i'AiyisanftuiutauaKa OR LIFE 7^e Stonj of Hampton Institute ^y FRANCIS G. PEABODY Pass Lt 2l.<^S"1 Boole . H^aT^ CDP5fRIGHT DEPOSIT. EDUCATION FOR LIFE THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE 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 - By Francis Greenwood Peabody Member of the Beard of Trustees 1^- Illustrated Garden City New York Doubleday, Page & Company 1918 co^ «^\ Copyright, 1918, by / DOUBLEDAY, PaGE & CoMPANY All rights reserved, including that of translation into foreign languages, including the Scandinavian m 2& ^sis )CI.A497523 •J THE PILOTS OF HAMPTON I 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. II With precious lives deep-laden, hastening home, Her canvas lifting and her bow a-foam. 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 or Virginia's shore. So, through her calms and storms, of ill and gooe^ 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 (1868-1872) V. The Years of Promise (1872-1878) VI. The Coming of the Indians (1878) VII. The Years of Fulfilment (1878-1890) VIII. The End of an Era (1890-1893) . IX. The Coming of Frissell (i 880-1 893) X. The Expansion of Hampton (1893-19 XL Hampton and the South . XII. Hampton and the Future Appendices Index 8) XI 3 26 55 95 127 14s 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 ^roup 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 ix LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS FACIRG PAGB 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 pubHcations of the school itself, have created an extensive and widely disseminated Hterature. 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. xi 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 hfe." 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 xtii 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 efficiency, 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, XV 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, 191 7. xviii INTRODUCTION dacity, were essential to begin such a work, and to in- spire confidence in it ; but when a great institution had been estabhshed and must be sustained and developed without mishap, then the time had come for a peculiar quahty 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 supphed 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 Hke 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 XX 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 XX 11 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 earhest 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, 1861, 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 estabhshed 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 accompHshed, 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 lUinois " ; 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 Hkely 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 abolishment 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. 1 102. 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. 6 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 tomyself 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 Hmits ; 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 responsibihty ; 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 7 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 believed 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 strife, and the probable wilHngness 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 $400,000,000 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 ihtents 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 10 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," 1 885-1 889, IV, p. 149. II 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 guardians 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' famihes. . . . 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. 12 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. cit., V, p. 560. 13 EDUCATION FOR LIFE claimed, took refuge from their sad lot within the Northern lines; 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 iS6i 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," 188S, p. 481. 14 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 famihes 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 they need but one vote, I should be glad to send my vote through the lines to help them out." The proposal was mdeed 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 t he Negro-enhstment bill: "If we are right in * Rhodes, "History of the Civil War," 1917, p. 417. IS 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 pubHc 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," enhsted 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. 17 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 efficiency 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 lo, 1863: "' It is impossible,' says General Dennis, * for men to show greater gallantry than the Negro troops in this fight. [Millilcen'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.' " 19 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. 20 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 enhsted at the North. He was, as his friend WiUiam James said, "a blue-eyed child of fortune, upon whose happy youth every divinity had smiled. . . . The grace of nature was united in him in the happiest way with a * Du Bois, " The Negro," 1915, p. 204. t S. C. Armstrong, in Southern iVorkman, Jan. 1884. 21 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. 22 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. 23 EDUCATION FOR LIFE . enough to make good soldiers might be willing 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 afi^ectionate 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; H, 398. t Op. cit., p. 248. 24 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. 25 CHAPTER TWO THE NEGRO AFTER THE CIVIL WAR (1805-1868) AS ONE passes f'rom the years oi' Civil War to tlie not less nionienrous period of National reconstruction^ he is iinpressed hv rhe hisroncal importance of that small area oi \'irginia which lies about the town oi' Hampton. Great events are associated with the names of Gettys- burg and Appomattox, but for an epitome of progress in those eventful \ears one may turn to the story o{ that peninsula which lies like a clenched hand thrust between the James and York rivers into the broad ex- panse oi' Chesapeake Bav. At its slender wrist are Jamestown, where American history began, and ^ ork- town, where it began anew ; and on its bent finger is set the massive ring oi Fortress Monroe. Onlv nine miles from the Fort, on June 10. iSOi, the Northern forces met one oi tlieir earliest and most disheartening disasters at Rig Bethel, in that ill-advised assault, of which even General Butler said: "Everything was utterly mismanaged." * In the roadstead before the Fort, on March q, iSo:. the battle between the Mrrri- mac and the Mor.itor revolutionized naval science; and "^ •' l^.itlcr's Book." 1S0-. p. 2j6. 26 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTI'iUTE 27 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. 28 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. 29 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 Hues 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 foices 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 Carolinas." * 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. 31 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. 32 TOWN OF HAMPTON AT THE BEGINNING OF THE CIVIL WAR . ^. : ■■ ,f- --^ammitu^h. I'ruui HurptTs ■' Piclurl:.! llistuiy of Uie Cireat ItubuUiuu. Copyright iS66, 1S94, 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 prevailing 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 fo r a long time, and it is no wonder that to them, * Southern Workman, Dec. 1886. 33 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 ^8 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 Ge7i''l Purposes. We don't zactly know who dat Gen'l is, but 'pears Hke 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 recalhng 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 deaf 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 JVorkman, 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 like 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 de 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- 35 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 hke 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. 36 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 37 EDUCATION FOR LIFE zackly know 'em up dat yer way, boss, but I done knows 'em all down dis yer way' — w^ith finger suiting action to the w^ord." * A more constructive contribution to missionary service was made by an educated and pious woman, Maiy 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 * Souikftn JForkman, 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. 39 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. 40 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 inejBBiciency 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 complicated 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. 41 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 estabhshed 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- rehance, 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. 1861. ^ Ibid., July 1S62. 42 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 Hkely 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," Congregationdist, Dec. 30, 1864. 43 EDUCATION FOR LIFE honest to steal"? AH these anticipations and appre- hensions were expressed with the same divergence of opinion which has again become famiHar when, under the strain of a greater war, an even greater expansion of cen- traHzed control became essential for efficiency. It was not until March 3, 1S65, 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 established, "to con- tinue during the present war of rebelHon, 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 44 iiih iii;iLhk scii(X;L Hnilr by fjcnf-ral Hurler for "Conrraband of War" A CONTRA HAND'S CAHIN Note the "VirKinia 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. 