whole, I have done well. I talked
at Marlboro, Framingham, Lynn, Lowell, Roxbury,
Somerville, Charlestown, and other places; sometimes
making three addresses a day — and all in one suit of
clothes that served for every blessed purpose, and not new
at that. You see thinking people are not thin-skinned
on style. ... I have raised a few thousand dollars and
am considered to have had remarkable success, considering
the times."

In 1870 the work of the Freedmen's Bureau slackened,
and Armstrong's life was free from divided interests.
In 1 87 1 an undenominational church was organized at
the school, and the Rev. Richard Tolman of Massachu-
setts, who had come to the South as a hopeless invalid,
but had become reinvigorated by the contagious vitality
of Armstrong, served for eight fruitful years as pastor.
A covenant was adopted, illustrating the catholicity of
intention which the school, gathering its pupils from many
communions, desired to express, and which has remained
for more than forty years the substantial foundation of
a comprehensive and active religious life.

"For the purpose of Christian fellowship and the
maintenance of the ordinances of Christian worship,"
this Covenant announced, " and the extension of Christ's
kingdom in this place, we do hereby declare it to be our
purpose to form ourselves into a Christian church, to

III

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

be known as a Church of Christ in Hampton, Virginia,
and in entering into this fellowship we do renew our
covenant of dedication with God our Father and Re-
deemer and Sanctifier ; and agree that we will strive to
walk humbly and sincerely before Him, asking in daily
prayer for His will with obedient and teachable mind.
That we will faithfully and in love watch over and ad-
monish and help one another in the Christian life. That
we will strive to do good to all our fellow-men, and in
all things to seek first the kingdom of God, trusting always
for sufficient help and for final and complete redemption
from sin in Jesus Christ our only Savior."

In 1871, also, the first class graduated, — five young
women and fourteen young men. One man had served
under Armstrong in the war ; one young woman and six
young men proceeded with their education in Northern
colleges or at Howard and Lincoln Universities ; two
worked their way through Oberlin College as carpenters ;
one was appointed teacher on a United States training
ship ; one became a respected lawyer, and one a printer.
All at one time or another were teachers, and of the thou-
sands they taught hundreds more became teachers. "Not
one of that first class made a disgraceful record ; some
made a briUiant one." * It was a beginning of Hamp-
ton which must have revived Armstrong's hope and con-
firmed the courage of his little band of helpers.

In January 1872 an illustrated monthly publication, the
Southern Workman^ first appeared, under the editorship of

* Ludlow Mss., p. 649.
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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

the Principal, re-enforced later in the same year by Miss
Ludlow, and has continued for more than forty years to
be, not only an organ of the school, but an important
source of information and counsel concerning the larger
problems of racial progress. In the same year also
Hampton was granted by the General Assembly of Vir-
ginia one-third of the income from the sale of land under
the Act passed by Congress in 1862 for the benefit of
State agricultural schools. An appropriation of ^10,000
has been annually received for this purpose and has not
only greatly reduced the financial burdens of the school,
but has been a permanent evidence of the confidence of
Virginia in its work. Of the nine curators (later reduced
to six) whose gathering with the Trustees is a pleasant
incident of each annual meeting, three, under the Statute,
must be colored men.

Such were some of the external incidents which marked
the beginnings of Hampton. Persistency, tenacity, and
a confident faith triumphed over indiflPerence, ignorance,
and even financial depression among friends at the North.
" For most people," wrote General Marshall of his Chief,
"an obstacle is something in the way to stop going on,
but for General Armstrong it merely meant something
to climb over, and if he could not climb all the way over
he would get up as high as possible and then crow ! "
Of his own life of incessant care and passionate resolu-
tion, Armstrong himself later wrote : *'I have had a taste
of blood, that is, I have had the taste of life and work
— cannot live without the arena. I must be in it. . . .

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

Despair shakes his skinny hands and glares his hideous
eyes on me to little purpose. I feel happy when all my
powers of resistance are taxed." Within this environ-
ment of incessant and often harassing work, however,
Armstrong's mind was constantly conceiving larger
plans and foreseeing greater issues. Instead of being
submerged by details of construction and administration,
his nature was buoyed up by them as by a swiftly moving
stream, and he struck out for a larger channel and a dis-
tant shore. His correspondence abounds in flashes of fore-
sight and in revelations of his own deeper nature and hopes.
He saw his enterprise steadily and saw it whole.

"What," he asked in his first Report to the Trustees,
"should be the character of an educational institution
devoted to the poorer classes of the South ? . . . It
is useless at present to expect the ignorant whites to
accept instruction side by side with the colored race.
To a broad impartiality the Negro only responds. Let
us consider, therefore, what answer to our problem is
indicated by the character and needs of the freed people.
Plainly a system is required which shall be at once con-
structive of mental and moral worth and destructive of
the vices characteristic of the slave. What are these
vices ? They are improvidence, low ideas of honor and
morality, and a general lack]of directive energy, judgment,
and foresight. Thus disabled, the ex-slave enters upon
the merciless competition incident to universal freedom.
Political power being placed in his hands, he becomes
the prey of the demagogue or attempts that low part
"4

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

himself. In either case he is the victim of his greatest
weakness, vanity. Mere tuition is not enough to rescue
him from being forever a tool, politically and otherwise.
The educated man usually overestimates himself, be-
cause his intellect has grown faster than his experience
in life; but the danger to the Negro is greater propor-
tionally as his desire is to shine rather than to do. His
deficiencies of character are, I believe, worse for him and
the world than his ignorance.

" But with these deficiencies are a docility and enthu-
siasm for improvement, and a perseverance in the pursuit
of it, which form a basis of great hope, and justify any
outlay and the ablest service in his behalf. . . . First :
the plan of combining mental and physical labor is a
priori full of objections. It is admitted that it involves
friction, constant embarrassment, and apparent disad-
vantage to educational advancement, as well as to the
profits of various industries. But to the question : * Do
your students have sufficient time to study all their
lessons faithfully }* I should answer : 'Not enough, judg-
ing from the common use of time; but under pressure
they make good use of the hours they have; there is
an additional energy put forth, an increased rate of study
which makes up for the time spent in manual labor, while
the physical vigor gained affords abundant strength for
severe mental labor.' Nothing is of more benefit than
this compulsory waking up of the faculties. After a
life of drudgery the plantation-hand will, under this sys-
tem, brighten and learn surprisingly well. . . .

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

"In the girls' industrial housework departments, there
is an assignment, for a period, of a certain number to
certain duties. On the farm the plan of working the
whole force of young men for a few hours each day has
been given up for the better one of dividing them into
five squads, each of which works one day of each week
and all on Saturdays. . . . However the future may decide
the question, our two years' experience of the manual-
labor system has been satisfactory. Progress in study
has been rapid and thorough ; I venture to say, not ex-
celled in any school of the same grade ; there have been
a steadiness and solidity of character and a spirit of*
self-denial developed, an appreciation of the value of
opportunities manifested which would not be possible
under other conditions. Unfortunately there is a limit
to the number who can be profitably employed. This
Institute should, I think, be polytechnic — growing step
by step, adding new industries as the old ones shall be-
come established and remunerative; thus enlarging the
limits of paying labor and increasing the attendance,
hoping finally to crown its ruder products with the results
of finer effort in the region of art.

"There are two objective points before us, toward one
or the other of which all our energies must soon be directed
as the final work of this Institute. One is the training
of the intellect, storing it with the largest amount of
knowledge, producing the brightest examples of culture ;
the other is the more difficult one of attempting to edu-
cate in the original and broadest sense of the word, to
Ji6

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

draw out a complete manhood. The former is a laborious
but simple work; the latter is full of difficulty. It is
not easy to surround the student with a perfectly balanced
system of influences. The value of every good appliance
is limited, and ceases when not perfectly adjusted to the
higher end. The needle, the broom, and the wash-tub, the
awl, the plane, and the plow, become the allies of the globe,
the blackboard, and the text-book. . . . But what should
be studied in a course like this ? The question brings
us to the second branch of our subject ; namely, its moral
and intellectual aspect. The end of mental training is a
discipline and power, not derived so much from knowl-
edge as from the method and spirit of the student. I
think too much stress is laid on the importance of choos-
ing one of the great lines of study, the classics or the natu-
ral sciences, and too Httle upon the vital matter of insight
into the life and spirit of that which is studied. Latin
as taught by one man is an inspiration, by another it
is drudgery. Who can say that the study of this or that
is requisite, without conditioning its value upon the
fitness of the teacher ? Vital knowledge cannot be got
from books; it comes from insight, and we attain it by
earnest and steady thought, under wise direction.

"But let us consider the practical question whether
the classics should be made an object in our course, or
whether, ruling them out, we should teach only the higher
English studies. It is the theory of Matthew Arnold that
a teacher should develop the special aptitudes ; to ignore
them is failure; the attempt to cast all minds in one

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

mould is useless. But for one Anglo-African who would,
on this theory, need to acquire the ancient languages,
there are, I believe, twenty whose best aptitude would
find full scope in the study of the mother-tongue and its
literature, supposing them to have a taste for language
and for the higher pursuits of the human mind. Emer-
son says : 'What is really best in any book is translatable
— any real insight or broad human sentiment.' He who
has mastered the English, then, has within reach what-
ever is best in all literature.

"Our three years' course, with but little preliminary
training, cannot be expected to furnish much. Our stu-
dents can never become advanced enough in that time
to be more than superficially acquainted with Latin and
Greek; their knowledge would rather tend to cultivate
their conceit than to fit them for faithful educators of
their race — because not complete enough to enable them
to estimate its true value. The great need of the Negro
is logic, and the subjection of feeling to reason; yet in
supplying his studies we must exercise his curiosity, his
love of the marvellous, and his imagination, as means of
sustaining his enthusiasm.

"An English course embracing reading and elocution,
geography and mathematics, history, the sciences, the
study of the mother-tongue and its literature, the leading
principles of mental and moral science, and of political
economy, would, I think, make up a curriculum that
would exhaust the best powers of nineteen-twentieths
of those who would for years to come enter the Institute.
ii8

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

Should, however, any pupil have a rare aptitude for
the classics and desire to become a man of letters in
the largest sense, it would be our duty to provide special
instruction for him or send him where he could re-
ceive it. For such the Howard University at Wash-
ington offers a broad and high plane of intellectual ad-
vantage.

"The question of co-education of the sexes is, to my
mind, settled by most favorable experience with the
present plan. Our school is a little world ; the life is
genuine ; the circle of influence is complete. The system
varies industry and cheapens the cost of living. If the
condition of woman is the true gauge of civilization,
how should we be working, except indirectly, for a real
elevation of society by training young men alone ? The
freed woman is where slavery left her. Her average state
is one of pitiable destitution of whatever should adorn
and elevate her sex. In every respect the opportunities
of the sexes should be equal, and two years of experience
have shown that young men and women of color may
be educated together to the greatest mutual advantage,
and without detriment to a high moral standard. . . .

"We now come to the consideration of the third branch
of our subject, namely the disciplinary features of the
institution. No necessity has so far arisen for the adop-
tion of a system of marks, prizes, or other such incentives.
Expulsion has sometimes, though rarely, been resorted
to. Our most perplexing cases have been those of honest,
well-meaning students, either of limited ability and fine

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

character, or those of low propensity or childishness or
coarseness of character. One of the latter class may be
a zealous student, and there may be a power in him that
will be used in a good or bad cause, yet this evil trait
will be quickly caught by the pliant and younger ones
around him. He finally may become a strong and worthy
man, but, meanwhile, great mischief is wrought; the
tone of the school is lowered ; many have learned wicked-
ness of which they can scarcely be cured. The cele-
brated head-master of Rugby said : 'Till a man learns
that the first, second, and the third duty of a school-
master is to get rid of unpromising subjects, a great pub-
lic school will never be what it might be and what it
ought to be.' A course of study, beyond the rudiments,
is not best for all. I expect young men will be discharged,
without dishonor, from this Institute, who will become
eminent partly because sent off to travel a more difficult
and heroic way. . . . To implant right motive-power and
good habits, aided by the student's own perceptions,
to make him train himself, is the end of discipline. Yet
there is need of much external force, mental and moral,
especially upon the plastic natures with which we deal.
There must be study of the character, advice, sympathy,
and above all a judicious letting alone.

**0f all our work, that upon the heart is the most im-
portant ; there can be no question as to the paramount
necessity of teaching the vital precepts of the Christian
faith, and of striving to awaken a genuine enthusiasm
for the higher life that shall be sustained and shall be

120

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

the strong support of the young workers who may go out
to be examples to their race.

"In the history of our institution so far, we have cause
for encouragement. Three years ago this month, our
building began with but $2000 on hand or in prospect;
for although the American Missionary Association selected
and purchased this most fortunate spot and paid our
running expenses, it could not offer the means of con-
struction. Already nearly $100,000 have been expended
in permanent improvements, for which we may thank
the Freedmen's Bureau and Northern benefactors. I
think we may reasonably hope to build up here, on his-
toric ground, an institution that will aid freedmen to
escape from the difficulties that surround them, by af-
fording the best possible agency for their improvement in
mind and heart by sending out, not pedagogues, but
those whose culture shall be upon the whole circle of
living, and who with clear insight and strong purpose
will do a quiet work that shall make the land purer and
better."

In a more playful vein Armstrong makes a similar
report of his intentions and ideals to his classmates at
Williams College on the celebration of the twelfth anni-
versary of graduation in 1874. "I have," he writes them,
"a remarkable machine for the elevation of our colored
brethren, on which I mean to take out a patent. . . .
About $370,000 have been expended here since I took
hold in the fall of 1867. ... I am the most fortunate man
in the world in my family. I have a wife and two little

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

girls — one two and the other four years of age. My
'jewels' are the rarest and richest on the planet. . . . The
stake of my destiny is planted here — and I have never re-
gretted it ; this is part of the war, on a higher plane and
with spiritual weapons ; it will not soon end and success
is yet to be won. I cannot understand the prevailing
view of the war among even pious and intelligent Amer-
icans— it is simply barbaric — to whip the South and go
home rejoicing, to build monuments of victory, leaving
one-third of their countrymen in the depths of distress.
The case is chiefly moral and the duty sits very lightly
on the general conscience."

His reflections at this time on the nature and signifi-
cance of industrial education are still, after fifty years,
not without their place in the controversy, never more
heated than now, between the Modernists and the Hu-
manists. "The question is not," he says, "Does the
farm support itself ^ but. What does it do for the student ?
People do not yet understand the need of supporting
professors who shall impart practical knowledge, teach
habits of labor, of self-reliance, as they do the endowing
of Greek professorships. To destroy the industrial
system would be to reduce the expenses of the institution,
but it would change its character and results, and place
it beyond the reach of the most needy and deserving
class of pupils."

' With some thought, no doubt, of his own impatient
will he commends to his colleagues the patience which
their work demands. No social reformer was by nature

122

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

more inclined to precipitancy than Armstrong. He
would have accepted as his own the confession of
Theodore Parker concerning the slow progress of the
antislavery cause. *'The trouble seems to be that God
is not in a hurry, and I am." Yet as his work de-
velops he sees that it needs a large jarea of time and a
discipHned willingness to wait. "There is," he writes
in January 1877, "need of patience in all mission work.
We are likely to die without the sight of a Negro civiliza-
tion. The feverish craving for immediate results that
inspired the great efforts and gifts of the first ten years
from 1862 was not a working principle, sure of and faith-
ful to its end, but rather a philanthropic clash tending
to the reaction which has followed ; and to a disappoint-
ment that sprinkling schoolhouses over the South for a
few years did not change the moral condition of the
freedmen. Negro civilization, like all civilization, is of
slow growth ; it has its periods of action and reaction.
Only in the perspective of generations can real progress
be seen satisfactorily. Education is a slowly working
leaven in an immense mass, whose pervasive, directive
force cannot be felt generally for many years. We ought
to see and we hope to see the foundations of a Negro
civilization well laid. It is well for the workers in this
cause to remember that they are commencing, not
finishing."

Again, in April 1877, with accurate prevision, he
observes the place which education must hold in the
future of democracy. "Whatever the value of general

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

education under other forms of government, it is ab-
solutely essential to the safety and continuance of Re-
publican institutions. If we would not see these stifled
out of existence by a flood of ignorance which has been
let in upon the land by the breaking down of the bar-
riers of slavery, more vigorous measures must be taken
than have yet been instituted. Great as the private
and local efforts and their results have been compared
with actual needs, they are useful only as showing what
ought to be done and how to do it. We cannot irrigate
this great desert by streams of private benevolence;
we must let in the sea. . . . The South to-day is in a better
temper for providing the black man with education than
it ever has been ; the movement is onward, it is slow
but sure. The changes have been tremendous. The
Negro's opportunity has been created ; it is not as ample
as it should be, but it is enough for a trial. The im-
portance that the colored race should at this point by
every industry, energy, and wise ambition for self-govern-
ment ratify its title to its new rights cannot be over-
estimated."

Finally, he announces the general principle of life
which he had discovered and which should, in his
mature judgment, direct and illuminate all missionary
work. "The progress of thought in the last fifty years
has not failed to affect the conduct of missionary enter-
prises as well as that of secular aff'airs. To throw the
whole heart into the work, to labor in season and out of
season and leave results to God, was the whole idea of
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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

missionary exertion in the past ; and a grand idea it was,
producing some of the highest types of Christian manhood
and womanhood, and not merely acting upon heathen
nations but re-acting upon the missionary nations as an
inspiration, Hfting them to higher planes of life and hero-
ism. With no less of Christian ardor and heroism, the
progress of thought and experience has suggested im-
proved methods of work and a more discriminating
economy of men and means, adding to zeal knowledge.
Men feel their responsibility not only for motives, but
methods. The value of the manual-labor system has
been proved again and again in the Sandwich Islands,
in Jamaica, and in Virginia." . . . "Only the most vigor-
ous and wise educational effort, only an active interest
in mental and moral welfare on the part of good men of
all sections, will save Virginia and other States from being
pushed by nearly a million well-meaning, but blind and
incapable Negro voters, to say nothing of a host of equally
incompetent whites, into fatal political blunders."

Here, then, was not only the ardent enthusiasm of a
young missionary, giving himself, as hundreds of others
had done, with generous devotion to a humble task,
but the prophetic foresight of a discerning seer, reading
the future by the light of the past and observing the
great results which might issue from small affairs.
These paragraphs on the moral effect of manual edu-
cation, on the retardation of social progress which must
be expected and endured, on the nature of democracy
and of effective missionary work, were written for a

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small group of fellow-workers, and published in a modest
journal issued by an obscure and much criticised school ;
but they abound in doctrines which have not lost their
timeliness, and in anticipations which after fifty years
are but partially reahzed. No student of the "New
Education," or of the problems of democracy, or of a
missionary service adapted to a modern world, can af-
ford to be ignorant of Armstrong's contributions, both
to science and to prophecy. The beginnings of Hampton
were established on a sure foundation, not merely of land
and buildings acquired with so much energy on Arm-
strong's part and so much loyalty on the part of his
friends, but on the still more permanent principles of
which his modest enterprise was a symbol, and on the
convincing language in which those principles were
confidently expressed.

126

CHAPTER FIVE

THE YEARS OF PROMISE (1872-1878)

THE years succeeding the first struggle for existence were
a period of rapid growth at Hampton. Where in 1868
the school had opened with 15 students, and in 1871 its
first class of 19 had graduated, the number of students in
1878 had reached 323, its staff of teachers 24, and a
Training School had been organized with 90 pupils. One
substantial building. Academic Hall, had been finished in
1 87 1, and the generosity both of friends and of the Freed-
men's Bureau seemed nearly exhausted. Girls were still
housed in barracks and for the young men army-tents
were pitched, where Armstrong applied his military ex-
perience to teach his pupils the art of "roughing it."
1 It soon became necessary to provide more permanent
quarters and the Principal's sanguine mind conceived of
a monumental structure which should assure the future
of the school. Again, as in his vision of the whole under-
taking, he saw the completed plan of an adequate build-
ing in imagination before it was ever drawn, and fixed on
its name, site, and uses before a dollar was in hand.
Mr. Howe, who was to superintend it, has said of the new
project : "Then next came Virginia Hall. There wasn't
$2000 in sight for it when it was begun. It cost $98,000.

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Richard M. Hunt was the architect. The General's idea
was to build for permanence and he believed that the
people would sustain the work. He came to my house
and we sat on the stairs and talked. He said : 'The way
to do is to plough out a hole and pile the bricks and lum-
ber round. I'll get a party of people down from the North
and make it appeal to them.' So he did. We built the
foundation first and had the corner-stone all ready to be
laid^had the basement commenced, so they could see the
work under way. A large party came down — some of
the best people of New York and Boston. The tide was
way up when they landed ; the ladies had to come sliding
down the gang plank. But we had a grand time and the
money came. Before we got the Hall finished, though,
the panic of '73 came. The General went up to Boston
and wrote me : 'Stop all hands for the present ; I don't see
my course clear to pay them.' There was no one here for
me to consult. But I had great faith in General Arm-
strong's abiHty to pull through anything. I told Mr.
Cake, the builder, I thought we had better not stop if we
could help it. I went round and told the hands: 'We
can't pay you by the week, only once a month.' They
agreed, and we went ahead, and the money came by the
time we had to have it. So the place went ahead year
after year."

A teacher who reached Hampton at about this
time recalls her experience as follows : " My stay on the
place had been numbered only by weeks when General
Armstrong pointed out to me the present site of Virginia
128

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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

Hall, and talked at length of the building he meant to
put up for the girls. He had planned not only the build-
ing but the details of it. In his own characteristic way he
added as he started off: *Yes, now the Academic is up,
that is the next thing to do!' In four years' time that
vision was realized." Still another observer of the progress
in building rises to a note of reverence : "There is some-
thing actually sublime in the way those walls have gone
steadily up, rising day after day right through this panic,
when the largest business firms have been brought to a
standstill. It is like the movement of God's providence."
The strain of the financial burden which this new en-
terprise involved suggested a new scheme of money-
raising, which has since become familiar, and has touched
both the hearts and the pocket-books of great numbers of
listeners. The "Jubilee Singers" of Fisk University had
already illustrated before Northern audiences the peculiar
poignancy and pathos of the Negro "Spirituals," and had
even been tempted to sail to Europe to promote their cause
by their singing. This new mine of aesthetic interest had
not, however, been exhausted. A vein of original and
singularly appealing music had been imbedded in the ex-
perience of slavery, and the very sufferings of the Negro
race had brought it to Hght. In the cabins and by the
camp fires, after the day's forced labor and with the pas-
sion of an emotional faith, a strain of weird melody, with
cadences and intervals of a wholly new and strangely
moving type, had been uttered and transmitted from
group to group ; and words which precisely fitted these

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strange harmonies, sometimes Scriptural and prophetic,
sometimes wrought out of sad experience, sometimes
touched with grim humor, had been intuitively chosen to
report the spiritual history of slaves.

Folk-song, in its normal types, has, as a rule, con-
cerned itself with two absorbing themes — the ambitions
of war and the passion of love. Either the lust of
conquest or the desire of sex has been its dominating
note. War-songs and love-songs have made the music
of camps and firesides, from the days of nomadic tribes
to the days of modern pleasure-seekers in their merry
companionships. The Negro race was, however, by
the tragedy of its fate, detached in a unique degree
from both of these sources of human satisfaction. Its
servile condition deprived it alike of the experiences
of war and of the affinities and permanence of love. It
could not sing of battles, and it could not be sure of a
stable and united home. Yet it was a race full of music,
and its sunny and smiling nature broke at the least touch
into song. A tropical warmth was in the voices of
Negroes, and a peculiar sense of rhythm in their speech
and even in the gait with which they moved. How, then,
could they satisfy this aesthetic need ? There were but
two sources left from which they could derive material
for folk-song. One was in their work ; the other was in
their religion. The only rest they had from work, except
in sleep, was in prayer; and the only prayer they could
hopefully offer was for delivery in another world from the
slavery of work.
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Thus it was that a wholly new type, both of words
and music, sprang from their oppressed condition, and
reached the attention of Northern listeners through the
untutored singers who had inherited the traditions of
the cabins and the fields. Colonel T. W. Higginson,
listening to his soldiers, heard, as he wrote, "Nothing
but patience for this life ; nothing but triumph for the
next." They sang of the cotton-plantations and the
long day of toil.

"Nobody knows de trouble I've seen,
Nobody knows but Jesus";

"Fighting on, we are almost down to de shore"; "Stay
in de field 'til de war is ended" ; "Hard trials, great tribu-
lation, I am boun' to leabe dis world"; "Oh, my good
Lord, keep me from sinkin' down," With even more
persistency and pathos they sang of a better world where
they were at last to find freedom and rest. "Swing low,
sweet chariot, comin' for to carry me home" ; "Way ober
in Jordan, view de land!" "My Lord delibered Daniel;
why can't he deliber me?" "Wide ribber ! Dere's one
more ribber to cross" ; "Oh, de Ian' I am bound for, sweet
Canaan's happy land!"

Here was indeed new material for song, and it clothed
itself in musical forms which art could not have
created, but which reproduced the dominating sadness,
the recurring sighs, and the unconquerable hope of
generations of slaves. It is music which is heard at its
best only as a mass of sound rises from the hearts of

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a multitude. It misses much of the finer shading and
the firmer attack of a trained chorus of white singers.
Its cadences swerve and droop to minor keys, as though
with weariness or despair, and when it is joyous or ex-
cited the rhythm calls for the bodily gestures of hand and
feet with which the Negro camp-meetings were familiar.
Yet for sheer emotional exaltation, for piercing poign-
ancy, for that aesthetic pleasure which is never far from
tears, the effect of the finest "Spirituals," as sung by a
great body like the students of Hampton, is a unique ex-
perience. It has been compared by high authority with
the emotional climaxes which are reached in the dramas
of Wagner, where music and passion become one, and
artistic appreciation is forgotten in an aesthetic thrill.
Such was the music which the Hampton Singers made
familiar to Northern audiences, and through which
they set themselves to "sing up" Virginia Hall. "We
start for Washington tonight," wrote General Armstrong
on February 3, 1873. "You may hear of us in the
papers. I have the whole responsibility on my shoulders,
and the entire management of the company." *

' * The scientific study of this contribution to folk-song has of late attracted
much attention. Cf: H. E. Krehbiel, "Afro-American Folk-songs," 1914;
and forthcoming volumes by Mrs. Natalie Curtis Burlin, " Negro Folk-
Songs " (4 books) in which this gifted and scrupulous student of Indian
music applies the same methods of direct record to the Negro " Spirituals."
"jThe most obvious point of demarcation," she says in her "Foreword," " be-
tween Negro music and European is found, of course, in the rhythm. . . .
[Negro] rhythms are uneven, jagged, and at a first hearing, eccentric. . . .
Rhythmically the Negro folk-song has far more variety of accent than the
European ; it captivates the ear and the imagination with its exciting vitality

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

These Singers took their school-books with them on
their journeyings, "studying and reciting as they jour-
neyed, and on their return finished their school course
with credit. Almost without exception they made ex-
cellent records in after life." With some individual
changes the company stayed in the field for two years and

and with its sense of alertness and movement. . . . Another characteristic
of the Negro musically, is a harmonic sense indicating musical intuition of a
high order. Some of the most beautiful improvisational part-singing may rise
from the throats of utterly illiterate black laborers in a tobacco factory. . . .
Indeed, the music of the Dark Continent is rich in harmonic as well as rhythmic
suggestions for the European. . . . Such melodies as 'Go down, Moses,*
* Four and twenty elders on their knees,' ' Run, Mary, run,' speak from the
very soul of the black race, and no white man could have conceived them. . . .
The mellow softness of pronunciation added to vocal peculiarities, — the subtle
embellishment of grace-notes, turns and quavers, and the delightful little up-
ward break in the voice, — these can be but crudely indicated or described in
the hope of awakening true memory in those who know Negro song. . . . We
of the white race are at last awakening to the fact that the Negro in our
midst stands at the gates of human culture with full hands, laden with gifts."

In an unpublished chapter by the gifted composer, R. Nathaniel Dett,
Director of Vocal Music at Hampton Institute, he declines to believe in
the absence of the motive of love in Negro folk-songs. " Such melodies," he
says, " would not be sung in the open, when marriage was not taught the
slaves as a holy institution." They were "hidden deep in the heart of the
race, too deep for the eyes of the prying ethnologist. ... It is only to
the elect that the Negro would reveal such things as lie so close to the
heart." This theory of esoteric love songs is of great interest and may well
tempt the Negro inquirer. " It will probably take a Negro," Mr. Dett says, " a
musician who is yet a man of his people, to find and transcribe them." It would
be a discovery analogous to that of the esoteric rituals of Indian tribes, among
which a stranger — and even a scientific student — might live for years without
suspicion of its existence or control. Yet the possibility of this undiscovered
strain of song does not refute the fact that in the ordinary folk-song of the Negro
it is never — or at most very rarely — heard. If it is ever touched, it must
be within the silence of the heart or the seclusion of the secret gathering. The
habitual singing of the Negro was robbed by slavery of its sweetest note.

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

a half, giving about five hundred concerts and traversing
thousands of miles through eighteen States and Canada.
During their first year of travel they earned ten thousand
dollars as their net proceeds. In the second year they
were overtaken by a financial panic and the concerts
brought Httle direct profit ; though the visit of the Singers
to one small town in Massachusetts produced an individual
gift of ^lOjCXX) to build Whitin Chapel in Virginia Hall.
On June 12, 1873, the cornerstone of the new building,
in large part "sung up," was laid, and Armstrong said of
it : "As security for its completion we have our faith
in our earnest effort, in the people of this country, and
in God." The security, which might appear to some
financiers somewhat speculative, proved sound ; and in
1875 Virginia Hall became the dignified centre of the
school's activities.

The successful issue of this ambitious scheme only
spurred Armstrong to further plans of expansion. Vari-
ous forms of industrial training — shoemaking, painting,
carpentering, and blacksmithing, were undertaken in
modest quarters in 1874, and prepared the way for a
firmly established organization. Building after building
was added to the plant. On one occasion, when the corner-
stones of two buildings were to be laid by Bishop Potter
of New York a shower approached, and someone said
to Bishop Potter, " Had we not better wait ? It will be
soon over." "Oh, no," answered the Bishop. "If I
wait. General Armstrong will have another cornerstone
ready!"

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A system of military inspection, drill, and regulation
was established in 1878, and an officer of the regular
army detailed to direct it. " It is not intended,'* General
Armstrong said, "to make soldiers out of our stu-
dents, or create a warlike spirit. Drill, daily inspection
of persons and rooms, in an organization without arms,
will create ideas of neatness, order, system, obedience,
and produce a better manhood." Uniforms and flags were
therefore adopted, and have always continued to be re-
garded, not as martial but as moral insignia, acceptable
not less to those friends of the school who were Quakers,
than to more militant supporters. The monogram on
the flag, as a Negro graduate starting on a mission to
Africa once said, may stand for Hampton Normal Insti-
tute, or, if read in a diff'erent order of letters, for " In His
Name."

Co-education, involving the normal intimacy of young
people, appeared from the beginning to Armstrong not
only desirable, but a humanizing and elevating influ-
ence, second only to manual work. When it was sug-
gested that the Negro character was both passionate and
indolent, involving special risks in co-education, Arm-
strong replied : "There is little mischief done when there
is no time for it. Activity is a purifier. ... I have
little fear of the abuse of co-education at Hampton. My
boys are rung up at 5 o'clock in the morning, called to
military parade before breakfast, kept busy all day until
8 P.M., always under military discipline, and after that
hour I will risk all the harm they will do to anybody."

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There was, however, in these days of rapid growth a
more compelHng influence on the character of students
than even this healthy gospel of work. It was the con-
tagion of the higher moraUty conveyed by the magnetic
words and conduct of Armstrong himself. Absent as he
was so often compelledto be on his mendicant journeys
to the North, he maintained in an extraordinary degree
a paternal intimacy with his young wards, in which aus-
terity and playfulness, the habits of a soldier and the piety
of a missionary, made a blending of teaching and behavior
which was full of stimulation and surprise. He taught
a class in what was described as "Moral Philosophy,"
but it was in effect a discussion, by question and answer,
of the practical conduct of life. Seriousness and smiles,
sternness and sympathy, met in his class-room, and his
students listened both in fear and in love, wondering what
he might say next. "No recitation," he once said, in
words which academic teachers might well take to heart,
"is complete without at least one good laugh." "What's
the use of being a missionary if you don't get some fun out
of it.?" He sat daily in his little office, like the Prince
of Montenegro in his courtyard, accessible to every stu-
dent, terrible to the wrong-doer, and abounding in frater-
nal sympathy for the discouraged and sad.

Most of all, this beneficent paternahsm, which knit the
school into one family where discipline and domesticity
met, was illustrated in his "Talks" to the students
when gathered for Prayers on Sunday evenings. These
"Talks," some of them fortunately preserved in the
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note-books of devoted teachers, cannot be described as
sermons or even as addresses, for they were unstudied,
often formless, and sometimes nothing more than a rapid-
fire of questions followed by a charge of exhortation and
advice. Armstrong's mind was volcanic, like the moun-
tains of his native Islands, with periods of quiet reflection
succeeded by abrupt explosions, as though his ideas must
burst into speech or burn him away. His Talks were
thus for the moment and occasion, and as one reads them
he must reproduce the rush of thought, and see before him
the eager, swarthy faces startled out of their sluggishness
or weariness by the torrent of molten speech.

Here is the way in which such a Talk, so far as notes
could hold it, leaped from the Principal's surcharged
mind : "Spend your life in doing what you can do well.
If you can teach, teach. If you can't teach, but can
cook well, do that. If a man can black boots better than
anything else, what had he better do .'' 'Black boots.'
Yes, and if a girl can make an excellent nurse, and do
that better than anything else, what had she better do .''
* Nurse.' Yes, she can do great good that way in taking
care of the sick and suffering. Some of our girls have
done great good already in that way. Do what you
can do well and people will respect it and respect you.
That is what the world wants of everyone. It is a
great thing in life to find out what you can do well. If
a man can't do anything well, what's the matter with
him? 'Lazy.' Yes, that's it. A lazy man can't do any-
thing well and no one wants him *round. God didn't

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make the world for lazy people. . . . Gojjut from here
to fight against sin. Fight the devil. Fight against
badness, evil, and ignorance, disease, bad cooking. Help
your people in teaching, in care of the sick, in improving
land, in making better homes. Do what you can do well,
and do it as well as you can."

Sometimes he would speak of work and its diffi-
culties: **Once there was a woodchuck. . . . Now,
woodchucks can't climb trees. Well, this woodchuck
was chased by a dog and came to a tree. He knew that
if he could get up this tree the dog could not catch him.
Now, woodchucks can't climb trees, but he had to, so
he did!" * Sometimes it was character and its oppor-
tunities of which he spoke: "Help your people by
giving them what has been given you. Doing what can't
be done is the glory of hving."

Less frequently, but without restraint or disguise, he
would talk of religion — its simplicity, its genuineness,
its power. The discriminations and controversies of theol-
ogy had little interest for his practical mind. Reality,
loyalty, and efficiency were his tests of faith. Among
his most loyal and generous friends were Quakers from
Philadelphia and Unitarians from Boston ; and when the
question was raised by cautious observers whether these
gifts might not affect injuriously the orthodoxy of the
school, whose charter had determined that its "teaching
should always be evangelical," Armstrong's reply was
unequivocal. "The Institute must have a positive char-

* Talbot, op. cit., pp. 190 fi".

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

acter. It has ! It is orthodox and that's the end of it,
although I confess that I never told the school it was so,
and I don't beheve one of our pupils knows what 'ortho-
dox' means. We mean to teach the precepts of Jesus
Christ, accepting them as inspired and as recorded in the
Bible." When, however, he passed from the refinements
of theology to the teaching of religion, no student failed to
perceive what was meant, and great numbers yielded their
hearts to the persuasions of the soldier-missionary. "I
loved," wrote one pupil, **to go to evening prayers to
listen to his talks and his prayers for us during the night
and for the work he was doing. General Armstrong al-
ways spoke very fast, but when he prayed it was slow and
deliberate. I did always enjoy his Sunday-evening talks.
I never once grew tired of hearing him. He would often
say to those who were sleepy: 'Sleep on, I don't mind;
you need plenty of sleep. I will talk to those awake.'
When the hour came to dismiss us, he would rouse us by
having us sing a very lively song."

These public utterances of worship were not without
serious effort in so sensitive and sincere a mind.
"True worship," he later wrote, "is a gentle, sensitive,
shrinking emotion, that steals softly into hearts in
quiet moments, often in response to some beautiful
scene ; sometimes it comes to us from the faithful, true
ones near us. It seems to shun the throng. There
is a religious impression often in a magnificent church,
but it is not worship. ... I dislike public prayer
very much, because one is so self-conscious; it is a hard

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thing to rise up before people and pray to God, and not
to them. I have been greatly troubled in this way, and
only take part in that public exercise when it is plainly
in the line of duty and good sense. I don't mind the
students here; I enjoy it with them alone, but there
are always some of the household present and that I
hardly fancy. But this is all a confession of weakness."
Yet at times, in the confidential companionship of the
school, the deeper fountains of his religious feeling were
unsealed, and his susceptible wards, so easily stirred to
emotional agitation, found their impulses swept into
calmer channels of moral resolution. "There is now in the
school," he wrote to a friend in 1883, "the deepest and
most intense religious feeling I ever knew. We have in-
stead of evening prayers daily meetings of about half an
hour, in which the students in quick succession rise for a
few words of experience or prayer. In all the five hundred
who are present there is no excitement. It is like a
Quaker meeting, so quiet it is. All speak in an undertone.
There is a sense of the Divine presence in our midst, yet
these wild, passionate Negro hearts, stirred to their depth,
make no noise. A few sobs have been heard. The still-
ness is only broken by earnest, cheerful verses of hymns
sung from time to time. The most touching of all are the
few-months-ago-wild Indians who speak a few words
in broken English or a prayer in the Dakota language.
. . . • Routine work and study go on. The school work
is done in better temper and style than ever."

Thus these formative years at Hampton were in many
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aspects a golden age of promise and growth. The school
had not become too large for personal intimacies, and the
staff of teachers had been drawn together by a singular
bond of happy self-sacrifice. The work, though under a
constant fire of criticism both from many Southern
whites who desired no education for the blacks, and
many Negroes who misunderstood the Hampton plan
and desired an education parallel with that of the North-
ern colleges, had grown strong enough to resist both of
these attacks and to defend itself by its results. More
than all, the mind and will of the Founder touched every
detail of labor and life, as though they were keys of an
instrument on which he freely and firmly played. It
was an epoch of integral and united experience in which
all concerned felt a common exhilaration. There could
even be scenes of hilarious romping, when teachers and
Principal joined with his little girls in boisterous play
or a merry game, or a " Presbyterian war-dance," relaxing
the tension of life and duty. Those who can still remem-
ber the spirit of these early days think of them as one
thinks of the period of adolescence in a boy or girl, with
its peculiar qualities never again to be attained, of bud-
ding promise and ripening charm.

The Annual Report of 1878 indicates with precision
this transition of the school from an experiment to an
institution. "On the foundation thus laid," wrote Arm-
strong of this first decade, "the benevolent of the North
have in ten years expended for permanent improve-
ments $150,000 and are giving for current expenses

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an average of $24,000 yearly. . . . The Trustees of the
Peabody Fund have given annual appropriations, since
the school opened, amounting in the ten years to $6300.
. . . The annual running expenses of the institution
are now ['78] estimated at $34,000. . . . For one-half
of our income there is no guarantee whatever. Yet sup-
port is morally certain from the confidence of friends
both North and South. There is, however, need of
an endowment fund of more than two hundred thousand
dollars, the interest of which would lessen the severe and,
in more ways than one, costly labor of collecting income,
give the school a life of its own independent of any one
man's life or powers, and better secure it against exigencies.
. . . For the past ten years, a great part of our resources
has gone into building and outfit. This work is nearly
done. The school is substantially built up, out of debt,
and in good working order.. The next thing is a solid
financial basis.

"The problem of the school, industrially is (i) To
make labor as instructive as possible; (2) To turn it
to the best account. Labor schools are expensive. We
do not expect our industries as a whole to pay. They
are primarily educational, yet they have under the cir-
cumstances done well this year, and in time some of them
will, I think, be remunerative ; but that is not the point.
... A large majority of our non-graduates are doing
good work as teachers. . . . Not less than ninety per
cent of our graduates have taught school. Those who do
not teach are generally working for themselves or others.
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f know of but few worthless ones. I have observed in
many a moral growth after graduation, the reaction of
right life upon character. That some will degenerate,
there can be no doubt ; but after leaving here the general
movement is upward. . , . They generally buy land and
have frequent use for their agricultural training. Few
take up farming exclusively, as teaching pays better. . . .
Thorough primary teachers are the present pressing need
of the South. . . .

"The present condition of the colored people is more
favorable for their improvement than at any previous
time. All their schooling in the past decade has done
less for the Negroes than the lessons of experience
which had been in some ways severe. They are now
less influenced by sentiment and more by reflection.
They seek education less universally but with a better
idea of what it is. . . . 'Salvation by hard work' is an
understood thing. The necessity and the moral obliga-^
tion to aid in their elevation are more appreciated than
ever before in the South. The freedmen are working into
more settled and pleasant relations with their neighbors.
Although rum, demagogues, and other evil influences,
within and without, are pushing them down, yet I believe,
with long continued and wise effort, and by infinite pa-
tience and care, the fate of the Negro, the romance of
American history, may become a bright record. . . . The
friends of this institution and of Negro progress have
reason, from its record of the past ten years, and from the
slow, but sure and steady forward movement in the

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Southern States, to thank God and take courage for the
future."

One event only occurred during this period to overcloud
the sunshine. Mrs. Armstrong's health, which had never
been robust, showed marks of continuous decline, and
early in 1878 her husband took her further South, utiliz-
ing the opportunity to observe conditions among less
educated Negroes. "The leading plantation-hands,"
he wrote, "are all on their feet. It seems possible for any
resolute careful Negro to obtain a foothold somewhere."
No gain, however, could be observed in the condition of
his wife, and, despairing of restoration, Mrs. Armstrong
was conveyed to her home in Stockbridge, where, while
her husband was called away on one of his frequent and
imperative journeys, she died, on November 10, 1878.
"His brown hair," Miss Ludlow writes, "turned gray, and
the lines on his face deepened," and though there was
much happiness for him still to experience, and the com-
panionship of his two little girls, of six and eight years,
was to him a daily solace and refreshment, his face never
lost those deep furrows, or his eyes that singularly search-
ing gaze, which revealed an inner life of solitude and
tragedy.