45 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: "Everv-where 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 Freedmen'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 of 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 appHcable to the dilatory procedures of peace than to the prompt and sweeping decisions of military necessity. A benevo- 47 FOl" CATION FOR 1 IFF ItMU despotism, liko .1 gcMun.il .u iUc lu\ul ot his .unn-, acts Nvitii the quK"knc\«^s ot a sm^lo will. On tlu^ other hand, a mihtarv system apphed to civil hte involves an inevitable loss of tree initiative and delegates its despot- ism to great numbers ot hastiK' selected subordinates. No ^.^hiet' could ha^■e been better chosen than Oeneral Howard. Speaking of him to the students of Hampton Institute in iSoo, General Armstrong sard: "\ou ought to knoNv that providential work tor \ our race which General Howard was brought mto the world to do." Manv of his assistants also were both competent and consecrated. "The trouble," wrote an observant m- vestii;ator, "arose from the fact that it is impossible tor the State Oonimissioner or his chiet deputies to personally know all or even one-half of the local agents. ... T need not add that the probabilities are that ont^half the aggregate number on duty at any given tinie are wholly unfit for their work." * It was, in short, as one of the most discerning of Southern commentatoi~s 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 " Fhe time will come," wrote General Eaton, one of the most ethcient of the assistant commissioners, "when the work ot the Freedmen's Bureau will be more justly estimated, and we shall discriminate between the immense service it t Edgar Gardner Murphy, ** Problems of the Present South,'* 1904, p. 361. 'J Hi- ::[()uv ()i- UAMKiON iNS'i n i;n-: pf-rforrnrfl :tn<\ tfifr indi vi^luiil elements of corrujjtirjn wfiif }i v.'itfifjijt rjfjij[jt 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, hut tfie machine was at tfie mercy of its enj^ineers, and could he 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 problerr) of promoting a 'juaht y (A character and capacity which shoiild be ready for applica- tion to- the emert^encies 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. Ihe'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 • "(jrant, Lincoln and the Freedmcn," I'y'-?. p- 241. 49 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 ?' 'Well,' I said, 'you know that churches and missionary societies have already started schools, but sometimes they do not pull together exactly. I beHeve 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. SO 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 13 12 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. 51 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 hrst 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- tabHshed 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 w^hich 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 *Jtlantic Monthly, Vol. 87, p. 361. t " Future of the American Negro," 1899, p. 25. 52 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, *0p. cit., p. 33O. 53 EDUCATION FOR LIFE which :nc next to he described, he had been led, across sea and land, through peace and war, following the dreams ol his youth and the visions of his maturity, until when the war closed he stood disheartened at the door oi the Freedmen's Bureau in W ashington, where he had already applied in vain for work to do. He had "saf in the President's waiting-room" proposing to ask for some appointment, but "his nature rose in revolt; he would not sir in that throng of political ofhce-seekers." He left tiie otHce, walked toward the station, but con- cluded to change his course and call at the othce o( 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 oi' contrabands down on the Virginia Peninsula, and cannot manage them. No one has had any success in keeping tiiem 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 Annstrong. 54 CHAFIER THREE rHK COMING OF ARMSTRONG 1 HE scene of this narrative abruptly shifts across a space of four thousand miles and a period of twenty-six years, and instead of the traj4ic desolation of war and tfje be- wddering confusion of reconstruction presents a picture of tropical loveliness and Christian piety. The Hawaiian Islands, twenty-f>ne 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. I he 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 55 EDUCATION FOR LIFE appointed by the Anionoati Board for Foreign Missions to sorve in the Hawaiian Islands. In September 1830, lie married Clarissa Chapman, the child of a typical New England family, bred on a farm in Massachusetts, accus- tomed to all forms oi housework, but cultivating a taste tor water-color painting, and training herself to be a school-teacher. Her brother Reuben, bred in the same early environment of simplicitv and discipline, became in iSoS Chief Justice of the Supreme Court of Massachu- setts and held that high ofhce until his death in 1S73. 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 iSu. Fheir voyage round Cape Horn was prolonged b\ storms and imperilled by mutiny; and withm a year after their arrival at Honolulu they were again despatched with their infant daughter on a further mission to the INIarquesas 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 HonoluUO in charge o{ the head chief, Hope, a typical savage, indescribably horrid in his appearance. The man lav down every night across and outside mother's house, so that no one could injure her ^^^thout 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 readmg 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- 57 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- S8 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 Wylie 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. >' 59 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 BIRIHPLACE OF HAMPTON'S FOUNDKR On the island of Maui, Hawaii MANSION HOUSE," HAMPTON INSTHUTE Principal's resuieiue 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 61 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 !" 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 life. . . . 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 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 i860 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 quahty 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 63 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. 65 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 affair 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 66 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, 67 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 mihtary 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 military 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 69 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 ort, in fact, so very anxious that he galloped off and left us with his generals. No paroles were signed bv us. We were paroled as a regiment, and even that parole was left incomplete." * Back from their first battle-held 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 whicli began amid the shouting and cheers o\ thousands oi' 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 w^as 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, iSo;, 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. Z43. 70 THE STORY OF I JAMISON INSTITUTE 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 Vv^as 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 71 EDUCATION FOR LIFE and batrlt^flngs flying. It was grand to vsee those lines going np, and I trembled for our cause. 1 telt no fear, though I never forgot that at any moment I might fall. Fhe responsibility and the lugh 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 held-pieces. . . . Keep this letter in the family," he adds in a postscript, **it is too egotistical to show." * Fhe Battle oi' Gettysburg, which had saved the North from invasion, had not less deflnitely saved Captain Arm- strong from the self-distrust and nervous tension which h.id been developed by inactivity. He had found himself, and still more conspicuously, he had been discovered by his men. Writing again in contidence to his mother, he saixl of his men: **At first for months they hated me; ... it was because I was strict and paid no respect to their unmilirary and unmanly humors. Rut Anally, 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 thev would * go to the devil ' for me." His fearlessness in rhe face of death, his daring leadership in attack, and the iudicious disposition of his men in battle, not only * l.Lullow Mss.. p. 551. TIfK S'lrjRY OF IfA.VTFrOX IN'S'iri UTF. marked him for promotion, but j^ave him confidence in those abrupt decisions and daring ventures which marked his later hfe. The regimental history of the One Hun- dred and 'Jwenty-Fifth New York, in its account of Pickett's repulse, remarked: "Distinct record should go into jreneral history of Captain Armstron^^'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 f^opkins in December 1862, he said : "I am a sort of Abolitionist, 73 EDUCATION FOR LIFE but I have not learned to love the Negro. I beheve 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 liberty. 74 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE 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. 7S EDUCATION FOR LIFE 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 thrilhng lyric, in which miHtarism 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 fF. 76 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE 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, than receive a dress parade of a regiment down here." His longing for action was satisfied in August 1864, 77 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 100 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 efl^orts 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 78 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 scores 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 79 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 80 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE 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" 81 EDUCATION FOR LIFE 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 82 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE 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 qn 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 15,000 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. 