[44

CHAPTER SIX

THE COMING OF THE INDIANS (1878)

THE pleasant idyl of missionary service thus prosperously
begun was abruptly interrupted by an event which, how-
ever inevitable it appeared, seemed to many of the
friends, and even of the Trustees of Hampton Institute,
unpropitious, if not alarming. Among the many evil
consequences of the Civil War there had survived a spirit
of restlessness and lawlessness along the borders of the
country which prompted attacks upon its Indian wards.
Tribes which had once roamed freely found themselves
now restrained in limited, even though extensive, reserva-
tions, and chafed under this restriction of their conduct
of life. Reservations, on the other hand, which a paternal
Government had provided, believing them to be hope-
lessly sterile, proved rich in soil or mines, and tempted
the neighboring whites to dispossess the native owners.
In 1842 the Superintendent of Indian Affairs had written :
**If we draw a line running North and South, so as to
cross the Missouri about the mouth of the Vermilion
River, we shall designate the limits beyond which civilized
men are never likely to settle. At this point the Creator
seems to have said to the tides of emigration that are
annually rolling to the West : 'Thus far shalt thou go

14s

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

and no farther/ . . . The utter destitution of timber,
the sterility of sandy soil, together with the coldness and
dryness of the climate, furnish obstacles which not even
Yankee enterprise is likely to brave. A beneficent Creator
seems to have intended this dreary region as an asylum
for the Indians." *

This proposed line, however, between a fertility fit for
whites and a sterility appropriate as an asylum for
Indians, ran through what later became Dakota, Ne-
braska, Kansas, the Indian Territory, and Texas ; and
left as a region which "not even Yankee enterprise
could brave," the vast domain of Idaho, Colorado,
and New Mexico, not to speak of the Pacific States.
In short, a beneficent Creator, under this scheme of
exile, would have endowed the Indians, not with an
asylum, but with an empire; and an era of invasion,
broken faith, and bloodshed ensued. "The only good
Indian is a dead Indian," became the familiar maxim of
frontier communities, and opportunities to make Indians
good by killing them were eagerly seized. Retaliation,
with all the horrors of Indian warfare, followed, until, in
1875, the resistance of some of the most aggressive tribes
was broken by the force of the regular army, and such of
the warriors of the Kiowas, Comanches, Cheyennes, and
Arapahoes as had not been killed were imprisoned at
Fort Sill in the Indian Territory. From this point
further removal was advised, both for security from
counter-attack and as a solemn warning to the tribesmen

* Helen H. Jackson, "A Century of Dishonor," 1886, p. 67.
146

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

of the prisoners; and seventy-five chiefs and fighting
men, each of whom, it was said, had killed more than one
white man in battle, were deported across the continent,
each man with his leg fastened by chains to a log, and
confined in Fort Marion at St. Augustine, Florida. The
vastness of the country traversed, with its bewildering
strangeness of railroads and cities, the homesickness which
is so pathetic a malady among these free plainsmen,
and the belief on their part that they were on their
way to some cruel form of death, all made the long
journey a tragedy. One man leaped from the moving
train and was shot by the guard ; another committed
suicide with a penknife ; and all joined in their grim
death-chants, fortifying their wills against the tortures
which they believed themselves about to endure. They
were clad in blankets and wore great brass rings in
their ears. Not one of them could speak or understand
English.

For three years these wild nomads were incarcerated
within the stone walls of Fort Marion, but were fortu-
nately assigned to the care of a sagacious army officer,
Captain R. H. Pratt, who had been one of their captors
but had become trusted by them as a friend. He applied
to these imprisoned wards the same gospel of work
which Armstrong had found to be the way of salvation for
the freedmen ; securing the co-operation of residents in St,
Augustine, and establishing classes in the rudiments of
education, and in the native arts and handiwork. The
results were astonishing. At the end of three years these

147

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

men, who had arrived as savages, confronting their
visitors with fierce faces and hostile scowls, had dis-
carded their blankets, were clothed in uniforms, had sub-
mitted themselves to military drill, were laboriously
learning to read and write, and might even be seen stand-
ing on guard at the entrance of the Fort to prevent the
escape of their own companions. In 1878 the United
States Government had become satisfied that these
prisoners were no longer dangerous, and the choice was
set before the younger men of returning to their homes
or continuing their education in the East. Twenty-
two accepted the alternative of following further "the
white man's road," and fifteen, chiefly Kiowas and
Cheyennes, assigned as students, with forty-seven older
men on their way to the reservations, arrived by steamer,
on April 18, 1878, about midnight, at Hampton.

It was an invasion which not unreasonably excited
much apprehension. Friends of the Indian intimated
that the noble Red Man would be degraded by association
with the Negro. Friends of the Negro, on the other hand,
dreaded the conversion of Hampton Institute into a
reformatory for Indian criminals. Some sceptics believed
that the two races would fight with each other; others
feared that they would fall in love with each other.
The adviser on whom Armstrong most confidently leaned.
General Marshall, shared these dreary anticipations. "I
was not in favor of the plan," he writes, "I had little faith
in the capacity of the red man for civilization, and felt
that General Armstrong had already as much on his
148

GROUP OF INDIANS ON ARRIVAL AT HAMPTON

SAME CJROIJP SOME MONTHS LATER

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hands as he could well carry. I think the majority of
the Trustees were of the same opinion,"

The boldness of the new venture, however, only quick-
ened Armstrong's missionary impulses. The Hampton
peninsula had been from the beginnings of history a
resort of the aboriginal American tribes. On almost
the precise spot where the school was established there
stood, at the end of the sixteenth century, an Indian
village called Kecoughtan, where, according to early
historians, one thousand members of that tribe dwelt
in three hundred wigwams. At Jamestown, near the
neck of the peninsula, Pocahontas had been baptized
and married ; and near Yorktown, where Pocahontas
saved John Smith's life, a great chimney still stands
which, according to tradition, is a relic of the house
built for Powhatan by John Smith, to meet that
Indian chief's requisite of a "house, a grindstone, fifty
swords, some guns, a cock and hen, with much copper
and many beads." * These local associations conspired
with his temperamental audacity to determine Arm-
strong's decision. "Our colored students," he said, in
answer to many criticisms, "selected as they are from a
wide range, furnish the best practical conditions for
building up wild Indians in ideas of decency and manhood.
Our class of Negro youths form a current of influences
which bears the red children along. The latter are like
raw recruits in an old regiment. On the other hand, this
new Indian work will give fresh life and force to the school.

* J. E. Davis, " Round About Jamestown," 1907, pp. 30, 97.

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

It is better for the Negroes with than without Indians.
The Negro will be richer and stronger for doing a good
part for the Indian, and the exchange of ideas is a better
educator as it is a greater power for good."

The arrival of these new students was a dramatic scene.
Disembarking in the middle of the night from the
steamer which had brought them from Florida, they
made what had the appearance of a raid of red men on a
sleeping village. In the Reminiscences of Miss Ludlow,
whose devoted service of the school spans nearly the
whole of this period of forty years, the scene is graphi-
cally described. "The school force quickly rallied to
receive them, not with shot, powder, and ball, but with
welcome and hot coffee. Two large recitation rooms were
given up to them, and the next day saw the novel sight
of Cheyennes and Comanches in Uncle Sam's uniform
roaming under the trees and enjoying a day of rest after
the discomforts of their sea voyage. . . . On the follow-
ing evening the Chapel of the Institute witnessed an
unprecedented gathering of three races ; and the singing,
of the white man's hymns : 'Today the Savior calls' and
*I need Thee every hour' was followed, first by Negro
'Spirituals,' and then by a startling contribution of the
Cheyennes in a deep booming bass, and by the shrill
war-song of the Kiowas, ending in yells like the bark
of hundreds of coyotes."

Captain Pratt, at once the friend and the disciplina-
rian of the new-comers, then described their journey
and their hopes. "The chiefs," he said, "are going
ISO

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

back to their people. They are too old to go to school,
and they cannot talk English as well as the young
men. But they have learned some good things and
want to tell their people. I will ask some of them to
speak to you. I am not a very good interpreter, but I
will do the best I can. . . . Minimic says that today
he has a talk he will give to you. Three years ago he
went 'way down South and has been there till now. He
says that Washington has given to me a road to give to
them and they have seized upon it. God has made all
their hearts very big. Their heads have got bigger and
their ears are open. Now the skins of the people he
meets here and their own people are just alike — colored.
He says these young men all say to you : 'How d'ye do ?'
All feel good. They are glad. God has given them re-
lease. They are going home, and they are very glad.
He says he is an old man, and says to all the old people
here that they are his friends. Goodbye."

Captain Pratt then called upon the young men to come
forward and speak. The first to respond was a pleasant-
faced Cheyenne, introduced as *' Matches," one of seven
of his tribe assigned first to Hampton and later to Bishop
Whipple's school in Minnesota. He spoke in broken
English as follows : " I go school — ^way off. I come a
school a three days — way off — sea. I go school here — I
like here. Come last night, half-past one. Came not
here — other house — I went school — Miss Mather. I
like here — all these girls — good girls" — a conclusion
which was greeted with much applause. It had been

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

Captain Pratt's intention to proceed with the older
Indians to Fort Sill, but he was met by orders detaching
him from the care of his wards and was compelled to part
from them without delay. The parting surprised those
who had assumed the Indian nature to be stoical and
reserved. "Each man put his arms round the Captain's
neck, and wept like a child." *

Thus began this extraordinary experiment, of which
the old chief, "Lone Wolf," on the first evening, said:
"We have started on God's road now, because God's
road is the same for the red man as for the white man."
As with the Negro students, the compulsion 'of work pre-
cluded those evils which had been so generally anticipated.
"They like and understand English quite well," General
Armstrong was soon able to report, "but speak it with
difficulty; they use the hoe and spade energetically,
and show mechanical skill, and in everything willingness
and quickness. They compare in plain work with the
best of our students. They seem to enjoy their colored
associates. No point of friction has been discovered,
though they are said to have quick tempers." One
young man, "Kobe," wrote to his home : "I pray every
day and hoe onions." "Bear's Heart," on his return
home, called his people together and told them : "The
Bible goes right along with work." "Roman Nose"
writes to his father that he "has put aside his blanket,
wears white man's clothes, and goes to work regularly."
In short, the prophecy made by Captain Pratt in his first

* Folsom Mss., pp. lo fF.

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

words at Hampton was realized : "There will be no fric-
tion between the races here. These Indians have come
to work."

It was anticipated that the Indian nature, accustomed
to unrestrained liberty, could not submit itself to the
established discipUne of the school. Smoking, for ex-
ample, was prohibited, and the prohibition invaded their
habits and traditions. When, however, the purpose of the
rule was explained, as their friend. Miss Folsom, records :
"They stood in solemn silence for a while. Then one,
with a quick gesture, as of a man striking his pipe from
his mouth, signified his resolve to obey. He was followed
by each of the others in turn, though it took the last
one some time to make up his mind to yield." Another
teacher, who at the coming of the Indians was one of the
youngest of the staff and soon became one of its most
discerning and gracious leaders, had an accidental
experience which she quickly converted into a form of
discipline. Entering a class-room where a little Quaker
lady was instructing these swarthy warriors, the new
teacher heard her gentle predecessor say to "Soaring
Eagle" at the blackboard : "I would ask thee to put down
thy chalk and take thy seat." The man, about thirty
years of age, made no movement, though the mild request
was repeated ; but the young girl spoke more sharply.
"Put down your chalk and take your seat," she said, with
a gesture of command. Quite without intention her raised
arm struck his elbow, the chalk flew into the air, and
the savage subsided in his place as though he had found

153

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

a master. Another teacher reported that a powerful
man, "Kobe," made no reply when she addressed him.
In the evening, however, he came to her penitently, and
said: "Today you said 'Kobe,' and I did not say any-
thing. I did not feel good. By and by I think maybe
you feel bad because I did not speak — maybe think
I don't like; so I came to tell you I am sorry."

Before many weeks of the new undertaking had passed,
the indefatigable Armstrong called on the Secretary of
the Interior at Washington, then — fortunately for the
country and the Indian — Hon. Carl Schurz, and sug-
gested that the experiment of Indian training could not
be regarded as complete until the Hampton system of co-
education was accepted, and Indian girls as well as Indian
boys were received. "I urged," said General Armstrong,
"that there is no civilization without educated women,
and begged the Secretary to let us try. The condition of
women, I said, is the gauge of civilization. The hand of
Providence is in this work, naturally yet curiously thrust
upon us." This proposition, which appeared to many
officials of the Indian Department even more revolutionary
and quixotic than the making of useful citizens out of
converted warriors, was adopted by Schurz ; and Captain
Pratt, with his wife, was sent to Dakota, returning in
November 1878 with forty boys and nine girls between
fourteen and twenty years of age, "chiefly Sioux," for each
of whom the United States was to appropriate annually
$167 as the cost of their board and clothing. Meantime
a building for Indian boys, "The Wigwam," was hastily

154

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

constructed, a special division of Virginia Hall was pre-
pared for Indian girls, and friends of the new under-
taking were rallied to its financial support. On November
5th the young strangers arrived, "a wild-looking set,
most of them in full Indian costume, blanket, leggings,
and moccasins, with dishevelled locks hanging half-way
down to their knees, or braided with strips of red flannel
down each side of their faces, yet with an expression of
intelHgent and earnest desire to learn the white man's
way. *

They had been gathered from six agencies along
the Missouri River, from Fort Berthold in the ex-
treme north of Dakota to Yankton in the south, had
travelled, first by a stern-paddle boat down the half-
frozen river, and thence across the continent by rail.
"If," reports their teacher, "the first mild advent of a
few Indian young men in military array struck terror to
the hearts of their colored brethren, how much more the
second raid of forty bronzed, dishevelled, long-haired
wild men from the West ! Long rides across the plains
in the snow, a long trip on the freezing river, and five
days on the train sitting up all night, had added cinders,
smoke, and dust to the gay Indian costumes ; and excite-
ment, weariness, and homesickness had made their marks.
It was little wonder that the Negro students recalled
with dismay the terrible tales they had heard of the blood-
thirsty Indians." The clipping of the long braids worn by
the boys was a tragedy, and the stifF-visored military cap

' *' Twenty-two Years' Work of Hampton Institute," 1893, pp. 314 ff.

^55

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

and unyielding shoes of the school were forms of torture.
The girls protested against substituting hats for shawls
as head-gear, and hid the finery which kindly teachers
had prepared ; while the merits of moccasins became so
recognized that white teachers, colored students, and
even the boys of the neighboring town of Hampton,
followed instead of correcting the Indian fashion.

Yet the adjustment of these susceptible and childlike
natures to their new world was without serious difficulty.
Negro students accepted Indians as school-mates, and
taught them the art of sleeping on a bed instead of in a
blanket on the floor. Christian pastors of the neighbor-
hood welcomed the opportunity for new missionary ser-
vice; and of one earnest preacher, a stoical Indian
remarked : "Mr. Gravatt, good man, good preacher —
he preach so hard, knock down Bible." The observant
teachers of Hampton quickly recognized the original
qualities of Indian art and encouraged their pupils in
the making of pottery and in those forms of decoration
which had been taught them in their tribal life. The
buffalo hunt, with stiff-legged horses and feather-be-
decked riders, was reproduced in clay and in painting,
and perpetuated a type of art which, as the sophistica-
tion of the aborigines has proceeded, has become almost
extinct. "The Negro," General Armstrong remarked,
"has the only American music; the Indian has the only
American art."

In the Message of President Hayes to Congress of
December 1878, he calls attention to the novel enterprise
156

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

at Hampton. "I agree," he says, "with the Secretary
of the Interior that the result of this interesting experi-
ment, if favorable, may be destined to become an im-
portant factor in the advancement of civiHzation among
the Indians." This reaction upon Hfe at the reservations
was not long delayed. In 1880 the Superintendent of
Indian Schools reported that Hampton Institute "fur-
nished most of the shoes, harnesses, tin-ware, and parts of
wagons used at many of the Agencies. It is interesting
to remember that these are made by boys who but a few
years ago were as wild as the chickens on the prairie."
As this news drifted Westward, and it was learned that
the boys and girls trusted to strangers in the East were
happy in their new life, the heads of families, instead of
prohibiting their children from this great adventure,
pressed their requests, until, as Captain Pratt remarked,
he "could have brought a thousand." It became the
judicious practice of the school to select for visitation
those reservations where promising pupils had been
already found, and this selective process secured recruits
both of physical and of mental fitness.

A typical letter from a father at Fort Berthold con-
cerning his son describes the situation : "I hear how my
son is doing, but it is hard to bear not to see my son
for so long a time, I see that the white men who came
here are wise, so I sent my son away that he may learn
to be like them. So my son is away off and I am
here alone, but I did it. My son helped me to cut
wood and hay and by it we lived well, so I sent my

157

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

son away to learn more work so that he can buy wagons
and stoves and we will live well. There is nothing
now for Indian to live on, so I want my son to be a
white man and sent him away. It is all right. My
son is now in the midst of good works and my heart is
glad. I see his picture when he has on white man's
clothes which contain many places to put money in
pockets, and I know that you hold my son well for me.
I know God did the work. God did it for us."

Armstrong himself visited the reservations in 1882,
meeting Generals Terry, Miles, and Crook, who were not
only famous as Indian fighters but outspoken in advocacy
of Indian education. "To fight the Indian," wrote
Armstrong from Fort Keogh, "is to learn his manly and
heroic qualities." On returning to Hampton the Principal
expressed his conclusions as follows: "If the Indian
question were taken out of politics and placed in the
hands of competent men with full discretion, there would
in ten years be very few dependent on the Government.
. . . General Terry declares the solution of the Indian
question to be one word * cows.' . . . Recent visits to
the country have impressed me with the favoring condi-
tions there in extensive grazing lands. ... I believe
that army officers are better fitted than any others to
settle the Indian question; Captain Pratt is indirectly
doing more than any two regiments for the pacification of
the Indians."

Again in 1888 Armstrong headed a search-party for
new students, and writes from the Devil's Lake
158

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

Agency in Dakota: *'A three hours' drive over this
reservation was one of my most encouraging and in-
spiring experiences of Indian Hfe and progress. In every
direction, as far as the eye could reach, except where the
ground was broken and wooded, were dotted log houses,
beside each one a tipi or conical tent of smoke-browned
cotton cloth, graceful and picturesque, where in summer
the Indians cook and sometimes live. ... Of the
thousand people, two hundred and ten are farmers,
heads of families, scattered over the reserve just as white
men would be settled, cultivating from one to one hun-
dred acres apiece. . . . The climax of my experience
was in seeing a McCormick self-binder and reaper driven
with two horses by an Indian farmer round splendid fields
of yellow grain. . . . The redeemed and regenerate
Indian, guiding the complicated, brainy machine — one
of forty on the reservation — . . . seemed fairly established
in manhood. . . . All I could say was, *This is the end.'
. . . No honest man can touch Indian affairs at any
point without at first a sense of humiliation. Yet every
day sees a change in development rather than in decay.
... I believe that there is no body of people in this
country who have improved more rapidly in the last
ten years than have the Indians. . . . The very dif-
ficulties are inspiring and challenge the best that is
in us."

Still again, in 1889, the untiring Armstrong set out
for the West, visiting six reservations and attending a
great council of chiefs called to consider the sale of lands.

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

"I found," he writes, "the thirty Hampton returned
students at Standing Rock doing well as a rule ; not one
had gone back to barbarism." In the same year he
examined the case of the Arizona Apaches, taken captive
after hard fighting and confined as prisoners of war to
the number of three hundred and seventy in Alabama.
"The Apaches now at Mount Vernon," he says, "have
shown during their two years of imprisonment that they
need only a fair chance to prove that they are ready to
accept civilization, and that this chance could be given
them while they are still under army control. If wisely
and carefully settled in permanent homes they will be
easily civiHzed. It is a case in which the pressure of
public sentiment should be brought to bear on those who
have the power to see that it is done."

Such, in brief, was the early procedure of Hampton
Institute in fulfilling this new responsibility, and the
general result is sufficiently indicated by the verdict of
Carl Schurz who, as Secretary of the Interior, had been
practically in control of this education of Indians by
migration to the East. "My personal interest in Hamp-
ton Institute," he wrote, "dates from the time when, as a
member of the National Administration, I had something
to do with Indian affairs. . . . The system of education
pioneered by General Armstrong . . . makes out of the
young Indian not a mere clever savage ... it trains
him to practical work, to earn his own living, it inspires
in him the pride of being useful. . . . This, although by
no means a novel idea, was in our days first attempted
i6o

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

by Geneial Armstrong. His example led to the establish-
ment of an Indian school in the old Government barracks
at Carlisle in Pennsylvania, and of several others in other
parts of the country . . . and by having initiated it
systematically and on a large scale, General Armstrong
has made himself a genuine benefactor of the Indian
race."

This general impression may be fortified by the scrupu-
lous record of individual cases, which was from the outset
of the enterprise undertaken by the school, and which,
when published at the end of a twelve-year term, provided
a convincing demonstration of its success. The biog-
raphies thus collected numbered four hundred and sixty.
Graded according to the character of their later lives,
the list gave the following showing: —

Excellent . . 98
Good . « . 219
Fair ... 91 Satisfactory 408

Poor
Bad.

17 Disappointing 52 Total 460

or a result of 88 per cent, as meeting or exceeding the
expectations of the school. The statistics of occupations
proved difficult to tabulate because of the shifting trade
or task of the returned students, but the records of the
students of a single year, 1891-92, are typical: —

Teachers 9, school employes 9, 18

Attending other schools 17

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

Attending higher schools in the East .... 5

Supporting themselves in the East 8

Regular missionaries 3, catechists 12 .... 15
United States soldiers 6, scouts 3, postmaster i,

mail carrier i II

Agency employes

Physicians 2, interpreters 4, issue clerk i, police
4, district farmers 2, in charge of stables 3,
herders 2, carpenters 16, wheelwrights and
blacksmiths 7, harnessmakers 2, tinsmith i,

miller i 45

Independent workers

Engineers 2, surveyors 2, lawyers 2, merchants
4, clerks 6, carpenters 5, printer i, painter i,
freighter i, loggers 4, laborers 7, house ser-
vants 2, ranchers 6 43

Farmers 73

Girls married, and in good homes 46*

The wide distribution of pupils returning to the reserva-
tions is indicated in the accompanying map.

Years later, as Armstrong looked back upon this daring
venture and compared it with his original undertaking for
the education of the Negro, he summed up his conclusions
as follows: "But it maybe asked, has Hampton aban-
doned the Negro ? Never has the tide of Negro students
set in so promptly and strongly. What is given for these
races will come back with usury. Not the least return

*" Twenty-two Years' Work of Hampton Institute," 1893, p. 488.
162

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X--7-' f. r — /

163

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

to us may be the educational methods which, inspired
by exigencies and unchecked by tradition, will be worked
out amid the emergencies thrust upon the country by the
enfranchisement of the Negro and by the destruction of
the buffalo, which has brought the Indian to face the
issue of civilization or extermination. There is no race
friction at the school. The mingling of the students there
is good for both, pushing the Indians by the force of
surrounding influences quickly and naturally along, and
reacting finely upon the Negro by the appeal to his sym-
pathies and better nature. The work for another race
broadens and strengthens our movement and adds, if
possible, to its inspiration."

There remained one serious obstacle to this redemptive
work. It was the susceptibility of these Indian students
to disease, especially to affections of the lungs. Of the
forty young men first received, twenty-one were found to
be of unsound constitution, six were definitely diseased,
and three were in confirmed phthisis. One died, and a
sense of alarm spread to the reservations and obstructed
the securing of students. "The danger to this experi-
ment," said Armstrong in his Report for 1889, "is in
the matter of health. The change from the cold bracing
air of Dakota to the damp seaside air and lower altitude
is a risk." Critics of the venture were quick to seize
on these facts as confirming their scepticism, and to
demand the return of the Indians to their early environ-
ment. The truth was, however, that Hampton was
bringing to light the disastrous effects of vice, ignorance,
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unsanitary habits, and the contagion of the white race,
which had already afflicted the Indian tribes, and had
been transmitted to their innocent children. Tuber-
culosis, pneumonia, and scrofula had for many genera-
tions scourged both men and women. Disease often
lurked beneath what seemed massive strength. The
resident physician of the Carhsle School, after extended
experience in the West, gave it as his opinion: "It is
safe to say that one out of every ten, or 4000 out of the
40,000 children of school age are disqualified either men-
tally or physically from attending school, and the large
majority of these are hopelessly diseased," "Full-
blooded Indians," reported the resident physician of
Hampton, whose devoted service has become a permanent
asset of the school, "have less endurance than the half-
or mixed-bloods, and when attacked by tuberculosis
or any form of scrofula, they perish more quickly. This
is the reverse of the condition seen in the Negro race, in
which pure-bloods are less subject to phthisis than mulat-
toes and lighter shades. The Negro, whether full-
blooded or not, has greater physical stamina than the
Indian, though much less than the Anglo-Saxon. . . .
Those who best know what the home life of the Indian is,
do not think that it is school or civilization. Western or
Eastern, that kills him, but rather the accumulated
effect of the vice and ignorance of generations." * In
short, the careful observations made at Hampton con-

* Report of Dr. M. M.Waldron in " Twenty-two Years' Work of Hampton
Institute," 1893, p. 488.

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

cerning heredity, habit, tendency, and temperament as
affecting the physical Hfe of the Indians, demonstrated
a general condition far more alarming than any local
defect, and prompted the friends of the Indians, both as
agents of the Government and as lovers of humanity,
to more rational and active measures for the promotion
of sanitation and the prevention of disease.

The enterprise thus annexed to the original intention
of Hampton soon had consequences for the red race
hardly less notable than its work for the black race had
been. The United States Government, having subsidized
this limited experiment, was moved to undertake on its
own part a larger scheme. In President Hayes's Message
of 1879 he announced : "The experiment of sending a
number of Indian children of both sexes to the Hampton
Normal and Agricultural Institute in Virginia, to receive
an elementary English education and practical instruction
in farming and other useful industries, has led to results
so promising that it was thought expedient to turn over
the cavalry barracks in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, to the
Interior Department for the establishment of an Indian
school on a larger scale. This school has now 158 pupils,
selected from various tribes, and is in full operation.
Arrangements are also being made for the education of a
number of Indian boys and girls belonging to the tribes
on the Pacific slope in similar manner at Forest Grove,
Oregon. These institutions will commend themselves to
the liberality of Congress and to the philanthropic munifi-
cence of the American people."
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RESERVATION HOSPITAL BUILT THROUGH INFLUENCE OF
AN INDIAN GRADUATE
Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte

HAMPTON INDIAN BREAKING HIS OWN LAND

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

The Indian Industrial School at Carlisle, thus acknowl-
edged as an heir of the Hampton tradition, has rapidly
grown to an enrolment of 814 pupils (1916) ; and the
Hampton faith in industrial training has become accepted
in a complete system of Government schools. The Re-
port of the Commissioner of Indian Affairs for 1916 gives
impressive evidence of this conviction. " For many years,"
he says, "the general country has recognized a vital de-
ficiency in its system of education. The Indian Service
has recognized a similar deficiency. The new vocational
course of study for Indian schools is believed to provide
a safe and substantial passage from school life to success
in real life. . . . [It] contemplates a practical system of
schools with an essentially vocational foundation. . . .
Indian schools must provide that form of training and
instruction which leads directly to productive efficiency
and self-support." Elaborate plans for the realization of
this program are described in this important Report, and
follow in the main the scheme of pre-vocational and
vocational studies long familiar at Hampton Institute.
In a word, the generous testimony of General, formerly
Captain, Pratt has become justified : "Without the open
door at Hampton none of the advanced conditions in
Indian school affairs would have become established. It
would be difficult to locate the critical period in the de-
velopment of the movement, but certainly Hampton and
Armstrong (Strong Arm) can claim one of the foremost
emergency positions."

Finally, in 191 2, the appropriation for Indian education

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

at Hampton was withdrawn by Congress, partly in the
interest of government schools then firmly established
under the Hampton plan, and partly through the influence
of certain members of Congress of Indian blood, who
urged — not without self-respecting motives — that their
people had now reached a point of social and financial
standing which deserved separate schools within easy
reach of their own homes. The effect of this loss of
subsidy at Hampton was less serious than might have
been anticipated. Instead of a general withdrawal of
Indian students, as though confessing themselves in-
capable of self-support, nearly one-half of the eighty-one
students enrolled determined to continue at their own
cost, and eight new students were admitted for the next
term. It was a transition which could not be faced
without some apprehension, but it has resulted in proving,
first, that the character of the Indians had not forfeited
self-respect through dependence on the Government;
and, secondly, that the group of Indians at Hampton
might be merged in the general life of the school, not as
strangers and aliens, but as participants in a common
work. Loss in numbers was inevitable, but it has been
more than atoned for by the persistency and initiative of
those who have remained, and by the efl^ect of their
determined self-support on the spirit of the school.

It would be interesting to prolong this story of the
coming of the Indians by describing many individual
cases among these new wards of the school who, returning
to their Western homes, readjusted themselves, often
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with great effort, to the environment of the lodge and the
tribe. Fortunately for the history of education these
records of individuals, scrupulously preserved, and
published in great detail, are open to examination, and
tell a dramatic story of personal struggle and victory.
President Angell of Michigan University often said that
one of the most fortunate results of a co-educational
system was its tendency to promote happy marriages.
This has proved the case at Hampton also. Sixty-four
of the Indian girls have married Indian fellow-students,
and the natural consequence of such unions in the estab-
lishment of self-respecting homes among the communal
conditions prevailing in many Indian tribes, has been
in itself a form of missionary service.

Out of the long series of lives thus discovering their
own capacities under the influence of Hampton, one, at
least, must be recalled, both because of the surprising and
unique destiny which awaited it, and because of the loss
which American learning sustained in its early and tragic
end. William Jones — " Megasiawa, Black Eagle " — was
the son of a white mother and the grandson of a white
Kentuckian. The grandfather, however, had married the
daughter of a Chief among the Sauk and Fox Indians of
Iowa, and his son became a leading member of that
tribe. He in his turn married an EngHsh girl, who died
when her son was a year old, leaving him to the care
of the Indian grandmother. William Jones, therefore,
though three-quarters white in descent, was reared in a
bark wigwam, swinging by day in his little hammock

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

cradle, learning to speak the Indian tongue and "seeing
life over his grandmother's shoulder from his perch on her
strong back." From the lodge and camp-fire he was
transferred at the age of ten to a school for Indians,
maintained in Indiana by the Society of Friends, and there
first learned to use the English language. At thirteen he
returned to the Indian Territory, where for three years he
was a plainsman and cowboy. Then, in 1889, a Hampton
teacher arrived at the reservation in the course of her
search for new students, and the boy. Black Eagle, "in
cowboy clothes, broad felt hat, and with a silk handker-
chief round his throat," reluctantly yielded himself to her
care. For three years he worked at Hampton, on the
farm, at the carpenter's bench, and in the class-room, in
1892 proceeding to Andover Academy, and thence in
1896 to Harvard University, where he graduated in 1900.
His knowledge of Indian life and languages brought him
to the attention of the professors of Ethnology and
Archaeology, and they encouraged his hope of becoming
a historian of the legends and beliefs of his people, which
were so difficult for the uninitiated to approach or under-
stand. He became a Fellow in Anthropology at Columbia
University in 1901, and a Doctor of Philosophy in 1904;
and after various journeys among the Indians of the
United States undertook an exploration of the wild races
of the Philippine Islands, reaching at length the tribe of
Ilongots, "a Negrito-Malay people, dwelling in lofty
booths on poles and in the forks of trees . . . little naked
brownies, head-hunters, armed with wooden shields,
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WILLIAM JONKS (Mkgasiawa)

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

light spears, cruelly barbed bows and arrows, and bolos
with deep-bellied blades." Here, for eighteen months,
among the most savage and filthy surroundings and in
daily peril of his life, he calmly pursued his studies and
made his collections, until, in the spring of 1909, "when
the head-hunting fever sends each ambitious lover
abroad for a trophy," he was suddenly and brutally
murdered, without reason or motive, "as boys might
kill a squirrel." * It was a tragic frustration of rare gifts
and promise. Dr. Jones was less than forty years of
age, happily betrothed, and with unique opportunities
for scientific distinction. Yet for his teachers and
friends at Hampton his life thus suddenly cut short
remains a permanent and inspiring lesson. Hidden
away on the prairie and discovered only by the friendly
search-party from Hampton, were these extraordinary
gifts ; and, as it has been often said that the existence of
the school would be justified by the single discovery of the
Negro, Booker Washington, so it might be added that
its work for the Indians is sufficiently vindicated by the
career of " Megasiawa."

Such, in brief outline, is the story of the coming of the
Indians. It is a chapter which may be detached from
the general narrative of Hampton Institute; it deals
with a by-product of the purpose of the school; the
problem of Indian education, fortunately both for the
Indian and for Hampton, has become merged in the

* H. M. Rideout, "William Jones, Indian Cowboy, American Scholar and
Anthropologist in the Field," 191 2.

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

general work of national education, and there is no longer
a distinct responsibility for a separate group, or an
annually recurring need of soliciting Congressional sym-
pathy. Indians and Negroes march together, work to-
gether, and play together, not as contrasted races, but as
fellow-Americans. Yet when one recalls the brief period
in which this change has occurred, the bold venture of
1878 becomes singularly impressive. Instead of a huddled
group of suspicious savages, deported by force from the
prairies, and finally handed over to the care of a school
designed for another race, one now sees, not only a
comprehensive system of Indian schools within easy
reach of the reservations, but at Hampton itself a group
of well-qualified Indian students, independent of Govern-
ment aid, registered by their own desire, earning their
own way, and competent as graduates to apply to their
own communities the best that the science of rural living
has to give. It is a transition which is the more significant
because it has been unheralded and almost unobserved.
It rrieans simply that one great and baffling American
problem has been, on the small scale possible to a single
school, practically solved. There is no Indian Question
at Hampton. There is only an Education for Life.

In one of the last campaigns of Indian resistance to the
aggression of the whites. General Custer and his entire
force were slaughtered in the battle of the Big Horn River ;
and in this tragic incident Longfellow found a subject for
his dramatic poem, "The Revenge of Rain-in-the-Face."
The poet describes the apparently inevitable conflict
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of that period between the savages and the soldiers ; the
protest, on the one hand, against broken promises, and
the gallant defence, on the other hand, of broken faith.

In that desolate land and lone.
Where the Big Horn and Yellowstone

Roar down their mountain path.
By their fires the Sioux Chiefs
Muttered their woes and griefs

And the menace of their wrath.

"Revenge!" cried Rain-in-the-Face,
" Revenge upon all the race

Of the White Chief with yellow hair ! "
And the mountains dark and high
From their crags re-echoed the cry

Of his anger and despair.

In the meadow, spreading wide
By woodland and river-side

The Indian village stood ;
All was silent as a dream.
Save the rushing of the stream

And the blue-jay in the wood.

In his war paint and his beads.
Like a bison among the reeds.

In ambush the Sitting Bull
Lay with three thousand braves
Crouched in the clefts and caves,

Savage, unmerciful !

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

Into the fatal snare

The White Chief with yellow hair

And his three hundred men
Dashed headlong, sword in hand ;
But of that gallant band

Not one returned again.

The sudden darkness of death
Overwhelmed them like the breath

And smoke of a furnace fire :
By the river's bank, and between
The rocks of the ravine.

They lay in their bloody attire.

Whose was the right and the wrong ?
Sing it, O funeral song.

With a voice that is full of tears,
And say that our broken faith
Wrought all this ruin and scathe.

In the Year of a Hundred Years.

Ten years after this tragedy of the Big Horn, througli
one of the most surprising transformations in the history
of human character, this same Chief, " Rain-in-the-Face,"
who might have seemed an implacable foe of the white
race, announced to the missionary at Standing Rock
Agency in Dakota that he wanted a white man's educa-
tion, and proposed to migrate as a student to Hampton
174

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

Institute. It proved that the chief had become too old
to be admitted as a student ; but the docihty and humihty
of his mind in accepting the new order of things showed
that a new era had arrived, when, with a Hteralness of
which the Hebrew Prophet could hardly have conceived,
men might beat their swords into ploughshares and their
spears into pruning-hooks ; neither should they learn
war any more. Hearing of this extraordinary conversion
of an enemy on the war-path into a pupil seeking the
school-room, and seeing in it the sign that wrongs were to
be righted and faith to be no longer broken, Whittier
added to Longfellow's verses his own supplementary
lines; and his picture of the "Chief of the Slaughter-
pen" turning at last to the "Chief of the Christ-like
School" makes a sufficient conclusion to this story of the
coming of the Indians.

The years are but half a score.
And the war-whoop sounds no more

With the blast of bugles, where
Straight into a slaughter-pen.
With his doomed three hundred men,

Rode the Chief with the yellow hair.

O Hampton, down by the sea !
What voice is beseeching thee

For the scholar's lowliest place ?
Can this be the voice of him
Who fought on the Big Horn rim ?

Can this be Rain-in-the-Face ?

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

His war paint is washed away,
His hands have forgotten to slay ;

He seeks for himself and his race
The arts of peace and the lore
That give to the skilled hand more

Than the spoils of war and chase.

O Chief of the Christ-like school !
Can the zeal of thy heart grow cool

When the victor scarred with fight
Like a child for guidance craves,
And the faces of hunters and braves

Are turning to thee for light ?

The hatchet lies overgrown
With grass by the Yellowstone,

Wind River, and Paw of Bear ;
And, in sign that foes are friends.
Each lodge like a peace-pipe sends

Its smoke in the quiet air.

The hills that have watched afar
The valleys ablaze with war

Shall look on the tasseled corn ;
And the dust of the grinded grain,
Instead of the blood and the slain.

Shall sprinkle thy banks, Big Horn !

176

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

The Ute and the wandering Crow
Shall know as the white men know,
And fare as the white men fare ;
The pale and the red shall be brothers,
One's right shall be as another's,

Home, School, and House of Prayer !

O mountains that climb to snow,
O river winding below,

Through meadows by war once trod,
O wild waste lands that await
The harvest exceeding great,

Break forth into praise of God !

177

CHAPTER SEVEN

THE YEARS OF FULFILMENT (1878-1890)

THE years which followed this accession of Indians to
the roll of students at Hampton Institute were crowded
with new problems and achievements. To adjust the two
races in friendly intimacy ; to adapt the curriculum for
the newcomers while at the same time raising the level
of instruction for the ripening minds of Negro youths;
to provide even the physical necessities of lodging, class-
rooms, and workshops for a rapidly multiplying constitu-
ency ; not to speak of meeting the criticisms of the school
which increasing publicity involved and which, whether
they proceeded from ignorance or jealousy, must be
patiently met and intelligently answered, — all these varied
demands taxed the wisdom and ingenuity of Armstrong
and his staff.

Yet, as he summed up his impressions of this expanding
task, he found in it reasonable grounds for a correspond-
ingly expanding hope. "I have just been talking," he
writes to a friend in Boston, "to my 450 — the usual
Sunday-evening talk. With dusky, bright, earnest faces
they seemed to look up from a pitiful past to better things.
How few people have any idea of the mental and moral
resources of the finer young Negro men and women ! The
178

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

average is low but the select are not. They have a capac-
ity for devotion to those who help them, and a possible
devotion of themselves to doing good among their people
that we do not find in the same proportion in a higher,
less simple civilization. Our work is like that of a sculp-
tor. The material is plastic, yet capable of solidifying
under proper treatment into fine and noble forms of
humanity ; better often than the world dreams of. Edu-
cation is not a matter of course with them, it is beyond
them, attainable only by effort and struggle. Here is the
inspiration of it : that one is responded to, called out ; not
in one direction as a specialist, but as a man to make men.
I wonder so few strong men have gone into this work, and
sought it if only for the reaction on their own lives, the
reflex good. . . . These souls come out to meet our own,
and as we lift them they lift us, and we are in a fine, true
sense together.''

The statistics of the school during this period confirm
this sense of encouragement. Where in 1878 there were
323 students, in 1886 there were 693. Where in 1878 the
staff numbered 24, in 1886 there were 70. The practice
school had increased from a roll of 90 in 1878 to 300 in
1886; and the holding of land by the school from 192
acres in 1878 to 778 acres in 1886. Meantime the en-
dowment had advanced from $65,819.37 in 1878 to
$109,769.87 in 1886. More significant were the moral
statistics, collated in 1889, when of 540 living graduates
less than 50 were reported as "not doing well." Three-
quarters of the entire list of graduates were teachers and

179

EDUCATION FOR LIFE y

the rest "good industrious citizens living in their own
homes and teaching by example, if not by precept."

The buildings erected during these years of expansion
make a formidable and varied list : stables and dormi-
tories, a sawmill and a library, a hospital and a machine
shop, an Academic Hall and a Science Building, involving
a total cost of more than $200,000 ; and finally, in 1886, the
stately Memorial Church, erected through the generosity
of Mr. and Mrs. Elbert B. Monroe, as executors of the
estate of Frederick D. Marquand, at a cost of $65,000.
This noble structure then appeared to be the last impor-
tant building needed by the school. *' It will," wrote Arm-
. strong, " so far as I can see, bring to an end our system of
large and costly buildings." The mishaps and disappoint-
ments which accompanied this expansion did not obstruct
either the movement itself or the confidence of the Prin-
cipal. Obstacles, he would say, are things to be overcome ;
and when on Sunday, November 9, 1879, Academic Hall,
the first building of importance erected on the grounds,
was destroyed by fire, Armstrong gathered his staff after
midnight in the light of the conflagration, not only to
announce that the routine of the school should proceed
with but one day's interruption, but to add with play-
fulness : " This will give a good text for the next Hampton
campaign."

In 1880 the condition of the school appeared to be so
propitious that Armstrong was persuaded to visit for the
first time after an interval of twenty years his home in the
Hawaiian Islands ; and the impression of a similar condi-
180

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

tion and problem, which had originally prompted him to
serve another undeveloped race, is again recorded by him
in many striking paragraphs of his diary. "Here lie,"
he wrote of the cemetery at Honolulu, "the pioneers of
Christian civihzation in the Pacific. They tried to make
a New England in the tropics — Puritans out of Hawaiians.
They did not do that, but they laid the foundation of a
civilization that is working itself out according to its
peculiar conditions. They created a moral force which,
terribly opposed, not so much by heathen as by men from
Christian countries, has asserted and sustained the wor-
ship of God and the ascendency of order, justice, human-
ity, but has not yet won the battle. ... Its worst,
because most insidious danger is ahead. In opposition
and poverty it was strong. This period has passed. . . .
Rapid money-making in any country makes both good and
bad possibilities." *

He re-visited the school at Hilo, on the island of Hawaii,
which, he says, "was the chief stimulus or suggestion that
led me, when sent in 1866 by General Howard to scatter
the surplus population of the peninsula of Virginia, to
commence an educational work there." "Here," he
writes, " are sixty native boys, with a course of study very
like that at Hampton. One-half of the boys wholly sup-
port themselves. It takes grit and makes grit to get
through." He surveys the whole project of missionary
service and compares it with the task on which he is
himself engaged. "Judged by the progress of the Ha-

* Ludlow Mss., pp. 823 ff.

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

waiian people since 1820, the missionary work here has
been a grand success. Judged by Puritan standards of
morals, it has been a sad failure. . . . We cannot at
once assume stability of character when assured of con-
version. Habits cannot be reversed like a steam engine.
It takes time, and in time it can be done. A New Eng-
land man asked me : 'How much have the Negroes im-
proved in morals in ten years .? ' I answered : * How much
has New England improved in morals in ten years ? ' I
think the Negro has improved relatively the most. Is
absolute condition, or relative progress the right test —
what has been done for us, or what we have done for our-
selves ? Birthright virtues or birthright vices should
not count like those men create by their own choice.
Bed rock must be gradually erected^ — it takes centuries."
"One must remember," he urges, "the point of departure
rather than the point attained. The means of civiliza-
tion in the early days were scarce and hard to get. Father
Bond told me that once there were but eight garments in
his parish of seven thousand souls, and one of them was a
cotton night-cap. Men and women wore them in turn
till all had had a chance." The defects of a type of edu-
cation adapted to the New England character impressed
him as they had on the Hampton peninsula. "Over-educa-
tion and lack of practical training are dangers with these
weak races. . . . For the average pupil too much is as bad
as too little. . . . Character does not develop as rapidly
as mind. . . . The temptation to abuse power without
gradual appropriation for its use is well-nigh irresistible."
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Finally, on his return, Armstrong sums up the lessons
of his refreshing journey. "The one great lesson of
the Hawaiian mission is, I believe, that we must more
and more recognize the value and necessity of practical
training of the whole life. Self-reliance and decent
living must not only be practised but pushed upon the
convert, whose well-ordered life should be a daily lesson.
A maxim of mission work might well be, Ideas take root
in a moment, habits only in a generation. Such work
means the uplifting of the whole man by God's grace and
by every means that human wisdom suggests, and then
by protecting him from the harm that he would do himself
until he is thoroughly established in well-doing, which
must be a matter of time and habit." He reached Hamp-
ton in September 1880, and writes in his diary: "All has
gone well during my absence ; the work is full of stimulus
and hope ; the fun of Hfe is in action, not in result. Nothing
pays like working for ideas. The school seems full of life
and potency."

Armstrong returned with new vigor and confidence,
both to the routine of the school and to the maintaining
of generous interest among its friends. To promote this
public confidence a series of extended journeys through
the North became essential. With a group of Negro
singers and a picturesque Indian to tell the story of his
transition from the blanket to the Hampton uniform,
Armstrong set forth on his circuit tours through New
England and the Middle States, stirring his hearers by his
own appeal and by the poignant music of his wards, visit-

183

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

ing old friends and making new ones, and encountering
with unperturbed cheerfulness and a Hvely sense of humor
the vicissitudes of a traveUing showman. It was, for a
man of sensitiveness and refinement, a grim experience,
and not infrequently more trying to nerves and temper
than missionary work in some jungle of Africa unvisited
by critics or scoffers. The Apostle Paul recounts his
journeys along the Mediterranean Coast as testifying
to his apostleship. "Are they ministers of Christ ? I am
more ; in labors more abundant ; in journeyings often ;
in perils in the city ; in perils in the wilderness ; in weari-
ness and painfulness, beside those things that are without,
that which cometh upon me daily, the care of all the
churches." In something of the same language Armstrong
might have told of his journeyings, in city and wilder-
ness, in weariness and painfulness, bearing about with him
all the while an added anxiety for the work left behind,
and which came upon him daily — the care of Hampton
itself.

Here is one among many letters which acknowledge
the fruits of his appeal and indicate the intensity with
which this missionary work was done. "Dear Mrs.
Stearns : Many thanks for your 'Thank Offering ' . . .
I long ago found that the only way out of a scrape is
through it ; so the only thing to do now is to keep at this
job. It is sometimes tiresome, but it pays. We must
all work our passage to the skies. Some like you must
only stand and wait ; it's all the same. . . . You have
the harder lot, with your infirmity. I can keep out of
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mischief only by the hardest work." And again : ** Your
letter is deeply interesting. It would do me good to
think that the land is full of women like you who feel for
its welfare and its woes. . . . Would that all in the land
would make, according to their abihty, an offering to some
good work, as a sign of their feeling. That would at once
sweep away a vast amount of sorrow and suffering." It
was not surprising that the flashing eyes of Armstrong
grew more burning and intense as though the fire within
were consuming him. No city or town was so indifferent,
no audience was so meagre, as to deter him from pas-
sionate and confident appeal. One never knew whether
some heart might be touched or some last will and tes-
tament affected by his story.

One reminiscence of a listener is sufficient to indicate
the indiscriminating persistency with which the most
modest possibiHty was met. **I suppose that every lover
of General Armstrong recalls some special incident which
seems most entirely typical of the man's life and heart.
For my part, I think oftenest of one of those scenes in his
many begging journeys to the North. It was at a little
suburban church, far down a side-street, on a winter's
night, in the midst of a driving storm of sleet. There
was, as nearly as possible, no congregation present; a
score or so of humble people, showing no sign of any
money to contribute, were scattered through the empty
spaces, and a dozen restless boys kicked their heels in the
front pew. Then, amid this emptiness and hopelessness,
up rose the worn, gaunt soldier, as bravely and gladly as

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

if a multitude were hanging on his words, and his deep-
sunk eyes looked out beyond the bleakness of the scene
into the world of his ideals, and the cold little place was
aglow with the fire that was in him, until it was like the
scene on the Mount, which was not any less wonderful
and glistening because only three undiscerning followers
were permitted to see the glory." *

In 1 88 1 two events occurred which contributed much
to the stability of the school and to the hope of the
Founder. The first was the inauguration of General Gar-
field, who had for four years been a Trustee at Hampton,
as President of the United States. This important ally
had repeatedly expressed his personal confidence which
now became an official recognition. At his inauguration
the Hampton cadets paraded in the procession and in
their ranks were Negroes who had fought for the Govern-
ment and Indians who had fought against it. The school
colors were borne by a Negro, and the national flag by a
Cheyenne Indian who had once been a prisoner of war.
On June 4, 1881, President Garfield addressed the Hamp-
ton School in Bethesda Chapel and this address was his
last public utterance before the tragedy of his assassina-
tion. His noble words have remained a classic memory to
all friends of Hampton. "Labor must be," he said, "for
you, for all. Without it there can be no civilization. You
of the African race have learned this teaching, but you
have learned it under the lash. The mighty voice of war
spoke out to you and to us all that labor must be forever

♦"Founder's Day Address," 1898.
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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

free. The basis of all civilization is that labor must be.
The basis of everything great in civilization is that labor
must be free. General Armstrong is working out this
problem on both sides, reaching one hand to the South and
one hand to the West, working it out in the only way it
can be worked out, the way that will give us a country
without section and a people without a stain."

The second important event of the same year was the
appointment of a young Presbyterian minister, Hollis
Burke Frissell, as Chaplain of the school. This modest
and self-effacing associate undertook at once all per-
sonal oversight of the young men, together with the con-
duct of worship, and in addition took his share in jour-
neys to the North in search of money, and to the West in
search of desirable Indian students. There soon followed
a period of religious interest among the students which
not only testified to their susceptibility, but confirmed
the wisdom of the Principal in the selection of his col-
league. To describe this incident as a revival might sug-
gest that the emotions of the Negroes were stirred to such
ecstasies as the camp-meetings had witnessed, and that
the Indians were moved by the same instincts which their
fathers had satisfied by ghost dances. Very remote
from this religious hysteria and moral laxity was the re-
vival of 1883. In its simplicity and effect it testified to
the capacity of both races for spiritual restraint and
for moral renewal. ** You will be glad to know," writes
General Armstrong in January 1883, "of the good work
here. There is a general religious interest in the school

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

unprecedented in its history. About sixty students have
already given themselves to Christ, Indians as well as
Negroes, and we are in the height of it. It is very
quiet, no excitement, but deep and strong, and all are
wonderfully impressed by the presence of God's spirit."
As a consequence of this spiritual revival the entire Senior
Class, together with a number of the Indians, dedicated
themselves to the Christian life.

A few years later, in 1887, a further enlargement of
opportunity for Hampton students was secured by the
firmer establishment of an adequate practice-school, where
training in teaching should be combined with service to
the community, and which was dedicated to the memory
of the poet Whittier. Among the earliest of General But-
ler's provisions for the contrabands thrown upon his care
in 1 86 1 was the erection of a schoolhouse where refugees
might be taught, and for some years the agents of the
American Missionary Association provided instruction.
In 1871 the Hampton Trustees gave the use of this build-
ing to Elizabeth City County for a colored free school,
reserving the right to nominate the teachers, thus putting
it into relations with the new public school system of
Virginia. In 1879 the " Butler " became a school of obser-
vation for Seniors of the Institute, with industrial train-
ing added for the "Butler-mites." In 1887, when the
Butler schoolhouse, after twenty-five years of service,
had become little more than a shell, a generous gift from
the estate of Frederick D. Marquand made possible a
new and model building (the Whittier Training School),
188

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H
P

W
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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

which has continued to be an important centre both of
instruction to the children of the neighborhood and of
training for the normal students.

Visitors to Hampton Institute recall with special pleas-
ure the amusing yet touching session of this practice-
school. The record, made by Miss Alice Bacon, of the
first day after its dedication is entertaining. "At last the
children are all seated in their schoolrooms, awaiting the
stroke of the bell that is to summon them into the Hall.
General Armstrong comes in, sparing an hour out of his
crowded time for the sake of greeting the children in
their new building. Questions and answers proceed after
this manner : —

General Armstrong — *Now, children, I want you to tell
me who built this fine new building.'

Small voice from the front row — 'General Butler !'
Gen. A. — 'No, General Butler built the old building
that has been pulled down. Doesn't anyone know who
built this new one ?'

Another voice from the hoys^ side — *Mr. Monroe !'
Gen. A. — 'No, it wasn't Mr. Monroe. He built our
beautiful new church at the Normal School, but he didn't
build this building. Try again !'

Several voices from different parts of the room — 'General
Armstrong ! *

Gen. A. — 'Who was the Father of his country ?'
Unanimous response — 'George Washington.'
Gen. A. — 'What did George Washington do ?*
Small girl in front — 'He never told a lie.'

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

Gen. A. — 'Now I want you to tell me who set you free.*

A number of voices — 'Abraham Lincoln.'

Gen. A. — *But there was some one who set you free
before Abraham Lincoln, and you must remember him. It
was General Butler — (a pause, in which the children absorb
the information). Now, what did General Butler do ?'

Small voice piping up absently from the middle of the
hall — * He never told a lie ! '

"This is too much for our gravity and there is some
danger of a complete upset on the part of the older people.
The General goes back to his questioning : —

Gen. A. — 'Somebody mentioned President Lincoln
just now. What did he do ?'

Another voice y quite sure this time — 'Told a lie !'

" Our gravity is again seriously imperilled, but we pull
ourselves together in time to hear : — \

Gen. A. — ' When President Lincoln was a boy, he had to
work very hard. He had to split rails. You know all
these rails in the fences about here and all over the State
of Virginia. Now somebody had to split all those rails.
Who split them ? '

Unanimous answer — 'Abraham Lincoln.' "

Amusing incidents of this character, however, cannot
disguise from the visitor the pathos of the scene. The
salute of the colors as the proud young flag-bearer enters ;
the eager look of the dusky faces ; the earnest and skilful
teachers ; and the undiscovered future which awaits these
children of an often discouraged race, — all combine to send
the beholder away with both a smile and a tear. The poet
190

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

whose name the school commemorates maintained to the
end of his Hfe the closest interest in its affairs, and his last
volume, "St. Gregory's Guest and Recent Poems," was
dedicated to General Armstrong, "whose generous and
self-denying labors for the elevation of two races have
enlisted my sympathies and commanded my admiration."
In close connection with the practice-school should be
named the Teachers' Institute, begun as early as 1876,
and in 1899 more securely organized as a Summer School,
when nearly three hundred teachers from many Southern
States were in attend ance for a session of four weeks. This
by-product of Hampton's activity was further strength-
ened in 1906 by more rigid regulations of attendance and
evidence of serious intention, and in 191 1 the Department
of Education in Virginia provided that teachers following
a specified course of study for three years and passing an
examination on it with the grade of 75 per cent, should be
eligible for a teacher's certificate of higher grade. In 191 2
special courses were arranged for industrial supervisors and
school principals, whose attendance is now more definitely
encouraged by the General Education Board. In the same
year the scheme was extended to include a "Ministers'
Conference." This extension of Hampton's range of
service has not only lifted the level of instruction through-
out the colored schools of the South, but has had the re-
ciprocal effect of communicating the ideals of Hampton to
teachers and supervisors otherwise unfamiliar with its
work, and of creating a new constituency of sympathetic
friends.

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE'

To the internal incidents which mark these years of
fulfilment must be added the expansion of the influence
of Hampton in external forms, the transmission of power
through young men and women who had been trained at
Hampton and who had become — as almost all gradu-
ates became — teachers of their own race. Throughout
the Southern States, to important and well-organized
schools, and to obscure and remote hamlets, the gradu-
ates of Hampton from year to year set forth as educational
missionaries. Of the 723 students who in the first twenty-
two years had received its diploma, 604 reported them-
selves as teachers, and there were but 80 of the total
number who had not, for a time at least, given them-
selves to this vocation. Nine of these were Indians, leav-
ing but 10 per cent of the Negro graduates who failed to
transmit the instruction they had received; 128 gradu-
ates had proceeded to further study after leaving Hampton,
and 28 had graduated at some higher school or college.
Of the schools thus taught by Hampton graduates there
were 265, of which 136 were in Virginia.* In 1892 these-
graduate-teachers reported that of their pupils 2187 had
become in their turn teachers, so that the self-propagating
character of the Hampton training had reached thousands
of lives which cannot themselves be reckoned among the
products of the school.

Among these children and grandchildren of Hampton
the first-born and the most distinguished was at Tuskegee,
to which centre of the Black Belt of Alabama, Booker

* ** Twenty-two Years' Work of Hampton Institute," 1893, pp. 293-295.
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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

Washington had been sent in 1881. The story of his work
will be later recalled, but the story of his own career,
which has become one of the most familiar epics of the
modern world, must be associated with the influence of
Hampton Institute. Passion and patience, wisdom and
wit, persistency and discretion, marked each of his appeal-
ing addresses to the white race, and each achievement of
leadership among his own people. His sanity of mind
was sustained by a complete submergence of personal am-
bition in his task. At a meeting in the North the presid-
ing officer had introduced him as the most "distinguished
citizen of the United States," and as he left the hall his
companion asked : "How can you endure compliments so
well?" "Oh," answered Washington, "I can stand any-
thing for the cause !" Not even flattery could inflate his
self-esteem or relax his self-control. He could endure even
praise if that would help Tuskegee. The school which he
founded has outstripped Hampton itself in numbers and
has become the most convincing evidence of the capacity
of the Negro race for self-government and for judicious
education. It must not be forgotten, however, that
Hampton discovered and developed Washington. Grop-
ing his way from a coal-mine in West Virginia ; sleeping
under the boards of a sidewalk in Richmond ; qualified to
enter Hampton only by the willingness of his examiner to
accept George Herbert's maxim : —

"Who sweeps a room, as for Thy laws,
Makes that, and the action, fine ; " —

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

winning his way, first as a student, then as a "sort of
house-father to the Indian young men," and finally as
director of the night school, in which young Negroes who
had worked all day in the shop or field might study at
night, winning the title of the ** Plucky Class," — Washing-
ton became more and more the trusted agent of Arm-
strong's plans and hopes; and, finally, in May 1881 was
selected to undertake a new and difficult enterprise among
the most backward of his own race.

Nothing in the two men is more remarkable than their
loyalty to each other. One of Washington's first journeys
to the North after his appointment at Tuskegee was in
obedience to a summons from Armstrong, and the pupil
undertook the journey with the anticipation that he was
to speak for Hampton. To his surprise, however, he found
that Armstrong had sent for him in order to introduce the
new work to Northern audiences and to urge that the
friends of Hampton should be the friends of Tuskegee also.
On the other hand, among the finest traits of Washing-
ton's character was his devotion to Armstrong and to
Hampton. Neither personal ambition nor the increasing
needs of Tuskegee withheld him from co-operation in the
campaigns of money-getting which Hampton conducted,
or from the repeated confession that the inspiration of
his own work was in the life of Armstrong. *'It has been
my fortune," he wrote,* "to meet personally many of
what are called great characters, both in Europe and
America, but I do not hesitate to say that I never met any

* "Up from Slavery," pp. 54-55.
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HAMPTON'S MOSr DISTIN(JUISHEl) (JRADUATK
Booker T. Washington, Founder and first Principal of luskegee Institute

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

man, who, in my estimation, was the equal of General
Armstrong. Fresh from the degrading influences of the
slave plantation and the coal-mines, it was a rare privilege
for me to be permitted to come into direct contact with
such a character. I shall always remember that the
first time I went into his presence he made the impres-
sion upon me of being a perfect man ; I was made to
feel that there was something about him that was super-
human. It was my privilege to know the General per-
sonally from the time I entered Hampton till he died,
and the more I saw of him the greater he grew in my
estimation. One might have removed from Hampton all
the buildings, classrooms, teachers, and industries, and
given the men and women there the opportunity of coming
into daily contacf with General Armstrong, and that alone
would have been a liberal education."

Again, speaking with deep emotion in Boston when
Armstrong's life was hanging in suspense: "To a young
man just emerging from slavery, and entering into the
pure, strong, unselfish influence of General Armstrong's
personality, as it was my privilege with hundreds of others
to do, there came all at once a new idea of the responsi-
bihties and objects of life. . . . When engaged in our
own work in the South, we have become discouraged by
reason of the many difficulties by which we have been sur-
rounded, the mental picture of General Armstrong, who
knew no discouragement, has given us strength to go on
and conquer. When we have been incHned to yield to self-
ish thoughts and live for ourselves, it has been the vision

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

of General Armstrong who lived only for others that has
made us ashamed of our selfishness ; and when we have
been inclined to be inactive and indifferent, we have
thought of General Armstrong who never rested day or
night, winter or summer, and this has given us new zeal."

This relationship, as between the Apostle Paul and Tim-
othy, **his own son in the faith," remained uninterrupted
and affectionate, and one of Armstrong's last and most
characteristic letters to his own students narrated his
impressions of a visit to Tuskegee. "The greatest thing
about it [Tuskegee] all is that it proves what colored people
can do by themselves when they have the chance and
when they pull together. . . . White people have
learned to trust others. They know that to live together
in any relation of life, people must learn to give and take,
live and let live. . . . That is what is worth living for,
to do good to others. Live for your people, not for your-
selves alone. That is what hundreds who have gone out
from here have done."

In September 1881 the series of journeys undertaken by
Armstrong to the North in search of money were supple-
mented by the first of many visits to the reservations of
the West in search of students. With thirty-two return-
ing Indians, Armstrong left Hampton for Dakota. They
had arrived three years before on the steamer from
Washington, "unkempt, frightened, and huddled in cor-
ners of the deck," and were now returning "well-dressed
boys and girls, one playing the piano while all sang, and
later gathering on the forward deck to sing hymns in the
196

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

moonlight." Of the forty-nine Indians who had origi-
nally been enrolled, five had died at Hampton, eight after
returning home, two had remained at Hampton to con-
tinue their education, and thirty after their three years at
Hampton were returning to the reservation "in good
mental, moral, and bodily condition." Only four were
regarded as undesirable students and dismissed as fail-
ures. Armstrong returned with twenty-nine new stu-
dents, twenty-two boys and seven girls, "in good health
and spirits," and in recording his impressions of the jour-
ney wrote : "The best kind of missionary work is as broad
as human life, and is to be expected, not from men whom
the East can spare, but from men whom the East cannot
spare. The Indian Question is more one of men than of
money, or of Acts of Congress. The Government is as
good as the people will let it be ; to scold about the Indian
policy is idle and useless. There is need of combined
effort which shall press upon our legislators their duty to
the red race, and of systematic and persistent work at
their own homes. This demands a degree of personal
sacrifice and of personal service that is far from appre-
ciated."

A second journey followed, in 1882, to the country of
the Sioux, Crow, Shoshone, and Bannock Indians, in
Dakota, Montana, and Idaho, and again Armstrong re-
cords his impressions. "The point of the Indian Question
I believe to be honesty and capacity in dealing with them.
There is nothing rash in saying that if the Indian Ques-
tion were taken out of politics and placed in the hands

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

of competent men with full discretion, there would be in
ten years very few dependent on the Government." A
third and extended tour of seven weeks occupied the sum-
mer of 1883, and carried Armstrong through New Mexico,
Arizona, and the Indian Territory ; and on his return he
set before the Indian Rights Association his programme of
national policy : —

1. Manual-labor training in mechanical trades

2. Instruction in practical farming

3. Bringing all Indians under the restraint and pro-
tection of the United States and State laws, and to
citizenship as rapidly as possible, by giving them
land in severalty

4. Adequate salaries to secure good and competent
agents

5. Appropriations to secure the detection and pun-
ishment of those who sell liquor to the Indians.

In more general terms he presented the same thoughts
to the National Educational Association in 1884. "My
own view is that Indians at our Eastern schools, who, to
begin with, have a strong home feeling and filial affection,
and would seldom consent to settle permanently among
strangers, should be taught that they have a duty to their
people ; that education is more than preparation for their
own support and decent living, but that they have a great
work, which they must begin by writing home good ad-
vice (which in many cases has had good effect) and must
expect to return to teach by precept and example the
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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

more excellent way. Our Hampton pupils are already
inspired with this idea ; it is the staple talk of their meet-
ings and runs through their compositions, little speeches,
and short prayers. The enthusiasm of the educator as
well as the educated is kindled by this thought. The
former feels that his work is germinant, to be probably
repeated many times upon others by the pupil before him,
who himself is stimulated by the thought of helping his
own benighted people. I regard the idea of a mission in
the mind of an Indian, Negro, or any youth, as a directive
and helpful force of the greatest value in the formation
of character. . . . Are the influences at home necessarily
fatal ? Can conditions be created favorable enough for
their salvation while they are with their people, thus
making them object lessons in Christian civilization, which
the Indians have so sadly needed ? It is a matter of ex-
periment or experience. I believe it can be done. To
offset bad home influences, three things will, I believe, in
the majority of cases, suffice: ist, Good Indian agents
. . . 2d, Schools at the agencies, which with the shops,
are furnishing an increasing field of work for returned
Indian students . . . 3d, Good missionaries. . . . With
capable and well-sustained Indian agents, and a proper
missionary force on the ground, there need not be serious
disaster to the Indian youths who return home from our
Eastern schools to many of the reservations. . . .

"It may be said : *Must the Government keep an ex-
pensive system to give employment to these youths ? * It
certainly should continue the school work. The reserva-

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

tions will ere long be broken up or reduced and the
Government shops closed. But large numbers will re-
ceive land in severalty, and in this advancing stage will
no shops and mechanics be needed among them ? Nothing
is more important than to establish a force of Indian me-
chanics at once, in advance if possible of this radical
change ; nothing could be greater folly than to keep back
skilled Indian labor from the reservations, which if em-
ployed steadily will improve till thrown upon itself. . . .
All men, white, black, or red, on our continent are engaged
in a physical and moral struggle. Christian institutions
can save them by training selected youths for their leaders.
The annual re-enforcement from schools and colleges sent
yearly into the midst of this struggle, is the hope of the
races and of the nation. Pour into Indian life men and
women of better lives, living illustrations of what their
people should be ; create the conditions which shall make
manhood and citizenship possible, and there will be in a
few years no Indian Question."

No one can read these incisive and vivacious impres-
sions of travel without perceiving in them a twofold con-
sequence for the writer. On the one hand there is a sense
of exhilaration and momentum, as of a life at full speed ;
but on the other hand there is an increasing evidence of
over-pressure and of strained vitality, which prophesies
a career to be soon cut short. Writing to a friend in Hon-
olulu, he says : "The work piles up like Alps on Alps, but
there is a stimulus in it that I like, and I wish you could
realize what it is to be in and a part of all these move-

200

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

ments. Life is so full of life. It seems dramatic, with all
its grinding detail and vexation. So much depends on the
liver ! The soul of a saint and the body of a prize fighter
are needed. One must sometimes stop and seek the
solace of quiet prayer, and again take up the foil and gloves
in mimic battle." And, again, to a friend in Boston : "I
wish I could go to see you, but things press fearfully.
No rest this side ! Life is on the Mouble-quick.'" And
yet again : " I am gray as a rat ; somewhat worn, and
without enough real rest and don't know how to get it.
Eternal effort is the price of success." The first physical
intimation that this "life on the double-quick" could not
long last was in August 1886, when a sudden and sharp
attack of pain indicated a serious condition of the
heart ; and an invalidism of some months ensued. In
November, however, Armstrong was able to resume his
activity, and the cloud of apprehension passed from the
minds of his friends.

Surveying these years of fulfilment, which were in the
main a period of unimpeded progress, Armstrong from
time to time permitted his mind to range over the whole
field of its work and to express his philosophy of life and
education in aphorisms which are still as timely as they
are striking. "More and more," he said in his Report
of October 1884, "I believe in Labor as a Moral Force.
While its pecuniary return to the student is important,
and the acquired skill is equivalent to a working capital,
the outcome of it in manly and womanly quaHty is, in
the long run, perhaps the most valuable of all." "The

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

black man, like other men, finds it hard to see himself
as he is seen. In the first excitement of freedom his true
condition did not appear. He is kindly disposed but lacks
right intuitions, or common sense. Wisdom will come to
him, as it comes to all, through suffering and loss. He
will learn more by his blunders than in any other way.
Even the white man is not yet through his blundering
period," "They are getting out of pupilage and are in
the second and most difficult stage of progress. . . .
They are thrust into a Hfe of action and reaction ; they will
have some rough justice and some rough injustice, but, we
believe, the 'pillar of cloud' is still before them." "'The
solid South' is not so bad as the sordid South. The
choicest lands and homesteads of those who staked their
all in the struggle, have been, in numberless cases, bought
by speculators, whose greed of gain has had more to do
with the distress of the Negro than race prejudice has,
and has driven many of the finest people of the South
into great extremities.

"The advantage of the white man over the Negro
is not, I think, in his ability to learn much more or be-
have much better. ... In an emergency he is heroic;
he is as capable as any man of subHme action. . . .
But it takes pressure to bring him out; he is not as
a rule self-active. His best is good enough. . . . Real
progress is not in increase of wealth or power, but in gain
in wisdom, in self-control, in guiding principles and in
Christian ideas. That is the only true reconstruction ;
to that Hampton's work is devoted. The future of

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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

the South is not to be as its past, and the Negro has no
guarantee to his place within her borders unless he can
make good his claim by showing himself to be an essential
factor in her development. Back of any theory lies
a personal experience, which forces us more and more
strongly into faith in the as yet unmeasured power for good
which a well-administered industrial system exerts over
those who either by choice or by necessity are brought
under its influence. Setting aside altogether what may
be called its commercial value, we find it to be one of the
strongest of moral forces that we have at our disposal and
are inclined to look upon it as the cornerstone of civili-
zation for the two races with which we have to do."

This fundamental principle of self-help induced Arm-
strong in 1888 to oppose the movement promoted in Con-
gress by Senator Blair of New Hampshire for national aid
to education. Devoted as Armstrong had been to the
elevation of the Negro race from dependency and mendi-
cancy to individual initiative and competency, he could
not welcome as a permanent measure that governmental
paternalism of which the Freedmen's Bureau had been a
temporary example. "There may be cases," he said,
"where special assistance is not only legitimate, but essen-
tial to the best and speediest development. ... It is
sometimes wise to make exceptions. . . . But if we can
trust the indications, the South has, to the surprise even
of those who knew her best, passed safely through the
crisis which, we believed, threatened her life. By how
much she would have gained had assistance been given

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

at the right moment, no man can tell. But visibly, to
me at least, the right moment has gone by, and it is safer
to trust to the forces which have already accomplished
so much, than to attempt, at the eleventh hour, the always
dangerous experiment of interference. The Southern
States have shown that they can take care of themselves,
and we draw our conclusions precisely as we should were
the case that of an individual." Armstrong, in short,
was primarily concerned, not with economic progress, but
with moral education. He was interested, not in the
making of money, but in the making of men, and his mind
inevitably turned from devices of government or cen-
tralized control, which might induce an unearned pros-
perity, to the less conspicuous but less ephemeral task of
creating characters, which through personal industry,
intelligence, and thrift, could both win and deserve pros-
perity.

Still more definite and systematic were the reflections
made in Armstrong's Reports for 1887 and the following
years, in which his anticipations of the future are touched
by an intimation that his own time was short. "No
sound, good work ever got permanently weakened or went
backward for want of a man. ... I have been pained
to hear of doubts as to the future of this institution.
Experience and intelligent faith do not seem to justify
them. . . . The man for the hour is never far away when
the hour comes." "An endowment fund of a million
dollars," he announces in 1890, "would not be too much
to ask for a strong and lasting foundation of the Hampton
204

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

School, which stands permanently for the idea of Labor
as a moral and educative force."

The sanity, poise, and foresight of these hastily ex-
pressed, but carefully meditated, conclusions give them
a permanent place in the literature of education, and
they become more remarkable when one recalls the im-
petuous and aggressive temperament of their author. To
hold a passionate nature in leash and add to its mag-
netic energy the gift, which in reformers is most rare,
of unperturbed and unexhausted patience, — this is a
fusion of traits which gives to its possessor the quality
of greatness.

The Civil War had produced many leaders endowed
with fearlessness and daring, and some who were distin-
guished for prudence and moderation, but in few, except in
Lincoln himself, were these conflicting qualities merged in
a unity of spirit which could prosecute war with unyielding
tenacity, while cherishing plans of conciliation and peace.
The period after the Civil War was an open season for
reformers. Reconstruction at the South, civil rights for
the Negro, constitutional amendments, fresh agitations
for temperance, sufl^rage, redistribution of property, and
economic revolution, — these social panaceas testified to
the restlessness of the time, and enhsted the enthusiasm
of many precipitate philanthropists. Reconstruction,
Armstrong once said, was like a bridge of wood over a river
of fire. New perils, he prophesied, confronted the Negro
race as it emerged from the period of governmental pater-
nalism into the period of reaction and distress. "The

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

War," he wrote, "was a tremendous and resolute struggle
which everybody realized and responded to. The redemp-
tion of the Negro — its objective point, though hardly less
important was the rescue of the whites from the evils of
slavery — is an almost unseen work, understood by few.
. . . Some of our writers and thinkers seem to feel that it
is possible to seize these seven millions of Negroes, wave
them over their heads, and fling them away ; others would
crush them by disfranchisement. But we still have the
steady workers . . . whose incessant efforts to train
the head, heart, and hand of selected Indian and Negro
youth, will, I believe, create a new leaven that will finally
shape the course of the races. . . . By faith only can we
be assured, and this faith rests upon our absolute certainty
of the capacity of these people for improvement, and our
conviction that their progress is only a question of time
and effort. The hope for the Negro is in his own hope-
fulness."

In the midst of the waves of well-intentioned but futile
agitation which were tossed up by the shifting winds of
the time, these principles and methods of Hampton Insti-
tute stood like a rock on which a light might be safely set.
Education, to be effective for life, must be, like the conduct
of life itself, both alert and patient, beginning where people
are, and creating character rather than comfort, goodness
rather than goods. It must be won rather than given,
and based on faith in labor as a moral force ; it must in-
spire the will to serve rather than the will to get ; it must
be a struggle, not for life alone, but for the lives of others.
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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

These high doctrines of idealism became, and have always
remained, the working creed of Hampton, and the light
set on this rock has shown to thousands of discouraged
and storm-driven Negroes and Indians an open channel to
security and peace.

207

CHAPTER EIGHT

THE END OF AN ERA (1890-1893)

GENERAL ARMSTRONG'S work had in twenty years
not only become established in its institutional form, but
had received public and academic recognition. He was
created LL.D. at Williams College in 1887 and at Harvard
University in 1889. His marriage on September 10, 1890,
to Miss Mary Alice Ford of Lisbon, New Hampshire,
a former teacher at Hampton, renewed his happiness
and blessed his last years, not only with devoted com-
panionship, but with two children who were his solace
and delight. What he had written at the close of the
war might have been repeated by him at this point of
achievement and honor. "These are mellow and pleas-
ant days — the last of my soldiering ; how smoothly they
glide along ! Other times will come that will test my
courage and faith. Let it be so. * After the contest,
the crown,* is my class motto — and a noble one it
is."

The first attack of illness had not undermined his
vitality, and he formed many resolutions of prudent liv-
ing, which he soon found impossible to keep. "God will-
ing," he wrote, "I shall be better and stronger for this.
... I have been a most intemperate man all my life
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— wasteful of strength and vitality. . . . My own folly
is the danger. But there are so many reasons for being
wise and careful, such inspirations for the paths of pru-
dence and real temperance that I'll try my best, needing
more than I can tell you that peace and strength and
help that God only gives." New allies of permanent
importance had enlisted in the service of the school and
the young Chaplain had relieved his Chief of many details
both of supervision and of money-getting. "I cannot
speak too heartily and gratefully," wrote Armstrong in
1892, *'of the devoted and successful eflForts of Rev.
H. B. Frissell, Vice-Principal, on whom has fallen during
the current year, through my disability, a great burden
of work and care."

In 1 891 his work was so firmly estabHshed that Arm-
strong permitted himself a second visit to the Hawaiian
Islands, and on June 25 delivered there a memorial ad-
dress at the fiftieth anniversary of Oahu College, where
he had been a student. No utterance represents more
adequately the working of Armstrong's mind than this
important address. He had undertaken the long journey
for the sake of this occasion, and he appreciated both its
historical significance and its personal associations. Dur-
ing the quiet days on the Pacific he must have applied
himself to painstaking preparation. Yet when the day
arrived his formal oratory seems to have been forgotten
in the passionate desire to re-establish personal intimacy
with his dear friends, and to report to them the lessons
which he had learned. His language became abrupt,

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

volcanic, and unpremeditated. It was defective in
literary form, but burning with fraternal affection, a
message rather than an oration, the eager report of a
returning missionary rather than the historical survey of
an academic work. He had not come that they might
exchange sentimental reminiscences, but that they might
have more abundant life. Compact and cogent aphorisms
followed each other with as little logical order as in an
essay of Emerson, but with something of the same spar-
kling lucidity and incisive thrust.

"In this as in every country," he said, "the future is
safe and sure only as the educated and rich shall act out
the principles expressed in 'Noblesse oblige.' There is
no modem civilization for a leisure class ; it is as danger-
ous as the lowest class. There is no elevation for those
who do not work. . . . You will get what you work
for — if for money, you are likely to get that ; but do
not complain if you do not get other things that make
home and country safer and better, unless you work
for them. . . . Never forget that the man who does
not vote is even more dangerous than the man who
does, for little or nothing will be done to improve him.
. . . When nothing else will, danger drives us to ful-
fil our duty to the ignorant and lowly. . . . Only the
best and broadest education and the wisest treatment
of her mixed peoples will save Hawaii. . . .

" It remains to make the best of things. Those who are
hopeless disarm themselves and may as well go to the
rear; men and women of faith, optimists, to the front.

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. . . Do men give more money to good work when they
make the most or when they think the most ? For twenty-
three years I have worked for a charity, through two
national panics and through prosperous seasons, but the
times have made very Httle difference. Nothing extra
is to be expected for the Lord's work in 'flush' times, and
a certain fine spirit carries it through the darkest days.
. . . The power to think clearly and straight comes from
proper training, but it is most successful when that train-
ing is obtained through self-help, which underlies the best
work of all men. ... I have given enough advice.
What will you do about it ? I have seldom followed
advice implicitly, which is sometimes the best and some-
times the worst thing in the world, according to the good
sense of the giver ; but it has been to me of unspeakable
value as stimulating thought and has led to much change
of direction. One 'caroms' on it, as one biUiard ball
does on another. . . . Let this College be more and
more a power in Hawaiian life. ... If you say there is
no time for the work, then take the time. From this
centre of industrial education, why should there not go
out instruction that would reach hundreds of children
all over the land .? . . . Look out that no one of you
becomes a 'man without a country,' a half-hearted Ha-
waiian, a half-hearted American or European. Plant
the stake of your destiny somewhere and fight it out."

Revived in vitality by this happy visitation of his old
home, and reassured by evidences of efficiency at Hampton
itself, Armstrong started in November 1891 on another

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journey of money-getting at the North, taking with him
a quartette of Negro singers and two Indians who had
appeahng stories to tell. His schedule of speaking and
travel called at more than one point for four meetings
a day. On Thanksgiving Day, November 20, at Stone-
ham, Massachusetts, a small town near Boston, his speech
suddenly faltered and he sank into the arms of his
black pupils, paralyzed and with paroxysms of great
agony. His mind, however, was unaffected and he
proceeded calmly to give his orders for an uninterrupted
campaign.

Sympathy and sorrow quickly found expression. The
Governor of the Commonwealth and other citizens
summoned a gathering at the Old South Meeting House
in Boston, where a series of notable addresses culminated
in the discerning and appealing words of Phillips Brooks :
"One has had the feehng during this hour that we have been
a company of friends, gathered in the presence — though
the unseen presence — of one whom we profoundly love,
deeply trust, and to whom we would gladly speak a
word of sympathy. Never were the man and the work
more completely identical with one another. It is im-
possible to think of one apart from the other. Therefore
every word that has been said today about the great
institution with which he is forever identified, has brought
our thoughts back to him and deepened and intensified
the affection with which we think of him. I am anxious
that this should be not simply a meeting filled with a
sense of pity for General Armstrong. If there is any
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man in this country to be congratulated upon the life
which he has Hved and the work which he has done, it is
he. It has been given him to lay a firmer grasp upon the
problem which specially confronts and has particularly
appalled our country than any other man. He has been
a later Garrison, a later Lincoln, carrying far forward
the work the old emancipators began. He has taught
men the glory and the beauty and the happiness of being
stewards of the Lord. Is there anything better given to
a man, than to strike down to some of the great currents
in human life and say to them. Spring up here ! Lives
fail because they have so many things to do that they
cannot associate themselves with general principles, or
because they are so bound up in vague principles that they
find no special thing to do. But to find the special thing
to do, to feel that you are giving utterance to universal
principles by which all good manifests itself — there is
nothing better than that. So I was not surprised one
day when I heard that General Armstrong had said that
he had come nearer to accomplishing the ideal of his life
than was given to almost any man. Let us tell him how
we rejoice with him. And if it be so that from this door
of the great mystery into which it seemed that he was
just going to enter, God has called him back to live a
little longer and work a little more, let us not come
merely with pity to console him by the contributions we
can make, but let us offer him our hearts, our hands, and
our purses, and beg him to give us the privilege of sharing
with him the life which God has given back to him."

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A "Boston Committee" was thereupon constituted,
and has been for nearly thirty years a continuous source
of beneficent service.

Slowly, though but partially, Armstrong's vitality re-
asserted itself, and he was carried, still helpless, back to
Hampton, "cast down but not destroyed," and sending
before him a letter to his students signed in his own hand,
and saying, "What has happened to me is for the best, as
everything always is." The school now had to greet,
instead of an alert and untiring leader, a broken man,
making his tours of inspection in a wheel-chair, but with
unscathed vigor of mind and undiminished courage ; and
the spectacle of this victory of the spirit over the flesh
was to many of the susceptible youths about him more
irresistible in its teaching than even the buoyant optimism
of his robust health.

New schemes and hopes opened before him and called
for haste in their fulfilment. He established a Mission-
ary Department to promote both pastoral work within
the school and friendly co-operation with the community.
"If the Hampton School," Armstrong wrote to the Presi-
dent of his Trustees, "is anything, it is a missionary work,
for the spread of the truths of clean Christian living among
the Negroes of the South and the Indians of the West.
Its large force of graduate-workers already in the field
need visitation, instruction, and proper help from time
to time, and especially stimulus and encouragement to
keep them from falHng back. . . . While I have reason
to hope for complete recovery in eight or ten months from
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now and expect fully to go on the warpath again, this
campaign of education must meanwhile go on."

He was further encouraged by the establishment in New
York, in 1892, of an " Armstrong Association," which, like
the Hampton Committee in Boston, continues to represent
and re-enforce the school. Armstrong's Report of 1892,
though confessing his own disability, repeats this note of
satisfaction : "For the first time since the school opened
in 1868 I have been unable to regularly meet and talk to
students and to instruct the Senior Class through the
winter months. This failure has been my greatest dis-
appointment and trial, for daily touch with pupils either
at the hour of evening service or in the classroom has been
my constant inspiration and comfort. Whatever good
may have come to them from this personal relation, I have
got out of it more than they have. Whatever one may
do for the cause of truth and humanity, he receives more
than tenfold in return."

His last Report (1893), surveys as with a large horizon
the scene of his achievement and his desire. "When at
the close of the war, twenty-eight years ago, four millions
of ignorant Afro-Americans were thrown upon their own
resources and upon the country's care, our civilization
received its severest test, and there was the added strain
of disbanding armies and broken-up social and economic
conditions. But, naturally and quietly as the rivers
flow to the sea, the soldiers of both armies went to their
homes, and to steady, manly living ; war horses pulled the
plow ; the ex-slaves went to work or to school as they had

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the opportunity; and a *New South,' based on order,
industry, and general justice and intelligence, has nobly
developed. The four millions of freedmen have become
nearly eight millions of people, having made a marvellous
record of progress in the quarter-century closing in 1893.

"How clear now to all is the Providential idea that the
great Civil War meant not only the welfare and progress
of one race, but of the entire nation, and of mankind.
Only in the remote future will its far-reaching intent and
bearing as an education be understood. The following
facts set forth by the Bureau of Education at Washington,
were foreshadowed and predestined, but not yet dreamed
of, when, in 1862, the American Missionary Association
of New York opened the first school for slave children at
Hampton, Va. Then there were no Negro schools in the
land; now there are 24,150, nearly all under Negro
teachers. A million and a third children are at school;
there are 175 schools above the primary or common grade,
in which there are 35,000 children and 131 1 select North-
ern teachers giving an advanced grade of instruction.

" Over two million colored children have learned to read
and write, in a public-school system as firmly established
in the ex-slave as in the Northern States, supported by
local taxation, whose total, since 1870, has not been far
from fifty millions of dollars ; now at the rate of eleven
millions a year. Northern charity since 1862, for the
same purpose, may be estimated at twenty-five millions
of dollars; now at the rate of about a million dollars
yearly.
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" From utter poverty in 1865 the ex-slaves have accumu-
lated to the present time, over two hundred miUion dollars
worth of property. Getting land and knowledge has
been their passion ; they have not thrown a pauper upon
the nation ; while for their education but a paltry three
and a half million of dollars of government money has
been expended — this through the Freedmen's Bureau
before 1870, with the happiest results. As a race, the
colored people of the country ask for nothing by way of
bounty and for no material or political advantages.
They ask only for a fair chance. They never beg for
anything but a chance to work their way through school.
Such applications are overwhelming; some must be
rejected for want of room. The young Negro woman is
the most needy and unfortunate and should have a
larger opportunity. Our country's noblest mission is
to leaven and lift up the weaker, less favored, and
despised classes in our midst. . . .

" Fittingly has work been done here for both races.
Here, or near Hampton, English civilization first touched
American soil ; near here the first slaves were landed,
and here freedom began. Here, where white, red, and
black people first met, the white men began the conquest
of the continent. Is it not right that Christian educa-
tion should spring up here where freedom and education
began ? Should its appeal for making self-reliant man-
hood and true useful womanhood, through endowment,
perpetually possible for these weaker peoples lag through
another quarter-century ? Having a third of the needed

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

million dollars, how long must it wait for the rest ? I
earnestly hope that in this Columbian year, this school's
endowment may reach the sum of at least half a million
dollars. This work is most helpful; it gives me needed relief
and a chance to get well and encouragement to remain at
the helm, which I should not do did not the old ship move
on. My own vitaHty depends on that of the school."