83 EDUCATION FOR LIFE Disturbances in Mexico appeared to demand the presence of American troops on the frontier, and a force which in- ckided 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 hnn 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 o( them. She drifted and thumped !?4 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE alonjy, however, towards the remains of an old steamer, the 'Nassau,' formerly wrecked in Banks's expedition, and whose enp;ine 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 1 1 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, ^5 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 "3. 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 86 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 87 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. 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. 89 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 Hke 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- 90 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 deHcate 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., p. 136. t Ludlow Mss., p. 523. 91 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 more 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-reliant, self-supporting course the hap- piest results might be anticipated." Thus, although he gave himself for tw^o years with loyal enthusiasm to the task of alleviating temporary conditions, he recognized it as palliative only ; and 92 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE though he wrote with entire sincerity: "I believe the continuance of the Bureau desirable," he foresaw that it was little 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 anticipatioo 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 sHm. 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 93 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 Hfe 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 hfe could be, brought him at last to the spot where the summer of his career was soon to bloom. 94 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." 95 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 IVIissionary 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, IVIrs. Stephen Griggs of New York, who had never visited the school, was moved to make, through the American IVIissionary 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. ciL, 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]. I 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 97 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- 98 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, employmg 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 99 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 appHcation to agriculture and the mechanic arts ; and for the carrying out of these purposes, the said Trustees may estabhsh 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 ojfficers 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 witli 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 1 02 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. 103 EDUCATION FOR LIFE 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. 104 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 I 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 effective advocate of the school, until in 1 891 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 : lOS 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-eff'acing 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." *T 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 Hterature. "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. *•»<< ^<-j 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 .f" — 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. 107 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 wiUing 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 a 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- 109 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 gives 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 INSTnUlt WAIEKFRO.M, 1868 HAMPTON INSllTUTE WATERFRONl, 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 1 871 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 invahd, 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 w^ll w4th 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 1 87 1, 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 brilliant 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. 112 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 indifference, 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 w^ithout the arena. I must be in it. . . . "3 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 impartiaHty 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 114 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 hfe; 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 soHdity 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 ii6 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 pf 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 117 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 Enghsh 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 119 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 WiUiams College on the celebration of the twelfth anni- versary of graduation in 1 874. *' 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 121 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 ^area of time and a disciplined 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 123 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 eff'orts 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 afi^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 124 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, lifting 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 I2S EDUCATION FOR LIFE 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 timehness, and in anticipations which after fifty years are but partially realized. 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 1871, 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." 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. 127 EDUCATION FOR LIFE 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 ability 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 ^ X 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 light. 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 129 EDUCATION FOR LIFE 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. 130 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE Thus it was that a wholly new type, both of words and music, sprang from their oppressed condition, and reached the attention of Northern Hsteners 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 131 EDUCATION FOR LIFE 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 132 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, Mnry, 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 MFE a half, giving about five luintlred 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 little direct profit ; though the visit of the Singers to one small town in Massachusetts produced an individual gift of ^10,000 to build Whitin Chapel in Virginia Hall. On lune 12, 187;, the cornerstone oi the new building, in large part "simg up," was laid, and Armstrong said of it : "As security for its completion we have our faith in our earnest efl'ort, in the people of this country, and in God.'* The security, whicli might appear to some financiers somew'hat 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 o{' industrial training — shoemaking, painting, carpentering, and blacksmithing, were undertaken in modest quarters in 1874, -^'""-^ prepared the way for a firnilv 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, "It I wait, General Armstrong will have another cornerstone ready !" 134 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE A system of military inspection, drill, and regulation was established in 1878, and an officer of tfie regular army detailed to direct it. "Jt 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 nearness, 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 different 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." 135 EDUCATION FOR LIFE 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 morahty conveyed by the magnetic words and conduct of Armstrong himself. Absent as he was so often compelled to 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 paternalism, 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 136 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE 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 137 EDUCATION FOR LIFE make the world for lazy people. . . . Go out from here to tight against sin. Fight the devil. Fight against badness, evil, and ignorance, disease, bad cooking. Help vour people in teaching, in care of the sick, in improving land, in making bettor homes. Do what you can do w^ell, 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 chmb 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 hvmg." 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- "" r.ilbot, op. <-;'/., pp. 190 ff. 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 believe 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 139 EDUCATION FOR LIFE 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 srnsr. I don't mmd 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 fountams 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 scliool," he wrote to a friend in 1SS3, "the deepest and most intense religious feeling I ever knew. We have in- stead o( 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 underttine. 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 oi^ 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 140 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE 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 141 EDUCATION FOR LIFE 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. 142 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE I know of but few worthless ones. I have observed in many a moral growth after graduation, the reaction of right Hfe 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 eflPort, 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 143 EDUCATION FOR LIFE 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 decHne, 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. 144 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 145 EDUCATION FOR LIFE and no farther.' . . . The utter destitution of timber, the steriHty of sandy soil, together with the coldness and dryness of the climate, furnish obstacles which not even Yankee enterprise is Hkely to brave. A beneficent Creator seems to have intended this dreary region as an asylum for the Indians." * This proposed line, however, betw^een 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 wnith an empire ; and an era of invasion, broken faith, and bloodshed ensued. "The only good Indian is a dead Indian," became the famihar 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 Centurj- of Dishonor," 1S86, p. Sj. 146 THE STORY OF HAMf^ON 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. Fie 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 ■PV^^B ^^^^^^^^HI^^^B " ^HMiH|^#v2Hi^^^^ ^^mKKS *^H^^iiTON 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 civilization among the Indians." Ibis reaction upon hfe at the reservations was not long delayed. In 1880 the Superintendent of Indian Schools reported that flampton 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 Port 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 IS8 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 life 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 estabHshed 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 humihation. 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. IS9 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 lighting 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 civilized. 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 TflE STORY OF HAMFFON 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 hy 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. i he biog- raphies thus collected numbered four hundred and sixty. Graded according to the character of their later lives, the list gave the following showing: — 408 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 becau.se 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 r6i Excellent . . 9« Goofl « . 2J9 Fair 91 Satisfactory Poor . . • 35 Bad. . . 17 Disappointii 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 4^* 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 ^^^th 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 \\-ill come back %vith usury. Not the least return *" Twenty-two Years' Work of Hampton Institute," 1893, p. 4S8. 162 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE o-<^wn . 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 aflFections 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, 164 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE 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 Carlisle 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. 16s 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." 166 RESERVAIKJN HOSPITAL BUJLr IHKOKJH INFLLENCI-: OF AN INDIAN GRADUATE Dr. Susan La Flesche Picotte HAMPTON INDIAN hKKAKJNG HL^ 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 1912, the appropriation for Indian education 167 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 eflPect 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 1 68 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE 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 English 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 169 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 oi' 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 1S89, 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 vears 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 Archceologv, and thev 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, 170 WILLIAM JONLS ..Mm.a.iawa^ THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE light spears, cruelly barbed bows and arrows, and bolos with deep-belhed 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. 171 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 means 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 172 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE 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 ! 173 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 ? 175 EDUCATION FOR LIFE His war paint is washed away, His hands have forgotten to slay; He seeks tor hunselt 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 oi' hunters and braves Are turning to thee for light r The hatchet lies overgrown With grass by the Yellowstone, Wind River, and Paw o{ Bear; And, in sign that foes are friends. Each lodge like a peace-pipe sends Its smoke m the quiet air. The hills that liave watched afar The valleys ablaze with war Shall look on the tasseled corn ; And the dust o{' the grinded grain, Instead of the Mood 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 m 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 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 Hst : 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 tlon 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 he," he wrote of the cemetery at Honolulu, "the pioneers of Christian civilization 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 Virgmia, 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. 181 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." 182 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE Finally, on his return, Armstrong sums up the lessons of his refreshing journey. "The one great lesson of the Hawaiian mission is, I beheve, 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 life 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 lively 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 184 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE 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 possibility 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 i8s EDUCATION FOR T.TFE if a nuiltitude Nvere hangins; on his words, and his deep- sunk, eyes looked out beyond the bleakness o[' the scene into the world oi' his ideals, and the cold little place was agloNN with the hte that \\as in hiin, until it was like the scene on the Mount, which N\as wot :\\\\ less wondertul and ghstenini; because only three undiscernmg followers were permitted to see the glory." * In 1881 two CNcnts occiured which contributed much to the stability oi' the school and to the hope of the Foimder. The hrst was the inauguration of General Gar- held, who had for four years been a Irustee at Hampton, as President of the United States, This important ally had repeatcdU' 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, 1S81, President Garfield addressed the Hamp- ton School in Ret.hesda Chapel and this address was his last public utterance before tlie tragedy of his assassina- tion. His noble words have remained a classic memory to all friends of Hampton. 'H.abor must be," he said, "for you, for all. Without it there can be no civilization. You o{ 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 * •• FouiuUt's D.iy Address." iSoS. 180 THE STORY OV 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, Mollis Burke Prissell, 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 mstincts 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 187 EDUCATION FOR TJFE unprocedentcd in its liistory. About sixty students have already givon tluinsclvcs to Christ, Indians as well as Nc!;rocs, ami wo arc in the height of it. It is very quiet, no cxctretnent, hut deep and strong, atul all are woiuKm tull> iinpri\ssiHl h\ the piosenco of Cilod's spirit." As a conscnpii nee of this si')uitual revival the entire Senior Class, together with a nuniher of the Indians, dedicated themselves to the Christian life. A few years later, in 1SS7, a further enlargement of opportunity for Hampton students was secured by the firmer establishment of an ade(|uate practice-school, where training in teaching should be ct^nbined with service to the ei>minunit\ , aiul which was dedicated ti> the memory of the poet VVhittier. Among the earliest of General But- ler's provisions for the contrabands thrown upon his care in 1861 was the erection oi' a schoolhouse where refugees might be taught, and for some years the agents of the American Missionary Association provided instruction. In 1S71 the Hampton rrustees 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 if into relatu>ns 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-hve years of service, had become little more than a shell, a generous gift from the estate oi' Frederick D. IVTarquand made possible a new and model building (the Whittier Training School), 18S 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.' 189 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, 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 spht 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 attendance 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 1912 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. 191 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. 