In spite of these stimulating and reassuring circum-
stances Armstrong's invalidism became by degrees more
serious and confirmed. The winter of 1 892-1 893 was
spent by him in the milder and drier climate of Summer-
ville. South Carolina, where a son was born to him on
March 12, 1893. He became sufficiently restored to visit
the schools at Calhoun and at Tuskegee, addressing at the
latter place with his customary vivacity a convocation of
Negro farmers. "Mr. Washington asked you to speak to
the point. I will try to speak so. The report of your
last year's conference went all over the country. I read
about it. It did great good. You talked good sense,
spoke kindly. You told the facts. You didn't grumble,
or complain of the Southern white people around you.
You gave them credit for what they do and have done
for you. Mr. Bedford told you about three things you
must have — the church, school, and home. One thing
more you must have — square meals. If you go hungry,
you won't do much for yourselves or your neighbors.
All you who raise cotton, hold up your hands." The
show of hands was nearly unanimous. "How many
of you have bought food at the stores — canned goods?"
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Nearly all raised their hands, "How many of you did
not have to buy any corn meal and bacon at the stores this
year?" Only twenty raised their hands. *'Can you all
raise your own corn, bacon, and syrup ? All in favor of
raising their own food, raise your hands." There was a
pretty unanimous response. "Well, now, you see some
Chicago people here (correspondents of the Inter-Ocean
and Chicago Tribune were present). Don't buy so much
meat from them. Go home and make your own bacon
and syrup. How do you get money to pay for your
guano, your fertilizers ? On your mortgages of your
crops? Well, what could you plow in for fertilizer?"
Some one answered "Peas." "Yes, that's right, cow-
peas. If cotton is king, let cow-pea be queen. You all
go to church, don't you ? Why can't you stop after meet-
ing and talk about this laziness, this loafing, you have said
is one difficulty in the way of many ? Go for the loafers.
Give them fits. And go for corn and cow-peas. You
have the remedies in your own hands. Make the most of
yourselves. Don't try to beat others so much as to beat
yourselves — beat your own record."

His reflections on the duty of his own office became more
serious and introspective. "The work of raising funds
for Negro education by annual appeal to charity is," he
confesses, "too expensive and exhausting. I do not speak
this from a sense of personal weariness from having been
pretty much used up in the work, but from a deliberate
conviction based upon experience that the raising of from
twenty to sixty thousand dollars annually needed beyond

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present resources to keep alive and efficient each of the
leading schools for Negroes, requires tremendous effort,
involuntary excessive wear and tear. ... Is there no
other way to secure the needful funds ? Southern liber-
ality will establish and take care of Southern colleges for
whites as they have done in the past. Will Northern
liberality take care of institutions for the Negro ?" Yet
his faith did not falter. "This is the day," he writes, **of
the fulfilment of things ; God chooses His own time and
will not fail."

On April lO, 1893, he spoke to his students in the
most tender and affectionate strain. "The time is draw-
ing near when many of you will be going out to do your
work in the world. The great thing is to do it well.
Help your people by giving them what has been given
you, and by your example. ... It may seem to you a
fine thing to belong to the Grand Army of the Republic.
So it is. Remember that the finest thing is to belong to
the Grand Army of God's Workers, to do His work for the
world. A great many of the Hampton students and
graduates belong to that Grand Army, and you can all
belong to it." On April 23, 1893, speaking for the last
time to his students, he said : " People should do what they
can do best. If you can sing, sing; and give pleasure
to others. This gift of song is something that is the
possession of your race ; something you have that is really
of value — something you can do well — better than others ;
always value it, don't be ashamed of these old songs —
they are full of feeling and beauty, and of history. You
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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

think people laugh at them — sometimes they laugh at
some quaint expression ; a great deal oftener they feel like
crying ; they are touched by the beauty and feeling. By
singing them you can interest people in your race, awaken
their sympathy and also their respect. Spend your life
in doing what you can do well. If you can teach, teach !
If you can't teach but can cook well, do that !"

None of these happy incidents, however, could retard
the progress of disease. Soon after his return to Hampton,
on May ii, 1893, the Ascension Day of that year, he
suddenly and peacefully died. "He fought the good
fight," his faithful colleague. Dr. Frissell, said at the fu-
neral, "comes naturally to our lips in speaking of him.
For his service to the country, not only in the war, but
in what he said, he belonged to the grandest army —
*the Army of God's Workers.' It is fitting that this
should be a military funeral, that he should have a hero's
honors. Like St. Paul, like Jesus Christ himself, he was
wont to use the figures of military service. He would
love to see here his old command, his comrades in the
army, the soldiers of the United States. As the Salvation
Army people say, he has been promoted. Once more we
follow his bodily form — but only to the grave. We shall
more and more feel that in spirit, in reality, he is still
with us, still our leader, our General."

His body was laid, as he desired, among those of his
students who had died at the school, "where one of
them," as he directed, "would have been put had he
died next"; and devoted friends made of his grave a

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

symbol of his life. At its head was set a huge fragment
of volcanic rock, laboriously brought from his island-home
in the Pacific, and at its foot a quartz boulder hewn
from the Berkshire Hills, where he had been trained.
The monument is a witness of the character it com-
memorates, volcanic in temperament, granitic in per-
sistency ; a life of self-destructive energy, like a mountain
on fire, but with the steadiness and strength of one who
had lifted up his eyes to the hills and found help.

Such was the end of an era in the history of Education
for Life. The prophet of Israel, writing of his own time,
describes it as a Day of the Lord, not day nor night, "but
it shall come to pass that at evening-time it shall be
light." The prophecy had been fulfilled in the last days
of Armstrong. His work had been " known unto the Lord,
not day nor night." It had been beset by clouds of
criticism and shadows of hostility; its ideals had been
unfulfilled and its future was undetermined ; yet at even-
ing-time there was light. Never was the school richer in
hope and faith than when Armstrong left it, or more pre-
pared to fulfil the promise of practical religion with which
the ancient Scripture concludes: "In that day living
waters shall go out from Jerusalem, and all the land shall
be . . . lifted up, and Jerusalem shall be safely inhabited ;
and there shall be upon the bridles of the horses, 'Holy
unto the Lord.'"

With Armstrong's will there was found, after his death,
a paper of Memoranda, written after he became aware of
mortal illness, and bearing his last message to his fellow-

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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

workers and family. The accompanying reproduction
of one page indicates how unpremeditated and spon-
taneous these Memoranda were. He is sitting alone in
the quiet of the evening, awaiting the end of his work
and reflecting on its lessons ; and his sentences are hastily
and disconnectedly jotted down. Yet he has lost nothing
of the alertness and precision of his mind. There is but
a single correction in these eight unstudied pages. His
thought moves with unbroken continuity and speed ; and
his evening meditation has become the classic utterance of
his character. The paradox of the Christian life was never
more clearly stated. In one sentence he says: "Work
that requires no sacrifice does not count" ; yet a little later
he adds: "I never gave up or sacrificed anything in my
life." What was this but the finding of life in losing
it, the service which had become perfect freedom ? His
parting message has become, not alone a precious legacy
to Hampton, but a source of strength to great numbers of
lives which are trying to go the same way of happy
sacrifice.

Memoranda.

"Now when all is bright, the family together and there
is nothing to alarm, and very much to be thankful for, it is
well to look ahead and perhaps to say the things that I
should wish known should I suddenly die.

"I wish to be buried in the school graveyard among the
students, where one of them would have been put had he
died next.

"I wish no monument or fuss whatever over my grave ;

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

only a simple headstone, no text or sentiment inscribed,
only my name and date. I wish the simplest funeral
service without sermon or attempt at oratory — a soldier's
funeral.

*'I hope there will be enough friends to see that the
work of the school shall continue. Unless some shall
make sacrifices for it, it cannot go on.

**A work that requires no sacrifice does not count for
much in fulfilling God's plans. But what is commonly
called sacrifice is the best, happiest use of one's self and
one's resources — the best investment of time, strength,
and means. He who makes no such sacrifice is most to be
pitied. He is a heathen because he knows nothing of God.

**In the school the great thing is not to quarrel; to
pull all together; to refrain from hasty, unwise words and
actions; to unselfishly and wisely seek the best good of
all ; and to get rid of workers whose temperaments are
unfortunate — whose heads are not level ; no matter how
much knowledge or culture they may have. Cantanker-
ousness is worse than heterodoxy.

"I wish no effort at a biography of myself made. Good
friends might get up a pretty good story, but it would not
be the whole truth. The truth of a life usually lies deep
down — we hardly know ourselves — God only does. I
trust His mercy. The shorter one's creed the better.
* Simply to Thy cross I cling' is enough for me.

**I am most thankful for my parents, my Hawaiian
home, for war experiences, and college days at Williams,
and for life and work at Hampton. Hampton has blessed
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me in so many ways ; along with it have come the choicest
people of the country for my friends and helpers, and then
such a grand chance to do something directly for those
set free by the war, and indirectly for those who were
conquered ; and Indian work has been another great
privilege.

**Few men have had the chance that I have had. I
never gave up or sacrificed anything in my life — have
been, seemingly, guided in everything.

"Prayer is the greatest power in the world. It keeps
us near to God — my own prayer has been most weak,
wavering, inconstant ; yet has been the best thing I have
ever done. I think this is a universal truth — what com-
fort is there in any but the broadest truths ?

"I am most curious to get a glimpse of the next world.
How will it all seem .? Perfectly fair, perfectly natural,
no doubt. We ought not to fear death. It is friendly.

**The only pain that comes at the thought of it is for
my true faithful wife and blessed dear children. But
they will be brave about it all, and in the end stronger.
They are my greatest comfort.

"Hampton must not go down. See to it, you who are
true to the black and red children of the land, and to just
ideas of education.

"The loyalty of my old soldiers and of my students
has been an unspeakable comfort.

"It pays to follow one's best light — to put God and
country first; ourselves afterwards.

"Taps has just sounded."

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

^ J/lrxt^ CZ^<^-^ '^<^=^^<^ Q-*-t-^ ^

C/ic^/ Ik** /i«-^ ^^rs'k-.-*

Facsimile of a Page of the Armstrong "Memoranda'

226

CHAPTER ' NINE

THE COMING OF FRISSELL (1880-1893)

HOLLIS BURKE FRISSELL was born in the village
of South Amenia, New York, on July 14, 185 1. He
came of that unmixed and robust American stock, whose
roots are in plain living and high thinking, and whose
fruits are self-sacrifice and self-control. His ancestors
on both sides. Lieutenant William Frissell and Captain
William Barker, were officers in the Revolutionary War.
His great-grandfather cultivated a rocky farm on the
crest of one of the Berkshire Hills in Massachusetts,
where the ridgepole of the neighboring Meeting House,
according to popular belief, shed the rain on its eastern
side toward the Connecticut River, and on its western
slope to the Hudson. This thrifty New England farmer
was, according to the habit of those days, richer in chil-
dren than in crops. He became the father of six sons,
three of whom, thanks to extreme economy at home and
to determined self-help in the boys themselves, were
able to achieve a college education. One of these sons,
Amasa, in his turn dedicated his son Amasa to the Chris-
tian ministry; and this youth in 1834 entered Lane
Seminary, Cincinnati, Ohio, where the distinguished Dr.
Lyman Beecher had just been appointed President.

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

A large number of students, some from the slave-hold-
ing States and one himself a slaveholder, had been drawn
thither by Dr. Beecher's reputation both as a revivalist
and as a pillar of orthodoxy, and the irrepressible ques-
tion of emancipation became the subject of frequent
debate. In the temporizing spirit of those turbulent
days, however, the Trustees of the Seminary determined
to prohibit all discussions of this character among the
students as "imprudent in a divided and excited com-
munity" and as "pressing a collateral benevolent enter-
prise in a manner subversive of the confidence of the
entire Christian community." * The Faculty of the
school, with much reluctance on the part of some mem-
bers, sustained the opinion of the Trustees that the
question of slavery was for Christian teachers "a col-
lateral enterprise," and Dr. Beecher himself, greatly
to the disappointment of many Northern friends, sup-
ported this view. There ensued a general rebellion
among the students, which attracted the attention of
the whole country and enlisted some important recruits
for the antislavery cause. Between seventy and eighty
of these "rebels" withdrew in a body from the care of
teachers who, as the prophet Ezekiel once said, "prophe-
sied concerning Jerusalem and saw visions of peace for
her; and there is no peace, saith the Lord God." Thirty
of these young reformers migrated to Oberlin College

* The story is graphically told in Oliver Johnson's "W. L. Garrison and His
Times," 1881, pp. 165 ff. ; and S. J. May's, "Some Recollections of our Anti-
Slavery Conflicts," 1869, pp. 102 flF.

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and became the nucleus of its theological school ; while
Amasa Frissell, with another group, proceeded to the
Yale Divinity School, where he was a student for three
years. Thus early in the family history the cause of the
Negro became the determining factor in a youth's career ;
while at the same time a sister of this Amasa enlisted
as a missionary among the Choctaw Indians, living,
dying, and being buried among them in their section of
the Indian Territory. It was a dramatic anticipation
of that work for Negroes and Indians which the son and
nephew of these early abolitionists was a half-century
later to undertake.

From the Yale Divinity School Amasa Frissell was
called to a modest pastorate in the village of South
Amenia, New York, where in 1843 he married Lavinia
Barker, the Preceptress of the local Seminary, a culti-
vated and winsome woman, whose qualities blended
happily with the severer temperament of her Presby-
terian husband, and reappeared in the gentleness and
geniality of her children. "If I have anything good in
me," her son once said, "it comes from the refinement
and unselfishness of my mother." In these favoring
though restricted circumstances Hollis Frissell's child-
hood was passed. It was a typical American home of
the ante-bellum period, strenuous and disciplined, de-
voted to high ideals and happy in mutual sacrifices, the
soil from which initiative, versatility, and persistency
naturally spring. A rural minister of those days was
hardly less a farmer than a preacher. The professional

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

salary at Amenia was ^600 a year, and the three sons and
one daughter of the home were trained in agricuhure
not less than in piety. Two meetings for worship, with
Sunday-school, prayer-meeting, and catechetical instruc-
tion intervening, left a boy little time either for rest or
for mischief on the Lord's Day ; and the driving of cows
and sheep, the care of horses, and the interminable tasks
of cutting and storing wood, gave ample opportunity
through the week for learning the lessons to be later
taught to others, of the moral value of manual work.
A little red schoolhouse provided a meagre elementary
education; "not very fine," the pupil later recorded,
**but the best to be had."

Failure in the father's health soon involved more than
one change of residence, and at the end of the Civil
War Amasa Frissell entered the service of the Sanitary
Commission ; and later that of the Boston Tract Society,
of which for twenty-five years he was the New York
secretary. This Association had been organized as a
protest against the hesitating attitude of the American
Tract Society on the irrepressible question of slavery.
In 1863 it had been debated between Dr. Leonard Bacon
and Dr. Bethune whether the publications of the Ameri-
can Society should suppress all teaching which might
irritate slaveholders ; and when, in the course of that
discussion, Dr. Bacon, with characteristic vehemence,
protested that he should not only throw his influence
against this restriction, but should throw that of "all the
little Bacons" against it, Dr. Bethune, with fraternal
230

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

good humor, replied that, "considering the number of
the gentleman's allies, his opponents might as well sur-
render at once."

Amasa Frissell found a congenial career in promoting
the more unqualified teaching of social duty which the
Boston Society represented, and established his family
at Bergen, New Jersey, from which place his son Hollis,
then fifteen years of age, travelled each morning to a
school in New York City, being employed each afternoon
and all day Saturday in the office of the Tract Society.
Here he received the publications from Boston, carried
them to the homes of subscribers in the city, forwarded
them to other contributors, collected bills and kept ac-
counts, until in two years he had saved enough from his
modest stipend to permit himself the luxury of one year
at Phillips Academy, Andover, where he entered in
1868. In the following year he entered Yale College,
earning his living there by providing for two "Eating
Clubs," as well as by the catholic use of his fresh tenor
voice in the choir of a Jewish tabernacle on Saturday
and of a Baptist church on Sunday. The strain of this
divided life of study and bread-winning gradually under-
mined his health, and in the senior term a serious attack
of typhoid fever cost him for that year his degree, and he
graduated with the Class of 1874.

These varied demands and limitations had their neces-
sary consequences in his college career. He was incon-
spicuous among his classmates, much beloved by a small
circle of intimate friends, welcomed to a favorite Society,

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

and President of the college Glee Club ; but not notable
among his fellows either for scholarship or brilliant
promise. "No one of us," a classmate writes, "would
have credited him with the executive power which he
afterwards developed. As I remember, he was distin-
guished in nolwayjin college, in scholarship, oratory, or
literary achievement, but simply was one trying to do
his best." "To tell the truth," another says, "most
of us have been a little surprised at the large figure Frissell
has cut at Hampton." "Not one of his classmates,"
a third reports, "would have dreamed of his wonderful
career. . . . My conception of him was of some kindly
and devoted pastor of some moderate-sized church."
What these young companions could not appreciate —
what indeed Hollis Frissell himself could not then fairly
estimate — was the "Education for Life" which was
being won by the struggle for an education in college.
In an environment of happy irresponsibility and easy
circumstances this youth was silently wrestling each
day with the problem of self-support. His friends of
the "Scroll and Key" and of the Glee Club were for
the most part free from such cares and from the gravity
and restraint which were inevitable effects ; and their
gentle and devout comrade, without marked taste for
books or special distinction in athletics, might easily
be mistaken for a worthy but ordinary man.

It is a misinterpretation with which each generation of
university students becomes familiar. Nothing is more
humiliating in the retrospect than the mistaken estimates
232

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made in college of promise or gifts. The youthful clever-
ness, intellectual alertness, and personal charm which
then seemed to assure a brilliant career have not in-
frequently degenerated into superficiality, self-confi-
dence, or laxity; while the persistency, patience, and
unselfishness which then made no mark have accomplished
results which are as surprising to their possessor as to his
friends. When one now looks back on Hollis Frissell's
course of education one sees it moving steadily toward
the end which it finally attained. His childhood on a
farm laid a foundation for his fitness to direct agricultural
labor; the unremitting necessity for self-help made him
understand the experience of students whose way was
hard, and made them sure that their problems were under-
stood by him; his failure in health tested and developed
his capacity to wait ; his habits of religious self-expres-
sion steadied his will ; and his gift of gentle humor won
him devoted friends. The years at the university were
shaping him, not into a college celebrity, but into the
firmer mould of a determined character.

It must also be confessed that the type of studies
offered to his generation in all American universities as
representing the higher learning did not kindle a mind
like Frissell's to vigorous activity. His thinking in
later life was singularly sagacious, lucid, and persistent,
but it was not academic. He cared less for books than
for people, for humanity, for life. A subject had to
prove itself real, near, and human, to stir his imagi-
nation or his will, but when he was confronted by such

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

a subject his mind attacked it with enthusiasm and
power. Thus his inconspicuousness as a scholar in col-
lege was due, not to lack of talent, but to the prevailing
college system. Mid- Victorian education took little ac-
count of the exceptional man. In a throng of youths
where distinction came by learning what one was taught,
without intellectual reaction or response, a mind which
demanded the summons of reality might easily remain
undiscovered, not by its comrades only, but by itself.

For two years after his graduation at Yale, Hollis
Frissell served as a sub-master in a boarding-school for
boys and girls at Rhinebeck-on-the-Hudson, enlarging
still further the range of his musical sympathies by
singing during this period in the choir of an Episcopal
church, and in his leisure hours directing his reading
toward the profession of the ministry. It is interesting
to recall that these first lessons in theology were learned
under the direction of an Episcopal rector, the Reverend
Mr. Olmstead, who had been, until the Northern inva-
sion, a resident of North Carolina. With this liberally-
minded clergyman young Frissell not only confirmed his
own inclination to religious toleration by the reading of
Coleridge, Bushnell, and Jowett, but also became aware
of the Southern view of the origin and effect of the war,
and was led to appreciate the necessity for sympathy and
tact in approaching thoee burning issues in which he
was later to have so important a share.

In 1876 he entered Union Theological Seminary, sup-
porting himself by service as Assistant to Dr. Charles
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IIAMFION'S SKCOND PRINCIPAL
HoLLis Burke Frissell

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

Robinson, pastor of the Madison Avenue Presbyterian
Church in New York City. To direct a Sunday-school,
conduct a mission-chapel, sing in the church choir, and
co-operate with Dr. Robinson in the compilation of a
hymnbook, would seem of themselves to provide suffi-
cient occupation; and the burden could not have been
perceptibly lightened by listening through the week
to the theology of Dr. Shedd or the erudition of Dr.
SchafF. Yet the soul of the young student was not
altogether crushed, either by its load of practical duties,
or by the ponderous learning of his instructors, and his
religious life found various ways of escape, both from the
obligations of bread-winning and from the tasks of study.
In the summer of 1878 he accepted an opportunity for
missionary service in New Brunswick, and found it an
exhilarating and reassuring experience. Writing to a
fellow-student, he unconsciously revealed both the humil-
ity and integrity of his mind. "I feel very ignorant of
what I ought to do, yet I believe that God has some work
for me in the world. I am glad to find myself so happy
in this little out-of-the-way place. It makes me feel as
though I could go quite contentedly to whatever spot God
calls me. ... As for being a missionary, I have thought
of it a great deal. It has sometimes seemed to me that
God calls me to do mission-work in the city." And again :
" Do you approve of asking people to get up in meeting,
etc. ? I may be wrong, but I have a kind of aversion
to it. When I ask people about being Christians, they
say I do not speak as though their destiny depended

23s

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

on it." It was a difficult adjustment which he was
making, between the conventional methods of evangel-
ical piety and the fine reticence of a sensitive soul ; and
the instinctive restraint which was never overcome by
him without effort gave to the utterances of his inward
life throughout his career a peculiar force and poignancy,
as of a reluctant and sacrificial act.

Another and a more significant incident occurred in
the course of his pastoral duties, which gave definite
direction to his missionary zeal. The church which he
served was urged to undertake some care of the Negroes
at the South, to whom the War and the Reconstruction
period had brought the forms of liberty while still leaving
them in the bondage of ignorance and helplessness ; and
the young assistant presented this cause to his Sunday-
school as an appealing use for their missionary offerings.
FaiHng of adequate support, but unable to resist the call
of his own heart, young Frissell turned to the American
Missionary Association as the principal agent of this form
of relief, and made a visit of observation to its schools
on the Hampton peninsula.

Here in 1880 his path of life met that of Armstrong.
It was the American Missionary Association which had
first occupied this field of operation, and its missionaries
had enlisted in the first staff of Hampton teachers.
Armstrong himself had been bred in the same tradition,
and had recognized the likeness between the problems of
Hawaii and of the Southern States. The momentum of
the school in twenty-two years had swept it beyond the
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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

control or the methods of a Missionary Board, but the
ideals which had originally prompted its foundation re-
mained its propeUing force, and next to the all-pervasive
influence of Armstrong himself its most pressing need was
that of a new appointment to succeed the earlier chaplains.
Frissell preached one Sunday in the little Bethesda
Chapel, which had been built during the War by convales-
cent soldiers within the grounds of the National Cemetery,
under the direction of their chaplain, the well-known
author. Rev. E. P. Roe, and which was utilized by the
school as a place of worship until supplanted by the more
monumental Memorial Church. It could not have been
a thrilling discourse, for it was not by dramatic effects
that Frissell ever impressed his congregations. He re-
calls also that in the course of worship a sudden breeze
drifted through the open door and seizing upon the sheets
of his sermon swept them away from the pulpit desk.
Armstrong's insight, however, detected the man behind
the sermon, and even the man deprived of his sermon,
and pressed him to remain. "I answered," records
Frissell, "that I would come for one year."

Thus in 1880 this extraordinary partnership was
formed — Armstrong, on fire with passionate energy,
thinking in flashes and speaking in aphorisms, and Fris-
sell, with modest demeanor and gracious self-restraint,
setting himself to perform what his leader had dreamed.
The one was like a fresh wind blowing in from Hampton
Roads, sweeping away the prejudices and discourage-
ments which threatened the work, and reviving its

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

vitality and courage; the other was like the Virginia
sunshine, tranquilHzing and life-giving, persuading rather
than compelling, and accepting the law of spiritual at-
traction which draws rather than drives. Armstrong
was born to be a leader, impetuous, soldierly, and com-
manding; Frissell might have been remembered, as his
classmate prophesied, "as the kindly and devoted pastor
of a moderate-sized church" had not the summons come
to him to abandon this creditable ambition for a sub-
ordinate place in a difficult missionary task. The one
discovered his work, the other was discovered by the
work which was given him to do.

It was not long before the overworked but undiscour-
aged Armstrong came to depend at many points upon
his conscientious and self-efFacing colleague. Not only
the religious life of the students became the object of
Frissell's scrupulous charge; but his Chief was relieved
of the irksome planning of campaigns at the North, and
even in some degree of his money-getting journeys thither.
A systematic programme for each winter was devised
by the Chaplain, the speakers and singers trained, the
appointments made and kept, and the business methods
which in boyhood were required to earn a living for him-
self were now applied to regulate, and sometimes to
curb, Armstrong's impetuous plans. With the same
vicarious devotion Frissell visited in Armstrong's name
during the winter of 1881 the schools for Negroes in the
South, travelling often on horseback among rural com-
munities, reporting to his Chief the opportunities and
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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

the hindrances which confronted both blacks and whites,
and unconsciously preparing himself for the well-informed
leadership which he was later to assume among both
races.

In 1883 Frissell's service to Hampton was re-enforced
by his marriage to Miss Julia F. Dodd, a daughter of
Amzi Dodd, Vice-Chancellor of the State of New Jer-
sey, a special Judge in the Court of Error and Appeal,
and later an important leader in the development of a
sound system of mutual Hfe insurance. This union
of hearts and lives was not only one of tender and con-
stantly increasing happiness to husband and wife, but
one which brought to the school a new contribution of
devoted loyalty and gracious hospitality for a constantly
widening circle of teachers, pupils, and friends.

In 1886 the first break in Armstrong's vitality occurred,
and while he sought convalescence on the island of
Jamaica, Frissell as Vice-Principal assumed further
responsibilities both in teaching and campaigning, and
led the group which visited the Indian reservations to
secure competent pupils. In 1 891, as has been narrated,
Armstrong was more seriously stricken, and though
by degrees sufficiently restored to survey and inspire
his work, its details of administration and its grave
problems of finance were inevitably delegated to the
Vice-Principal, whose sole aim was to perpetuate and
strengthen his General's designs; and when in 1893
Armstrong died, the succession passed without delay,
though not without some anxiety on the part of the

239

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

Trustees at so radical a change, from the confident control
of so acknowledged a master to the gentle, and as feared
by some, the less determined personality of the beloved,
but still undiscovered, Chaplain. It was a situation not
unlike that which, as has been indicated, existed among
his classmates at Yale. Refinement, integrity, and dis-
interestedness were recognized and appreciated, but it
was not yet apparent that firmness lay beneath suavity,
and discernment behind considerateness, or that within
twenty-four years it would be said of Frissell by a dis-
tinguished representative of white sentiment at the
South : "No man in American public life has done more
to heal the wounds of war, to bind the sections together,
to unify the nation, to build up a finer and freer civili-
zation on the ruins of an old order, than this unobtru-
sive missionary to a backward race." *

Yet this gradual unfolding of a distinguished career
is precisely what makes the coming of Frissell not only
interesting in itself but peculiarly reassuring to many
self-distrustful lives. For here was a man who found
himself by finding a great work to do ; a man whose
powers developed as his responsibilities multiplied and
whose grasp grew firmer as resistance increased. The
qualities of administrative statesmanship which he was
to exhibit ripened slowly, and he might have repeated
of his early life what the Master of his religious faith
said of Himself, "My time is not yet come." When,

* E. A. Alderman, President of the University of Virginia, Southern Work-
man, Nov. 1917.

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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

however, he made himself the servant of a cause far
greater than himself, he became through the moulding
influence of that cause its trusted leader, to whom the
white race as well as the colored turned for wisdom,
foresight, and efficiency.

Never was there a finer illustration of the paradox of
the Christian life, that he who loses his life finds it, and
that he who sanctifies himself for others' sakes becomes
a master of men. The coming of Frissell was not, like
that of Armstrong, a frontal attack upon the problems
of racial adjustment ; it was the spiritual strategy of
Christian statesmanship, flanking both prejudice and dis-
trust, and capturing their positions without striking a
blow. The further expansion of Hampton, both within
itself and in its eff'ect upon other schools — the conversion
of intelligent sentiment at the South from hostility or
condescension to co-operation and teachableness ; the rec-
ognition of Hampton as the most instructive illustration
of vocational training which can be studied by observers
from many lands ; and, more than all, the perpetuation of
the ideals which Armstrong had inspired and which ex-
pressed the soul of the school, — all these achievements
of the new era, which are still to be described, must be
permanently associated with that modest Chaplain, to
whom the work of Armstrong was not without hesitation
committed, but whose wisdom grew with responsibiHty
and whose gentleness was the sign of strength.

241

CHAPTER TEN

THE EXPANSION OF HAMPTON (1893-1918)

WHEN one passes from the quarter-century of Arm-
strong's leadership to the period, lacking but one year
of the same length, of his successor's administration, he
finds it an era of extraordinary and uninterrupted expan-
sion, both within the school itself and in the extension of
its influence throughout the South and the world. The
story is told in statistical form in the elaborate statements
and tables which are collected in the Appendices of this
volume, and in which various members of the staflF
report the external conditions and various activities of
the school during the entire term of fifty years.

The pace of progress may be noted in many aspects and
at many points. When, for example, in 1886 the Memorial
Church was dedicated Armstrong announced that, so far
as he could foresee, no other building of importance was
likely to be needed ; but since that time not less than
fifteen buildings, costing in the aggregate more than
$800,000, have been added to the plant, and the growth
both in the number and the dimensions of buildings still
proceeds at a constantly accelerated pace. In 1893
Armstrong believed that the future of the school would
be insured by securing an endowment of $1,000,000 ; but
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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

twenty-four years later the endowment fund had reached
a total of $3,064,092.30 and the school was never more
in need of further gifts. In 1893 the expenditure was
$112,442.97; in 1917 the necessary budget was
$351,741.27. In 1893 the income of the school was
$125,672.04; in 1917 the income, like the expenditure,
had more than doubled, reaching a total of $303,290.37.
In 1893 there were in the school 679 boarding pupils;
in 1917 the number of boarding pupils had risen to 934.

These contrasts are sufficient to indicate an expansion
of the school, both in opportunity and responsibility, of
which even Armstrong with his sanguine anticipations
could hardly have dreamed. Agriculture with its diver-
sified interests of production, stock-raising, and dairy-
farming; home economics with its varied industries of
cooking, laundry-work, millinery, and household care ;
business administration with its contributory classes in
bookkeeping and commercial law ; technical training in a
constantly increasing number of trades, from elementary
carpentering to motor-repairing, — all these vocational
undertakings, though for the most part begun in the
era of Armstrong, have not only been multiplied and
strengthened, but have been brought into intimate cor-
relation with academic study, and made not only forms of
production, but ways of instruction in which work is
subordinated to the worker and education to Hfe.

Here it is that we come into sight of the fundamental
idea which, though seen afar at the foundation of the
school, has now come clearly into view and has been made,

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

by an untiring and ingenious body of teachers and man-
agers, a working principle. The expansion of Hampton is
the gradual realization and confirmation of this principle,
which gives the school a peculiar, if not a unique place
in the history of education. The external conditions
which meet one in shops and class-rooms are not per-
ceptibly different from those which prevail in most
industrial establishments or institutions for vocational
training ; but the aim of this discipline, and the estimate
of its results which are accepted as sufficient, distinguish
the Hampton plan, both of academic and of industrial
training, from much which may reasonably claim to be
more productive or more profitable. In short, the funda-
mental issue in all Education for Life is between a train-
ing to make things and a training to make character. Is
a man to be taught carpentering primarily that a house
shall be well built, or that in the building the man him-
self shall get intelligence, self-mastery, and skill ^ Is
a girl taught dressmaking primarily that she may make
her living, or that she shall make her life ?

Armstrong had recognized from the outset the intel-
lectual and moral significance of manual labor, and had
often urged that the training of the hand was at the same
time a training of the mind and will. As early as 1876
he had written in prophetic words: "We believe that
when a manual-labor system is attempted, it should be
carefully adjusted to the demands of scientific and prac-
tical education. The question at once arises what this
manual labor should be. There are two theories, of
244

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

which the first is that its entire aim should be to give
the means to students of supporting themselves, that
a profitable farm on a very large scale should enable
a large number of students to support themselves by
agriculture, and that workshops on a large scale for
the manufacturing of some simple fabrics of universal
consumption should enable a large number of students
to support themselves by mechanic arts; that in both
these cases the main theory should be self-supporting
industry and not educational industry. The second
theory is, that the primary object of the manual labor
in both departments should be educational ; that is, that
the work should be first of all done with a view to per-
fect the student in the best processes and to make him
scientifically and practically a first-class agriculturist
and mechanic. While the first of these theories may
at times be desirable, the second is essential, and all
schools which are destined to be permanently successful
must be founded upon the fact that aid given to them by
individuals is not to assist ten, twenty, or fifty young
people to support themselves, but to enable hundreds of
them to obtain a thorough practical and scientific educa-
tion, in order to develop the resources of the nation."

Many years of experimentation were needed to demon-
strate the truth of this untried theory of education, and
the first steps in verification were inevitably uncertain
and tentative. In 1870 Armstrong had said : "The in-
stitution should be polytechnic, adding new industries as
the old shall become established and remunerative"; in

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

1872 he reported that "five young men are learning print-
ing," and that **a blacksmith's shop has been added to
the former equipment"; in 1876 he asked for $10,000 for
a mechanical department; in 1877 a broom factory was
opened "at a cost of $350 for machinery and instru-
ments" ; in 1878 a total of forty students were employed
on trades; in 1879, through the generosity of Mr. C. P.
Huntington, a sawmill for lumber was built, and it was
anticipated that it would be not only a lucrative invest-
ment, but would "give employment to twenty or twenty-
five students." In 1884 further industries were added —
a machine-shop, a shoe-shop, a paint-shop, a knitting
department — and in 1886 a more systematized training in
carpentering and blacksmithing, and an Indian Training-
Shop, where there should be a "technical round," includ-
ing for each Indian instruction in the blacksmith's, wheel-
wright's, and carpenter's trades "to meet the needs of
the reservations, where people are far removed from
the centres of civilization, and are at the mercy of such
mechanics as may come to them, or are deprived entirely
of the conveniences which they alone can create."

Yet, though Armstrong himself saw as in a vision the
future of his work, and though throughout his administra-
tion the number and scope of industries steadily increased,
there was in few minds a clear appreciation of the moral
significance and the educational possibilities of indus-
trial education. An increasing demand for skilled labor
throughout the Southern States encouraged the com-
mercial estimate of all such training, and the wages which
246

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

might be earned by a graduate of Hampton in bricklay-
ing or housework seemed to many observers the justifi-
cation of a trade-school or a department of home-eco-
nomics. Finally, under the firm guidance of the second
Principal, and through a varied experience of success and
failure, the original ideal became clarified and reaffirmed.
The principle was definitely accepted that these shops
and classes were maintained, not as sources of profit, but
as factors in an Education for Life. Young men and
women were not to be regarded as satisfactory products
of Hampton Institute because each could do one thing
and get good wages for doing it ; but because each had
been trained to apply mind and will to the single task,
and had made it not only a way of living but a way of
life.

This humanized conception of industrial education
brought the Trade-School into a new correlation with aca-
demic studies. To accomplish this larger aim there must
be intelligence as well as dexterity, knowledge of the world
and of its needs as well as technical skill in production.
In short, the trade was for the person rather than the
person for the trade. When in 1896, through the munifi-
cence of Morris K. Jesup and other friends, re-enforced
by an annual stipend from the John F. Slater Fund, a
new and adequate building for a Trade-School was erected
(and doubled in size in 1909), and in 1898 a Domestic
Science Building was set by its side, both of these spacious
and well-equipped structures represented this humanized
conception of manual labor as the handmaid of life.

247

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

Successive reports in 1903 and the following years em-
phasized this discrimination. "A closer correlation has
been established," it was said, "between the various
trades and industries and the academic department.
A student-carpenter is given, in addition to a thorough
course in that subject, some knowledge of painting, tin-
ning, and bricklaying, so that he is fitted to build a house
when necessary without the aid of other mechanics.
Academic instruction is every year more closely related
to the industrial departments. The problems of arith-
metic are taken from the work of the shop and the farm ;
the work in English has to do largely with the everyday
experiences of students; agriculture and geography are
closely connected ; the art instruction is related to the
work of the manual-training classes. . . . The Trade-
School continues to emphasize the educative value of
an all-round training, rather than the money value of the
product (1903). . . . The intellectual ability of the
students has been increased rather than diminished by
giving them more trade-work (1904). . . . The aim of
the Trade-School is not only the careful teaching of
trades, but also the development of mind and character.
. . . The requirements of a higher academic standing
for entrance to the Trade-School has apparently resulted
in fewer students dropping out during their course.
. . . By having entrance requirements equivalent to
the completion of a grammar-school course and by
adopting a four-year curriculum, the trade-student com-
pletes a course recognized by the State Department of
248

HUNTINGTON MEMORIAL LIBRARY

onp: wing of thk armstroncj-slaikr memorial trade

SCHOOL

This building has 60,000 feet of floor space. Its second story was built by
trade students without stopping work in any department.

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

Education (Va.) as a full four-year secondary course"
(1917). "It is the policy of the institution," Dr.
Frissell announced in his last Report, *'to give its di-
ploma to no boy or girl who has failed to gain sufficient
knowledge and ability to practice some vocation." *

The evolution of this ideal of industrial education
may be indicated by comparing the phrases of different
Reports. In 1872 Armstrong wrote : " It [the Academic
Department] is the leading department, to which all the
others are subsidiary." In 1897 Frissell had advanced
to the view that: "Instead of making the industrial de-
partments the stepping-stone to the academic depart-
ment, the academic department is now made the step-
ping-stone to the industrial and trade work." Finally,
in 1904, the same leader reaches the conviction that :
"After careful comparison of a system in which work in
the shop is put first and academic studies made subsidi-
ary, and the one in which academic instruction Is put
first and hand-work made subsidiary, the whole corps of
teachers agree that the former results in a greater gain
in character, in initiative, and in intellectual force."

It will at once be observed that this conception of in-
dustrial training, though it may be educative to the in-
dividual, is likely to be expensive to the school. When
a student in carpentering, for example, is shifted, as his
education proceeds, from one job to another and taken
away from his work for academic instruction ; or when a
girl, after being for some weeks or months in the kitchen,

* 49th Report of Principal, 1917.

249

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

is transferred to the laundry, and thence to the house-
keeper's department, to complete her training as a home-
maker, the boy or girl may be developed into a more
efficient worker, but the work itself is likely to be less
effectively or economically done. Much mechanical
labor needs little more than facility and habit, and many
employers would distrust a system which did not hold the
worker to a single operation, and deal with him as with
one cog in the machine. In many a modern factory one
sees long rows of men and women, each laboring through
the day on a fragment of the complete product, or in
an unceasing succession of operations which develop
increasing dexterity in the hands, but increasing numb-
ness in the brain. That is what accomplishes in such
establishments the maximum of production, and its
results are often viewed with pride as monuments of
efficiency. The testimony of an Indian concerning the
effect of manual labor as distinguished from manual
education is convincing. "I worked two years," he says,
"turning a washing machine in a Government school,
to reduce the running expenses of the institution. It did
not take long to learn how to run the machine, and the
rest of the two years I nursed a growing hatred for it," *
Precisely the opposite of this is trade-education as
conceived, gradually developed, and finally realized at
Hampton Institute. It is a development of the person
through the trade, rather than a development of the
trade through the person. The product is not primarily

* Henry Roe Cloud, Lake Mohonk Conference Report, 1914, p. 86.
250

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

goods, but goodness; not so much profit as personality.
It is, therefore, a less effective method for forms of busi-
ness which do not need or desire a human factor or a
trained mind, and which are more lucrative as wage-
earners become more impersonal and automatic. The
maintenance of a more humanized system is necessarily
more exacting, and often more expensive. But if, on
the other hand, the aim of education is life ; if there are
many trades which still call for initiative, inventiveness,
originality, versatility, or fidelity; if the man with the
hoe can get more from the land if he be at the same time
a man with an understanding of the rotation of crops and
the qualities of the soil; if, indeed, he has become no
longer a man with a hoe, but a man with a tractor ; if a
girl be trained not only to teach the elements of knowl-
edge, but to advise in the home and the kitchen and the
sick-room, — then these students become delivered from
the benumbing conditions of modern industry by the
emancipating and humanizing effect of the Hampton
scheme of industrial training ; and those who are thus
initiated in a large view of their small opportunities are
likely to find their way, not only to those occupations
which are still open at the top, but to those resources
of happiness which are discovered when work has become
a vocation, and labor has contributed to life.

This interior expansion of Hampton Institute in curricu-
lum and equipment has not, however, been the most
characteristic or significant indication of its vitality and
progress. A missionary enterprise must justify itself, not

251

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

by its plant or its numbers, but by the character of its
output and the efficiency of its service for a community
or a world. The capacity in its ideals for self-propaga-
tion is the test of success in its work. What is called in
medicine the "end-result system" must be applied, and
each case followed to its consequences. The contribution
of graduates to their community or their race is the chief
asset of the school.

The first sign of this leavening process in the history
of Hampton was in the sense of responsibility soon de-
veloped for the welfare of communities immediately
environing the school. In 1882 the Annual Report
states that "Bible readers are sent out and investiga-
tions made of cases of destitution. Nearly five hundred
dollars has been raised for the help of destitute people."
In 1892 it is said: "Students do personal work, visit-
ing the poor." In 1898 "the students* work in the jail,
poor-house, cabins, and Sunday-schools" is noted. In
1903 the Commandant reports: "Every student is
trained not alone that he may make a better citizen,
but that he may devote himself to the welfare of his
people. This, in my opinion, accounts in large meas-
ure for the lack of friction, and for the absence of much
misconduct among the Hampton students." In 1908 the
Chaplain states : " The jail, the poor-house, and the cabins
of the old and poor are visited every week. Cabins are
repaired, and gardens made for the helpless. In religion
as in education the students are taught to learn by doing."
In 1910 the neighborhood had been "divided into five
252

w
u
o
p^

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

districts, each in charge of a Hampton teacher. Each
visitor calls and collects money for savings-bank accounts,
establishes sewing-clubs and Sunday-schools, cares for the
sick, attends to the destitute, provides for funerals." In
short, that utilization of education which is elsewhere
known as university extension soon assumed at Hampton
the form of practical service for the community and, as
is always the case with such self-forgetting service, re-
acted on the character of the givers. "The staying-
power of the school's graduates," the Report of 191 5
says, "is due largely to the emphasis placed on Christian
service." "Service done by the students on Sundays, in
mission Sunday-schools, in the cabins, the poor-house,
and the jail," says the Report of 1916, "gives them a
taste of missionary work which influences them through
life."