192 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; " — 193 EDUCATION FOR 1 IFF winning his way, tirst as a student, tiicn as a "sort of hoiisc-fathtM- to the Indian young men," aiul finally as diieeror ot' the night school, m which young Negroes who had worked all day m the shop or held might study at night, winning the title of the *' Plucky Class," — Washing- ton hecame more and more the trusted agent of Arm- strong's plans and hopes; and, finally, in May iSSi was selected to luidertake a new and dithcult enterprise among the most hackward 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 Fuskegee was in obedience to a summons from Armstrong, and the pupil undertook the journey with the anticipation that he was to speak for Hampton. I o his surprise, however, he found tliat .\rmstrong had sent for him in order to introduce the new work to Northern aiuiiences 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-gettmg which Hampton conducted, or from the repeated confession that the inspiration of his owTi 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 sav that I never met anv *'*Up from Slavery," pp. 54-55. HAMPTON'S MOST DISTINGUISHED GRADUATE Booker T. Washington, Founder and first Principal of I uskegee 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 contact with General Armstrong, and that alone would have been a hberal 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 personaHty, 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 195 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 m 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 iSSi 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 H.A.MFION INSTITUTE moonlight." Of the forty-nine Indians who had orij^i- 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." <^>nly 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 197 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 iqB 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, suflSce : 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- 199 EDUCATION FOR LIFE tions will ere lone; he broken np or reiliiceJ and the Government shops elosed. Hut larj^e numbers >vill re- eeive land in severalty, and in this advancing stage will no shops and meehames he needed among them ? Nothing is more important than to establish a i\>ree 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 Worn the reservations, which if em- ploved steadily will improve tdl t hi own upi>n 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 vearlv into the midst oi' 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 cui/.enship possible, and there will be in a few years no Indian (Jik stion." No one can read these incisive and vivacious impres- sions of travel without perceiving in them a twofold con- sequence for the writer. C^^n 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 o\' 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- 300 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE ments. Life is so full of life. It seems dramatic, with ail 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 'double-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 quality is, in the long run, perhaps the most valuable of all." "The 201 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 life 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 sublime 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 202 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 Hes 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 203 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, suffrage, redistribution of property, and economic revolution, — these social panaceas testified to the restlessness of the time, and enlisted 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 205 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 Hke a rock on which a light might be safely set. Education, to be effective for life, must be, Hke 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. 206 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE These high doctrines of ideahsm became, and have always remained, the working creed of Hampton, and the hght 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 u^qo-iSq.O GENERAL ARMSTRONG'S work had in twenty years nor only become established in its institutional form, but had received public and academic recognition. He was created LL.D, at Williams College in 1SS7 and at Harvard University in 1SS9. His marriage on September 10, 1S90, 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 davs — 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 ot 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 m}' life 208 TJIE STORY OF liAMPTON INSTITUTE — wasteful of strength and vitality. . . . My own folly is the danger. Hut 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 efforts 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 1891 his work was so firmly established 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-estabhsh personal intimacy with his dear friends, and to report to them the lessons which he had learned. His language became abrupt, 209 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 modern 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. 2IO THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE . . . 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 billiard 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 211 EDUCATION FOR LIFE 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 feeling 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 212 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE man in this country to be congratulated upon the life which he has lived 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." 213 EDUCATION FOR LIFE A ''Boston Conimitreo" was thereupon constituted, and has been for nearly thirty years a continuous source ot benchcenr ser\'ice. SlowK', rhcuii^h but parn.iUx", Arnisrront2;'s %'itahty re- asserted itself, and he was carried, still helpless, back to Hampton, "cast down but not destroyed," and sending before hint a letter to his students signed in his own hand, and saying, *'\\ hat has happened to me is for the best, as everything always is." The school now had to greet, instead o( an alert and untiring leader, a broken man, making his tours o( inspection in a wheel-chair, but with unscathed N'igor of mind and uiulimimslu-d courage; and the spectacle oi' this victory of the spirit over the flesh was to many oi 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 IMission- 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 Frustees, "is anvthmg, 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 ^^ est. Its large force of graduate-workers already in the held need visitation, instruction, and proper help trom time to time, and especially stimulus and encouragement to keep them from falling back. . . . While I have reason to hope for complete recovery in eight or ten months from 214 THE STORY OF HAMFION INSTITUTE 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 215 EDUCATION FOR LIFE 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 13 11 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. 216 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE "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 r 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 217 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 vitality 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 w^on'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?" 218 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE 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 219 EDUCATION FOR LIFE 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 220 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 221 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- 222 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 ; 223 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 mv parents, my Hawaiian home, for war experiences, and college days at Williams, and for life and work at Hampton. Hampton has blessed 224 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE 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." 225 EDUCATION FOR LIFE ^ 'ui-rj^tr^ CZ.^,,^^ ^c^^^^ CL^-^^ «x i/cif^ ^^ >tJ ^ -Y « O o w < CHAPTER NINE THE COMING OF FRISSELL (1880-1893) HOLLIS BURKE FRISSELL was born in the village of South Amenia, New York, on July 14, 1851. 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. 227 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 fF. 228 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE 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 FrisselFs 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 229 EDUCATION FOR LIFE salary at Amenia was ^600 a year, and the three sons and one daughter of the home were trained in agriculture 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, 231 EDUCAllON FOR LIFE and President of the college Glee Club ; but not notable among his fellows either for scholarship or brilliant promise. "No one oi' us," a classmate writes, "would have credited him with the executive power which he afterwards developed. As I remember, he was distin- guished in noiwayZin college, in scholarship, oratory, or literary achievement, but simply was one trying to do his best." '' Vo tell the truth," another says, "most oi us have been a httle 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 dcN'oted pastor oi' some moderate-sized church." What these young companions could not appreciate — what indeed lloUis 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 bur ordniary man. It is a misinterpretation with which each generation of university students beconies familiar. Nothing is more humiliating in the retrospect than the mistaken estimates 232 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE 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 Mollis I'rissell'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 233 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 those 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 234 HAMPTON'S SECOND 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 mission?ry, 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. f 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 hberty 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 236 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 propelling force, and next to the all-pervasive influence of Armstrong himself its most pressing need was that of a new appointment to succeed the earher 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 237 EDUCATION FOR LIFE vitality and courage; the other was like the Virginia sunshine, tranquillizing 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 238 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 JuUa 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 Hves 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 1891, 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. 240 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 effect 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 staff 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 242 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 life. 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, 243 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 245 Fnrcvru^N tor i iff 1S7: luMcpoi (c-il (h.it ■■ h\ f youiii; nuMi .lit- Umiiuu!:, j>tint- ing," and th.u ".1 bLickstnith's shop has boon aildtxl to tlio foniUM oquipnuMu"; m iS7(> lio askoJ for i> 10,000 lor a int\hai\Kal iKi'iai tnuiu ; m 1S77 a biooin factory was opei\c\l "at a ^'ost ot i^_?">'-^ *^^' nuu-hmciN And instiii- nients"; in 1S7S a total oi' foity stauUnts ^^■ero tMnploved on trades; in 1S7Q, throui^h the lienerosity of Mr. C. P. Huntington, a sawmill for lumber was built, ai\d it was aiuu-ip.i(c\l th.K If would be not ouK .1 luev.itwe unest- meut, but would '\m\e emplo> tnent to twt-nt\' 01 twoutv- hve students." In 1SS4 fuither nulustrtes were .ulded — a m.iehme-shop, a shoe-shop, a pauu-shop. a kiritting de{"».u tinent M\d \\\ iSSc> a more s\stematr/ed traniuig in e.upcntei u\l:, .uul bl.ieksmulnn^, .uul .n\ Indi.ni Traunng- Shop, where there should be a **teehi\ieal round," utelud- ing for eaeh Indian mstruetion in the blacksmith's, wheel- wright's, and earpeiuer's trades " io meet the t\eeils of the reser\Mtions. wheie people are tar temo\cd trom the centres of civilization, and are at tlie mercy of such mechanics as may come to them, or are deprived entirely of the conveniences which they alone can create." "Set. though Armsf riMig hunselt saw as in a \ision the iutme ot his work, and thougli thriHighout Ins .idnunistra- tion the ruuitber and scope of industries steadil>' nrcreased, there was in few mmds a clear appreciation of the moral sigmtrcance and the educational possibilities of mdiKs- trial education. .\n increasing demand tor skilled l.ibi.>r throughout the Southern States encouraged the com- mercial estimate of all such training, and the wages which J40 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 1909J, 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 MEiMORIAL LIBRARY ONE WING OF THE ARMSTRONG-SLATER 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 " (191 7). "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 diff^erent 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 vitaHty 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 thai 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 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 live 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 responsibihty 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 ; traveUing Hbraries; 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) 100 Business -7-? Clerks 89 Hotel workers ye Students 25 Miscellaneous 6 Unknown 74 I^^ad 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 Indianapolis, 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, v,'ho 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 Rehgion, 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 staff 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 Hke 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 oflp 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 staflp 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 staflP. 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 Franklin 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 enHsted graduates of the school in enterprises of social service. A few illustrations of these more remote affiliations 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 1917 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 400,000 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 Hamptoriy 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 19 14, 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 Delinquent 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 26s EDUCATION FOR LIFE Hampton, and have gladly testified to their appHcability 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 effect." From Ceylon comes this testimony : " It was the inspiration of the work at Hampton that prompted the plan of sending out to India an unoffi- 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." v 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 diflPerent 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 Hves 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 — hke 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 English 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 191 5 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 t/1 O >- r 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, are 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 271 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 aUies; 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-eff'acing 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 cHmate ; 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 273 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 .274 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE 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- 275 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 191 3, 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 276 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 277 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, 278 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 affairs, 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 ejfliciency 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 ow^n, 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 effect 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 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 liable 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 maintaming a "nigger-school" in Canterbury, Connecticut. The Legislature of that State enacted a law that no person should establish 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. 283 EDUCATION FOR LIFE Reactionary measures like these had their inevitable eflFect in prolonging the period of Negro ilhteracy, 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 prevaihng 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. 284 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. 28s 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 capabilities 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 286 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 in 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- 287 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. 288 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE 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 lineal spirit- * Bureau of Education, op. cit., I, p. 5. 289 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, 19 14," p. 6. 290 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 cuhure, 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, familiar with the Negro character, with suspicion or hostility, as though the problem of education were being turned upside down, and the Negro prepared for politics 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. 291 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, established 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- 292 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE cational 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, established 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,ocxD, 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. 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, Pr. 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 294 JAMES HALL, A BOYS' DORMITORY Built entirely by student bricklayers, plasterers, carpenters, steamfitters, plumbers, electricians, sheetmetal workers, blacksmiths, painters, and glaziers ROBERT C. 0C;DEN 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 iniriating 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 29s EDUCATION FOR LIFE 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 Aff'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 Carohna, 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 or whose Trustees he was President, and his invited guests on each occasion were finally brought to Hampton as to the climax of their excursion. 296 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE 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 297 EDUCATION FOR LIFE expended during a period of eight or ten years. Three years later he supplemented this gift by an endowment of ten milhon 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. cii., I, p. 162. 298 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE 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 Carolina ^10 299 EDUCATION FOR LIFE and $1.44; in Louisiana ^13.73 and ^1.31. In other words, though the decrease of Negro iUiteracy 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. 300' 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 intelligent 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. 301 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 191 6 to offer courses in industrial education. Much of this training was, no doubt, superficial, and some of it Httle 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 302 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE 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 304 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, hbrary, 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 305 EDUCATION FOR LIFE 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- 306 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE 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 307 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., llth ed., XIX, p. 347. 