A second step in this external expansion was taken
when a systematic and continuous relation was estab-
lished between the school and its graduates, and the
re-enforcement of their lives became a recognized func-
tion of administration. "A guild of high-minded work-
ers," Armstrong wrote in 1878, "will make of our gradu-
ates civilizers rather than mere pedagogues"; and again
in 1892: "Our graduates are, as a rule, apostles of good
farming and decent home living. All the more need is
there of a head, a centre of inspiration and suggestion."
"The record of Hampton graduates," Dr. Curry reported
in 1884 to the Trustees of the Peabody Fund, "is the
test of Hampton's success." Thus a Graduate Depart-

253

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

ment came to be organized, and in 1894 a competent
adviser, himself a graduate, undertook the visitation
and encouragement of other graduates, reporting "whether
they are teachers, farmers, or mechanics ; whether they
are prospering, and if so, whether mortgaged and how,
and the conditions of the people among whom they hve
and labor." Here was the beginning of a "Continuation
School," regulated by a "graduates' correspondent," and
expanding its operations of encouragement and counsel
from year to year. Each student on entering the school
passes a physical examination, and puts on record his
general history, and after graduation he receives each
year a letter of inquiry from the Principal, concerning
his progress in life.

This expanded responsibility has carried with it an
expansion of its own. A Summer School, with an at-
tendance in 1917 of 429; a Ministers' Conference, with
an enrolment in 191 7 of 71 ; travelling libraries; agri-
cultural clubs ; farmers' conferences ; teachers' institutes ;
movements to lengthen the rural-school terms ; classes
in home economics; "Hampton Leaflets" on sanitation,
health, manual training, nature study, and similar topics ;
an anti-tuberculosis crusade; conferences with school
superintendents, supervisors, and farm-demonstration
agents ; clean-up campaigns ; — these, and many other ac-
tivities radiating from a single centre, have made of
Hampton Institute a kind of power-house, transmitting
energy to remote or discouraged teachers and keeping the
light of service burning in many modest schools and homes.

254

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

How are these graduates, thus reporting themselves
each year, occupied ? What vocations do they enter ?
The great majority throughout the fifty years of the
school's work have, as might have been anticipated, be-
come teachers. In 1880 ninety per cent were thus em-
ployed; and thirty-seven years later, in 1917, the same
proportion of women-graduates, excluding those who are
married and housekeepers, were enlisted in the same
calling. As opportunities in agriculture or trades have
multiplied, the proportion of men giving their lives to the
profession of teaching has naturally diminished, though,
as the following table for 1916 indicates, it still remains
their normal career.

Occupations of Negro Graduates

Men

Teaching 239

Agriculture (not teaching agriculture) 48

Trades (not teaching trades) ... 93
The professions (ministry, medicine,

law) icx>

Business 33

Clerks 89

Hotel workers 75

Students 25

Miscellaneous 6

Unknown 74

Dead 242 1024

255

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

Women

Teaching 300

Other work (unmarried) 39

Married (housekeeping) .... 234

Married (not housekeeping) ... 32

Students 7

Unknown 24

Dead 122 758

Total number of graduates . . . 1782

Graduates teaching, 1916-1917 . . 539

Some of these graduate-teachers have risen to positions
of responsibiHty in city schools, as in Lynchburg and
Roanoke, Va., in IndianapoHs, Indiana, and Kansas City,
Missouri. At Winchester, Va., the principalship of the
colored schools has been held for forty-one years by
graduates of Hampton ; and of Kansas City the superin-
tendent of schools reports that "Manual training was
first introduced into the educational system of that place
by a teacher bringing with him the Hampton training."

Two-thirds of the students at Hampton, however, still
come from rural life, and if at their graduation they
become teachers they naturally and generously return
to the conditions with which they are familiar, and dedi-
cate themselves to the modest tasks of country-schools.
The stars on the accompanying map (published about
1894) indicate the expansion and distribution of this
unambitious service ; and at each point of light a Hamp-
ton graduate, who had been instructed, not only in the
256

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

257

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

elements of academic study, but in manual training and
agriculture, in personal hygiene and personal piety, was
not only a teacher, but an adviser in the homes of pu-
pils, a parents' assistant and Sunday-school leader, trans-
mitting the Hampton tradition of community-service,
and in many instances remaining through a lifetime with
increasing influence at the same post. "To the teacher,"
reports the most competent among the supervisors of
this work, "the people look for almost everything."*
"When I registered at Hampton," writes a woman-
graduate, "I thought I was well acquainted with the
three R's, but I have found that the three R's of im-
portance are Religion, Respect for Rules, and Re-
sponsibility."

A third area of influence was reached when this re-
enforcement of individuals was succeeded by corporate
undertakings ; and schools, or enterprises of social amelio-
ration, were established either by graduates or through
their counsel and co-operation. The most distinguished
case of this filial association is Tuskegee Institute, con-
ceived and developed by one son of Hampton, and now
committed to the sane and sagacious leadership of another.
Here, where in 1881 a single teacher and thirty pupils
met in a decrepit church building, there were in 191 7 a
staffs of 198 and a registration of 1595 students (950 boys,
645 girls). Both the financial and industrial direction of
this great establishment still largely remain in the hands
of Hampton graduates, and of the present working staff 28

* W. T. B. Williams, Report on Hampton Graduates, 1917.
258

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

have been there trained. When Hampton Institute freely
surrendered its Commandant to the great work begun
by Booker Washington, Dr. Frissell said of his colleague :
"He is one of the rarest souls I have ever known, regard-
less of race. He understands white people and has
helped me to understand the colored people" ; and when,
a little later, Major Moton spoke at the funeral of his
Chief, he said with not less affection : "There has scarcely
been a thought, certainly not a serious act, of my life
during the past twenty-five or thirty years that has not
been influenced or directed by what I thought Dr. Frissell
would like to have me do." The filial loyalty of Tuskegee
is, thus, not merely institutional, but personal. What
Armstrong was to Washington, that Frissell became to
Moton. Hampton and Tuskegee can never be rivals ;
they are associated in the domestic unity of an affec-
tionate parent and a rapidly maturing child.

The Penn School, on St. Helena Island in South Caro-
lina, antedates in its origin all other undertakings of
Northern philanthropists for the colored race. In the
first year of the Civil War the United States Government
despatched a special agent to take possession of the Sea
Islands, with their precious cotton-crop which had been
abandoned by the planters. With the cotton there fell
into the hands of the Government thousands of helpless
and deserted Negroes; and in April 1862, Miss Laura M.
Towne of Philadelphia, with her friend Miss Ellen Murray,
volunteered as agents of the Freedmen's Aid Society of
Philadelphia to open a school. Of the eighty scholars

259

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

first collected, Miss Towne wrote : "They had no idea
of sitting still, of giving attention, of ceasing to talk
aloud. They lay down and went to sleep ; they scuffled
and struck each other. They got up by the dozen, made
their curtsies, and walked off to the neighboring fields
for blackberries, coming back to their seats with a curtsey
when they were ready. They evidently did not under-
stand me, and I could not understand them." * Fear-
lessly and patiently these two women persisted in their
task — tending the sick in epidemics, instructing families
in sanitation and thrift, and laying the foundation of a
stable and beautiful work. When, after thirty-eight
years of service. Miss Towne, in 1901, was about to die,
she committed her charge to the wisdom of Dr. Frissell,
and the Penn School passed into the hands of the Hamp-
ton tradition. Two white teachers from the Hampton
staff migrated to this remote and isolated outpost. The
Hampton title, "Normal and Agricultural School" was
adopted ; the Principal of Hampton became President
of the newly organized Board of Trustees ; and of the
27 teachers and workers employed in 191 7, 25 were repre-
sentatives of Hampton.

Much the same story might be told of the Calhoun
School in Alabama — "De Mornin'-Star," as it was de-
scribed by its black neighbors — ; established by white
teachers from Hampton in 1892 and having in 191 7,
of its 36 teachers and workers, 12 graduates or former
students of Hampton. The St. Paul Industrial School

* Letters and Diary of Laura M. Towne, 1912, pp. xv fF.
260

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

in Lawrenceville, Va., one of the largest industrial schools
for colored people in the United States, with five hun-
dred students in 1916, has as its principal a Hampton
ex-student with five "Hamptonians" on his staff. The
People's Village School at Mt, Meigs, Alabama, is the
monument of a Hampton woman-graduate, who, having
taught at Calhoun, proceeded to another community
in the Black Belt, and, beginning her work in 1893
in a building "fifty years old, and with creaking walls
and broken windows," had in 191 3 three buildings,
"clean and in fairly good repair," and an enrolment
of 279 students. The Gloucester Agricultural and In-
dustrial School and the FrankHn Normal and Industrial
Institute, in Virginia, both have Hampton graduates
as their Principals. In the exhaustive study of Negro
Education, issued by the United States Bureau of Educa-
tion in 1917 and compiled with convincing thoroughness
and candor by Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones and his associates,
the equipment and resources of each school are described,
and it is satisfactory to observe that the verdict on the
children of Hampton is invariably favorable. "Well
managed"; "Good work is done"; "Marked influence
on its section of the State," are the estimates reached by
a competent and discriminating observer of these bearers
of the Hampton tradition.

In this process of radio-activity, transmitting waves
of influence from a single station in widening circles of
communication, the expansion of Hampton finally reaches
many undertakings which are not rigidly educational in

261

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

262

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

their form, but which have enUsted graduates of the
school in enterprises of social service. A few illustrations
of these more remote afl&liations are sufficient to indicate
their variety and scope.

A "People's Building and Loan Association" was
formed by a Hampton graduate in 1889 in the town of
Hampton, and in 191 7 had a membership of 700 stock-
holders and a paid-in capital of $174,500. More than 400
homes of Negroes in and about Hampton had been built
with its funds, and throughout its twenty-eight years
of existence it has annually paid a dividend of seven per
cent. Of its fifteen directors, ten are Hampton graduates.
The "Bay Shore Seaside Resort" comprises a hotel of
40 rooms, with its pavilion, cafe, and bathing beach front-
ing Chesapeake Bay, and provides a welcome place of
refreshment for colored visitors. The president, secre-
tary, and several members of the board of trustees are
Hampton graduates, and its proceeds, though sufficient
for dividends, have thus far been applied to the develop-
ment of the plant. A "Virginia Negro Organization
Society" was organized by suggestion of Dr. Frissell
in 1909, with the comprehensive intention to "build
better schoolhouses, lengthen terms, create and promote
a general interest in education and co-operation between
school and community ; to improve the health of the
people by enlightening the public on the causes and pre-
vention of diseases, and by seeking to establish better
health conditions at home and at all public meeting-
places ; to secure co-operation among farmers in buying

263

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

and selling products ; to enliven their consciences to the
necessity of better methods of farming, and to encourage
land-buying; to wage an unceasing campaign for better
homes and better morals; and thus to develop a higher
type of citizenship." It publishes Health Bulletins,
promotes Health Creeds and Pledges, and in its five
annual ** Clean-up" movements it has induced more
than 4CX>,cxx) Negroes to apply themselves to the sanita-
tion and embellishment of their homes. Education and
health campaigns are undertaken by agents of the society,
carrying with them the Hampton message of initiative
and self-help; and the school's schooner, the Hampton,
was utilized to reach remote communities accessible only
by sea.

A movement to provide better homes for the Negroes
of Norfolk has created a suburban community on favor-
able terms of ownership and with adequate provision of
church and school, which has been re-enforced by the
counsel and financial support of Hampton trustees and
friends, and has been in large part built up by its Trade-
School students. The conditions of life among Negroes in
Gloucester County, Va., have been studied by Hampton
graduates, and an organized effort made to reduce il-
literacy, lengthen the school-term, promote the owner-
ship of land, and lift the general level of social life ; and
as a result one-eighth of the land-values, and one-seventh
of the value of buildings have come into the hands of
Negroes, and of the fifteen arrests for misdemeanor in
the county in 1914, fourteen were white, and one colored.
264

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

A Hampton woman-graduate who had already created
a beneficent Settlement in the town of Hampton, was
appointed in 1914 Superintendent of the Industrial
Home School for Dehnquent Colored Girls in Hanover
County, Va., and other graduates serve with her as farmer,
matron, and superintendent of industries. Of the re-
sults obtained the representative of the State Board of
Charities reports that "she would not have known these
girls for the same incorrigibles which she had tried in
vain to place in families before."

Nor can this story of expansion pause within the
limits of a single State or a single country. From year
to year a continuous and broadening stream of visitors
and of correspondence from other lands has flowed toward
Hampton Institute, and has borne away an acquaintance
with its methods and spirit to refresh and fertilize distant
work. The distinguished Irishman, Sir Horace Plunkett,
with his gospel of rural co-operation ; the Inspector-
General of Education from Mysore, India, gathering
material for a chapter in his report ; a friend of Cecil
Rhodes, comparing conditions among Negroes in the
Southern States with those in South Africa ; a Negro
from Sierra Leone, promoting industrial education among
his people ; Belgians, Swiss, Germans, and English ;
directors of manual-training; correspondents in Bom-
bay, Ceylon, Madras, Orange Free State, Honolulu,
China, Brazil, Persia, and Mexico, — all these and many
other students and experts have frankly applied to their
various undertakings the lessons they have learned from

265

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

Hampton, and have gladly testified to their applicability
in all parts of the world.

Thus from China comes this testimony: "I have just
seen Chong Wing Kung, one of the great scholars of South
China and Dean of the Canton Christian College, reading
with interest the life of a Hampton graduate. . . . Both
students and teachers here study the work of Hampton
Institute, because . . . they see that Hampton principles
are the means needed in the making of a new China."
Concerning India, the Foreign Secretary of the Mission
Board of the Reformed Church in America testifies :
"It was proposed by a deputation of officers of British
Mission Societies to visit this country with a special
view to a careful study of conditions at Hampton In-
stitute and their applicability to industrial missionary
operations in India. This has been prevented by condi-
tions of the War." The Secretary of the Presbyterian
Board of Foreign Missions reports that "Hampton has
worked out not only a great home-missionary problem,
but one of the fundamental problems of foreign missions
as well. There is scarcely a foreign mission field on
which, consciously or unconsciously, the work of Hampton
Institute has not had its eflPect." From Ceylon comes this
testimony : **It was the inspiration of the work at Hampton
that prompted the plan of sending out to India an unoflfi-
cial deputation to consider afresh some of the problems
of educational work in that country." Of Africa, the
Corresponding Secretary of the Board of Foreign Missions
^ in the Methodist Episcopal Church, writes: "The Con-
266

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

ference on Africa, which has been in session during the
last week, has more than once emphasized the value of
the influence of Hampton Institute upon the ideals and
programmes of our work. In the plans we are develop-
ing in Angola, Inhambane, Rhodesia, and the lower
Belgian Congo, the inspiration of the history and methods
of Hampton Institute has been potent" ; and the Foreign
Secretary of the American Board says : "We have been
in the habit of sending missionaries down to Hampton
Institute for a period of observation, in order to catch
the spirit and see the methods that are used there. In
this way the Institute has influenced directly and in-
directly the work of this Board in every one of its missions
in Africa, as well as in India and parts of Turkey."

The world has become aware through the tragic cir-
cumstances of war of the strategic importance of
Saloniki, but as early as 1904 the possibilities of that
place for a school on the Hampton plan were realized,
and the Thessalonica Agricultural Institute was incor-
porated. Its products were very difi^erent from those of
Virginia ; silk-culture and vineyards were its staple in-
dustries ; but it gladly recognized its lineage. Its Prin-
cipal, in describing his work, calls it "A Hampton in
Macedonia. It seems to fall to America," he writes,
"to teach the nations of Europe the dignity of labor."

More convincing, however, than these general evidences
of appreciation are many instances of individual lives
which have carried with them, often under dramatic or
romantic circumstances, the influence of the Hampton

267

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

training to remote foreign fields. A young man, for
example, following the practice of the school, enlists in
mission work at Hampton, and on leaving Hampton
hears the call to service in the black continent of Africa.
He penetrates more than a thousand miles from the
West Coast to a hitherto unexplored country, whose
king had prohibited all foreigners on pain of death from
entering. Here he lives with the Bakuba, learns their
language, achieves geographical discoveries which pro-
cure his election as a Fellow of the Royal Geographical
Society of London, builds a church, baptizes sixty con-
verts at once, and is described by the Journal of Missions
as one who "not only builds churches, preaches the
gospel, and beautifies the land, but — like Luke — is also
the beloved physician, known, loved, and revered by
the nations far and wide."

Another Hampton student, having completed in 1888
his three years of training as shoemaker and blacksmith,
together with Bible study, hears a call to serve his race
in Liberia. Writing from that country six years later, in
1895, he says: "I take great pleasure in letting you
know that I have had the honor of erecting the first
iron bridge in this Republic. It is 150 feet long, 12
feet wide, and 12 feet high." Nine years later, in 1904,
he writes: "I have been trying to establish work on
the plan of Hampton. The school is undenominational
in character; and its purpose is to train preachers,
teachers, and leaders for the Negro in Africa. . . . Farm-
ing, carpentering, cooking, dressmaking, fancy work,
268

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

photography, housekeeping, and the ordinary EngHsh
branches are taught. . . . There are about one hundred
children and two other teachers beside myself." This
devoted and versatile missionary died in 1907.

A Japanese boy finds his way to Hampton ; is baptized
there ; returns for mission work in his own country ;
starts a home-colony to teach farming and housework ;
and writes to Dr. Frissell in 1903 : "In my young
heart I thought the Hampton School came out as
easily as asparagus from its roots; but now I under-
stand that the price of the Institute is the price of the
heart and blood of that old soldier. If he were now
living, I wonder what he would say to me, for I am
doing the same kind of work as the General did. . . .
Perhaps you may forget me; but I am the one that
you baptized at the school chapel on Christmas morn
1890. ... In my heart there is no denomination, but
I am a Christian, a disciple of Christ."

A Zulu Chief in South Africa sends his son to America ;
and friendly missionaries find a school for him in North
Carolina. "Two of my teachers," he says, "in that school
were Hampton graduates. We used to talk about Hamp-
ton. They told me about it until I could imagine what
Hampton stood for. ... So I went to Hampton in Sep-
tember 1907. I hope to carry its seeds of kindness to
the forgotten children of South Africa, to whom I belong."
He married a Hampton student; returned to Zululand
with his wife, who in 1915 writes from her mission station
in Natal : "I wish you could hear my husband preach" ;

269

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

and he adds: "I myself have the trade work — ^we have
one good-sized shop, and as many departments in that
one house as we may be able to have. We cannot have
quite as many as Hampton yet, but as years come and
go we do not know what God may do. . . . Our little
daughter is growing fine. You can almost read on her
forehead : Hampton."

It is not necessary to multiply these instances of edu-
cational internationalism, which have made the name of
Hampton Institute familiar to many dark races and still
darker continents, where graduate teachers have fol-
lowed the open road which led from Hampton to the
ends of the earth. It has been intimated by some critics
of Hampton that the type of education there encour-
aged brings its students into a "blind alley"; qualifying
them for the humble tasks of hand labor, but opening no
path to advancement for exceptional or ambitious lives.
The Hampton graduate, it is said, is doomed to
be a wage-earner or an obscure teacher, and the prizes
of modern life remain inaccessible to him. Hampton
Institute thus perpetuates, it is argued, the tradition of
an inferior race, which may be patronized by benevolent
whites, but remains servile and dependent, slaves in all
but the name.

It must be frankly admitted, in answer to such criti-
cism, that there are many careers to which a Negro
has a right to aspire, and for which no direct prepa-
ration is as yet provided at Hampton. The vocations
which naturally open before a Hampton graduate are,
270

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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

for men, either academic teaching, agriculture, or one
of the mechanic arts, or the teaching of those arts; and,
for women, either teaching, or domestic science, or social
service, or the care of a well-ordered home. It is also
to be gravely regretted that the number of institutions
expressly designed for colored youths to receive a definitely
academic training, and the quality of most of these in-
stitutions, ^re so inadequate ; and it is not unreasonable
that many Negroes should be restless under these so-called
"restrictions" and should demand that the privileges
of the intellectual life shall be within the reach of all. The
universities and colleges of the North, though their
opportunities are open to Negroes, and though it is es-
timated that five hundred such students were registered
in them during 1916, are remote and expensive, and
many Negroes are deterred from this migration by the
apprehension of racial prejudice. It is a situation which
justifies dissatisfaction and from which, as will be later
indicated, Hampton may offer some relief.

Yet in spite of these limitations and admissions the
theory of a ** blind alley" at Hampton is difficult to main-
tain. Its scope of service does not comprise the whole of
life ; but it covers that large area which is occupied by the
vast majority of the Negro race, where efficiency, integ-
rity, and thrift are of more importance than languages,
philosophy, and professional training. Here is no contro-
versy with other ways of education, but a division of
fields. Here, also, leadership is needed, and the way is
open, not only to usefulness, but to distinction. Students

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

like Booker Washington and his successor, or the prin-
cipals and supervisors of schools throughout the South,
or the foreign missionaries whose achievements have just
been described, have not found themselves in a blind
alley, ending in a blank wall. They have found them-
selves, on the contrary, on an open road ; or, more
accurately, on a ladder, whose foot had been set firmly
on the ground of elementary discipline, but up which a
student might climb, not only without hindrance, but
with a steady head. The expansion of Hampton which
has been hastily traced is a sufficient answer to the sug-
gestion that the type of education there fostered either
hampers or degrades.

Such in brief outline, and without even allusion to
many undertakings which may justly claim to represent
the same tradition, or to many individuals whose sacri-
ficial lives tempt one to narration, is the story of the
expansion at Hampton during the last twenty-four
years. It is primarily both in its interior operation and
in its external influence a monument of the sagacity,
persistency, and hopefulness of the Principal, whose un-
tiring advocacy at the North was fruitful in money, and
whose imperturbable serenity and sympathy touched
the heart of the South. The position he gained in public
esteem was gradually recognized, and he was given the
honorary degree of D.D. by Howard University in 1893,
that of S.T.D. by Harvard University in 1900, and that
of LL.D by Yale University in 1901 and by Richmond
College in 1909.
272

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

Yet so extended and comprehensive an influence
could not have been achieved without devoted co-oper-
ation from many allies; and among the characteristics
for which Frissell will be long remembered one of the
most notable was his winning of confidence and main-
tenance of loyalty from all who shared with him his
sacred task. No visitor to the school has failed to ob-
serve the peculiar quality of self-effacing service which
creates what is called the Hampton Spirit. Many
teachers have given their entire lives to some modest
part of the work with the sustained enthusiasm of a
pure missionary zeal; others at their first coming have
approached the school as offering a congenial occupa-
tion, only to discover that in the course of educating
their pupils they have been themselves educated in the
Hampton spirit of happy sacrifice and unconstrained
disinterestedness. They have found themselves in losing
themselves. Their own burdens have been lightened as
they have carried the heavier burdens of other lives.
An instructor in the Trade School, on being asked what
influences had led him to Hampton, answered that the
original persuasion, both to himself and his wife, had
been that of a good job under fair conditions and in a
pleasant climate; but he added: **That is not at all
the way either of us feels about it now." The sense of a
work worth doing, of a constituency worth doing it for,
and of a rational religious life expressed each day in
action as well as in worship or song, had in this case, as
in many others, acted like a gentle atmosphere which

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

one feels rather than analyzes, and to which, as one
lives in it, one comes to open habitually the windows of
his mind and heart. Motives of self-interest had been
supplanted by the desire for service, and both husband
and wife had found a climate which it was a privilege to
breathe. It would be difficult to draw to the small pay
and secluded life at Hampton a teacher who was looking,
first of all, for commercial advantage or professional
advancement ; but when a teacher has once fairly ad-
justed himself to the spirit of the school, it is much more
difficult for either commercial advantage or personal
ambition to draw him away.

The same tradition of disinterestedness has been per-
petuated among the students of Hampton, through the
fresh and vivid memory of Armstrong and his teaching,
and the constant appeal to racial obligation and self-
respect. The Negro character is keenly susceptible to
these appeals of sentiment. It has its own tempera-
mental limitations; but it has a far more teachable and
grateful disposition than sophisticated youths of the
white race as a rule exhibit. The mind of the Negro is
not hampered either by tradition or by self-esteem;
but is impressionable and imitative. Here is a racial
weakness, when this responsive temperament is ap-
proached by a strong temptation; but here, also, is the
secret of extraordinary progress whenever this emotional
susceptibility is touched by a higher appeal. Even
slaveholders could count on the docility and loyalty of
the Negroes under conditions from which other races
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would have rebelled. The same traits, steadied by
liberty and guided by affection, make of Negro students
the most plastic material for education. Whatever may
be taught them is welcomed at its best, and many a
teacher of conscious insufficiency has been educated to
effectiveness by the eager gratitude of expectant pupils.
The same susceptibility has its moral expression, and a
race with tropical emotions may be brought through
daily association with the refinement of devoted teachers
to a habit of restraint which many critics would regard
as quite incredible.

It is not practicable here to recount in detail the con-
tributions to this expansion of Hampton which have been
made by devoted Trustees or generous friends; or to
discriminate between the conspicuous givers of buildings,
land, money, or counsel, and the less recognized, but
often not less self-denying, generosity of benefactors
who have merged their gifts in the common fund, or
have invested them in the education of single lives.
This lavish benevolence is reported, so far as figures can
tell the story, in the statistical statements included in
the Appendices to this volume, and the names of the
most conspicuous benefactors are there associated with
their gifts. The almost unbroken record of increase in
giving from year to year testifies to an unfailing spring
of loyalty which supplies the not less steadily increasing
needs of the school.

Two names, however, now made by death appro-
priate subjects for recognition, may be cited to indi-

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

cate the spirit which has made the school what it
is, and which must be perpetuated if its expansion
is to proceed. The first name is that of Robert Curtis
Ogden, who became a member of the Board of Trustees
in 1874, and was its President from 1894, the first year
of Frissell's administration, until 1913, when, after a
service of the school through a term of thirty-eight
years, he died. Mr. Ogden was a man of untiring energy
and of singular wisdom and discretion. He had risen
by his fidelity and sagacity to a position of great re-
sponsibility in commercial life and might well have
regarded his administrative gifts as pledged to an exact-
ing business. From the beginning of his career, however,
he dedicated much of his time and money to causes of
philanthropy, citizenship, and religion ; and when in
1 861 young Armstrong arrived in New York from Hawaii,
a stranger, and — as he regarded himself — an alien, it was
to Mr. Ogden that he first presented himself, and it was
Mr. Ogden's counsel which guided and restrained the
impetuous youth among the many and difficult decisions
of his later career.

The financial statesmanship of Mr. Ogden was soon
sought by many important enterprises for civic and
social welfare; and he became President of the Board
of Trustees of Union Theological Seminary; President
of the Southern Education Board ; Chairman of the
General Education Board ; a member of the Russell
Sage Foundation and of the Anna T. Jeanes Founda-
tion, and a Trustee of Tuskegee Institute. None of these
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ROBERT CURTIS OGDEN

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

responsibilities, however, was so near to his heart as the
care of Hampton ; and no day of his busy life was so pre-
occupied as to subordinate its interests or restrain his
generosity. During the twenty years of his presidency
the invested property of the school increased from ^379,000
to $2,642,000 and his persuasion to other givers was
irresistible because he habitually gave not only more
than his own share, but himself. His character was an
extraordinary blending of business sagacity and spiritual
simplicity. He was as modest as he was wise. Writing
once to Mr. Ogden, Armstrong playfully said : "Your
life-work will not be complete until you have written a
book on theology." It would have been a short book;
and its teaching would have been summed up in the
Johannine maxim: "He that loveth not his brother
whom he hath seen, how can he love God whom he hath
not seen ?"

The World War, which Mr. Ogden did not live to see,
has brought to light not only unsuspected depths of
depravity in human nature, but not less impressively the
capacity in men of large affairs to detach themselves
from money-making and dedicate themselves to public
service. Captains of industry are in an unprecedented
manner justifying their commercial training and skill by
offering both to the making of a world safe for democracy.
In a degree which few men of the last generation equalled
and which many could not appreciate, Mr. Ogden an-
ticipated, in a war against ignorance and racial animosity
at the South, the type of industrial statesmanship which

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

the War of Nations has now produced. He was one of
the most distinguished examples of commercial energy
and success converted to be the instruments of philan-
thropic service and civic leadership. A brilliant writer,
Lawrence Oliphant, once said that the chief need in the
England of his day was that of "a spiritually-minded
man of the world," a man, that is to say, who could live
in the world of great affairs, fighting its battles and
accepting its conditions, but could maintain detachment
from its control and survey its incidents with serenity
and hope. Mr. Ogden, in the most conspicuous degree,
was a spiritually-minded man of the world, with sagacious
understanding of modern industrialism and finance, but
free from their entanglements and unperturbed by their
vicissitudes. His discretion steadied Armstrong, and
his hopefulness reassured Frissell. Unassuming and
modest as he remained in self-estimation, he came to
be — as will be later indicated — an educational states-
man, recognized as the sanest interpreter of the perplex-
ing problems which distressed the Southern States. At
the centre of his interest was the love of Hampton,
and he applied to many larger problems its spirit of
happy service with the conciliatory wisdom of a spiritual
mind.

Another name which is enshrined among the sacred
memories of Hampton illustrates that law of spiritual
attraction which has drawn so many rare natures to the
school. Alexander Purves was a young financier of
Philadelphia, who had married a daughter of Mr. Ogden,
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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

and had reached a point in his business career where the
most tempting prizes of income and influence were within
his reach. Neither he nor his young wife, however,
found themselves contented with the way of Hfe which
seemed prescribed by a business career ; and an incidental
conversation with Dr. Frissell brought them to a quick
and grave decision. He had reported to them the press-
ing need of a more systematic organization to conduct the
growing business of the school ; and the suggestion that
financial experience might thus find its place in Christian
service seemed to both a call from God. Without the
knowledge of Mrs. Purves's father, and undeterred either
by the change in circumstances or the problem of educa-
tion for their children, these young people answered the
call and committed themselves, happily and unitedly,
to a new career. This was in 1899, and for six years
the trained mind of Mr. Purves was applied to the
efficient administration of the school's finances and to
every form of personal co-operation with its life.
An opportunity to return to commercial aff'airs, with
the assurance of a prospective fortune, did not tempt
him from his labor of love, and his contentment was
written on his kindly and smiling face. Early in 1905
he was stricken by sudden disease and died, but not
without bequeathing to the school a permanent bless-
ing, both through his effective service and through his
example of Christian sacrifice.

Hampton's development of manual and industrial
training has more than once provoked the criticism that

279

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

it involves an abandonment of the original ideals of the
school, and directs the minds of students to material and
commercial aims. Earning power, it has been suggested,
has been substituted for character building as the test of
education. This reproach of materialism testifies, of
course, to a complete ignorance of the fundamental
principle which the school represents — that the training
of the hand is not to be primarily of value for the facility
obtained or the productiveness assured, but for the in-
tegrity and efficiency gained, for the intelligent use of
one's best powers and the trained capacity to serve -one's
race. The mark of Hampton is not made on a student
until he becomes, not a materialist in his view of life,
but an idealist.

No incentive to this view of practical affairs can,
however, be so compelling as the contagion of other
lives which have gone that way, and the companion-
ship and memory of spiritually-minded men of the
world. To see a man of great business responsibilities
dedicate his busy days to a race not his own, in a region
far from his special affairs, and to observe the happiness
he found in such dedication ; to see a young man turn
away from the solicitations of great possessions, not,
like the youth in the Gospel, sorrowfully, but as one
who had found the way of satisfaction and peace; —
this is what justifies to many a pupil, tempted by sordid
views of life, the Christian teaching which he hears,
and encourages him in his own modest place to sanctify
himself for others' sakes. The history of Hampton be-
280

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

comes, through such companionship, not so much one
of an expanding institution as of a growing organism, or
what the Christian Apostle called a "spiritual house,"
built of "living stones," offering "spiritual sacrifices
acceptable to God."

281

CHAPTER ELEVEN

HAMPTON AND THE SOUTH

THE picture of Hampton Institute has been thus far
roughly sketched on the small scale of local interest
and institutional welfare. It must be now set in the
larger frame of racial progress and national life. The
Southern States at the end of the Civil War were crushed
under many grievous burdens — the sacrifice of their
youths, the prostration of their industries, and the shock
to their pride and hope. Yet of all these disasters that
which appeared to Southern sentiment most threatening
was the abrupt emancipation of four millions of slaves,
and its possible eflPect both upon themselves and upon
their defeated and decimated masters. It was a situa-
tion which not unreasonably caused dismay. These
newly created citizens, representing forty per cent of the
population of the Southern States, and in many regions
far outnumbering the whites, had been given the polit-
ical power of freemen, though ninety per cent of them
were illiterate, and all were without experience in self-
government and self-control.

Nor had there been a gradual preparation for this
grave transition. On the contrary, as friction between
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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

the North and South before the War had increased,
and the doctrines of abohtionists seemed to incite
Negro insurrection, stringent laws had been enacted
in many Southern States prohibiting the teaching, even
of the rudiments of education, to Negroes by whites,
or even by other Negroes, as a menace to security.
Thus in Georgia, in 183 1, a Negro, offending by instruct-
ing another Negro to read or write, was Hable to fine
and whipping, while a white person committing the same
offence might be sentenced to a fine of $500 and imprison-
ment in the common jail at the discretion of the magis-
trate; and in Alabama, in 1832, the preaching to or
exhorting Negroes was prohibited except "in the pres-
ence of five respectable slaveholders." Even at the
North the same dread of instruction, as likely to provoke
revolt, had obstructed the education of Negroes, and in
1832 a young Quaker teacher. Prudence Crandall, was
threatened with violence and thrown into a murderer's
cell for maintaining a "nigger-school" in Canterbury,
Connecticut. The Legislature of that State enacted
a law that no person should estabHsh a school for the
instruction of colored people who were not inhabitants
of the State, nor could anyone harbor or board students
brought to the State for this purpose, without first ob-
taining in writing the consent of a majority of the civil
authorities and the selectmen of the town. On the con-
stitutionality of this law the Court of Errors, however,
reserved its decision, which was never given, though
the school itself was abandoned.

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Reactionary measures like these had their inevitable
effect in prolonging the period of Negro illiteracy, and
in spite of many instances of self-help among Negroes,
and much conscientious effort at the South to en-
courage Christian training without the risk of intellec-
tual advancement, or, as was said by a devout Bishop
in South Carolina, "to impart Christian truth by
means of constant and patient reiteration to persons
of humble intellect and limited range of knowledge,"
the years of the Civil War found the black race little
more prepared for citizenship than it had been fifty
years before; and it has even been concluded that the
proportion of Negroes having the rudiments of education
in i860 was "much less than it was near the close of the
era of better beginnings, about 1825." *

At the end of the Civil War the prevailing sentiment
of the impoverished and embittered South again, and
not unnaturally, turned to the repression of the Negroes
rather than to their education, as the way of social secu-
rity. A public-school system, such as had seemed at
the North the foundation of a stable State, had never
existed at the South ; and even among the whites, while
in many homes an education of peculiar refinement and
charm might be found, the proportion of illiteracy was
large. Universal education would not only involve a
new and enormous tax upon the slender resources of the
South, but might encourage the blacks in their already

* C. G. Woodson, "The Education of the Negro Prior to 1861," 1915. PP.
166, 174, 228.

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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

threatening inclination to self-assertion and racial hos-
tility. It is not surprising, therefore, that the first steps
in promoting education among the freedmen were taken
by Northern philanthropy.

At the outbreak of the war the American Missionary
Association had applied itself to this task, and in 1866
was employing 353 missionaries and teachers. In 1862
a New England Freedmen's Aid Society was organized,
and sent its first agent to the Sea Islands of South
Carolina. In 1862 also a National Freedmen's Relief
Association was organized in New York, "for the
relief and improvement of the freedmen — to teach
them civilization and Christianity; to imbue them
with notions of order, industry, economy, and self-
realization, and to elevate them in the scale of hu-
manity by inspiring them with self-respect." * In
1865 a "Freedmen's Aid and Union Mission" undertook
"to aid and co-operate with the people of the South,
without distinction of race or color, in the improvement
of their condition." Many Christian denominations
joined in this new crusade, and the volume of giving,
both in money and service, though it could make but a
slight impression on the total mass of black illiteracy,
testified to the sense of obligation felt at the North for
the race which had been so abruptly set free. It is esti-
mated that in the twelve years from 1862 these various
forms of voluntary aid expended not less than six million

*" Negro Education," Bulletin, No. 38, of Bureau of Education, 1917, I,
p. 276.

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

dollars, and that several thousand persons engaged in
the work of instructing a million pupils.

It soon became obvious, however, that the task thus
undertaken by the North far exceeded the capabihties
of private philanthropy; and in 1865 the Freedmen's
Bureau, though not originally designed for a campaign
of education, was led to undertake this new respon-
sibility. During its six years of active operation six
million dollars were appropriated by Congress, and, in
connection with the missionary schools, the instruction
reached in 1870 a total of 2677 schools with 3300
teachers and 149,581 scholars. It was a gallant and a
costly campaign, penetrating a region still disinclined to
believe that an educated Negro was a more desirable
neighbor than an illiterate one, — a crusade inspired by
the Northern faith in common-school training as the
hope of citizenship.

Yet, devoted as was this army of school-teachers, their
efforts were met, even among those whom they were able
to reach, by two serious obstacles. In the first place, the
movement was regarded, not so much an alliance with
the South as an invasion. Disinterested and self-sacri-
ficing as were these missionaries from the North, they
were as a rule regarded as representatives of conquerors,
who might be compassionate but were likely to be con-
descending. Not until the South itself could accept
its share of the new burden and co-operate unhesitat-
ingly in this campaign of education as in a new war
for self-preservation, could the black race as a whole
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PRESENT PRINCIPAL OF TUSKEGEE INSTITUTE
Robert Russa Moton

THE STORY OF. HAMPTON INSTITUTE

be rescued from illiteracy and prepared for citizenship.
The education of the Negro could not be thrust upon
the South; it must be welcomed and promoted there.

This obstacle to progress was soon in large measure
overcome by the emergence, from the mass of Southern
indifference or apprehension, of a group of leaders whose
motives were beyond question, and whose social standing
gave them authority. They recognized that if the Negro
race was not to remain a permanent menace it must
be elevated by education into self-respect. In 1881, Dr.
Atticus Haygood, an eminent preacher in the Southern
Methodist Church, and in 1890 chosen a bishop of that
communion, published his little volume, "Our Brother
in Black," * and summoned Christians of the white race
to fraternal co-operation with their backward neighbors.
"The problem before us," he wrote, "the Northern and
Southern people together, and the Southern people m
particular, is the right education and elevation of our
black brother, the free Negro, in our midst. Do not,
beloved white brother, scare at this word * elevation.'
Nothing is said about putting the Negro above the white
man. Let me whisper a secret in your ear — that cannot
be done unless you get below him. Think of this, and
if you find yourself underneath, blame yourself. The
Negro cannot rise simply because he is black; and the
white man cannot stay up simply because he is white. A
man rises, not by the color of his skin, but by intelligence.

*"Our Brother in Black: His Freedom and His Future," 1881, pp. 129,
133. 134-

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

industry, and integrity. The foremost man in these
excellences and virtues must in the long run be also the
highest man. And it ought to be so. Ignorance, in-
dolence, immorality, have no right to rise. Let the white
man rise as high as he can, provided always that he does
not rise by wrongs done to another. In such rising there
is no real elevation."

These brave words, unfamiliar and unwelcome as
they were to many Southern whites, found acceptance
among far-sighted and forward-looking men, and give
to Dr. Haygood the distinction of being the first of
that important group of leaders of opinion, whose in-
fluence has by degrees disarmed opposition, promoted
legislation, and accepted the problem of Negro educa-
tion as a problem of the South. Dr. J. L. M. Curry,
for example, had been a member of the National
Congress from Alabama before the Civil War, and of
the Confederate Congress during that struggle. He had
fought for the South, taught and preached in the South,
and was recognized as an eloquent representative of the
South. When, therefore. Dr. Curry, immediately after
the Civil War, advocated the education of the Negro,
or when, twenty-five years later, he said: "Education,
moral, intellectual, industrial, civic, should be persist-
ently and generously furnished," * Southern legislators
could but listen, and out of the meagre resources in their
hands increase the appropriations for the education -of
their Brother in Black.

*" J. L. M. Curry, a Biography," 191 1, p. 427.
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The force of Southern opinion directed to this end
has steadily increased, until it may now be said that it
is the North which co-operates and the South which
leads. Nearly six million dollars were spent by the
Southern States in 1916 for the salaries of teachers in
public schools for Negroes, and the valuation of Fed-
eral, State, and private schools reached a total of
thirty-four million dollars. Inadequate as these sums
remain while the Negroes who form 30 per cent of the
population receive but 18 per cent of the appropriations,
the encouraging result has been reached that Negro
illiteracy, which in i860 was at least 90 per cent, has been
reduced to 30 per cent, while in Negroes between ten and
twenty years of age the illiteracy is "much less than
this." The situation, as it is now regarded by the "New
South," is sufficiently described by the Southern Uni-
versity Race Commission in an Open Letter: "The
inadequate provision for the education of the Negro is
more than an injustice to him ; it is an injury to the
white man. The South cannot realize its destiny if
one-third of its population is undeveloped and inefficient.
. . . Our appeal is for a larger share for the Negro on the
ground of common welfare and common justice. He is
the weakest link in our civilization, and our welfare is
indissolubly bound up with his." *

The same conviction has been candidly expressed
by one of the most sagacious and disinterested among
the educational statesmen of the South, a Hneal spirit-

* Bureau of Education, op. cit., I, p. 5.

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

ual descendant of Haygood and Curry. "Educators
and statesmen see that we cannot have health our-
selves, that we cannot enjoy prosperity and develop
our resources, and more, that we cannot have easy con-
sciences, unless we do our part in educating the great
masses of the colored people of the South. The school
officials, State and county, are constantly showing a
more intelligent interest. Unfortunately a low grade
of politics in many places still stands in the way.
The need in the South is still great for bringing more
and more to the front the better thought of our most
intelligent and progressive people. This seems to me
our chief Southern problem of today." *

A second obstacle to efficiency in the missionary in-
vasion as first organized was the nature of the instruc-
tion so generously offered to the blacks. With few
exceptions the teachers sent from the North, though
inspired by the most generous motives and well trained
for service in New England, were unfamiliar with
the traditions and conditions of the South and the
nature and needs of the Negroes. They hoped to trans-
plant the common-school system of the North and make
it thrive among the blacks of the Southern States. It
was as if they had persisted in planting winter-wheat
in the cotton belt, or apple-trees in a land of palms. It
was a forcing of the fruits of learning before strengthening
the roots* of learning. What the Negro race needed, first
of all, in its emergence from slavery, was to be adjusted

* J. H. Dillard, " Report as President of the Jeanes Fund, 1914," p. 6.
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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

to the environment of the Southern States where its
destiny with few exceptions must be worked out. Edu-
cation must begin where the Negro happened to be, in
a region whose immediate need was not Hterary culture,
but trained hands and intelhgent workmanship. A
Northern school-teacher might impart refinement and
consecration, but she might also encourage the delusion
that book-learning was better than manual industry,
and that freedom from slavery meant freedom from work.
It was not surprising that this gallant crusade was greeted
by many Southerners, famiUar with the Negro character,
with suspicion or hostility, as though the problem of
education were being turned upside down, and the Negro
prepared for poHtics or professorships instead of for
bread-winning and home-making. "The average New
England teacher," a Southern leader has said, "ap-
proached the task, however sincerely, as if the Negro were
simply a backward white man, an untaught Mayflower
descendant. . . . The Southern white teacher quickly came
to avoid the work as a form of treason, because he thought
the prime purpose of the whole scheme was to reverse
all social and political conditions." *

Here, then, in the need of a training appropriate to
the conditions of the South, the convictions and antici-
pations of trustworthy Southern leaders found themselves
met by the Hampton scheme of "Education for Life."
Applied though it had been as a working programme by
Armstrong immediately after the Civil War, it was not

•"J. L. M. Curry, a Biography," p. 424.