308 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE 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 309 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 310 THE STORY OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE 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- 311 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 INSTITUTE WATERFRONT AT THE END OF FIFTY 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 poHtics. "The causes of the migra- tion," Principal Moton of Tuskegee Institute has lately 3H 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 civiHzation. It is difficult for any lover of Hampton Institute to draw a 315 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 HAMPTON BATTALION OF CADETS 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 enlisted to March 1918 61 Negro graduates and ex-students enlisted. . .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 1918 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. Emmett 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 beheve 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 limitations 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 ufiassimilated 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 superficiality, of illiteracy 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. TTie 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. 325 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 : — 1. Jane E. Davis, Publication Office. 2 and 17. Emily K. Herron, Principal's Secretary. 3. John Sugden, Superintendent of Construction. A r A >, Q n or.^ ,/;! Frank K. Rogers, Treasurer. 4, 5. o, 7, 8, 9, and I6| 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 CaroUne 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 1917. 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 (1917). 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. Otitlook, August 15, 191 7. Master Builder, A (photograph), by Amelia Josephine Burr. Bellman, December 15, 1917. Southern Workman Memorial Number — November 1917. Appreciations by Hampton graduates and others. Statesman of the Race Problem, A (photograph), by Ray Stannard Baker. World's Work, January 1918. 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, 1868-1891 (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 191 5. 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, 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 (191 6). 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, 191 7, 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 1 901. 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. Sotithern 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, 1917. My Larger Education (illustrated), by Booker T. Washington. Doubleday, 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. 2ist, 1868 Upon the appHcation 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 mdustry 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, 1870 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. 1 1 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 OF 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, 1815 ; d. 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 RepubHc, 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) h. 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) b. Lee, Mass., Sept. 25, 1814; d. 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 ii, 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) h. 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 Ggden, 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) b. 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) b. Lyme, Ct., Nov. 8, 1819; d. Oct. 4, 1902. Essex Acad. Merchant. Elbert Brinckerhoff Monroe (1877-94) President of the Board, 1884-94 b. 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'l Ch., Dorchester, Mass., for 30 yrs. Francis Nathaniel Watkins (1877-86) b. Prince Edward Co., Va., 1812; 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) h. 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) h. 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- ) h. 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 886-1 902) h. 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) h. 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. (1886-1910) b. 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. b. 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 (1890-1900) 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, 185 1 ; 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 Curtis s James (1893- ) t 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 Schieffehn, 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. WiUiam 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) h. 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- ) h. 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, 191 7. William Howard Taft, LL.D. (1909- ) President of the Board, 1914- ^. 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- ) h. Milton, Mass., May 21, 1870. Harvard Univ. Banker. Member, Philippine Commission, 1904. Governor-General, Philippine Islands, 1909-13. Alexander Buel Trowbridge (1916- ) b. 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 (191 7- ) b. Haverhill, Mass., July 29, 1882. Union College. Clergy- man, Detroit, Mich. Army Y. M. C. A. in France. Rev. James Edgar Gregg (191 8- ) b. Hartford, Ct., Nov. 24, 1875. Harvard College and Harvard and Yale Divinity Schools. Teacher and Clergyman. Elected Principal of Hampton Institute, 191 8. Robert Russa Moton, LL.D. (1918- ) b. Amelia Co., Va., Aug. 26, 1867. Hampton Inst. 1890. Commandant, Hampton Inst., 1890-1915. 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 *HoN. Samuel P. Bolling, Farmville Judge John Booker, Hampton *Rev. G. F. Bragg, Jr., Norfolk *HoN. Tazewell Branch, Farmville *William p. Burrell, Richmond *J. C. Carter, Houston * Colored. «S6 to I8«8 893 to 1900 884 to 1886 888 to 1890 890 to 1892 901 to 1909 901 to 1921 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 Heffelfinger, 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. C^sar Perkins, Buckingham C. H. Hon. R. B. Poore, Appomattox C. H. . *William M. Reid, Portsmouth J ^^^3 to I 1905 to 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 1899 to 1904 1890 to 1904 1909 to 1 92 1 1913 to I92I 1877 to 1882 1873 to 1879 1909 to I9I3 1882 to 1886 1887 to 1890 1873 to 1890 1913 to 1921 1886 to 1888 1905 to 1909 1876 to 1882 1897 to 1899 1909 to I92I 1882 to 1886 1 890 to 1897 1900 to 1905 1888 to 1890 1901 to 1909 1882 to 1886 1890 to 1893 1880 to 1882 1886 to 1890 1882 to 1886 1873 to 1877 1893 to 1897 1893 to 1 901 1905 to 1909 1873 to 1877 1903 to I9I4 1897 to 1905 1882 to 1884 1915 to I92I 1873 to 1887 1873 to i?93 1893 to 1 901 1890 to 1893 *Colored. 349 APPENDIX THREE 350 APPENDIX THREE INDEX TO MAP OF HAMPTON INSTITUTE GROUNDS IN 1918 I Virginia Hall 43 Wigwam 2 Cleveland Hall 48 Robert C. Ogden Auditorium 3 Griggs Hall 49 Palmer Hall 4 "Uncle Tom's Cabin" (The SO Marshall Hall Chaplain's Residence) 51 Memorial Church 5 Girls' Cottage 55 Academic Hall 7 Laundry 56 Science Building 9 Winona Lodge 59 Marquand Cottage 10 "The Moorings" (Mrs. Purves) 60 Domestic Science Building 12 Abby May Home 61 Clarke Hall 19 Kennedy Hall 70 Stone Memorial Building 21 Huntington Memorial Library 76 Gymnasium 25 Mansion House (The Principal's 87 Greenhouse Residence) 90 Trade-School 30 Holly Tree Inn 93 Pierce Hall 37 Barn 99 James Hall 42 King's Chapel Hospital 155 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. 1 873 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, 1915). 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 Narthern 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, $S9AS^y 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. Collls 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. DeUa 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. 1918 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- Yeas BurLDINGS 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 2,175-97 — — 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 1 88s 13,109.67 — 800.00 13,909.67 1886 69,858.60 — 2,100.00 71,958.60 1887 — ■ — 14,195-00 14,195.00 1888 15,157-55 — 8,700.00 23,857.55 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 1895 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 1905 21,500.00 — 18,000.00 39,500.00 1906 18,000.00 — 1,143.04 19,143.04 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 igir 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 : Deficiency of income for permanent improvements and land provided from excess of income for current expenses, sale of land, etc. 356 APPENDIX FIVE COST OF PLANT (Early years, 1868 to 187 1, incomplete) Year Buildings Land and Land Improve- ments Fixed Equip- ment 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 1875 24,156.65 — — 24,156.65 1876 11,407.07 3,587-49 — 14,994-56 1877 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 1883 19,431.79 2,500.00 554-56 22,486.35 1884 18,534-26 — 1,463-36 19,997-62 188s 20,370.05 1,397-36 555-28 22,322.69 1886 76,434-96 345-39 1,902.90 78,683.25 1887 6,006.72 — 21,419.05 27.425-77 1888 17,232.37 465-00 8,660.2s 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-SO 1892 6,030.91 1,915-00 4,699-32 12,645.23 1893 6,079-17 — 5,599-16 11,678.33 1894 2,415.76 2,000.00 2,606.04 7,021.80 1895 250.00 2,000.00 5,102.41 7,352.41 1896 757-43 350.00 3,398.31 4,505-74 1897 50,931-19 1,435-16 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 3.755-00 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 1905 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-SO 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 2,373-42 25,983.22 1910 49,332.84 — 1,411.40 50,744-24 191 1 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 31.542.10 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 3,895-04 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 >< R N c<-i--i ONONt-> ON-^t-u-ir) M i-H >^M3 CTn q ^^"^t^o t^o to c^i-<' ri to d LONo " d to todod d tN< ON-'i-t^ On !j a 00 in On On 1-1 r-» ■* to ■* pj -^No o LT) tO-^LO^-O-^tOLOVOC^ Hg -i00 OnNO vrj t^ uo I-^ m f) 00 MD N to N ro tototoThto-^r^NO LO -^vo t-^J-^0000 OnO O Vi 1— I 1— 1 m ii-> u-j r*-> O *-" -*T)-1J->OONO Tj-tOt^NO totoM-tNl Tl-totoOO O 00 00 CO On t^ O-t-^t^OO ONlOt~^LOtO r^-^q -^00 tooo q ■* ON ■-o-^i-Nd onoo d^d cori ror^r^fo d ONdNooo i-< i-H toc^ Ono O w^tor~.t--~to>-i to l~-- M ^ i-ii-iOOOtoc»NOr<0 ^ t^ 1- t^ M 1^ to H- oo On NO O On r^ Onoo t^oo o u-ii-or~-oo P y ■o LT) 1^ On 00 I^U-lOO 1-1 1-1 ONioONt^ ■*0 tooo rl tooo t^NO ^5 Ht ri" to to totorOTj--J^>-o t^oor^r^oowOHHw z Hg O NO ^ NO NO to NO 00 -^NO NO NO NO NO VO VO NO NO On to no §2 u-i O to totooo toNO O tototo totototototoNO O to < W r/, d d cK ONONtoON-^Tj-ONtOON OOONONONONt^NO On 00 NO r) "NOVO MNO Onc^nO t^ t^tN)t^ -^ to to tOLOLOtOi-i Tl-toM-tO totototototoNO ONto tC d d o do d>-ouoo "O d d d d d d d iono ^g V3. " " § uo On NO to " -*NO On O M 00 00 to to li O O ■* O to UONO H to On t^ 00 u^NO ':l-NONO_ t^ C^■^l-; toiotoNooo r^w-jioO NO 1-^ 00 -^ r^ONM ^ooNO Loiooo ■ to g q q o_ M to On to -^NO to |-^ O ►J 3 "-ONO d d 00 1^ d d d r^No to O 1-1 O 00 uo NO to to to 1 00 l-l ON LOThOONONO ONUOtOl-- rl-O mOONONO m uooo LO Ti- to t-~ONC^i->ONOOO tooooo o t^ Lotor^to en l-l l-l M (S tot^ t^NONONO O — loNO OnOOOO rv.uor< to r^t^rlc^Dc^c^toto •aa " " „HHM««K,-,r)(S vj-l O t)-00 t< 1"-^ -^vo to to -ri- w) to to ONtoONON-'i-NO tooo to t^q too MNO qt-^(> ►J Z OO LO 00 O LO O t^ w^oo -^ O cot^i-o Cfv On d t-J i^ r» totoOONto-^r^ tNj NO "NO d ONtritoOO t^ 5 5 O ON " NO — M Onoo t-^r^-rJ-O (^ t^ t^NO O l^ t^ to On M w5 ^ O "J^ O^ Lo >-0-'!)--:ht^ tO-*ONt^OO Tt-u-)toi-< t^O O toON §S ^ uoNO NO -* t^ 00 ►- LONO to to to 1-1 to On 1-1 "^NO t^ to S* On M g r^ 1-1 C4 1- 1-1 HH „HHi-ii-irJ^NO t^OO OnO i-i t^ to-* tj-)NO 1^00 On O ►"! t^ to 00 t^ t^ r^ t^ f^t-.t-^tv.0000000000 OOOOOOOOOO OnOnOnOn 00 GO 00 00 00 OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO 358 APPENDIX SIX w^u^'^'i^'v^'v-"^ ^ --- O O O O O OO'-""'-''-''-'"" 00 tj- Tj-00 N o -^^ N 00 q riP^'OtJ^ovo tivoN tCd -.i-iritnvdodoo -"j-d ^on^ ^^^^ OOO -^I-^OO uorivo C>" -I N>0 OMD unOro" mOOOOO i^d.OOrornvdoorTrOM-'jLAcA^l^t-^" '^'^^IX.i^!^ "«0"r"Or^Mvov<-)J^OOONO" Ci c^ m P-O roVO O r^vO^vOVO^'O'vO^ rnOVO ^O O O q q vdvd iCtCtCoOOOodoOOOOOOOOOOO '^ ^ " .~^^.^^ovr^^.r^^ tJ-M iy-)Wir» O\00 c<->C>iriroOvO ■4- r^ d c> «^ d^>o r-^ d^vo « -^ ^ 6 t^-joo on c> -4- « ^i f> t: ooc>drTioMiorAddvopJ'oov-+ di^ 5r '■'^ 2 2 !n ^ ^ M »- Q OOOOO t^T)-O\0 i-r)N\0 r^OO N (^ O 00 r<-i p) ro ro 00 C^ " " ~ vd rororot-^OO rAd t^VOOO ror^Osd <-> O ^ "^^SO*^^ 0000 "VOOO i-H Of~J lor^ i^t^- u-iLot^vriO o q,*^'^'~i,Q*" M 00 1-" i-i O ThT}-VO mOOO N ■+r>->f^ i-VO «^ t^u-ii-ivo 1-1 OOO t^oooor-*Ooo>J^-+'Ovnt--r^t^vq r^ ci l^d <^dr>-ror^dr^^ i^irii- HH r<-);^vO '^ '^ o 'Ovo^-ooCTK'-iLnrJ-^mi-'t^"^^^^'^ „'„„'.. ."" rCdvoi^>>dNd-*dd^<-rdLooornioood<£id "^"^2^ Tj- m •<*• t)- -^ lo unvo t^t^r^O^Ooo O CnOoo O 0\ O " '-' O t«-,-«l-Lri^ t^OO OO ►- r< r<-i->l-tnVO l^— ; OOOOOOOOOOOO OOONOCT'OOChOOOOOONO^OONCT^ 2 359 APPENDIX SEVEN INCREASE OF ENDOWMENT BY YEARS Year Annual ADomoNS Year Annual Additions Year Annual Additions 1872-76 5552,369.37 1891 $> 3,15375 1906 55 98,325-35 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 128,188.88 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 38,04573 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 10,000.00 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 4.000.000 3.S00.000 31000.000 a :3 asoo.ooo -I o ^.2,000,000 z § 1.500.000 1.000.000 500.000 ^ '69 71 73 '75 77 79 '81 'Si 'fiS « '69 '91 '93 '35 '97 -99 '01 'OJ '05 W '03^1 "O '15 OIT YEARS Increase in Endowment ' 362 APPENDIX NINE p 5 p p p ?! P CO OO IS. ?? "^ — --. y \ >A \ ^ k *^ a»w. ' ^ o 7' *<. ■^t ■^ J . ■\ V\ K > ■■*> >>. r^ 'V, ^ li \i ]^ * / ^ ^5 S^ S p^ ^ s. > o c > o c >, o c > o- c > o o o o o c > o o o o o c > o o o o o c >" o o" o" o" o- c 1 c X 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 ^- 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. 36s 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. 189s 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. 1912 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 191 3 or thereafter now applied to girls. The first class of boys to graduate under this new plan will receive their diplomas in 1918; of girls in 1920. 1915 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. }69 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. 1 88 1 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 J .o 5 -^ r- V ■^ ■$ s ; .§ ■X, s :; y y ^ I I iT) / ) 1 \ \ •*• V ( \ 1 O \ 1 rO \ / / (M / \ \ ' - (0 \ \ \ S a \ - < K \ \ \ 1 2^ 2 ) V / \ CO / / o r- / / ( / o \ 1 \ o \ \ 1 o \ s^ \ \ \ £ \. \ o N \ 2 ^N \ o o CD O (V> 3 f b c ? o > c > c § S c •> c > o o o O C ° ? i 8 ■> c \ ? c > c > o o o o o c c > c s O. Q. c >. c > o O- P o. -)■ O' ■> c ■) O in c > " »o O «» f= V 5 \0 ■> M 1 ■<« •♦ K) H ■> r o 371 APPENDIX TWELVE — ..... .. , _ . , . 940 ' ' t ^00 z :: J _^'^_ «»^ - t - -i 830 . t ., L 7_ Ih^ 2^ i - S^^ I^^^ flif^ ~ -4J - ^ ^^'^ -.- J - ft?n ^ - - - - 760 ] " ~ Tftn _-- J 700 _,'^, ^ ■ " - - fiftn 2 I J ^1^5. I - 680 l^tV^Tj fiKo : 4-t t 4 - I 660 I ,^ ^ . ®''° ^ '- t%i «i7n - it 4 -- Jt (^nn f 1 * ™ « 1 , -_ C; 560 c^ «;An ^1 540 j^f «:-?n ^ " K 500 -;^ <^ 440 ?i cc 440 Cf 5 4'?n "H .. " r _ _ - / J T?n ^=- _ - -, 7 iOU 7 7* ■ ^. 7 - iCrt 1 z^ - T r*" 140 ^ -\ a\^°'' ' ' tnn t i jZ S 100 f I ^h Ro -7 ~ ^■,- 80 2 \ *■ .n .-•'■■/ ,.■'". \ IJ--. 1 1 /-J .-■■ \ ' "'■\^-. 40 , F'-' ..- , .-i^- ..i ,' i-'- «, •''■^s ' .\numbei- dr. Indian Graduates ^. n ■' .. ,i.4-t++t+-l44+--t + -+-t+ + -l-f-' '-- - 71 7J '75 -77 -79 •« SI 85 ' •7? 74 T6 74 'SO S M W •89 '91 'aj'SS -97 '99 01 'OJ 05 '07 '09 'I I 'li 15 -17 •90 '92 -94 -96 '95 •00 '02 (A '06 05 '10 ^12 '14 16 YEARS Enrollment of Negro and Indian Students. Number of Negro and Indian Graduates 372 APPENDIX TWELVE The 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 THIRTEEN APPENDIX FOURTEEN APPENDIX FOURTEEN APPENDIX FIFTEEN APPENDIX SIXTEEN PERMANENT SCHOLARSHIPS (Included In Endowment) Amoxjnt Name 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 i>Soo 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 3,000 Bishop 2,000 Francis C. Briggs Permanent Academic Scholarship 1,000 Brown 5,000 George E. Brown Scholarship Fund 1,000 John Carter Brown Memorial 800 Mrs. Lucy A. Buhler Memorial 1,500 Elizabeth Lyman Bullard Donor 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 Ehza C. Colhns 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»5oo 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>Soo 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. Griffin Scholarship DOKOR 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 Juha F. Gould R. R. Graves Bequest of William H. Griffin 380 APPENDIX SIXTEEN AMOUNT Name of scholarship $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. Julia 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- Donor Miss Helen M. Griggs W. P. Grover Estate of Francis C. dustrial Scholarship 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 of scholarship ^40,000 Robert C. Ogden Scholarship Fund 1,000 Osgood 1,000 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 800 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 2,000 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 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. Stearns 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 Amount Name of scholarship ^3,000 Waldorf and Pauline 1,900 Washburn 1,500 The Wells Scholarship 800 Cornelius L. Wells 1,500 Byron Weston 2,000 White 1,000 Whitin 800 John J. Williams 1,500 Mrs. Jane Winchester Memorial 1,000 Theodore Winthrop 600 Wister 1,500 Harriet F. Wolcott 1,500 Huntington Frothingham Wol- cott 1,500 J. Huntington Wolcott 4-750 Wood 700 Richard D. Wood 1,500 Robert Williams Wood 800 In memoriam Mrs. Glen Wright ^315.203.38 Donor Mrs. J. J. Astor Mrs. Ichabod Washburn Rev. and Mrs. C. L. Wells Mrs. Abby L. Wells Byron Weston James White Whitin Brothers John J. Williams Mrs. Thomas G. Bennett Miss Jane Stuart Woolsey Mrs. Sarah B. Wister Bequest of Harriet F. Wolcott Bequest of Harriet F. Wolcott Estate of J. Huntington Wol- cott Estate of Frank Wood Miss Juliana Wood Mrs. R. W. Wood Mrs. H. D. Noyes 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. Bullard, 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. Oilman 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 1913 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\\n 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 SchielFelin, 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 ard 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, 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 1913, 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 i88i. 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 ; Vice-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^ hers, Mrs. Frank F. Dresser, Mrs. Ira N. Hollis, Mrs. Philip W. Moen. 390 INDEX Academic Hall, 109, 180 Amer. Miss. Ass'n.,41,93, 95, 96, 100, 121, 188, 216, 236, 285 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'sdeath, 144; buildingupHamp- 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. F., 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, 11 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; hurtling, 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, WiUiam, 169 Lee, Col. Henry, 16 Letters : (S. C. Armstrong) Harper's Ferry, 69; Gettysburg, 71 ; Hilton Head, 76; Petersburg, 79; Texas, 84; Hampton, 184, 200; Hawaii, 181 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, ill 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. IIiBhiiiiii?'' ^°'^^"^ss 019 601 612 tit nil I