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

until twenty years later that the attention of the South
was definitely drawn to its sanity and success. In 1881
the State Superintendent of Public Instruction in Vir-
ginia alluded to Hampton Institute "as the most valu-
able of all the schools opened on this continent for
colored people." In 1883 Dr. Haygood reported to
the Peabody Board: "Some of the most^ experienced
workers in this field are not convinced of the wisdom
of making industrial training an important feature in
their plans and efforts. Many equally experienced
entertain no doubt on this subject. ... In this opin-
ion your agent entirely concurs." In 1893 Dr. Curry
wrote that Hampton Institute was "almost an anomaly
in educational work. Its success has been extraordi-
nary." Thus a way opened where Southern sentiment
and Northern philanthropy could walk together. An
answer had been found, not to all the problems which
confronted the Negro race, or to the ambitions which
stirred the minds of exceptional Negroes, but to the cry
of the vast majority of a backward race, asking for
practical direction in the elementary task of self-support
and the elementary virtue of self-respect.

This alliance of Northern and Southern forces of en-
lightenment was soon fortified by the establishment of
special funds, bequeathed for education at the South
and administered with sympathetic wisdom. The Pea-
body Fund, estabHshed in 1867 by an original gift of two
million dollars, and increased in 1869 to $3,500,000, was
not specifically designed for Negroes, but for the "edu-
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catlonal needs of those portions of our beloved and
common country which have suffered from the destruc-
tive ravages, and the not less destructive consequences,
of the Civil War." When, however. Dr. Curry in 1880
became its General Agent, he reported that, "by care-
fully chosen language both races were included in the
benefaction . . . and no discrimination betwixt races
should be made beyond what a wise administration re-
quired." The John F. Slater Fund, estabhshed in 1882
with an endowment of one million dollars, was definitely
given for the purpose of "uplifting the lately emanci-
pated population of the Southern States and their pos-
terity" ; * and in 1915-1916 appropriated for Negro schools
in thirteen States a total of ^67,250. The Phelps-Stokes
Fund of $900,000, created by the will of Miss Caroline
Phelps Stokes in 1909, was bequeathed, among other
purposes, "for the education of Negroes, both in Africa
and the United States," and its resources have been
generously applied to maintain Research Fellowships " for
the study of the Negro"; to supply means "to enable
teachers, administrative officers, and students to come
into direct and helpful contact with the actual work of
representative institutions of Negro education"; and,
among other expenditures, to promote the publication
of the invaluable volumes on Negro education, which
bear the imprint of the United States Bureau of Edu-
cation and which have been freely cited in this chapter.
From these and other permanent funds a continuous

* Bureau of Education, op. cit., I, p. 164.

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

stream of benefactions has flowed from the North to
supplement the resources of the South, and to confirm
the faith of Southern advocates of Negro education in
their own pubHc-spirited endeavors.

In the case of one such endowment the circumstances
of origin were so touching in themselves, and so imme-
diately associated with Hampton Institute, that they
must be briefly recalled. Miss Anna T. Jeanes was a
venerable Quaker of Philadelphia ; before whom, in the
course of his visitations to the homes of the prosperous.
Dr. Frissell laid the needs of Hampton Institute. She
replied that her sympathies turned more instinctively,
not to the selected and mature students of Hampton,
but to the meagre provision for elementary and rural
schools. Dr. Frissell promptly encouraged this direction
of her benevolence, and Miss Jeanes, saying, "Thee in-
terests me," handed him a check, which he was aston-
ished to find was for the large sum of $10,000. Miss
Jeanes soon supplemented this with another gift of the
same amount and for the same purpose to Booker Wash-
ington. These benefactions being committed to the
care of Mr. George Foster Peabody, then Treasurer,
not only of the Hampton Investment Committee but of
the Tuskegee Investment Committee and of the General
Education Board, a letter of thanks from this untiring
and generous friend of Negro education brought from
Miss Jeanes an added gift of $200,000 to the General
Education Board, the income to be used under the direc-
tion of Dr. Frissell and Dr. Washington for the same
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JAMES HALL, A BOYS' DORMITORY

Built entirely by student bricklayers, plasterers, carpenters, steamfitters,
plumbers, electricians, sheetmetal workers, blacksmiths, painters, and glaziers

ROBKRT C. OCJDKN AUDITORIUM

In process of construction (1918)

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

purpose. Finally she proceeded to transfer to these
advisers, with the addition of Mr. Taft and Mr. Carnegie,
and such friends as Dr. Frissell and Dr. Washington
might select, the sum of one million dollars, for the "sup-
port of village and rural schools for colored people in the
Southern United States,'* saying: "Now I am giving
all for these little schools. It is a great privilege."

The "Jeanes Board" was thereupon organized with
a membership of five Southern white men, five Northern
men, and five Negroes ; and, in the opinion of Mr. George
Foster Peabody, "has perhaps produced greater propor-
tionate results from its income than any other similar
benefaction." Over two hundred "Jeanes Teachers"
travel among the schools, assisting the regular teachers
and initiating the children into the simpler forms of
industrial work; and the Jeanes Fund in 1917-1918 ex-
pended $42,443.50 in 214 counties of fourteen Southern
States for its sorely needed ministrations. It is a story
of almost equal generosity in the giver and in the re-
ceivers of the benefaction ; for while both Hampton and
Tuskegee get indirect returns through the better condi-
tion of their teacher-graduates, neither institution pressed
upon this tender-hearted friend its own claims, and both
Frissell and Washington undertook with loyal devotion
the added task of re-enforcing schools less favored than
their own.

Finally there has issued from this better understanding
and co-operative service a series of enterprises whose
vast expansion and usefulness, though involving other

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causes, may be traced, at least in their beginnings,
directly to the influence of Hampton Institute. In 1898
an informal gathering, suggested by the Conferences
on Peace and Indian Afi^airs held at Lake Mohonk, N.Y.,
assembled at Capon Springs, West Virginia, and a group
of guests both from the North and the South were in-
vited to consider the problem of education in the South-
ern States. Two similar meetings in 1899 and 1900
proved so instructive that in 1901 a conference at Win-
ston-Salem, North Carolina, was planned on a larger
scale. To this gathering Mr. Ogden invited a large
company of Northern friends as his guests, and they
were lodged in the hospitable homes of residents, where
strangers soon became in many instances intimate and
cordial friends. It was an extraordinary occasion, both
in its earnest deliberations and in its fraternal fellowship,
and at its close a "Southern Education Board" was
organized, to conduct **a campaign of education for
free schools for all the people." Neither here, nor at
later meetings in Athens, Ga., Richmond, Va., and many
other centres of influence, was the education of Negroes
the sole subject for consideration, nor was it, on the other
hand, eliminated from discussion. "Free schools for all
the people " was a platform so large that all loyal citizens
could stand together on it. Yet Mr. Ogden, the patron
saint of these conferences, did not forget the school of
whose Trustees he was President, and his invited guests
on each occasion were finally brought to Hampton as to
the climax of their excursion.
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The events which followed the conference at Winston-
Salem make a dramatic sequence, whose consequences
have far outrun the expectations of its promoters. It
was there voted that an executive Board of seven should
be selected by Mr. Ogden, and that this Board, under
his chairmanship, should conduct a campaign of education
and information. The Southern Education Board, thus
constituted, numbered in its membership leading edu-
cators both of the South and the North, among whom
were the Principal of Hampton Institute and two other
Trustees ; but its central figure was Mr. Ogden himself.
"By the power of his personal influence," his colleagues
put on record after his death, "he held the Southern
Board together and directed the energies of busy men to
the unselfish duties which he assumed. Through the
Conference for Education in the South he touched the
great hearts of the North and the South, and put upon
the nation's conscience a universal need. All this was
done so quietly, so simply, that we wonder still at the
results. Not by persuasion, not by fanatical insistence,
but by the contagion of his own personal devotion he
rallied men from every section, from every walk or station
in life, rich and poor, high and lowly, white and black,
to the cause which he advocated."

As this campaign proceeded and a large amount of
money became necessary for its expansion, Mr. John D.
Rockefeller, whose only son had been among Mr. Ogden's
guests at Winston-Salem, was moved to re-enforce this
work at the South by a gift of one million dollars, to be

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expended during a period of eight or ten years. Three
years later he supplemented this gift by an endowment of
ten million dollars, "to promote a comprehensive system of
higher education in the United States." For this purpose
a new organization, the General Education Board, was
formed. Mr. Ogden became its Chairman in 1905, with
another Hampton Trustee, Mr. George Foster Peabody, as
Treasurer. Later the Principal of Hampton became a
member. Finally this investment by Mr. Rockefeller in
National service was increased by further gifts, in 1907
of thirty-two million dollars, and in 1909 of ten million
dollars ; and the vast and varied usefulness of this Board
was applied on the most generous scale to many pressing
needs of agriculture, public health, and education through-
out the country, and especially in the less prosperous
regions of the Southern States. Up to January 191 5
this Board had contributed more than sixteen million
dollars to education, and of this sum more than nine
hundred thousand dollars had been appropriated for
schools and supervisors of schools for the Negro race.*
The present annual contribution of the Board for the
education of Negroes exceeds $350,000.

It would be a most exaggerated claim to suggest that
this unparalleled munificence should be completely
referred to the influence of Hampton Institute. Needs
much larger than those of any single school prompted
the giver, and aims much larger than any single type of
education have guided the distribution of this endow-

'" Bureau of Education, op. cit., I, p. 162.
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ment. Yet it remains a legitimate satisfaction to the
friends of Hampton to trace the sequence of events,
which began in the Hmited circle of the Southern Con-
ference and ended in a permanent and splendid work of
national beneficence; and to recall that, at each step,
the spirit which had controlled the history of Hampton
Institute was accepted as a guide, and that the admin-
istrators of that school, who had dedicated themselves
to the welfare of the colored race, were called to apply
the same principles to the larger needs of an entire nation.
What, then, may be said at the end of fifty years in
the history of Hampton Institute concerning the con-
dition of Negro education at the South ? It must be
admitted, on the one hand, that even with the growth
of favoring sentiment at the South, and the re-enforce-
ment contributed by Northern philanthropy, the results
are as yet sadly inadequate. Taking into consideration
sixteen Southern States, the District of Columbia, and
Missouri, with a population in 1916 of 23,682,352 whites
and 8,906,879 Negroes, and of children between six and
fourteen years of age numbering 4,889,762 whites and
2,023,108 Negroes, it appears that the average salary
of a teacher in white schools was $10.32 per pupil and
in black schools $2.89, and that the percentage of illiter-
acy in whites was 7.7 per cent and among colored 33.3 per
cent. In States with a dense Negro population the ratio
is still more disproportionate. Thus in Alabama the
appropriation for teachers' salaries was $9.41 per white
child, and $1.78 per black child; in South CaroHna $10

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

and ^1.44; in Louisiana $13.73 ^^^ $i-3i- In other
words, though the decrease of Negro illiteracy in fifty
years from 90 to 30 per cent is a demonstration of capacity
in the Negro race for instruction, it is evident that the
race as a whole has not as yet had a fair chance to show
what pace of progress might under favoring circum-
stances be attained.

It must further be admitted that, at the upper end of
the educational system, extremely slender provision has
been made for Negroes of rare intellectual gifts. If the
Negro race is to maintain its pace of progress, the whole
range of professional callings must be open and provision
made for substantial training. Here still remains a grave
lack of opportunity. The supply of colleges and universi-
ties designed for the higher education of Negroes and offer-
ing adequate instruction, is pitifully insufficient, and their
output of competent graduates wholly inadequate for the
needs of the race. Of the 12,726 students attending insti-
tutions for Negroes described as colleges, only 1643 were
in 1916 studying college subjects, and but 994 were en-
rolled in professional courses. Colored physicians are
needed throughout the South, but Howard University in
Washington and the Meharry Medical College in Nashville
appear to be the only institutions which give complete
courses in medicine, dentistry, and pharmacy, and their
aggregate attendance is but 792.* Howard University

* The modest claim has been lately made, in behalf of Leonard Medical
School in Raleigh, North Carolina, that " we now have just two-and-a-half
Medical Schools for Negroes in America." Cf, : " The Crisis of Negro Medical
Schools," 1917.
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THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

alone gives a full law-course, with an enrolment of io6 stu-
dents. Fourteen institutions offer special courses for the
training of ministers, but count a total of only 441 students,
for this profession, "few of whom have completed even a
high-school course." The number of institutions is ex-
tremely limited which can be properly described as
having a "student body, teaching force and equipment,
and income sufficient to warrant the characterization of
'college'." * Three hundred and ninety-one Negro stu-
dents were, in 191 6, in attendance at Northern colleges and
universities : 287 being students in arts ; 70 in medicine ;
10 in theology; 17 in law; and 7 in veterinary medicine.
In the presence of these facts all discussion of the rela-
tive value of academic and industrial education becomes
of secondary importance. The one is needed for the few ;
the other for the many; but both are essential for an
integral and intelHgent racial life. "Whatever be the
degree of their talents," wrote Thomas Jefferson of the
Negro race, "it is no measure of their rights. Because
Sir Isaac Newton was superior to others in understanding,
he was not therefore lord of the person or property of
others." Jefferson had observed of the Negroes in his
own State of Virginia "that the opportunities for the
development of their genius were not favorable, and
those for exercising it still less so." He might have used
the same words today ; and those who care for Hampton
Institute must contemplate with apprehension the risks
of submitting the care of the health, or legal rights, or

* Bureau of Education, op. cit., I, p. 60.

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

religious training, of Negroes to half-educated or com-
pletely ignorant leaders; and must view, not with jeal-
ousy, but with sympathy, every effort to strengthen those
institutions which are accomplishing what Hampton can-
not with its present resources undertake.

On the other hand, this survey of social history exhibits
an extraordinary growth of confidence in the Hampton
plan. Thirteen State-schools, and more than two hundred
private schools for Negroes, purported in 1916 to offer
courses in industrial education. Much of this training
was, no doubt, superficial, and some of it little more than
a fictitious attempt to meet a popular demand ; but the
spread of the Hampton faith, even in imperfect or per-
verted forms, indicates its place in the future of Negro
education. Seventy-three per cent of the population
of the South are still rural dwellers, and forty per cent
of these are Negroes. Negroes own nearly two million
acres of land in Virginia, valued at fourteen million dollars ;
and according to the Census of 1910 they owned land in
the South valued at 272 million dollars. Negroes culti-
vate "either as owners, tenants, or laborers approxi-
mately one hundred million acres of the Southern States,
or an area four times that of Virginia." The call to the
land, and to the mechanic arts on which rural living
depends, is still — fortunately for the colored race — the
summons which is most persuasive to its temperament and
traditions, and in answering which the great majority of
the race will find prosperity and content.

Here, then, is the immediate opportunity for Hampton
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to contribute to the life of the South. To have overcome
in fifty years the indifference, and to have won the appre-
ciation, of the best Southern sentiment is in itself much ;
to have communicated to the Negro race, after its first re-
action from slave-labor, the conviction that manual indus-
try is honorable, and skilled labor the way to self-respect,
is still more ; to have established the moral unity of bread-
winning with character-building, and to send out mission-
aries preaching the gospel of an Education for Life, — all
this may not unreasonably reassure the faith which is
cherished at Hampton Institute in the capacity of the
Negro race and in its mission for the South.

303

CHAPTER TWELVE

HAMPTON AND THE FUTURE

WHAT, then, shall be concluded, in the light of this
story of fifty years at Hampton, concerning the future
problems of the school itself, and the place of the school
among the greater problems which confront the future
of the world ? If one turn, first, to the interior welfare
and progress of the institution, it becomes evident that
the fundamental question with which the second half-
century begins is the same which in the first half-century
has been so happily answered — the question of leadership.
Devoted and untiring as have been the staff of teachers
and workers, the controlling force, which, like the engine
of a steadily moving ship, has maintained the momentum
of the school, has been the dynamic character of its two
Principals. Armstrong was a missionary soldier ; Frissell
was a missionary statesman ; and while the first fought
the early battles of Hampton against prejudice and
poverty, the second directed its later and more complex
problems with the serene diplomacy of the open mind.
It is a happy coincidence that, as these words are written,
the immediate future of Hampton has been committed
to a leader who gives every promise of perpetuating both
of these precious inheritances — the moral courage which
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HAMPTON'S THIRD PRINCIPAL
James Edgar Gregg

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

made Armstrong daring, and the spiritual serenity which
made Frissell wise. No leader could bring to his task a
better training in responsibility, or a warmer affection
from those among whom he has served ; and none could
be greeted by his new colleagues and pupils with a more
eager expectation or a more confident hope.

Many interior problems of administration and dis-
cipline will meet the school in this new era — ^the raising
and spending of large sums of money; the maintaining
of Northern aid without sacrificing the Principal's life ;
the adjustment of expenditure to the changing standards
of the time ; the procuring of the maximum of production
from all the varied interests of teachers and pupils —
farms, shops, classes, trades, library, athletics, and
worship. All these, and many other details of internal
life, must be left to the wisdom and patience of the
Principal and the generous co-operation of his staff.
The spiritual momentum which has already been reached
will encourage each new undertaking. It is easier to
keep a mass moving, or even to accelerate its movement,
than it is to start it from a standstill, or to check it from
a reverse.

Fortunately, also, for these problems of internal life,
a contribution of counsel and criticism of unprecedented
thoroughness and candor will soon be at the disposal
of the Principal and his colleagues. The attention of
the General Education Board was directed in 1916 to
the improvement of secondary education ; and in the
course of their preliminary studies it was determined to

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promote a survey of the most approved type of vocational
training, as a subject of increasing importance for the
future of American education. To the great satisfaction
of Hampton Institute, that institution was selected for
examination and criticism. To be thus chosen, not as a
school for Negroes and Indians, but as a school most
likely to teach valuable lessons to the nation, was a most
reassuring and convincing form of appreciation. Pro-
fessor Hanus of Harvard University, with a staff of
assistants, has been engaged for a year on this critical
study ; and his report should expose the mistakes which
appear to him to have been made, and will suggest what
appear to him to be improvements in organization or
standards. No similar institution has ever had the ad-
vantage of so thorough and candid a study by a neutral
and competent authority ; and while the counsel it may
give is likely to be at some points chastening, it is certain
to be sympathetic, invigorating, and wise.

Behind all these questions of detail, however, which it
is not within the province of this volume to consider, there
remains one general problem which issues from the very
nature of the school, and which, with each step in expan-
sion either of plant or purpose, becomes more complex
and fundamental. It is the problem of adjustment be-
tween the different elements in the total movement of
the work, so that they shall proceed at even pace, not
detached from each other, or lagging behind, or pushed
ahead of the general scheme; but held together, like a
moving army which must have at command all its re-
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sources and may be defeated if it outmarch its supplies.
The rapid growth of the school, from a family-circle of
intimate affection to a great institution with departments
which hardly touch each other either in space or in
method ; the increasing diversity among students — some
still struggling with the rudiments of knowledge, some
with a considerable degree of intellectual appreciation
and ambition ; the greater demand made on the time and
attention both of teachers and students by specialized
studies or tastes ; — all this involves the risk of a dis-
proportionate progress, and even of a devotion to the
parts which may involve disaster to the whole.

Here is, first, a normal school, training teachers to help
their race ; but as the general level of that race is lifted
from illiteracy to elementary education, and from element-
ary education to specialized training, the standard of
teaching also must rise to meet the new demand. Rural
high schools for Negroes, in which agriculture and the
domestic arts have special recognition, are being estab-
lished in many parts of the South ; and the Hampton
training should appreciate this new sign of progress and
provide leaders for this new type of school. What was
a sufficient preparation for usefulness a generation ago,
does not equip a teacher for efficiency today. The best
that the modern science of education has to offer is not too
good for colored schools. Yet, on the other hand, this
adaptation to an advancing race must not detach the
Hampton scheme from its original obligation. The call
to the higher training must not displace the mission to

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

humbler duties. Provision may be made at the top of
the Hampton scheme for students of exceptional gifts to
prepare them for more academic institutions, and special
scholarships may be endowed to promote their transfer ;
but this development of advanced studies must not dis-
tract the attention either of teachers or of students from
the fundamental principle of a trade-school, or suggest
an aristocracy of culture within the spiritual democracy
of Hampton. All this is a question of proportion and
adjustment. A gain at one point must not mean loss at
another. The exceptional student and the average
student, the missionary motive and the academic spirit,
the preparation for scholarship and the consecration to
elementary teaching, the body of instruction and the
soul of the school, must be co-operative and contributory,
and must move together if they move at all.

It has been intimated in an important study of the
Negro Question as the probable opinion of "all competent
students" * that "the distance separating the highest
tenth [of Negroes] from the lowest tenth has become
greater, and that the highest tenth is far better and far
better off than formerly, and the lowest tenth is worse,
and perhaps worse off, than in slavery." Even if this
conclusion were justified — and it is difficult to believe
that the "lowest tenth" in freedom could be worse off
than the correspondingly "worst off" were as slaves — the
practical inference to be derived would be as clear as from
a more hopeful view. The distance separating the better

* Ency. Brit., iith ed., XIX, p. 347.
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off from the "worst ofF" must be reduced, not by de-
pressing the better off, but by lifting the "worst off." If
such a separation exist, it proves that the problem of
education has been but half solved. The only way out
of the perils which the existence of a group "worse off
than in slavery" — if such a group exist — creates, is the
way up. An education which reaches down to the "worst
off" and makes them better off, is as essential for the
white race as for the black. A disproportionate advance
only prolongs the period of hostility and maladjustment.
The same problem of proportion meets one at each point
of administration, as it does in the symmetrical growth of
every living organism. Are academic studies likely to
suffer as a trade-school thrives; or, on the other hand,
shall book-learning keep pace with manual facility ? A
critic of Hampton has said that he found there pupils
who were not sufficiently trained in mathematics to
make good wagon-wheels. If that discovery was actu-
ally made it illustrates the risks of disproportion in edu-
cation. The mechanic arts, and even the household arts,
have become at so many points fine arts, that the differ-
ence between excellence and mediocrity is not so much in
manual dexterity as in theoretical equipment and applied
science. Handwork and headwork are not alternative
forms of progress, they are like the legs whose alternating
steps make one walk firmly and straight.

Another critic of the Negroes has affirmed that they
are good workmen on things in bulk, but inefficient in
matters of detail. They can "turn over bales of cotton

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EDUCATION FOR LIFE

faster than any other people in the world"; but "when it
comes to wrapping single copies of paper, they are defi-
cient." The Negro "is a splendid man in a boiler factory,
but of small account in a machine shop." He never will
be a "good watchmaker." In other words, according to
this observer, strength of arm has been developed instead
of the dexterity which needs intelligence, and as a conse-
quence the cruder and more laborious industries are as-
signed to the Negro. If this comment is in any degree
justified, its lesson is obvious. Muscle is no substitute
for mind ; brute force will always be the servant of edu-
cated skill; and efficiency comes, as Booker Washington
finely said, of doing a common thing in an uncommon
way.

Finally, the same problem of a symmetrical and
balanced system finds its most subtle expression in the
association of religion with education, and of faith with
works. It has been demonstrated that the Negro may
be made a good workman, and it is at the same time
well known that he is highly susceptible to religious emo-
tions ; but to adjust and correlate piety with practice
and faith with works, so that they shall be co-operative
factors in a well-balanced life, is by no means an easy
task. A gospel of efficiency may, as has often been
feared, rob the Negro of his idealism and degrade him
to a land-getting materialist; and a religion which still
bears the marks of its tropical ancestry may easily
substitute heat for light, and hysteria for morality. How
to make faith reasonable and reason faithful ; how to make
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of religion not a way of talking but a way of walking, so
that, as the Christian Apostle said, "We walk by faith,"
— this is the problem, never completely solved, which each
growing life has to meet, and which calls for a peculiar
degree of patient faith in those who are to guide the
strenuous labor and the quick emotions of Negro students.

Such in brief — now that the questions of existence and
form have been disposed of at Hampton — is the funda-
mental task of the future; a harmonizing and unifying
of the forces already active ; a securing of symmetry and
an avoidance of excess and defect ; a capacity to see
things steadily and see them whole ; an education, in
other words, not merely for shops and farms and school-
rooms or, on the other hand, for a world of heaven where
happiness shall be found in idleness and worship shall be
undisturbed by work, but an Education which is for
Life, and for life at its full; with the mind re-enforcing
the heart, and the heart inspiring the conduct, and the
knowledge of the teaching gained through the doing of
the will. This, indeed, is the meaning of all education.
It is, as the word implies, the drawing out from confusion
and maladjustment of a consistent and effective personal-
ity. The aim of education is, in short, the same as that
of religion. Both of these great experiences come, as the
Master of religion said He came, and as Dr. Frissell
with constant reiteration assured his students that their
education came, that they might have life and might have
it abundantly.

When one passes from these reflections on the institu-

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

tional life of Hampton and turns for a moment to the
larger problems which environ the school, and among
which its own work is set, he is met by several elementary
truths which have already become almost commonplace,
but which must be more frankly faced in the immediate
future. The first of these obvious truths is this, — that the
Negro race is a permanent factor in American civilization.
It is there and there to stay. Many schemes have been
proposed for the colonization or subjugation or even
extermination of this group in the population ; but these
suggestions must now be regarded not only as inhuman
but as archaic, when applied to one-tenth of the people
of the United States. Whatever is to happen to these
ten millions of colored citizens must happen through
the normal processes of citizenship. They are, as
Booker Washington wittily said, the only contingent of
the American people who came to these shores by special
and urgent invitation, and their destiny cannot be
detached from the general development of American life.

In the light of recent history it is amusing to recall
the "solutions" of the Negro problem, which have at
times appeared to be sufficient. Thus an English ob-
server, after a brief tour through the Southern States,
dismisses from consideration all other suggestions, and
proposes the plan of a Negro State, to be carved out of the
remoter parts of Southern California or Texas, and to
provide **not a white man's land, but a black man's
land." * This would be, in a word, the renewal of a

* W. Archer, "Through Afro-America," 1910, p. 237.
312

HAMPTON INSTirUTK WATKR FRONT
AT THE KNI) Ol" FHTY YEARS

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

reservation system, applying to a population thirty
times that of the Indian tribes the same hopeless scheme
of isolation and protection, and involving the same in-
evitable invasion of those regions ** intended by a benefi-
cent Creator as an asylum," if they were discovered to be
rich in fields or mines, and excited the rapacity of the
dominant race.

A second plain truth to be observed at this point is
that such a segregation would be, not only impracticable,
but most undesirable. The region where the Negro
race is now for the most part settled needs its presence
and its service. The Southern States control in their
cotton-crop the largest natural monopoly in the world ;
the supremacy of which no foreign product has been able!
seriously to endanger. This precious monopoly, however,
with many contributory crops and trades, is dependent
upon Negro labor. Immigration applicable to this pur-
pose has proved impossible to secure. A distinguished
Southerner, in addressing an audience in Boston not long
ago, wittily remarked that immigrants were as rare in
South Carolina as Puritans had become in Massachusetts.
The Negro race, originally imported for forced labor in
the cotton fields, has proved singularly adapted under
freedom to the same productive industry ; and continues
to be essential to the agriculture of the Southern States
and the cotton-mills of the world.

Yet this indispensable service cannot be long secured
under conditions which are in any degree reminiscent of
slavery. The serfdom of a share-system will not be

313

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

permanently endured by a race which is rapidly acquir-
ing both economic and political importance. The Negro
cannot be expected to remain at the South for the sake
of the white planter. He must be held there as a land-
owner, whose self-interest coincides with that of his
white neighbor, and whose love of the soil and the
South is encouraged by opportunities for ownership and
thrift.

The pressing importance of this just recognition of
Negro proprietorship has been abruptly forced upon
many minds by the suddenly rising wave of Negro
migration to the North, flowing to centres of high
wages, and leaving many Southern industries stripped
of wage-earners. This precipitate movement is regarded
by some friends of the Negro as a fortunate enlargement
of his opportunity, and by others is deplored as involv-
ing risks to health and morals greater than its economic
gains. In any event, however, it must be recognized as
a warning that conditions at the South must be swiftly
ameliorated if the movement is to be checked. If
industrial compensation and social justice are more ac-
cessible elsewhere, neither inclemency of climate nor
lack of housing nor risk of disease will arrest the migra-
tion toward better pay and better treatment. The
remedy is in the hands of the South. It is in the sub-
stitution of encouragement for repression, of education
for illiteracy, of ownership for dependence, and of
statesmanship for politics. "The causes of the migra-
tion," Principal Moton of Tuskegee Institute has lately

314

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

said, "have been in the main economic, but there can be
no doubt of the fact that the Negroes, as a rule, have
taken advantage of the present opportunity to leave be-
hind them poor schools, inadequate police protection, and
exasperating farming conditions, under which so many of
them have worked for so many years." The migration
to the North, in other words, is, as Dr. Moton adds, a
challenge to the South for a "statesmanlike attitude"
toward its Negro population.

To these elementary truths must be added the fact
that the Negro race during the last half-century has
proved itself capable, under favoring circumstances,
of rapid self-development and, in some instances, of dis-
tinguished achievements in administrative leadership,
in literature, or in art. Meagre as have been the op-
portunities offered to Negroes for elementary education,
the reduction in illiteracy from 90 per cent to 30 per cent
indicates a progress without parallel in history. Not
less significant than this general rise of the racial level
are the occasional evidences of genius in poetry, music,
or learning, which lift themselves like heights out of a
plain.

It is impossible to assign these exceptional gifts
wholly to an admixture of white blood. Some of these
leaders or artists are light in color, and some are very dark ;
and their achievements are quite as notable for utilizing
the resources of their own race as for a successful imitation
of the more sophisticated spirit of white civilization. It is
difficult for any lover of Hampton Institute to draw a

31S

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

color-line which excludes from distinction the present
Principal of Tuskegee Institute; or for any lover of
literature to forget the appealing lyrics of a poet whose
parents were slaves "without admixture of white blood,"
and who, to a critic as discerning as Mr. Howells, was
"the final proof that God had made of one blood all
nations of men/' Few modern verses are more affecting
in themselves, or more genuine in racial feeling, than the
lines of this "full-blooded Negro," who, dying at the age
of thirty-four, sings of his own short career : —

"Because I had loved so deeply,
Because I had loved so long,
God in His great compassion
Gave me the gift of song.

Because I have loved so vainly.
And sung with such faltering breath,
The Master in infinite mercy
Offers His boon of death." *

In short, this one-tenth of the American people which is
of Negro descent, is not only a permanent and an essential
element in national life, but on the whole, and with many
halts and retrogressions, is on the way up to self-support
and self-respect ; and while, like every race, it has special
defects and foibles, it has proved much less refractory
and much more susceptible to American ideals than
many groups of immigrants, by whom the United States

* Paul Laurence Dunbar, "Lyrics of Lowly Life," 1898.
316

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

has been regarded as a source of profit rather than as a
home to love.

No demonstration of this racial loyalty has been more
convincing than the response of young Negroes to the
call of the country for service in the World War. They
might without serious self-reproach have pleaded that the
Government had promised them citizenship and had
tolerated disfranchisement and disabilities. They might
have argued that a war to make the world safe for democ-
racy was not a cause to enlist the enthusiasm of those for
whom democracy had not been made safe. The fact is,
however, that they have offered themselves for service
with a spontaneity and generosity equalled by few types
of Americans, and have been deterred from enlistment,
not so much by their own lack of patriotism, as by the
disinclination of some white officials to accept them as
soldiers. "Of all races," the Chicago Tribune remarked
in reporting the registration for draft, "the black was
the whitest." The same qualities which, as has been
pointed out in the first chapter of this volume, made the
Negro a serviceable soldier in the Civil War — the habit
of obedience, the vivid appreciation of the drama and
romance of war, and a courage which approached fatalism
— have now reappeared in more controlled and conscien-
tious forms, and if the young men of the Negro race
are not thwarted by prejudice or incited to passion, they
are prepared to supply the American army with a large
contingent of hardy and easily trained recruits.

It is quite true that these young Negroes as they return

317

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

from the War — if they do return — ^will re-enter civil life
with a new self-confidence, and it is not unreasonable that
people who still cherish the hope of controlling a sup-
pressed and servile race may feel some apprehension at
the prospect. If, however, the security of a nation
depends upon increase of intelligence and self-discipline,
then the sudden ripening of character through the expe-
rience of war, which has already transformed millions of
white youths from boys to men, will make better citizens of
colored men also, and will hasten in an unprecedented
degree the evolution of a stable civilization.

The statistics of Negroes as enlisted men or as commis-
sioned officers cannot be completely presented here, for
they represent a moving and steadily increasing column,
whose total dimensions will not be known until the end of
the War arrives. It is sufficient to say that in the Draft
ordered by Act of Congress on May i8, 191 7, there were
953,899 colored registrants and that of these about
83,000 were certified for service. In addition to these
selected recruits there were, in January 191 8 approxi-
mately 10,000 enlisted colored men in the Regular Army ;
7000 in the National Guard; 1250 candidates for com-
missions at the Reserve Officers' Training Camp at Fort
Des Moines, Iowa; and 15,016 enlisted men in the U. S.
Navy. At the beginning of 191 8 more than 100,000
drafted Negroes had been assigned to 15 cantonments;
678 colored men had been commissioned (160 captains,
320 first lieutenants; 198 second lieutenants); and the
official direction of these recruits had become so serious a
318

HAMPlOiN HAllALION OF CADETS

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CARL SCHURZ HALL
Academic building

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

task as to justify detaching the Secretary of Tuskegee
Institute from his pressing duties and appointing him a
Special Assistant to the Secretary of War.* At a later
date the "Roll of Honor" of Hampton Institute had
reached the following total : —

Students enHsted to March 191 8 61

Negro graduates and ex-students enHsted. . .136
Indian graduates and ex-students enlisted . . . 23

Total 220

Of these, 19 were lieutenants, and a large number non-
commissioned officers. In addition to these student
soldiers, Hampton Institute was in March 191 8 repre-
sented in the War by 8 white instructors and 6 sons of
instructors.

A letter from a student of the Calhoun School to his
teachers sufficiently indicates the motives by which these
young Negroes are stirred. "I am not desirous," he
says, "to go because of any illusions or delusions of
patriotism or fighting for my country. I want to do my
service in the hope that through it, and that of thousands
of other young lives, Negroes of the future may in real
truth have a country. It can come only as Negroes do
their full share of sacrifice." To this may be added a
similar testimony from a Hampton graduate: "Why
should I, a Negro, be willing to lay down my life in this
war ? This question comes on every hand. My only

* This official, Mr. Etnmett J. Scott, has kindly supplied these impressive
figures.

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

answer is this : This old world is going to be made better
only by inches. Every inch upward is going to be won
only by sacrifice. The sentiment towards the oppressed,
Negro or Jew, is going to be improved only as world
sentiment against oppression is strengthened. I believe
that the greatest outcome of this war is going to be the
moving of the world one step forward towards love of
justice. None should be so willing to sacrifice as they
who have least to lose and most to gain."

Here, then, is a race which, instead of being irre-
trievably destined for servile tasks, is one which with
definite Hmitations and temptations, with the inheritance
of slavery still clogging its steps, and disinclined, as one
critic has said, "to sustained application and constructive
conduct," * — a defect not wholly unknown among whites
— has none the less, in the fifty years of its opportunity,
made extraordinary progress. It has proved itself
teachable and long-suffering, as quick with gratitude as
with passion, undisturbed by industrial or social restless-
ness or national disloyalty, a lover for the most part of
the soil and the South, and rapidly developing a race-
consciousness which seeks, not amalgamation with the
white stock, but simply the right to self-respecting
existence and to such decent consideration from other
citizens as may be fairly deserved.

If these elementary facts are undeniable, then they
point to but one way of insuring social security in the

* H. W. Odum, " Social and Mental Traits of the Negro," Columbia Uni-
versity Studies, 1910, p. 52.

320

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

future of the United States. It is by accelerating, through
legislation and education, the pace of progress from illit-
eracy and inefficiency to intelligent and efficient citizen-
ship. There is but one way out of what is called the
Negro Problem, — it is the way that leads up. No theory
of national life can be more misdirected than the view
that security for one race can be ensured by the repres-
sion or depression of another. The risks which are really
threatening are, on the contrary, those created either by
a prevailing illiteracy or by an unassimilated culture.
Lack of education and top-heavy education are almost
equally perilous, both for the Negro and for his white
neighbors. If a little knowledge is a dangerous thing,
then a pretence of knowledge is, to the fertile imagination
and ready tongue of the Negro, hardly less dangerous.
From these kindred risks of ignorance and superficiaHty,
of ilHteracy and plausibility, there is but one escape. It
is in a well-grounded and progressive education, accessible
to all, beginning where one is, inculcating first the element-
ary virtues of integrity, thrift, and persistency, but denying
to none the full use of gifts which in the process of self-
development may be disclosed. The only remedy for an
insufficient education or a misdirected education is a more
sensible education. The only democracy which is secure
is one where common sense and public spirit join hands to
guarantee an Education for Life. The issue has never
been more clearly stated than in the words of a Negro
poet, of whom Professor Brander Matthews writes : " He
has been nobly successful in expressing the higher aspira-

321

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

tions of his own people, who are our fellow-citizens now
and forever."

" How would you have us ? As we are ?
Or sinking 'neath the load we bear ?
Our eyes fixed forward on a star ?
Or gazing empty at despair ?

Rising or falling ? Men or things ? '
With dragging pace or footsteps fleet ?
Strong, willing sinews in your wings ?
Or tightening chains about your feet ? " *

At this point, then, the problem of the future and the
work of Hampton Institute meet. This application of
common-sense to the education of a backward race is
precisely what has won for Hampton the confidence of
the most judicious students of American life. "I be-
lieve," Dr. Wallace Buttrick, President of the General
Education Board, a missionary statesman, and an unfail-
ing friend of Hampton, has testified, that "this institution
comes nearer having found the clue to the maze in the
great process of training people for life, in life, and by
life, than any other institution in the world." "With
inadequate support," writes the Dean of the Teachers
College in Columbia University, "Hampton Institute
has effected a revolution in the training of the black race,
and has profoundly changed our ideals of the training of
the white race also." "I love Hampton more and more,"

* J. W. Johnson, " Fifty Years and Other Poems," 1917, p. 5.
322

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

said Booker Washington, " because she is not only giving
the Negro knowledge, but is seeing and preaching the
needs of the race as no other institution is doing." Is it
not even possible that this "great process of training
people for life, in life and by life" may advance beyond
the needs of a single race, and invade, with beneficent
effects, that protected region occupied by what is called
the ** Higher Education" ? It has already been observed
that a chasm exists between industrial training as pro-
moted at Hampton Institute and the academic culture
which some of its most promising graduates desire ; and
that these youths, though they may have appropriated
all that Hampton has to teach, find it difficult to obtain
access to Northern Colleges. May it not be, however,
that this chasm is created quite as much by the limited
scope of traditional education as by the defects of a school
like Hampton ? Must the connection be made solely
by superadding to trade-education new courses in lan-
guage and literature, or may it be quite as legitimately
made by enlarging the area of a liberal education to
include courses in technical skill .? May not the train-
ing of the hand and will come to be recognized as essen-
tial to a complete educational system, and the bridge
between study and life, which is now but half-built, be
extended from its academic as well as from its industrial
end ?

In these prophetic intimations of a culture appropriate,
not to a single race alone but to the needs of a modern
world, may perhaps some day be discovered the most

323

EDUCATION FOR LIFE

permanent contribution of Hampton Institute to the
future of education. Such a school, whatever may be
the race which has the advantage of its teaching, is not
to be conducted or estimated as an end, but as a way.
It is not a closed system but an open door. It recognizes
no discrimination between higher and lower studies.
All vocations should be open to the Negro ; but his
standing is determined, not by his title, but by his effi-
ciency. A well-trained blacksmith is better educated
than an ignorant preacher; agriculture well understood
is a higher study than law half-learned or medicine un-
professionally practised. The secret, both of personal
character and of social security, according to the
teaching of Hampton Institute, for any race, black or
white, is to be found in the correlated and co-operative
training of the head, the heart, and the hand ; of
thought, feeling, and will ; of intelligence, reverence, and
work.

We hear much in these days of Problems, as though life
were an unending series of difficult solutions, like a class-
room exercise in arithmetic ; and among these puzzles
which beset the present day one of the most perplexing
has been the Negro Problem. But if Hampton Institute
is justified in its intention and spirit, its most significant
result should be the removing of its graduates from the
category of problems, and the setting of them in well-
defined careers, without complications or illusions about
themselves or the world. A good maxim for a Negro —
and indeed for anyone in these days — would be to stop

324

THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE

thinking of oneself, or of one's race, or of the Universe,
as a problem ; and to do the day's work, and think the
day's thought, and pray the day's prayer, not as though
the world were waiting to be solved, but as though it
were waiting to be served.

32s

APPENDICES

I. Bibliography.

(Acts of Incorporation.
Annotated list of Trustees, with time of service.
List of Curators, with time of service.

3. Maps of grounds, with index.

4. List of buildings, with dates and cost.

5. Gifts for, and cost of, plant.

6. Income and expenditure for general purposes.

7. Increase of endowment by years and summary of endowment funds.

8. Chart showing increase in endowment.

9. Chart showing annual income and expenditure.

10. Changes in curriculum, with dates.

11. Library chronology and chart showing attendance and circulation.

12. Chart showing enrolment of Negro and Indian boarding students and

number of graduates by years.

13. Charts showing occupations of Negro graduates and ex-studentx,

14. Charts showing occupations of Hampton-trained Indians.

15. Chart showing Trade Certificates given (1895-1917).

16. Permanent scholarships.

17. List of Armstrong and Hampton Associations.

Note: The above Appendices were prepared by members of the Hampton Staff,
as follows : —
I. Jane E. Davis, Publication Office.
2 and 17. Emily K. Herron, Principal's Secretary.
3. John Sugden, Superintendent of Construction.
,• f /; » Q /x o^j ,/;] Frank K. Rogers, Treasurer.
4» 5. t>, 7, 8, 9, and lb I p^ank D. Banks, Head Bookkeeper.

10. George P. Phenix, Vice-Principal.

11. Leonora E. Herron, Librarian.

12. 13, and 15. Statistics by Myrtilla J. Sherman, Negro Record Office.
14. Statistics by Caroline W. Andrus, Indian Record Office.

APPENDIX ONE

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Armstrong, Samuel Chapman. Apostle of Good Will, by
Robert R. Moton, Principal of Tuskegee Institute. South-
ern Workman, March 191 7.

Armstrong's Contribution to World Peace, by Dr.

Talcott Williams, Director of Columbia University School
of Journalism, Pulitzer Foundation. Southern Workman,
March 1916.

Ideals of Education (1914). Hampton Institute. A

collection of principles of education, original with S. C.
Armstrong, with introduction by Francis G. Peabody,
biographical note by Helen W. Ludlow, and including
General Armstrong's first report (1870) and the Memoranda
found after his death.

Following the Founder, by Francis G. Peabody,

Plummer Professor of Christian Morals, Emeritus, Harvard
University. Southern Workman, February 1910.

Founder's Day at Hampton (1898), by Francis G.

Peabody. Hampton Institute

General Armstrong and His Work, by Hon. James

Bryce. Southern Workman, March 1910.

General Armstrong's Life and Work, by Franklin

Carter, Ph.D., LL.D. (formerly President of Williams
College). Southern Workman, April 1902.

Hampton's Founder and His Ideals, by Rev. J. H.

Denison, D.D., Williamstown, Mass. Southern Workman,
March 1903. A vivid character sketch of S. C. Arm-
strong by a college classmate.

329

APPENDIX ONE

Armstrong, Samuel Chapman. Leader of Freemen, A. Life
Story of Samuel Chapman Armstrong for U. S. Soldiers and
Sailors, edited by Everett T, and Paul G. Tomlinson (191 7).
American Sunday School Union, Chestnut St., Phila.

Samuel Chapman Armstrong, by J. H, Denison, D.D.,

Atlantic Monthly, January 1894.

Samuel Chapman Armstrong, a Biographical Study,

by Edith A. Talbot, his daughter. Doubleday, Page and
Co., 1904. Apply to Hampton Institute.

Some Results of the Armstrong Idea, by Booker T.

Washington, Principal of Tuskegee- Institute, 1881-1915.
Southern Workman, March 1909.
Frissell, Hollis Burke. Hollis Burke Frissell, by Lyman
Abbott. Outlook, August 15, 191 7.

Master Builder, A (photograph), by Amelia Josephine

Burr. Bellman, December 15, 1917.

Southern Workman Memorial Number — November

1 91 7. Appreciations by Hampton graduates and others.

Statesman of the Race Problem, A (photograph), by

Ray Stannard Baker. World's Work, January 191 8.
Hampton Institute. Comparison of the Past and Present Aims
of Hampton Institute, by Thomas Jesse Jones, Ph.D.,
Specialist, U. S. Bureau of Education. Southern Workman,
March 1903.

Fourteenth Hampton Negro Conference, The, by

Wm. Anthony Aery. Survey, August 13, 1910.

From Servitude to Service. Old South Lectures on

History and Work of Southern Institutions for Education
of the Negro. American Unitarian Association. Uni-
versity Press, Cambridge, 1905. Chapter III, a lecture
on Hampton Institute by Dr. Frissell.

General Armstrong and the Hampton Institute (il-

lustrated), by Edwin A. Start. New England Magazine,
June 1892.

330

APPENDIX ONE

Hampton Institute. Hampton a Training Station for Two Races
(illustrated), by Sydney D. Frissell. Survey^ June 7, 1913.

Hampton Idea of Education, by Charles W. Eliot.

Southern Workman, January 1910.

Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, by Helen

W. Ludlow. Harper s Monthly, October 1873.

Memories of Old Hampton (illustrated). Published

by the Armstrong League of Hampton Workers (1909),
Hampton Institute.

Religious Folk-Songs of the Negro (1909). Hampton

Institute.

Spirit of Hampton, The (illustrated), by Amelia Jose-
phine Burr. Bellman, Minneapolis, June 24, 1916.

Twenty-two Years' Work of the Hampton Normal

and Agricultural Institute, 1 868-1 891 (Maps and illus-
trations). Hampton Institute. A record of graduates*
work compiled by members of the staff, with historical
introduction by S. C. Armstrong.
Indian Education. Hampton's Work for the Indians, by
Caroline W. Andrus, in charge of Indian Records at
Hampton. Southern Workman, February 1915.

Indian Education at Hampton and Carlisle, by Helen

W. Ludlow. Harper's Monthly, April 1881.

Industrial Education. Domestic Arts at Hampton Institute, by
Caroline D. Pratt, in charge of Domestic Arts Department.
Hampton Leaflets, Vol. Ill, No. 3 (1914).

Hampton Institute Trade-School, by Wm. Anthony

Aery. Hampton Institute.

Learning by Doing (illustrated), by Albert Shaw,

editor of the American Review of Reviews. American
Review of Reviews, April 1900.

What Hampton Means by Education (illustrated), by

Albert Shaw, editor of the American Review of Reviews.
American Review of Reviews y September 1906.

331

APPENDIX ONE

Moton, Robert Russa. Negro's Uphill Climb. Ancestry and
Struggle for Education. World's Work, April 1907. Stu-
dent Life at Hampton Institute. World's Work, May 1907.

Racial Good Will (1916). Southern Workman, July

1912, July 1914, October 1914.

Negro Education. Negro Education, by HoUis Burke Frissell,
Principal of Hampton Institute (1893-1917), Outlook,
August 15, 1903.

Negro Education (2 volumes), U. S. Bureau of Educa-
tion, 1917, under the direction of Dr. Thomas Jesse Jones.
Exhaustive study of Negro schools and of the work of
important Educational Boards.

Salvation of the Negro, The, by Booker T. Washing-

ton, with photographs by Frances B. Johnston. World's
Work, July 1 90 1.

Negro in the Civil War. Among the Contrabands. Reminis-
cences of W. L. Coan. Southern Workman, April 1884.

Army Life in a Black Regiment (1870), by T. W.

Higginson. Lee and Shepard.

Contrabands at Fort Monroe, by E. L. Pierce. At-

lantic Monthly, November 1861.

Negro Progress. History of the American Negro, by Benjamin
Brawley. The Macmillan Company.

Negro's Progress, The, edited by J. P. Lichtenberger,

American Academy of Political and Social Science, Phila-
delphia.

Negro Year Book (current), edited by Monroe N.

Work. Tuskegee Institute, Alabama.

Ogden, Robert C. Early Days of the Ogden Movement, by
J. E. Davis. Southern Workman, November 191 5. An
account of the conferences leading to the formation of the
Southern Education Board.

Educational Statesman, An, by Wm. A. Aery. Sur-
vey, October 30, 1915.

332

APPENDIX ONE

Ogden, Robert C. In Memory of Robert Curtis Ogden. Pri-
vately printed by H. E. Fries, Winston-Salem, N.C. (1916.)

Life Well Lived, A. In Memory of Robert Curtis

Ogden. Printed by Hampton Institute (1914). Number
of copies limited. Contains addresses by Francis Green-
wood Peabody, William Howard Taft, and Samuel Chiles
Mitchell.

Life of J. L. M. Curry, Biography, by E. A. Alder-

man, President of the University of Virginia. The Mac-
millan Co., 191 1. Gives an account of the movement
for better education in the South developed through the
influence of Robert C. Ogden.
Virginia Peninsula. Battles and Leaders of the Civil War.
Operations of 1861 about Fort Monroe. Century Co.

Burning of Hampton, The. Harper's Pictorial His-
tory of the Great Rebellion. Harper Brothers, 1866.

Burning of Hampton, The. Rebellion Record, Vol.

II, 1862-68. Putnam's.

Military Hospitals of the Civil War (illustrated), by

John S. C. Abbott. Harper s Monthly^ August 1864.

Round About Jamestown (Map and illustrations)

(1907), by J. E. Davis. Apply to Hampton Institute.
Washington, Booker T. Builder of a Civilization, by Emmett
Scott and Lyman Beecher Stowe. Doubleday, Page and
Company, 191 7.

My Larger Education (illustrated), by Booker T.

Washington. Doubledaj', Page and Company, 191 1.
Continuation of " Up From Slavery."

Southern Workman Memorial Number, January 1916.

Contains appreciations by leading Americans.

Tuskegee and Its People (illustrated), edited by

Booker T. Washington. D. Appleton and Company,
1905.

Up From Slavery (illustrated), by Booker T. Wash-

333

APPENDIX ONE

ington. Autobiography : Doubleday, Page and Company,
1901.

Note. The Southern Workman is on file in many of the leading
libraries of the United States. Back numbers may be
applied for at Hampton Institute.

334

APPENDIX TWO

COUNTY CHARTER

Virginia to wit

Circuit Court of Elizabeth City County
Sept. 2 1 St, 1868

Upon the application of George Whipple, Edward P. Smith,
William E. Whiting, M. E. Strieby and S. C. Armstrong, they
and such other persons as shall hereafter become subscribers
to the capital stock hereby created, are hereby declared to be a
body politic and corporate by the name and style of " The
Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute." The purpose
for which the said charter is granted is the instruction and
education of youth in the various common school branches and
the best method of teaching the same, and in the best mode of
practical industry in its application to agriculture. And by
the name and style of The Hampton Normal and Agricultural
Institute, the said corporation shall have all the rights, powers
and privileges conferred, and be subject to all the rules, regula-
tions and restrictions imposed by the laws of Virginia, and all
acts amendatory thereof, applicable to such corporation.

The capital stock of said Company to be not less than twenty
thousand dollars and to be increased as the wants of the Com-
pany may require, to an amount not exceeding the sum of one
hundred and fifty thousand dollars. The said capital stock to
be divided into shares of not less than one thousand dollars
each. The said Company to hold certain real estate in the
County of Elizabeth City, formerly known as "Little Scot-
land," now called Whipple Farm, located on Hampton River
and containing, by estimation, one hundred and sixty acres,

335

APPENDIX TWO

together with all the improvements which may have been or
may be erected thereon.

Hampton, in the County of Elizabeth City, State of Virginia,
is to be the place in which the principal office of said Company
is to be kept. The officers who are to conduct the affairs of
said Company for the first year are : —

George Whipple, President

Edward P. Smith, Vice President

S. C. Armstrong, Secretary

William E. Whiting, Treasurer

And it is ordered that this Charter of Incorporation be re-
corded by the Clerk of this Court in the book to be provided
and kept for the purpose and that the same be certified by the
said Clerk to the secretary of the Commonwealth.

And it is further ordered that this Charter of Incorporation
be inoperative until the same shall have been duly certified and
lodged in the office of the secretary of the Commonwealth.
Clerk's office of the County Court of Elizabeth City County,
October 5th, 1868

The foregoing certificate of the Incorporation received and
admitted to record as the law directs.

Teste Wm. S. Howard, Clerk
A Copy Teste Wm. S. Howard, Clerk

AN ACT

to incorporate

THE HAMPTON NORMAL AND AGRICULTURAL
INSTITUTE

BY the general ASSEMBLY OF THE STATE OF VIRGINIA
APPROVED JUNE 4, 187O

Whereas, it is represented to the general assembly that
under and by virtue of an act of incorporation granted by the

336

APPENDIX TWO

Circuit Court of the county of Elizabeth City, on the twenty-
first of September, eighteen hundred and sixty-eight, cer-
tain property located in the county of Elizabeth City, in
this state, formerly known as "Little Scotland," containing,
by estimation, one hundred and sixty acres, has been and is
now used as an institution of learning, known as The Hamp-
ton Normal and Agricultural Institute, and upon this prop-
erty large and valuable college buildings have been erected,
and the same have been provided with necessary and suit-
able furniture, apparatus, and equipments as a seminary of
learning;

I Now be it enacted by the general assembly of Vir-
ginia, That O. O. Howard, George Whipple, M. E. Strieby,
Jas. A. Garfield, John F. Lewis, E. P. Smith, Robert W.
Hughes, James F. B. Marshall, Alexander Hyde, B. G.
Northrop, Samuel Holmes, Edgar Ketchum, W. E. Whiting,
H. C. Percy, S. C. Armstrong, and such others as they may
associate with them, and their successors, be and are hereby
constituted a body politic and corporate, by the name of The
Trustees of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Insti-
tute, and shall have perpetual succession and a common seal,
and by the name aforesaid, they and their successors shall be
capable in law, and shall have full power and authority to
acquire, hold, possess, purchase, receive, and retain to them
and their successors forever, any lands, tenements, rents,
goods, chattels or interest of any kind whatsoever, which may
be given or bequeathed to them, or be by them purchased for
the use of an institution of learning, to be called The Hampton
Normal and Agricultural Institute : * provided the real estate

* Originally this read: "provided the same shall not exceed eight
hundred thousand dollars in value." Amended May 2, 1887, to read "pro-
vided the real estate does not exceed eighteen hundred thousand dollars in
value." Amended as above, July 2, 1904, by the State Corporation Com-
mission.

337

APPENDIX TWO

owned shall not exceed at any one time twelve hundred acres ;
they and their successors shall have power to transfer, convey,
and dispose of the same in any manner whatsoever they shall
adjudge most useful to the interest and legal purposes of the
said institution : and by their corporate name, may sue and
implead, and be sued and impleaded, may answer and be
answered, in all courts of law and equity.

2 That the purposes of the said Hampton Normal and
Agricultural Institute shall be as follows : For the instruc-
tion of youth in the various common school, academic, and col-
legiate branches, the best methods of teaching the same, and
the best mode of practical industry in its application to agri-
culture and the mechanic arts ; and for the carrying out of these
purposes, the said trustees may establish any departments
or schools in the said institution.

3 That the trustees or a majority of them, shall choose by
ballot, a president, secretary, treasurer, and such officers,
teachers, or agents as they shall deem necessary, and remove
the same at pleasure, two-thirds of a quorum concurring in
said removal. They shall also take bond from the treasurer,
payable to the trustees of The Hampton Normal and Agricul-
tural Institute, in such penalty and with such security as they
may deem reasonable, and conditioned for faithful discharge
of the duties of his office, said duties to be prescribed by the
said trustees or a majority of them. The said trustees may
make contracts in behalf of said institution, and, in general,
manage the affairs of the institution.

4 That when there shall be a vacancy in the board of
trustees, occasioned by death, removal, resignation, or refusal
to act, the remaining trustees or a majority of them, shall, on
being notified by the secretary or president, supply the va-
cancy at the next annual meeting.

It shall be lawful for any five of the trustees to call a meeting
of the trustees whenever they shall deem it expedient.

338

APPENDIX TWO

5 The board of trustees shall be not less than nine nor
more than seventeen, five * of whom shall constitute a quorum.

6 That the trustees may adopt such rules, regulations,
and by-laws, not contrary to the laws of this State or the
United States, as they may deem necessary for the good
government of the Institution.

7 That it shall be the duty of said board of trustees,
whenever requested by the Governor of this State, or super-
intendent of education, to make a report of the general condi-
tion of the institution to the board of education, to be by them
communicated to the general assembly.

8 That all the rights, privileges and properties acquired
by the said Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute,
under the charter of incorporation granted by the Circuit
Court of the county of Elizabeth City, on the twenty-first day
of September, eighteen hundred and sixty-eight, be, and the
same are, hereby ratified and confirmed.

9 That from and after the passage of this act, the char-
ter of the said Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute,
heretofore granted by the Circuit Court of the county of
Elizabeth City, save so far as ratified by the preceding section,
is hereby revoked and annulled.

10 That any property held by The Hampton Normal
and Agricultural Institute for its legitimate purposes, shall be
exempt from public taxes so long as any property held by
other institutions of learning in Virginia, for their legitimate
purposes, is exempt; and whenever a tax shall be laid upon
the same, if laid at all, the tax shall not be higher on said
institution, in proportion to the value of its property, than
on other institutions of learning in this State.

11 This act shall be in force from the passage thereof.

* Originally section 5 read: "shall not be less than nine nor more than
seventeen, a majority of whom shall constitute a quorum." Change approved
February 27, 1894.

339

APPENDIX TWO

TRUSTEES

THE HAMPTON NORMAL AND AGRICULTURAL
INSTITUTE

FROM THE ACT OF INCORPORATION, JUNE 4, 187O, TO APRIL I,

I918

Incorporators

Oliver Otis Howard (1870-75)

b. Leeds, Me., Nov. 8, 1830; d. Oct. 26, 1909. Bowdoin
College and U. S. Military Academy. Major Gen. U. S. A.
in Civil War. Commissioner, Freedmen's Bureau.

Rev. George Whipple, D.D. (1870-77) ' President of the
Board, 1870-77.
b. Albany, N. Y., June 4, 1805 ; d. Oct. 6, 1876. Lane Sem.
and Oberlin. Prof, of mathematics at Oberlin. Corr. Sec.
American Missionary Association, 1846-76.

Rev. Michael E. Strieby, D.D., LL.D. (1870-99) President
of the Board, 1877-84.
b. Columbiana, O., Sept. 26, 181 5 ; </. Mar. 16, 1899. Oberlin
College and Sem. Sec. American Missionary Association,
1864-99.

James Abram Garfield (1870-76)

b. Orange, O., Nov. 19, 183 1; d. Elberon, N. J., Sept. 19,
1 88 1. Williams College. Maj. Gen. U. S. A. in Civil War.
President of U. S. 1881.

John Francis Lewis (1870-76)

b. Port Republic, Va., Mar. i, 1818; d. Sept. 2, 1895.
Member Virginia Convention in 1861. U. S. Senator, 1870-75.

340

APPENDIX TWO

Rev. Edward Parmelee Smith (1870-76)

b. South Britain, Ct., June 3, 1827 ; d. Accra, W. Africa, June
15, 1876. Yale Univ. and Andover Theol. Sem. Field Sec.
Amer. Missionary Ass'n. U. S. Comm. Indian Affairs, 1873.
Pres., Howard Univ., 1876.

Robert William Hughes (1870-99)

b. Powhatan Co., Va., June 16, 1821 ; d. Abingdon, Va., Dec.
10, 1901. Caldwell Inst., Greensboro, N. C. Lawyer. Ed.
Richmond Examiner. Served in Confed. Army. Commis-
sioned by Pres. Grant, Dist. Judge for Eastern Va.

James Fowle Baldwin Marshall (1870-91)

b. Charlestown, Mass., 1818; d. Kendall Green, Mass., May
6, 1 891. Minister to England from Hawaii in 1843. Member,
Hawaiian Legislature. Paymaster-General of Mass. Troops on
staff of Gov. Andrew in Civil War. Treas., Hampton Insti-
tute, 1869-84.

Alexander Hyde (1870-81)

^. Lee, Mass., Sept. 25, 1814; ^. Boston, Mass., Jan. 11,1881.
Williams College. Teacher.

Rev. Birdsey Grant Northrop, LL.D. (1870-74)

b. Kent, Ct., July 18, 1817; d. Apr. 27, 1898. Yale Univ.
and Theol. Sem.

Samuel Holmes (1870-84)

b. Waterbury, Ct., Nov. 30, 1824; d. Montclair, N. J.,
Dec. 9, 1897. Manufacturer. Member, Exec. Comm., Amer.
Missionary Ass'n. Trustee, Fisk Univ.

Edgar Ketchum (1870-81)

b. New York City, 1811; d. March 3, 1882. Lawyer.
Treas. and Member Exec. Comm., Amer. Missionary Ass'n,
1865-79.

341

APPENDIX TWO

William E. Whiting ''1870)

d. June 3, 1882. An Officer of Amer. Missionary Ass'n from
its organization in 1846 to his death.

Henry Clay Percy (1870-74) •

h. New Haven, Ct., 1839; d. New York, 1887. Banker.
Organized Freedmen's Bank and Home Savings Bank, Nor-
folk, Va.

Samuel Chapman Armstrong, LL.D. (1870-93)

b. Maui, Hawaii, Jan. 30, 1839; d. Hampton, Va., May 11,
1893. Williams College. Commanded Colored Troops in Civil
War. Brig.-Gen. U. S. A. Founded Hampton Inst. 1868.
Principal, 1868-93.

Elected

Rev. Erastus Milo Cravath, D.D. (1870-77)

b. Homer, N. Y., July i, 1833 ; d. Sept. 4, 1900. Oberlin
College. Chaplain in Federal Army during Civil War. District
Sec. Amer. Missionary Ass'n. First Pres., Fisk Univ.

Rev. Thomas Kendall Fessenden (1870-82)

b. Brattleboro, Vt., Sept. 10, 1813 ; d. Farmington, Ct., Jan.
18, 1894. Williams College and Yale Theol. Sem. Financial
Sec, Hampton Inst., 1871-77.

Anthony Morris Kimber (1870-86)

b. Philadelphia, Pa., May 19, 1824; d. Sept. 20, 1917. Haver-
ford College. Merchant.

Robert Curtis Ogden, LL.D. (1874-1913) President of the
Board, 1894-1913.
b. Philadelphia, Pa., June 20, 1836; d. Aug. 6, 1913. Mer-
chant. Pres., Southern Educ'n Board ; Chairman, General
Educ'n Board ; Trustee, Tuskegee Inst. Pres., Board of
Directors, Union Theol. Sem.

342

APPENDIX TWO

Lewis Henry Steiner, M.D. (1876-92)

h. Frederick City, Md., May 4, 1827; d. Feb. 18, 1892.
Univ. of Penn. Physician. Librarian, Enoch Pratt Free
Library, Baltimore, Md.

Zebulon Stiles Ely (1876-86)

h. Lyme, Ct., Nov. 8, 1819; d. Oct. 4, 1902. Essex Acad.
Merchant.

Elbert Brinckerhoff Monroe (1877-94) President of the

Board, 1884-94

h. New York City, Aug. 25, 1836; d. Apr. 21, 1894. Univ.
of N. Y. Member, Exec. Comm., Amer. Missionary Ass'n.
Member, Board of Indian Commissioners, 1892.

Rev. James Howard Means, D.D. (1877-83)

b. Boston, Mass., Dec. 13, 1823 ; d. Apr. 13, 1894. Harvard
Univ. and Andover Theol. Sem. Pastor, Second Cong'I Ch.,
Dorchester, Mass., for 30 yrs.

Francis Nathaniel Watkins (1877-86)

b. Prince Edward Co., Va., 181 2; d. Sept. 1885. Educated
at Amherst, Mass. Judge. Banker. Trustee, Hampden-
Sidney College.

Rev. Albert Nicholas Arnold (1877-81)

b. Cranston, R. I., Feb. 12, 1814; d. Oct. 11, 1883. Brown
Univ. Missionary to Greece. Prof, of Theology.

Rev. Henry Wilder Foote (1879-89)

b. Salem, Mass., June 2, 1838; d. May 30, 1889. Harvard
Univ. Pastor, King's Chapel, Boston, Mass., 1861-89.

James Muncaster Brown (1881-89)

b. Baltimore, Md., Dec. 8, 1820; d. Manchester, Vt.,
July 19, 1890. Banker.

343

APPENDIX TWO

Charles Levi Mead (1881-99)

b. Chesterfield, N. H., Jan. 21, 1833; d. Norfolk, Ct., Aug.
19, 1899. Educated at Brattleboro, Vt. Pres. and Treas.,
Stanley Rule & Level Co. Vice-Pres., Amer. Missionary
Ass'n.

Moses Pierce (1883-89)

d. Norwich, Ct., Aug., 1900. Manufacturer. Built Pierce
Machine Shop, now Pierce Hall, at Hampton Inst.

Rev. Alexander McKenzie, D.D. (1883-1914)

b. New Bedford, Mass., Dec. 14, 1830; d. Cambridge,
Mass., Aug. 6, 1914. Harvard Univ. and Andover Theol.
Sem. Vice-Pres., Amer. Missionary Ass'n.

George Foster Peabody, LL.D. (1884- )

b. Columbus, Ga., July 27, 1852. Banker. Trustee, Tuske-
gee Inst., University of Georgia, Colorado College, Skidmore
School of Arts, American Church Institute for Negroes, etc.
Treas., Invest. Comm. of Hampton Inst. Member, So. Educ'n
Board and Gen. Educ'n Board. Deputy Chairman and Gov-
ernment Director, Federal Reserve Bank, N. Y.

Thomas Tabb, (i 886-1902)

b. Hampton, Va., Oct. 7, 1835; d. Oct. 16, 1902. Princeton
Univ. Officer in Confederate Army. Lawyer.

Rev. Charles Henry Parkhurst, D.D., LL.D. (1886-1905)

b. Framingham, Mass., Apr. 17, 1842. Amherst College.
Studied Theology at Halle and Leipzig. Clergyman and Social
Worker, N. Y.

Amzi Dodd (1886-96)

b. Bloomfield, N. J., March 2, 1823 ; d. Jan. 22, 1913. Prince-
ton Univ. Judge. Vice-Chancellor of N. J. Pres., Mutual
Benefit Life Ins. Co.

344

APPENDIX TWO

Rt. Rev. Wm. Neilson McVickar, D.D., LL.D. (i 886-1910)
h. New York City, Oct. 19, 1843; d. June 28, 1910. Co-
lumbia Univ. and Gen. Theol. Sem. Bishop of Rhode Island.

Albert Keith Smiley (1889-1891)

b. Vassalboro, Me., March 17, 1828; d. Dec. 1912.
Haverford College. Teacher. Member, Board of Indian Com-
missioners.

Francis Greenwood Peabody, D.D., LL.D. (1890- ) First
Vice-Pres. of the Board.
h. Boston, Mass., Dec. 4, 1847. Harvard Univ. Prof, of
Christian Morals at Harvard, 1881-1913. Dean of Harvard
Divinity School, 1901-1906.

CoLLis Potter Huntington (i 890-1900)

b. Harwinton, Ct., Oct. 22, 1821 ; d. Aug. 13, 1900. Or-
ganizer of Central Pacific R. R. ; planned and developed
transcontinental lines. Contributed largely to up-building of
Hampton Inst.

Rt. Rev. David Hummell Greer, D.D., LL.D. (1891-1909)

b. Wheeling, W. Va., March 20, 1844. Washington College,
Pa. and Prot. Episc. Sem., Gambier, O. Bishop of New York.

Charles Emerson Bigelow (1892- )

b. Brooklyn, N. Y., July 29, 1851. Yale Univ. Pres., Bay
State Shoe & Leather Co. ; Pres., Columbia Water & Light Co. ;
Director, Southern Improvement Co.

Rev. Hollis Burke Frissell, D.D., LL.D. (1893-1917)

b. South Amenia, N. Y., July 14, 1851 ; d. Whitefield, N. H.,
Aug. 5, 1917. Yale Univ. and Union Theol. Sem. Chap-
lain, Hampton Inst. 1880-93; Principal, 1893-1917. Member,
So. Educ'n Board, Gen. Educ'n Board, Negro Rural School
Fund : Anna T. Jeanes Found. ; Trustee, Calhoun Colored
School, Penn School, etc.

345

APPENDIX TWO

Arthur Curtiss James (1893- )

I b. New York City, June i, 1867. Amherst College. Direc-
tor and Trustee, various corporations.

Henry Sturgis Russell (1894-98)

b. Boston, Mass., 1836; d, Feb. 1905. Harvard Univ.
Colonel U. S. A. in Civil War.

Wm. Jay Schieffelin, Ph.D. (1896- )

b. New York City, Apr. 14, 1866. Columbia Univ. and
Univ. of Munich. Chemist. Served in Spanish-Amer. War.
Trustee, Tuskegee Inst.

LUNSFORD LOMAX LeWIS (1899-I917)

b. Rockingham Co., Va., March 17, 1846. Univ. of Vir-
ginia. U. S. Dist. Att'y, Eastern Va. Pres., State Supreme
Court, Va.

Alexander Purves (1899-1905)

b. Brooklyn, N. Y., Oct. 17, 1865; d. Hampton, Va., March
30, 1905. Banker, Fidelity Trust Co. of Philadelphia. Treas.,
Hampton Inst., 1899-1905.

William West Frazier (1900- )

b. Montevideo, Uruguay, S. A., Aug. 27, 1837. Univ. of
Penn. Capt. U. S. A. in Civil War. Merchant.

Rev. James Wesley Cooper, D.D. (1900-16)

b. New Haven, Ct., Oct. 6, 1842; d. March 16, 1916. Yale
Univ. and Andover Theol. Sem. Corr. Sec. and Vice-Pres.,
Amer. Missionary Ass'n.

Archer Milton Huntington, Litt. D. (1901-10)
b. New York City, March 10, 1870. Author.

Beverly B. Munford (1903-10)
b. Richmond, Va., 1857; d. May 31, 1910. William and

346

APPENDIX TWO

Mary College and Univ. of Va. Lawyer. Author of "Virgin-
ia's Attitude toward Slavery and Secession."

Seth Low, LL.D. (1905-08)

b. Brooklyn, N.Y., Jan. 18, 1850; d. Sept. 17, 1916. Colum-
bia Univ. Pres., Columbia Univ. Mayor of Greater N. Y.
Pres., Board of Trustees, Tuskegee Inst.

Hugh Henry Hanna, LL.D. (1905-09)

b. Lafayette, Ind., Sept. 19, 1848. Educated in U. S. and
Germany. Banker and Publicist. Member, So. Educ'n Board,
Gen. Educ'n Board. Trustee, Tuskegee Inst.

Frank Wilkinson Darling (1909- )

b. New York City, Oct. 7, 1865. Cheshire Episcopal Inst.
Merchant. Treas., Indus. Home School for Colored Girls.
Appointed by Gov., Chairman of Moral Welfare Comm. for
Hampton and vicinity, 1917.

William Howard Taft, LL.D. (1909- ) President of the
Board, 1914-
b. Cincinnati, O., Sept. 15, 1857. Yale University, Judge.
President of U. S., 1909-13.

Clarence Hill Kelsey (1909- ) Second Vice-President of
the Board.
b. Bridgeport, Ct., Dec. 23, 1856. Yale Univ. Lawyer.
Pres., Title Guarantee &' Trust Co., N. Y.

Samuel Chiles Mitchell, Ph.D., LL.D. (1911- )

b. CofFeeville, Miss., Dec. 24, 1864. Georgetown College,
Ky. and Univ. of Chicago. Pres., Delaware College. Mem-
ber, So. Educ'n Board, Negro Rural School Fund : Anna T.
Jeanes Foundation.

Robert Bacon, LL.D. (1913- )
b. Boston, Mass., July 5, i860. Harvard Univ. Banker.

347

APPENDIX TWO

Asst. Sec. of State, 1905-09. Sec. of State, 1909. Ambassador
to France, 1909-12. Colonel U. S. A.

W. Cameron Forbes, LL.D. (1916- )

b. Milton, Mass., May 21, 1870. Harvard Univ. Banker.
Member, Philippine Commission, 1904. Governor-General,
Philippine Islands, 1909-13.

Alexander Buel Trowbridge (1916- )

h. Detroit, Mich., Sept. 3, 1868. Cornell Univ. Ecole des
Beaux Arts, Paris, France. Architect. Pres., Brooklyn Arm-
strong Ass'n and National Hampton Ass'n.

Rev. Chester Burge Emerson (1917- )

b. Haverhill, Mass., July 29, 1882. Union College. Clergy-
man, Detroit, Mich. Army Y. M. C. A. in France.

Rev. James Edgar Gregg (1918- )

b. Hartford, Ct., Nov. 24, 1875. Harvard College and
Harvard and Yale Divinity Schools. Teacher and Clergyman.
Elected Principal of Hampton Institute, 1918.

Robert Russa Moton, LL.D. (191 8- )

b. Amelia Co., Va., Aug. 26, 1867. Hampton Inst. 1890.
Commandant, Hampton Inst., 1 890-191 5. Principal, Tuskegee
Inst., 191 5. Founder, Negro Organization Soc. Sec, Negro
Rural School Fund : Anna T. Jeanes Foundation.

HAMPTON CURATORS

Appointed by the Governor of the State of Virginia, and their terms of service

*Rev, W. G. Alexander, Portsmouth 1886 to 1888

*HoN. Samuel P. Bolling, Farmville 1893 to 1900

Judge John Booker, Hampton 1884 to 1886

*Rev. G. F. Bragg, Jr., Norfolk 1888 to 1890

*HoN. Tazewell Branch, Farmville 1890 to 1892

*William p. Burrell, Richmond 1901 to 1909

*J. C. Carter, Houston 1901 to 1921

* Colored.

APPENDIX TWO

Francis F. Causey, Hampton ....

Judge Isaac H. Christian, Charles City .
*J. M. Clark, Danville

W. T. CoPELAND, Newport News . . .
*Rev. John W. Dawson, Williamsburg . .

Hon. O. M. Dorman, Norfolk

Dr. J. B. Halligan, Smoky Ordinary . .

E. S. Hamlin, Newport News

Jacob Heffe^finger, Hampton ....
*Rev. James H. Holmes, Richmond . . .
*W. T. Johnson, Richmond

Rev. Dr. J. William Jones, Richmond .

Hon. Maryus Jones, Newport News . .

Andrew Kevan, Petersburg

Judge Baker P. Lee, Hampton ....

J. T. Lewis, Richmond

E. B. Macon, London Bridge

Dr. John E. Mapp, Kellar

*George a. Melvin, Portsmouth ....

Rev. Chas. Minnegerode, D.D., Richmond

N. W. Nock, Onancock .

*HoN. Frederick S. Norton, Williamsburg

Hon. Robert Norton, Yorktown . . .

Gen. R. L. Paige, Norfolk

*R. G. L. Paige, Norfolk

*Rev. CiBSAR Perkins, Buckingham C. H.
Hon. R. B. Poore, Appomattox C. H. .

•William M. Reid, Portsmouth . . .

Hon. W. H. Ruffner, Richmond ....

Henry L. Schmelz, Hampton

Thomas M. Scott, Onancock

Capt. Arthur S. Segar, Hampton ....

A. T. Stroud, Norfolk

CoL. Thomas Tabb, Hampton

•Rev. William Thornton, Hampton . . .
•Richard A. Tucker, Norfolk

Hon. John J. Woodhouse, Princess Anne C. H.

•Colored.

1899

1904

1890

1904

1909

1921

I9I3

I92I

1877

1882

1873

1879

1909

I9I3

1882

1886

1887

1890

1873

1890

I9I3

I92I

1886

1888

I90S

1909

1876

1882

1897

1899

1909

I92I

1882

1886

1890

1897

1900

I90S

1888

1890

I90I

1909

1882

1886

1890

1893

1880

1882

1886

1890

1882

1886

1873

1877

1893

1897

1893

I9CI

1 90s

1909

1873

1877

1903

I9I4

1897

1905

1882

1884

I9IS

1 921

1873

1887

1873

1893

19CI

1890

1893

349

APPENDIX THREE

3SO

APPENDIX

THREE

INDEX TO MAP OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE
GROUNDS IN 1918

Virginia Hall

Wigwam

Cleveland Hall

Robert C. Ogden Auditorium

Griggs Hall

Palmer Hall

"Uncle Tom's Cabin" (The

Marshall Hall

Chaplain's Residence)

Memorial Church

Girls' Cottage

Academic Hall

Laundry

Science Building

Winona Lodge

Marquand Cottage

"The Moorings" (Mrs. Purves)

Domestic Science Building

Abby May Home

Clarke Hall

Kennedy Hall

Stone Memorial Building

Huntington Memorial Library

Gymnasium

2.";

Mansion House (The Principal's

Greenhouse

Residence)

Trade-School

Holly Tree Inn

Pierce Hall

Barn

James Hall

King's Chapel Hospital

IS5

Huntington Hall

351

APPENDIX THREE

352

APPENDIX FOUR

LIST OF BUILDINGS, WITH DATES AND COST

1870 Academic Hall. Cost, $48,500; largely defrayed by
funds donated by the Freedmen's Bureau.

1873 Griggs Hall. Named in memory of Mrs. Stephen Griggs.

Cost, $6300.

1874 Virginia Hall, a girls' dormitory. Partly "sung up" by

Hampton Singers. Cost, $98,000.
1876 Marquand Cottage, a boys' dormitory. Original cost,
$5200; with additions, $12,800.

1878 Whipple Barn. Cost $9200.

1879 Wigwam, for Indian boys. Cost, $14,700.

1 88 1 Huntington Industrial Works. Gift of Collis P.
Huntington. Cost, $16,700.

1881 Second Academic Hall (renamed Schurz Hall, 191 5).

Built to replace the first, destroyed by fire in 1879.
Cost, $38,650.

1882 Marshall Hall. Named in honor of General J. F. B.

Marshall. Contains Museum and offices. Cost,
$10,650.
1882 Stone Memorial Building, a boys' dormitory. Gift of
Mrs. Valeria Stone, of Massachusetts, in memory of
her husband, Samuel Stone. Original cost, $27,-
600; with additions, $43,400.

1882 Winona Lodge, for Indian girls. Cost $30,500.

1883 Pierce Hall. Gift of Moses Pierce of Norwich, Conn.

Original cost, as Pierce Machine Shop, $6000; with
reconstruction for dormitory, $12,200.

353

APPENDIX FOUR

1884 Gymnasium. Cost of original building, $7000. Torn
down in 1903 and its materials used in the construction
of the present Gymnasium. Cost, $14,400; with
addition (191 1) $21,400.

1884 Girls' Cottage. Original cost, $15,400; with improve-
ments, $16,900.

1884 Laundry. Original cost, $8050; with additions, $20,000.

1886 King's Chapel Hospital for boys. Gift of members of
King's Chapel, Boston. In memory of Mary Foote.
Original cost, $3700; with additions, $4700.

1886 Memorial Church. Gift of the Frederick D. Marquand
Estate, through Elbert B. Monroe, President of the
Board of Trustees, and Mrs. Monroe. Cost, $65,000.

1887^ Whittier School Building. Gift of Mr. and Mrs.
McWilliams of Brooklyn ; named for John G. Whittier.
Replaced Butler School. Cost, $16,700.

1888 Holly Tree Inn. Original cost, $1900; with additions,
$19,300.

1890 Science Building. Gift of Northern friends. Cost,
$22,000.

1890 Whittier School Building. Destroyed by fire March i ; re-
opened November 24. Cost, with additions, $31,470.

1890 Treasury Building. Contains Treasurer's Office and school
guest-rooms. Gift of Elbert B. Monroe. Cost, $7550.

1894 Abby May Home. Gift of Northern friends of Miss
Abby May, through Miss Emily Austin. Opened for
domestic-science classes. Cost, $6150.

1896 Armstrong-Slater Memorial Trade-School. Part of
cost defrayed by Morris K. Jesup of New York.
Original cost, $44,600; with second story (191 2) and
other additions, $114,500.

1898 Domestic-Science Building. Houses Agricultural De-
partment and domestic-science and arts classes. Cost,
$50,000.

354

APPENDIX FOUR

1901 Cleveland Hall. Addition to Virginia Hall, containing
Chapel and dormitories. Built in memory of Charles
Dexter Cleveland of Philadelphia. Cost, $59,450,
partly defrayed by some of his former pupils.

1903 Peabody Dairy Barn at Shellbanks. Gift of George

Foster Peabody of New York. Cost, $9500.

1904 Huntington Memorial Library. Gift of Mrs. Collis P.

Huntington, as a memorial to her husband, a former

trustee. Cost, $85,000.
1904 Shellbanks Dormitory and School Building. Cost,

$28,150.
1904 Floral Greenhouses (2). Original cost, $9700; with

additions, $12,320.
1904 Huntington Hall, boys* dormitory. Reconstruction of

part of the Huntington Industrial Works. Cost,

$13,700.
1904 Students' Kitchen. Cost, $20,000.

1906 Whipple Farm Horse and Dairy Barn. Cost, $32,440.

1907 Carnegie Stock Barn at Shellbanks. 1907, Rear Wing,

$11,000; 1913-14, Main Building, $17,700.

191 3 Clarke Hall, for the activities of Y. M. C. A. Gift of

Mrs. Delia S. Clarke, of New York, in memory of her
husband, Charles Spears Clarke. Cost, $27,600.

1914 James Hall, a boys' dormitory. Gift of Mrs. D. Willis

James in memory of her husband. Cost, $90,600.

1918 Palmer Hall. In memory of General William Jackson
Palmer. Cost (estimated), $65,000. Palmer and
Marshall Halls form the Administration Building.

191 8 Robert C. Ogden Auditorium. Memorial to Robert
Curtis Ogden, for many years President of the Board
of Trustees. Cost (estimated), $200,000.

191 8 John S. Kennedy Dormitories (2) for Girls (one in pro-
cess of construction). Gift of Mrs. Kennedy.
Cost (original estimate), $100,000.

355

APPENDIX FIVE

GIFTS FOR, AND

(Early years, 1868 to 1873, incomplete)

Fixed Equip-

Year

Buildings

Land

ment AND Unre-
stricted

Totals

1868-73

$28,500.00

$ 28,500.00

1874

$ 20,966.72

—

20,966.72,

1875

30,381.56

—

30,381.56

1876

2,17597

—

2,175-97

1877

6,708.11

—

6,708.11

1878

2,500.00

—

2,500.00

1879

14,132.92

5,000.00

—

19,132.92

1880

13,658.00

1,000.00

—

14,658.00

1881

62,733-75

4,000.00

—

66,733.75

1882

23,233-97

1,564.64

$16,295.00

41,093.61

1883

29,407.21

2,500.00

— -

31,907.21

1884

6,897.33

—

6,897.33

188s

13,109.67

—

800.00

13,909-67

1886

69,858.60

—

2,100.00

71,958.60

1887

—

14,195.00

1888

15,157-55

—

8,700.00

23,857-SS

1889

4,638.00

—

4,638.00

1890

9,489.56

—

5,651-83

15,141.39

1891

28,084.78

—

28,084.78

1892

732.65

—

732.65

1893

5,493-93

—

325-00

5,818.93

1894

25,742.50

1,500.00

2,596.87

29,839-37

189s

5,000.00

—

225.50

5,225-50

1896

16,039.50

—

16,039.50

1897

46,272.03

—

46,272.03

1898

73,462.00

—

73,462.00

1899

21,309.60

15,150.00

—

36,459.60

1900

15,996.48

—

15,996.48

1901

21,550.00

—

500.00

22,050.00

1902

2,030.00

—

10,000.00

12,030.00

1903

36,150.00

—

2,250.00

38,400.00

1904

120,000.00

—

21,000.00

141,000.00

1 90s

21,500.00

—

18,000.00

39,500.00

1906

18,000.00

—

1,143.04

19,14304

1907

50,500.00

—

50,500.00

1908

12,500.00

—

18,500.00

31,000.00

1909

3,900.00

—

17,000.00

20,900.00

1910

3,000.00

—

7,000.00

10,000.00

1911

35,562.42

—

35,562.42

1912

—

2,500.00

21,000.00

23,500.00

1913

25,000.00

—

18,500.00

43,500.00

1914

25,000.00

—

16,000.00

41,000.00

1915

30,000.00

—

16,000.00

46,000.00

1916

50,000.00

—

16,200.00

66,200.00

1917

140,000.00

500.00

16,200.00

156,700.00

$1,157,874-81

$62,214.64

$250,182.24

$1,470,271.69

Note
excess

■E : Deficiency of income for fjermanent improvements and land provided from
of income for current expenses, sale of land, etc.

APPENDIX FIVE

COST OF PLANT

(Early years, 1868 to 1871, incomplete)

Year

Buildings

Land and
Land Imwiove-

UENTS

Fixed Equip-

HENT

Totals

1868-71

$ 56,620.01

$ 19,000.00

—

$ 75,620.01

1872

—

1873

14,924.94

10,710.00

—

25,634.94

1874

48,951-84

—

48,951-84

187s

24,156.65

—

24,156.65

1876

1 1,407 07

3,587-49

— •

14,994.56

J877

7,570.01

1,133-30

—

8,703-31

1878

8,095-78

$ 1,120.23

9,216.01

1879

21,277.91

5,176.90

91-75

26,546.56

1880

16,455.18

1,000.00

2,150.73

19,605.91

1881

58,434-83

4,000.00

6,435-47

68,870.30

1882

54.329-15

1,000.00

12,146.33

67,475-48

X883

19.431-79

2,500.00

55456

22,486.3s

1884

18,534.26

1,463-36

19,997-62

1885

20,370.05

1.397-36

555-28

22,322.69

1886

76,434.96

345-39

1,902.90

78,683.2s

1887

6,006.72

—

21,419.05

27.425-77

x888

17.232.37

465-00

.8,660.25

26,357.62

1889

13.297-85

—

5.570.36

18,868.21

1890

16,097-93

—

1,562.66

17,660.59

1891

17,846.20

— ■

5.787-30

23,633-50

1893

6,030.91

1,915.00

4,699.32

12.645-23

1893

6,079.17

—

5,59916

11.678-33

1894

2,415.76

2,000.00

2,606.04

7.021.80

189s

250.00

2,000.00

5,102.41

7.352-41

1896

757-43

350.00

3,398.31

4.505-74

1897

50,93 1 19

I.43S-I6

6,144.41

58,510.76

1898

53.561-58

300.00

15,219.78

69,081.36

1899

7,621.37

13,450.00

6,584.14

27.655-51

1900

46,607.13

2,500.00

1,794.69

50,901.82

1901

28,808.25

3.75S-00

1,128.29

33,691.54

1902

3.049-78

1,000.00

3,430.52

7,480.30

1903

34,950.22

1,000.00

19,746.72

55,696.94

1904

139,102.59

—

42,750.07

181,852.66

190s

49,816.24

—

33,863.92

83,680.16

1906

57,061.83

1,650.00

9,242.66

67.954-49

1907

40,928.61

13.857-50

3,657-37

58,443.48

1908

23,378.08

19,991.88

1,498.34

44,868.30

1909

21,859.80

1,750.00

2,37342

25,983.22

19 10

49.332.84

—

1,411.40

50,744-24

Z911

36,051.63

875-89

1,948.79

38,876.31

1912

32,723.03

15,800.00

31,265.62

79.788.65

1913

31.S42-10

1,948.48

11,237.80

44,728.38

1914

26,705-39

14,036.60

2,943-91

43,685.90

191S

43,192-56

2,119.77

4.043-79

49.356.12

1916

53,928.44

3,89504

12,128.69

69,952.17

1917

150,911.30

36,573-70

34,189.19

221,674.19

Totals

$1,525,072.73

$192,519.46

$337,428.99

$2,055,021.18

357

APPENDIX SIX

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358

APPENDIX SIX

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359

APPENDIX

SEVEN

INCREASE OF ENDOWMENT BY YEARS

Year Annual Additions

1872-76

^52.369.37

1891

t> 3,153-75

1906

t> 98,325.3s

1877

8,025.00

1892

148,524.26

1907

89,468.24

1878

5,425-00

1893

21,641.25

1908

182,245.36

1879

2,000.00

1894

11,583.80.

1909

103,380.99

1880

2,020.00

1895

44,865.9s

1910

469,970.36

1881

3,057.00

1896

35,492.91

1911

I28,i8«.88

1882

2,325.00

1897

40,649.83

1912

160,599.66

1883

16,629.16

1898

208,132.18

1913

72,159.69

1884

4,603.25

1899

18,041.13

1914

63,337-17

1885

3,505-19

1900

163,189.24

1915

122,821.46

1886

9,810.90

1901

38,045.73

1916

46,576.10

1887

36,182.75

1902

127,685.00

1917

196,586.41

1888

11,987.90

1903

77,273.38

1889

24,639-57

1904

57,409.41

Total

$3,064,092.30

1890

11,736.03

1905

140,428.69

SUMMARY OF ENDOWMENT FUNDS

June 30, 1917

General Endowment $2,515,495.42

Permanent Scholarship Funds (see pages 380-381) . . 315,203.38

The Carl Schurz Endowment Fund 15,000.00

The Andrew Memorial Endowment Fund .... 45,000.00

The Bishop McVickar Fund 11,220.00

The Morris K. Jesup Fund 25,000.00

The Russell Sage Fund 25,000.00

Anonymous Io,ooo.oo

The Phelps-Stokes Fund 2,000.00

The Charles D. Presho Fund 4,862.67

The Library Endowment Fund 1,200.00

360

APPENDIX SEVEN

The Julia P. Marquand Fund $11,000.00

The Robert R. Proudfit Fund 25.00

The George Law Fund 5,000.00

The J. S. W. Fund 1,000.00

The Eli Whitney Blake Museum Endowment Fund . 5,000.00

The Edna Dow Cheney Fund 6,685.83

The Isaphene Hillhouse Fund 5,000.00

The Alexander Moss White Fund 50,000.00

The William W. Smith Fund 5,000.00

The Moses Kimball Fund 5,000.00

The Harriet Rose Lee Fund 400.00

$3,064,092.30

The Retirement Fund $23,531.94

361

APPENDIX

EIGHT

CHART SHOWING INCREASE IN ENDOWMENT

4000,000

3300.000

31000.000

^ 2J500.000
o
^.^000, 000

i 1.500.000

1000.000

S00.0O0

'& 71 7i 75 '77 73 '«l '63 '85 O 'SS 'SI '« "as 97 "99 "01 K» "OS W '03 '11 'O "K l9lT
YEARS

Increase in Endowment

362

APPENDIX NINE

s
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363

APPENDIX TEN

CHANGES IN CURRICULUM

1869 Entrance requirements — "Sound health, good

character, age not less than fourteen or over
twenty-five, ability to read well and write in-
telligibly ; knowledge of arithmetic through long
division ; intention to remain through the whole
course of three years, and to become a teacher."

1870 The catalogue for 1870 gives the course of study

as follows : —
Junior Class
Mathematics

Arithmetic, long division to percentage
Language

Spelling, reading, English grammar, sentence-
making
Natural Science

Geography, natural history

Middle Class , ,

Mathematics

Arithmetic completed, bookkeeping
Language

Spelling, reading, English grammar with
analysis of sentences
Natural Science

Physical geography, natural philosophy, out-
lines of astronomy
History

History of United States

364

APPENDIX TEN

Senior Class
Mathematics

Algebra, geometry
Language

Spelling, reading, rhetoric, composition
Natural Science

Physiology, botany
History

, I" Universal history ; History of England

Civil Government
Moral Sciences
In addition to the above course, "instruction is
given in mental arithmetic and penmanship,
practical instruction in agriculture, in housework
and in household industries, and drill in teaching
through the course; a course of lectures every
winter upon the application of science to agri-
culture, daily inspection of rooms."

1875-76 Girls of the Middle Class sent by eights to the
several housekeepers on the place Saturday
mornings to be instructed in bread-making and
plain cooking.
At the close of the term a Teachers' Institute held.
This marks the beginning of Hampton's Sum-
mer Schools.

1878-79 Daily lessons in the art of teaching given at the
Butler School.

1879-80 A night school started for preparatory students
who work ten hours a day on the farm and in
the saw-mill. Booker T. Washington put in
charge.

1880 Cooking classes for girls established under a

special teacher.

1881-82 Girls first admitted to night school.

365

APPENDIX TEN

1883 Each Senior required to teach one half-day every

two weeks at the Butler School.

1889 Instruction in vocal music introduced.

1890 Second Morrill Act passed by Congress. With the

increased income resulting, an instructor in
scientific agriculture engaged, beginning work
January 1891.
1890-91 Intermediate class formed as connecting link
between Preparatory Class of Night School and
Junior Class of Day School.

1892 Each Senior spends month at the Whittier School.

Instruction in mechanical drawing in connection
with trade-work introduced.

1893 Up to this time Night School, the Indian Depart-

ment, and Day School had all been independent
departments with separate teachers. From this
time on teachers were engaged to teach in any
one or more departments as need might dictate.
Instruction in physical training for girls intro-
duced.
1893-94 The catalogue announces special courses : —

1. An advanced Normal Course for graduates

and others of similar standing.

2. One or two years' teaching at Whittier School.

3. Kindergarten Training School.

4. Gymnastic Training Course.

Industrial work is now divided into three classes :

1. Technical training, including housework and

manual training.

2. Trades ;

Girls : Tailoring, shirtmaking, dressmaking,

or the seamstress trade.
Boys : Agriculture, blacksmithing, carpen-
try, harnessmaking, painting, print-
366

APPENDIX TEN

ing, planing-machine work, shoe-
making, tailoring, wheelwrighting,
or woodworking.
3. Those industries which have self-support for
their chief object.

1895 Trade certificates given for the first time on the

satisfactory completion of three years' work.
Definite courses laid down for shop work.
Entrance requirements to the Day School increased

so as to include fractions and decimals.

1896 Armstrong-Slater Memorial Trade-School opened.

Last trade to be incorporated with the Trade-
School was printing, in 1914.

1896-97 Entrance requirements to Night School made the
same as for Day School with the addition of
liquid, dry, long, and avoirdupois measure.

1897-98 Normal Course of two years after the completion
of regular three-year Academic Course estab-
lished.

1898-99 Business Course offered to graduates.

1900-01 Entrance requirements for the Machine Shop,
Printing, and Dressmaking increased.

1901-02 Graduate courses offered in Teaching, Agriculture,
Electricity, and Domestic-Science.

1904-05 Academic Course lengthened by the addition of
one year. School year eight months long, and
the school week four days, one day being allowed
as a "work day" on which the student may work
for wages.
Three-year course in Agriculture, parallel with the
trade-courses established.

1905 Courses of instruction in the Day School and Night

School arranged in parallel lines so as to facilitate
transfer from one to the other.

367

APPENDIX TEN

1905-06 All girls of Senior Class, and such Senior boys as
may so elect, spend the entire day five days a
week for one-half year in the Whittier Training
School as pupil-teachers.

1908 The minimum requirements for admission to any

trade are the completion of half the work of the
Junior Year.

1909 The minimum requirements for admission to the

course in Agriculture made the same as for the
Trade-School.

191 2 The Business Course changed from a post-graduate

course to a four-year undergraduate course.

1913 Hereafter a diploma will be granted to no one who

has not completed a course in some skilled voca-
tion and is thereby made capable of self-support.
All regular courses for boys entering the school in
191 3 or thereafter — Agriculture, Trades, Teach-
ing, Business — put on a four-year secondary
basis. All not ready for secondary work (begin-
ning with what has been the Junior Middle Class)
regarded as in a preparatory department.
Academic subjects now form an integral part
of every industrial course and for the first time
labor on the farm or in the shop counts towards
a diploma.

1914 The four-year plan established one year before for

boys entering in 1913 or thereafter now applied
to girls. The first class of boys to graduate under
this new plan will receive their diplomas in
191 8; of girls in 1920.

191 5 The school week for academic classes lengthened

to five days for boys and to four and a half
days for girls. The class period also lengthened
from forty to fifty minutes. One Night-School
368

APPENDIX TEN

recitation period transferred to seven o'clock in
the morning and Night School closed at 8 : 30,
after which evening prayers are held.
The increase in class time for boys in the Academic
Normal Course, as compared with 1903-04,
amounts to 150 per cent; for girls, to about 130
per cent.
1916 Hampton Institute placed on the list of approved

four-year secondary schools by the Department
of Public Instruction of Virginia.

369

APPENDIX ELEVEN

LIBRARY CHRONOLOGY

1870-71 Appeal for library in catalogue.

1871-72 Donations of books, etc., acknowledged.

1873 Catalogue printed, listing 1275 vols.

1879 Library burned in Academic Hall on November 9.

Kitchen of General Armstrong's house fitted up

for use as a reading-room.

1881 Librarian reports: "Library contains 900 volumes,

about 25 per cent of which are useful to the
students."

1882 Marshall Hall built and upper floor used for the

Library.

1883 2600 vols, reported.
1888 5500 vols, reported.

1892 Printed finding-list issued.

1902-03 Collis P. Huntington Memorial Library given by
Mrs, Huntington.

1903 Library dedicated April 28.

1904 Library opened January i. About 15,000 vols.

moved into it.

January IQ18

Volumes in Library 45*670

Uncatalogued pamphlets 10,000

Pictures mounted for exhibition and circulation . . . 20,000

370

APPENDIX ELEVEN

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371

APPENDIX TWELVE

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14 ■% 98 TO TK 04 106 08 -10 12 '14 16

Enrollment of Negro and Indian Students.
Indian Graduates

Number of Negro and

372

APPENDIX TWELVE

TTie disproportion between the growth of enrollment and the
number of graduates, shown in the accompanying chart, is due
chiefly to three causes : —

1. In the early days of the Hampton School there was a
well-defined course of three years, and the ratio of graduates to
the number enrolled was relatively high. Later, the admission
of preparatory students virtually lengthened the course to four
or five years. About half the school was of elementary grade
and the mortality in the lower half comparatively high.

2. After the trades became well established large numbers of
boys came for trades only and left without graduating as soon
as these were obtained.

3. At one period in the school's history students were obliged
to go out to teach for a year before taking the work of the
Senior year. Many did not return to graduate.

373

APPENDIX THIRTEEN

APPENDIX FOURTEEN

K> »0 (Vi

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377

APPENDIX FIFTEEN

lllii

1 1 III II r
iiiiiiiiii

y si

378

APPENDIX

SIXTEEN

PERMANENT SCHOLARSHIPS

(Included in Endowment)

Auotrm Nake of scholarship

; 1,500 Ann Aitken
1,000 All Souls

1,000 Ames

2,000 Elizabeth Mitchell Ames Me-

morial

2,000 Armstrong League of Hampton
Workers

1,500 Armstrong Memorial

3,000 S. C. and Emma W. Armstrong

25,000 Charlotte Augusta Astor Schol-

arships

1,500 J. J. Astor
600 Mary E. Atkins

6,000 Baker Scholarships

2,000 • E. I. Baldwin

2,500 In memory of Mrs. Jeanette

Sterling Baldwin

800 Francis B. Banister Permanent

Industrial Scholarship
800 Mrs. William B. Banister Per-
manent Industrial Scholar-
ship

1,000 Beadle

1,000 Benedict

1,500 Frederick Billings

3/xx> Bishop

2,000 Francis C. Briggs Permanent
Academic Scholarship

1,000 Brown

S,ooo George E. Brown Scholarship
Fund

1,000 John Carter Brown Memorial

800 Mrs. Lucy A. Buhler Memorial

1,500 Elizabeth Lyman Bullard

DONOft

Estate of Ann Aitken
Members of All Souls Church,

New York City
Oliver Ames
Hampton Club of Springfield,

Mass.
Armstrong League of Hampton

Workers
Hampton Alumni Association
Mary A. Longstreth
Estate of Charlotte Augusta

Astor
Mrs. J. J. Astor
Mrs. William H. Reed
Estate of E. J. W. Baker
Mrs. E. I. Baldwin
Mrs. J. H. Woods, in memory

of her mother
Estate of Francis C. Briggs

Estate of Francis C. Briggs

J. B. Beadle
Aaron Benedict
Miss Eliza Billings
Hon. Charles R. Bishop
Estate of Francis C. Briggs

James Brown

Bequest of Louisa J. Brown

Mrs. Sophia Augusta Brown
Miss Lucy A. Kutz
Ladies of King's Chapel, Boston,
Mass.

379

APPENDIX SIXTEEN

Amount

Name of scholarship

$i,ooo

Butler

5,000

Margaret Carnegie Scholarship

Fund

1,000

Carter

1,000

Centennial

1,000

Center Church

1,000

Center Church

1,000

Cheever

2,000

Coburn

1,500

Eliza C. Collins

1,000

Collord Fund

1,000

Cone

5,000

Frederick Crane Scholarships

1,500

James S. Darling

800

James Davenport

2,000

Denison

1,000

De Wolf

1,000

Dickinson

2,500

Mrs. Melissa P. Dodge

4,500

William E. Dodge

2,000

John Dwight

1.750

Charles A. Easton

1,000

Eldredge

1,000

Ely

2,000

Anna R. Faulkner Memorial

1,500

Mrs. James R. Faulkner

1,000

George A. Field Scholarship

1,000

Fletcher Memorial

2,000

The Rev. Henry Wilder Foote

800

Henry Wilder Foote Industrial

Scholarship

2,500

The Rosamond Freeman Schol-

arship

1,500

"Friend"

1,000

"A Friend in Newark," N. J.

3,500

The Gibbons Association Schol-

arships

1,500

Sarah E. Gilbert

10,000

Goodnow

1,000

Goodnow Memorial

1,500

Julia F. Gould

1,000

Graves

1,000

William H. GriflSn Scholarship

DONOK

Nathan Butler

Miss Margaret Carnegie

Mrs. R. W. Carter

Miss S. B. Brown

Members of Center Congrega-
tional Church, Hartford,
Conn.

Members of Center Church,
New Haven, Conn.

Mrs. Ichabod Washburn

Mrs. George W. Coburn

Miss M. A. Collins

Estate of George W. Collord

Joseph E. Cone

Frederick Crane

F. W. Darling and Estate of
James S. Darling

Anonymous

Rev. and Mrs. John H. Denison

Mrs. M. DeW. Rogers and
Miss C. De Wolf

Mrs. M. A. Dickinson

Mrs. Melissa P. Dodge

Estate of William E. Dodge ^

John Dwight

Mrs. Edward Fuller

John B. Eldredge

R. S. Ely

Anonymous

The Misses Faulkner

Bequest of George A. Field

Estate of Mrs. Fletcher

A Member of King's Chapel,
Boston, Mass.

Mrs. Shepherd Brooks

Mrs. James G. Freeman

Anonymous
Anonymous
Former Pupils and Friends of

Julia F. Gibbons
Sarah E. Gilbert
Estate of Edward A. Goodnow
Edward A. Goodnow
Estate of Julia F. Gould
R. R. Graves
Bequest of William H. GriflSn

380

APPENDIX SIXTEEN

AMOUNT Name of scholakship

$1,500 Stephen R. Griggs Memorial
1,000 Grover
800 Sarah W. Hale Permanent In-

dustrial Scholarship
3,500 Hampton Club

1,500 Maria M. Hastings
1,000 Henry P. Haven

1,000 Isaac P. Hazard
3,000 Mrs. JuHa F. Hickok

800 H. J. H.

800 Walter Clarke Hogan
1,000 Hooper

800 Hope Industrial Scholarship in

memory of Ellen Hope
Rankin
1,000 Hopkins

1,000 Herman John Huidekoper In-
dustrial Scholarship
800 Margaret Noyes Hutchins In-

dustrial Scholarship

1,000 Alexander Hyde

1,800 Laura Jacobi

1,000 Kellogg

1,200 John S. Kennedy

2,000 Cornelia A. Kenney Scholar-
ship Fund

1,500 Marmaduke C. Kimber Me-

morial

1,000 King's Chapel

1,000 William Kittredge

1,000 Ladies' Sanitary Commission

Society of Boston, Mass.

1,500 Elizabeth W. Lewis Memorial

1,500 William Life

1,000 Longstreth

1,500 Mary Anna Longstreth

1,000 Rebecca Amory Lowell

1,500 C. C. Lyman

1,000 Marquand

800 Mary N. Mead

1,000 Frederick Marquand Monroe

500 William Taylor McGilbry In-
dustrial Scholarship

DONOK

Miss Helen M. Griggs

W. P. Grover

Estate of Francis C. Briggs

Hampton Club, Springfield,

Mass.
Maria M. Hastings
Trust Estate of H. P. Haven
Isaac P. Hazard
Estate of Mrs. Julia F, Hickok
"A Friend"
Charles M. Hogan
Alice S. Hooper
Mrs. Orville J. Bliss

Parishioners of Rev. H. Hop-
kins, Westfield, Mass.
Mrs. Henry P. Kidder

Mrs. Henry D. Noyes

William Hyde

Pupils, Alumnae, and Teachers
of Miss Laura Jacobi's School
The Misses E. and N. Kellogg
John S. Kennedy
Asa W. Kenney

Mr. and Mrs. A. M. Kimber

Members of King's Chapel,

Boston, Mass.
Estate of William Kittredge
Miss Abby W. May, Treasurer

"Friends"

Mrs. S. J. Life

Mary Anna Longstreth

The Mary Longstreth Alumnae

Association, Philadelphia
Anna C. Lowell
C. C. Lyman
Frederick Marquand
William Rutherford Mead and

Mrs. Olga K. Mead
Frederick Marquand
A. E. Crawford

381

APPENDIX SIXTEEN

Amount

Name ot scholarship

^0,000

Robert C. Ogden Scholarship

Fund

I.CXX)

Osgood

I, OCX)

Lydia Lyman Paine Industrial

Scholarship

1,000

Robert Treat Paine Memorial

1,000

Porter

1,000

Potter

1,500

Anna M. Powers

600

Thomas H. Powers Memorial

1,800

Oliver Prescott Permanent Aca-

demic Scholarship

8co

Louisa M. Richards

1,500

Hannah W. Richardson

1,000

Richmond

800

In memoriam Mercy E. Russell

1,000

Sage

1,000

Carl Schurz

10,684.45

Mary C. and Mary Shannon

Fund for Free Scholarships

12,000

Col. Robert Gould Shaw

Scholarship Fund

1,500

Mrs. M. A. Shurtleff

1,500

Samuel G. Simpkins

1,000

Skinner Memorial

4.493-93

W. Smead Memorial Scholar-

ships

1,000

Elizur Smith

1,000

Wellington Smith

1,500

George L. Stearns Memorial

1,225

Mary E. Stearns

1,000

Steere Memorial

1,000

Lewis French Sterns Industrial

Scholarship

2,000

Mr. and Mrs. Isidor Straus

Memorial Scholarship

2,OCO

The Thankful Scholarship

1,000

Thompson

1,000

J. P. Thompson

800

Cornelia Wakeman Tompkins

1,000

Trevor

2,000

Mary C. Wakeman Academic

Scholarship

Donor

Brooklyn Armstrong Associa-
tion, Brooklyn, N. Y.

Trustees of Lucy Osgood be-
quests

Robert Treat Paine 2d

Miss Ethel L. Paine

Parishioners and Friends of
Rev. Dr. Porter of Farming-
ton, Conn.

Howard Potter

Mrs. J. Campbell Harris

Helen P. Stetson, Oliver Pres-
cott, Jr., and Mary R. Pres-
cott

Miss Alice A. Richards

Hannah W. Richardson

Mrs. Anna Richmond

Mrs. C. K. Russell

Legacy of Orrin Sage

Carl L. Schurz and sisters

Bequest of Mary Shannon

Mrs. Francis C. Barlow

Mrs. M. A. ShurtlefF
Estate of Samuel G. Simpkins
Mrs. Mary L. Skinner
Bequest of Delia Smead

Estate of Elizur Smith

Wellington Smith

Mrs. Mary E. Stearns

Estate of Mary E. Steams

H. J. Steere

Estate of Samuel Macauley

Jackson
Their sons

A Member of St. Peter's
Church, Philadelphia, Pa.

C. H. Thompson

Mrs. S. P. Maghee

Estate of Cornelia Wakeman
Tompkins

Mrs. J. B. Trevor

Mrs. Mary C. Wakeman

382

APPENDIX SIXTEEN

AllODlllT

Name of scbolasship

Donor

$3,000

Waldorf and Pauline

Mrs. J. J. Astor

1,900

Washburn

Mrs. Ichabod Washburn

1,500

The Wells Scholarship

Rev. and Mrs. C. L. Wells

800

Cornelius L. Wells

Mrs. Abby L. Wells

1,500

Byron Weston

2,000

White

James White

1,000

Whitin

Whitin Brothers

800

John J. Williams

John J. WiUiams

1,500

Mrs. Jane Winchester Memorial

Mrs. Thomas G. Bennett

1,000

Theodore Winthrop

Miss Jane Stuart Woolsey

600

Wister

Mrs. Sarah B. Wister

1,500

Harriet F. Wolcott

Bequest of Harriet F. Wolcott

1,500

Huntington Frothingham

cott
J. Huntington Wolcott

Wol-

Bequest of Harriet F. Wolcott

1,500

Estate of J. Huntington Wol-

4.750

Wood

cott
Estate of Frank Wood

700

Richard D. Wood

Miss Juliana Wood

1,500

Robert Williams Wood

Mrs. R. W. Wood

800

In memoriam Mrs.
Wright

Glen

Mrs. H. D. Noyes

$315,203.38

383

APPENDIX SEVENTEEN

HAMPTON ASSOCIATIONS

A brief record of existing associations, committees, clubs,
and leagues, organized for the purposes of raising funds for
Hampton Institute, and otherwise helping to carry on the
work of the school.

Bedford Armstrong Association.

The Bedford Armstrong Association of New York, organized
in 1896 by Mrs. George Wood and Miss Edith Armstrong, has
ever since, with loyal interest in Hampton's work, supported
an industrial scholarship. After the death of Miss Catherine
M. Bates, for many years Treasurer of the Association, Miss
Eloise P. Luquer took up the duties of Hampton correspondent
for the Association.

Boston Hampton Committee.

The Boston friends of Hampton Institute were from the very
first among the most generous and enthusiastic of the school's
supporters. In November 1891, immediately after General
Armstrong was stricken with paralysis, steps were taken by
Dr. Samuel Eliot and others among Boston's best-known citi-
zens, to send out an urgent appeal for funds. As the result
of an inspiring meeting held at the Old South Meeting House,
$6485 was contributed to the endowment fund of the school.
The next year the committee in charge of this movement
was known as the "Boston Armstrong Association." In
April 1893, a number of those most interested, under the

384

APPENDIX SEVENTEEN

leadership of Mrs. Stephen H. BuUard, organized the Ladies'
Hampton Committee, later called the Boston Hampton Com-
mittee. Before July i, $1640 had been sent to the school,
which amount has been gradually increased, until it now
averages over $11,000 annually. Officers: President^
Mrs. Dudley L. Pickman; Secretary, Mrs. James Means;
Treasurer, Miss Alice P. Tapley ; Asst. Treasurer, Mrs. William
B. Everett.

Brooklyn Armstrong Association.

The Brooklyn Armstrong Association was organized in the
spring of 1906, by a group of people interested in the Hampton
method of solving race problems- As in the case of the Boston
Hampton Committee, all the expenses of office work, involving
a mailing list of thousands of names, and careful accounting,
are generously given by men and women whose time and thought
are of great value. This makes it possible to send every dollar
contributed by members and their friends, direct to Hamp-
ton. During the eleven years of its existence, the Brooklyn
Association has raised the surprising amount of $78,598,
including $40,000 for permanent scholarships, thus greatly
easing the school's financial burden. Officers : President,
Alexander B. Trowbridge; Vice-Presidents, Mrs. Wm. Gilman
Low, Mrs. Charles W. Ide, George Foster Peabody, Walter H.
Crittenden ; Secretary, Henry Sherman Adams ; Treasurer, H.
Beale Spelman.

Hampton: Armstrong League of Hampton Workers.

The Armstrong League of Hampton Workers, as its name
implies, is an organization of the teachers and other workers
of the school, both past and present. It was formed in October
1893, under the leadership of Dr. Frissell, who was just entering
upon his long term of service as Principal. Aside from the
active work of the League in keeping alive the history and tradi-
tions of the school, and fostering esprit de corps among all

38s

APPENDIX SEVENTEEN

workers, old and new, it has contributed $3500 for the estab-
lishment of permanent scholarships, given $1000 to the Dixie
Hospital, $850 to the school for current expenses at a time
of special need, and established an Armstrong Memorial
Fund, the income of which is used to aid needy ex-workers
who are not eligible for the school pension. Officers : Presi-
dent, Frank K. Rogers; First Vice-President, Albert Howe;
Corresponding Secretary, Helen W, Ludlow ; Recording Secre-
tary, Emily "K. Herron ; Treasurer, Wm. H. Scoville.

Massachusetts Hampton Association.

The Massachusetts Hampton Association was organized in
the spring of 191 3 for the purpose of affiliating the various
groups already formed in the State, and starting new ones.
The Executive Committee was made up of representatives of
both the old and new branches, and under its efficient chairman
has rendered Hampton Institute great service in arranging for
meetings and maintaining enthusiasm, in addition to the do-
nations of several hundred dollars sent each year towards the
support of the school. Officers : President, W. Cameron
Forbes; Secretary, Miss Marion Homans; Treasurer, ]o\\v\ F.
Moors ; Chairman of Executive Committee, Prof. Henry Wilder
Foote.

National Hampton Association.

During the days of Hampton's Anniversary celebration in
April 1913, representatives of most of the clubs and associations
which were contributing to the support of the school, gathered
together in the Museum at Hampton, compared the work they
were doing, and organized the National Hampton Association
for the purpose of centralizing their efforts and thus making
possible more effective co-operation. The value of this move-
ment, which Mr. Sydney Dodd Frissell promoted with much
enthusiasm, can hardly be overestimated in simplifying the
campaign work of the school — always a necessary though diffi-
386

APPENDIX SEVENTEEN

cult task. Officers : President Alexander B. Trowbridge ;
Vice-President, Dr. Charles J. Hatfield ; Recording Secretary-
Treasurer, Harold Peabody; Executive Secretary, Sydney Dodd
Frissell,

New York Armstrong League.

The Armstrong League of New York City was formed in
1914 by a number of the younger friends of Hampton Institute,
who had visited the school, and wanted to do something defi-
nite to help on the work. In the four years of its existence
this League has contributed ten full scholarships to Hampton,
and helped in various other ways — a record of which it may
well be proud. Officers : President, Miss Katherine G.
Chapin ; Vice-Presidents, Miss Mary Jay SchiefFelin, F. Kings-
bury Bull ; Recording Secretary, Miss Mabel Hinton ; Corre-
sponding Secretary, Miss M. Louise Dixon ; Treasurer, Douglas
M. MofFat.

New York Hampton Association.

At the time of General Armstrong's illness in 1891 a com-
mittee of ladies in New York undertook to raise funds for the
school. The following year the New York Armstrong Associa-
tion was organized, and sent a considerable sum to Hampton.
The Association enlarged its membership, engaged a sec-
retary and maintained an office, which was made the head-
quarters for the New York campaign work by Dr. Frissell and
his associates. In 1914 the name was changed to The Hampton
Association of New York. The membership numbers about a
thousand and includes many of Hampton's most loyal and
liberal friends. The thousands of dollars which have been
sent to the school are only a part of the aid rendered, because
the great public meetings arranged by the Association have
called attention to the progress of the Negro and have main-
tained a sympathetic interest in Hampton Institute.
Officers: President, Wm. Jay Schieffelin; Vice-Presidents,

387

APPENDIX SEVENTEEN

Mrs. Arthur Curtiss James, Mrs. Alexander Purves, George
McAneny; Secretary y Miss Emily Bleecker; Treasurer^ A. S.
Frissell.

Orange Hampton Club.

The Orange Hampton Club, founded April 13, 1887, has
ever since delighted many of the Hampton graduates with
generous Christmas boxes sent to their pupils in remote
country districts. Two annual seventy-dollar scholarships
have enabled a number of the Hampton boys and girls to pre-
pare themselves for their life work. It speaks well for the
interest Hampton inspires that a club, with an active member-
ship of only thirty-five, should carry on its work for more
than thirty years, with unabated vigor. Officers : Pres-
ident, Mrs. Clarence H. Kelsey ; Vice-Presidents, Mrs. Wm. B.
Harris, Mrs. E. C. Merrill; Secretary, Miss Annie Taylor;
Treasurer, Mrs. Lorenzo Benedict.

Philadelphia Hampton Committee.

The extension work for Hampton in Philadelphia, Pa., has
had a rather intermittent existence, but throughout all these
years the Philadelphia friends have stood by Hampton most
loyally and have given the school their generous and sympa-
thetic support. As long ago as 1895, an Armstrong Associa-
tion was started in Philadelphia and, with the help of Mr.
Robert C. Ogden, arranged for the Hampton entertainments,
and collected funds for the school. In 1907 an organization
was formed to work for the Negroes of Philadelphia. At the
suggestion and wish of Dr. Frissell this was called "The
Armstrong Association of Philadelphia." This organization
is still conducting its work and is now affiliated with the National
League on Urban Conditions among Negroes. After 1907, for a
number of years meetings were arranged for Hampton by
friends of the Philadelphia Armstrong Association, but in 191 3,
the Philadelphia Hampton Committee was started in the same

388

APPENDIX SEVENTEEN

office, with a paid secretary. This plan has been abandoned
but the Hampton Committee and the interest of Philadelphia
friends still continue.

Springfield Hampton Club.

The oldest of all existing associations is the Springfield
Hampton Club of Massachusetts, organized in 1881. In 1883
it began sending two seventy-dollar scholarships to Hamp-
ton, which have been continued ever since. In addition,
hundreds of dollars have been contributed for special purposes
in times of need. Generous Christmas boxes, filled with useful
gifts of clothing and other material of practical value, have
gladdened the hearts of many Hampton boys and girls as well as
graduates in schools of their own. Without any appeals from
Hampton, interest has been kept up year after year. Officers :
President, Mrs. George W. Parsons; Fice-President, Mrs. Rob-
ert Barton ; Secretary, Mrs. Wm. H. Home ; Treasurer, Mrs.
L. Whitney Graves.

Taunton Hampton Association.

The Taunton Hampton Association of Massachusetts was
organized on January 25, 1900, and "The Harriet Beecher Stowe
Scholarship" established. This scholarship has been faithfully
supported ever since, and many additional contributions have
come to the school from enthusiastic and generous friends in
Taunton. Officers: President, Miss Flora L. Mason;
Vice-President, Mrs. Charles T. Hubbard ; Secretary, Mrs.
Herbert Fisher; Treasurer, Miss Edith Seibel.

Williamstown : Williams Armstrong League.

A more fitting place for an Armstrong League could hardly
be found than Williams College, General Armstrong's alma
mater. Since the League was established in 1914, $200 has
been sent to Hampton for scholarships, and notwithstanding
the heavy drain of war activities upon our young men, there is

389

APPENDIX SEVENTEEN

promise of more. Officers: President. P. R. Miller; Vice-
President, Russell Powers; Secretary, J. S. Alexander, Jr.

Worcester Hampton Committee.

In 1892-93, during General Armstrong's last illness, a com-
mittee of Hampton's friends in Worcester collected and for-
warded to the school, through Mr. S. S. Green, about $2000.
Although the donors of this amount did not continue their
organization, many of them kept up their gifts and their
interest in Hampton Institute. In January 1916, through the
suggestion of the Massachusetts Hampton Association, a new
branch was started, known as the Worcester Hampton Com-
mittee. Already $500 has been contributed towards the sup-
port of the school, and there is every reason to believe that these
Worcester friends of the Negro and Indian races will not allow
their interest in the work to lapse. Officers : Chairman, Mrs.
Leonard P. Kinnicut; Treasurer, Mrs. Leonard Wheeler; Mem-
bers, Mrs. Frank F. Dresser, Mrs. Ira N. HoUis, Mrs. Philip
W. Moen.

390

INDEX

Academic Hall, 109, 180

Amer. Miss. Ass'n.,41,93, 95, 96, 100,
121, 188, 216, 236, 28s

Armstrong, Clarissa C, 56

Armstrong, Richard, 55, 57

Armstrong, S. C. : comparison with
Frissell, xviii, 237, 304; parents, 55 ;
birth, 59; early life, 60, 64; at
Williams, 63 ; sketch by Denison,
64; recruiting officer, 68; war
letters, 69, 71, 76, 78, 79, 81, 82, 84;
Gettysburg, 70; bravery in battle,
72; promotions, 73, 75, 81, 83;
attitude toward Negro, 74, 77, 80;
officer colored troops, 75 ; vision
of Hampton, 89; officer Freedmen's
Bureau, 54, 91 ; principal Hampton
Inst., 93 ; refuses Howard presi-
dency, 97 ; marriage, 98 ; states
Hampton plan of education, 99,
108, 114; influence on students,
136; Sunday night talks, 137, 139;
wife's death, 144; building up Hamp-
ton, 134, 141, 179; visits reserva-
tions, 158, 196; revisits Hawaii,
180, 209; campaign trips, 109, 183,
211; restates principles of educa-
tion, 201-207; addresses, 198, 209
(Oahu College), 218, 220; degrees,
208 ; second marriage, 208 ; last
report, 215; illness, 212, 214;
death, 221; grave, 221; Memo-
randa, 223

Bacon, Alice M., 189
Bacon, Dr. Leonard, 102, 230
Bacon, Rebecca, 102

Banks, Gen. N. P., 40

Bay Shore Seaside Resort, 263

Beecher, Lyman, 228

Bethesda Chapel, 186, 237

Boston Hampton Committee, 214

Brooks, Phillips: Armstrong address,

212
Burlin, Natalie Curtis, 132
Butler, Gen. B. P., 18, 28, 29, 188
Butler School, 188
Buttrick, Dr. Wallace, 322

Calhoun School, 260
Carlisle School, 161, 165, 166
Chesapeake Hospital, 81
Co-education, 119, 135, 169
Conference for education in South,

297
Contrabands : origin of name, 28 ;

condition in 1861, 33 ; labor of,

30; Butler School, 188
Curry, Dr. J. L. M., xiii, 53, 253,

288, 292

Denison, J. H., 65
Dett, R. N., 133
DiUard, Dr. J. H., 290
DuBois, W. E. B., 52, S3

Eaton, Gen. John, 39, 48
Education, 1 14-123, 201-207, 217
Emancipation Oak, 38

Folsom, Cora M., 153
Franklin Institute, 262
Freedman's Aid Society, 285

INDEX

Freedmen's Bureau : development of,
43 ; investigations, 46 ; educa-
tional work, 49, 52, 53, 96, 286;
Armstrong as officer, 54, 91 ; dis-
continued, 47

Frissell, Amasa, 227, 229

Frissell, H. B: ancestors, 227; birth,
227; early life, 230; Phillips
Acad., 231; Yale, 231; Union
Seminary, 234; chaplain at Hamp-
ton, 187; comparison with Arm-
strong, xviii, 237, 304; marriage,
239; vice-principal, 209; princi-
pal, 239; character, xx, 232,
233-236, 240; work for South,
240, 291-299; tribute to Washing-
ton, 259; degrees, 272; death,
xviii

Frissell, Lavinia Barker, 229

Garfield, President, 95, 186

Garrison, William Lloyd, II

General Education Board, 298, 305

Gettysburg, 71

Gloucester School, 261

Graduates (Hampton), 142, 179, 192,

252-265, 268-272
Griggs, Mrs. Stephen, 96

Hampton : historical associations, 26,
32, 149; burning, 31

Hampton Institute: characteristics,
xii-xxi: historic site, 28, 32; pur-
chase of Wood Farm, 96; founder's
purpose, 99, 108; date of open-
ing? 99 > charter, 99; campaign
meetings, 109, 134, 183, 211 ; church
covenant, iii; plan of school,
99, 108, 1 14-122; formative years,
127; Hampton Singers, 132-134;
coming of Indians, 148-150, 150-
152; influence on Indian education,
167; outgrowths, 258-264; ex-
pansion, 178, 192, 242; meaning
of "education for life," 244-251,

311; influence in foreign lands,
265-270; Hampton spirit, 214,
252, 273-275 ; influence in South,
291-299, 303 ; future problems,
304-324; Roll of Honor in World
War, 319; Hampton an "open
door," 270-272

Hanus, Prof. Paul H., 306

Hayes, Pres., 156, 166

Haygood, Dr., 287, 292

Hemenway, Mrs, Augustus, no

Higginson, Col. T. W., 18, 24

Hilo Manual Labor School, 181

Hopkins, Archibald, 73, 93

Hopkins, Mark, 65, 95

Howard, Gen. O. O. : head Freed-
men's Bureau, 45, 91 ; character
and work, 47, 50

Howard University, 51, 97, 119, 300

Howe, Albert, loi, 109, 128

Hunter, Gen., 17

Hunter, Senator, 15

Indians: at Fort Sill, 146; at Fort
Marion, 147; Hampton Inst., 148,
150-156, 172; records returned
Indians, 161, 196; health, 164;
withdrawal Government aid, 167;
education, 167, 198; reservations,
145, 157, 159, 196-200

Industrial Home School, 265

Jeanes, Anna T., 294
Jeanes Fund, 295
Jesup, Morris K., 247
Jones, Dr. T. J., 261
Jones, William, 169

Lee, Col. Henry, 16

Letters: (S. C. Armstrong) Harper's
Ferry, 69; G.ettysburg, 71 ; Hilton
Head, 76; Petersburg, 79; Texas,
84; Hampton, 184, 200; Hawaii,
181

392

INDEX

Lincoln, President, 24; his attitude
toward slavery, 4; steps toward
emancipation, 5 ; conference with
Confederate Commissioners, 8

Ludlow, Helen W., 106, 113

Mackie, Charlotte L., 105

Mackie, Mary F., 105

Magruder, Gen., 31

Mallory, Col., 28

Marquand, Frederick D., 180, 188

Marshall, Gen. J. F. B., 104, 113, 148

Meharry College, 300

Memorial Church, 180

Missionary service, ideals of, 124, 183,

199, 252
Monroe, Elbert B., 180
Morrill Act, 113
Moton, R. R., 259, 314

Negroes : first landing in America,
32; condition at emancipation, 33 ;
loyalty, 12, 317; enlistment (Civil
War) 14, 17; record as soldiers,
(Civil War) 19-21 ; racial qualities,
13, 23, 31, 115; battle-hymn, 76;
education, 52, 1 14-123, 182, 201-
207, 216, 271, 283-295, 299-303,
308-310; migration, 314; progress,
315; in World War, 317-320

Negro Organization Society, 263

Negro spirituals, 76, 129-134

New York Armstrong Association, 215

Ogden, Robert C, 276-278, 296-298

Payne, Henry Clay, 108
Peabody, George Foster, 294, 298
Peabody Fund, 142, 292
Peake, Mrs. Mary, 38
Penn School, 39, 259
People's Building and Loan Ass'n, 263
People's Village School, Mt. Meigs,
Ala., 261

Phelps-Stokes Fund, 293

Pierce, Edward L., 39

Potter, Bishop, 134

Pratt, Gen. R. H., 147, 150, 152, 154,

167
Purves, Alexander, 278-281

Rain-in-the-Face : poems, 172
Reports (S. C. A.) (1870), 1 14-122;
(1878), 141 ; (1884), 201 ; (1893), 2IS
Rockefeller, John D., 297

St. Paul Industrial School, 260

Schurz, Carl, 46, 154, 160

Scott, Emmett J., 319

Shaw, Robert Gould, 21

Shaw Monument, 16

Slater Fund, 247, 293

Southern Education Board, 296

Southern Workman, 112

Strieby, Dr., 127

Summer Schools, 191, 254

Sunday-night talks (S. C. A.) 137, 139

Thessalonica Institute, 267

Tolman, Rev. Richard, iii

Trade School: evolution, 246; de-
velopment, 248; aim, 250; cor-
relation, 247

Tuskegee Institute, 193, 258

University Race Commission, 289

Virginia Hall : 127; "Sung Up," 134

Waldron, Dr. M. M., 106, 165

Washington, Booker T.: xiii, 52,
108, 192, 259, 323; examination,
106; tribute to Armstrong, 194

Whittier School, 188

Williams, W. T. B., 258

Wood Farm, 93, 96

Woolsey, Jane S., 103

393

THE COUNTRY LIFE PRESS
GARDEN CITY, N. Y.

UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA LIBRARY, LOS ANGELES

COLLEGE LIBRARY

This book is due on the last date stamped below.

NOV 2 4195^

Book Slip-35ni-7,'63(D863484)4280

LC 2851 H32P3

L 005 739 298 7

UC SOUTHERN REGCNAL UBRAfiY FACILITY

A 001 073 166 9

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Full text of "Education for life; the story of Hampton Institute, told in connection with the fiftieth anniversary of the foundation of the school"

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