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MEMORIAL CHURCH 
 
HAMPTON'S MESSAGE 
 
 BY 
 
 SYDNEY DODD FRISSELL 
 
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 PRESS OF THE HAMPTON NORMAL 
 AND AGRICULTURAL INSTITUTE, 
 HAMPTON, VIRGINIA, 19H 
 
 c a T n««4.« Institution 
 of Wasliington 
 
HAMPTON'S MESSAGE 
 
 BY SYDNEY DODD FRISSELL 
 
 IS a building needed at Hampton ? Masons and bricklayers 
 must mix sand and cement ; carpenters must make doors 
 and window frames ; painters, tinsmiths, plumbers, steam- 
 fitters — all must take their turn before the building is com- 
 pleted. The lessons of these Negro students stand in cement, 
 brick, and plaster, in woodwork, tin, and iron. 
 
 Theories learned in the classroom these tradesmen apply 
 at the building, and the facts gained at the building they carry 
 to the classroom. 
 
 From the raw material of a backward race, strong men 
 and women are made at Hampton. What is the process which 
 moulds black men and women and Indian youths into suc- 
 cessful leaders in the education, industry, and agriculture of 
 their people ? 
 
 Hampton is founded on the knowledge that the common 
 task and daily round are a means of grace and a source of cul- 
 ture and intellectual development. Training there is modeled 
 upon the most efifective educational institution the world has 
 produced — the home. Hampton, like the home, has daily 
 problems to solve. 
 
HAMPTON'S MESSAGE 
 
 At Hampton there is no prejudice in favor of the class- 
 room. Facts are considered as valuable as theories. Skillful 
 hands are ranked with books. Each student has his work in 
 the life of this ^reat family and every student must carry a 
 vocation away with him. 
 
 The bugles blow at five-thirty in the morning. lu'the day 
 that follows, eleven hours of work and study are crowded in- 
 to the lives of blacksmiths, carpenters, and other tradesmen, 
 five days in the week. The day which is hailed as holiday or 
 half-holiday in other schools, at Hampton is called "work 
 day." Upon this day all boys and girls are given work outside 
 their shops or fixed position in kitchen or laundry, to help 
 them further in earning their way through school. 
 
 At Hampton it is a punishment to deprive a boy or girl 
 of work. There all useful work is a means of support and 
 advance. 
 
 II 
 
 Samuel Chapman Armstrong began a Negro school with 
 two teachers and fifteen students of varying ages, in a planta- 
 tion house and army barracks at Hampton, nearly fifty years 
 ago. 
 
 Following a brilliant war record and a successful admin- 
 istration of large territory at the close of the war, Armstrong 
 chose to give his life to training leaders for a race. 
 
 "We are here not merely to make students, but men and 
 women ; to build up character aad fit teachers and leaders," 
 
OVER EIGHT HUNDRED 
 STUDENTS TRAINING FOR 
 LEADERSHIP." 
 
HAMPTON'S MESSAGE 
 
 he said. For twenty-five years he worked unsparingly and un- 
 ceasingly, until the old plantation house, where Hampton In- 
 stitute began, was surrounded by shops, by dormitories, by 
 recitation halls; until he saw the Hampton idea carried by his 
 students and teachers to Tuskegee, Calhoun, Mt. Meigs, Car- 
 lisle, and scores of communities near and far. 
 
 With shattered health, exhausted from years of pleading 
 for Hampton and enlarging its work, worn out before his time, 
 Armstrong literally gave his life for an idea of education and 
 human training, when he died in his prime, twenty-odd years 
 
 ago. 
 
 The hundred and forty buildings, the thousand acres of 
 land, the courses in thirteen trades, in teaching and home- 
 making, in business and farming ; and over eight hundred 
 students training for leadership are the physical growth of 
 Hampton. 
 
 Eight thousand men and women have gone out from Hamp- 
 ton to South, North, and West, trained for teaching, trained for 
 home-building, trained for the trades. In taking their places in 
 Negro and Indian schools of the South and West and in hun- 
 dreds of communities, this army of workers has helped to de- 
 crease illiteracy and to train Negroes and Indians for the re- 
 sponsiblity of owning land. 
 
 Through Hampton outposts and graduates, the method of 
 industrial training has become thoroughly established as the 
 educational solution of a race problem. 
 
 Hampton today has become the headquarters of an army 
 
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 " HAMPTON TODAY HAS BE- 
 COME THE HEADQUARTERS 
 OF AN ARMY OF UPLIFT." 
 
HAMPTON'S MESSAGE 
 
 of uplift. The class which graduates this year will take posi- 
 tions at strategic points in leading the advance to better 
 schools, to better farming, and to industrial training. Girls, 
 skillful as teachers and grounded in home arts and industries, 
 will go from Hampton to supervise Negro and Indian schools 
 In Virginia alone, there are ten women graduates of Hampton 
 who are supervising the industrial work in the rural schools 
 of ten counties, under the direction of the state supervisor of 
 rural schools. 
 
 A Hampton graduate visits the Negro schools of the entire 
 South, to study the field problems, as pioneer for the Hampton 
 men and women who go out as officers in an army of uplift. 
 
 Hampton's county industrial workers meet the people 
 and the teachers and win their co-operation. Patrons are or- 
 ganized into improvement leagues, and soon the schools im- 
 prove their appearance. Necessary repairs are made, win- 
 dows are washed, floors are scrubbed, flowers and shrubs are 
 planted, and walks are laid out. 
 
 Regular periods are set in the school program for sewing, 
 shuck-mat making, cooking, and other work with materials 
 at hand. In the long vacation the girls are formed into garden 
 clubs through which they learn, from their supervising teacher, 
 how to raise and can fruits and vegetables. 
 
 The country school has become a community center. 
 The colored homes of entire counties have improved. 
 The benefit of simple industries to character and community 
 has been clearly proved. 
 
 10 
 
THE SOUTH AND WEST ARE 
 OPEN FIELDS FOR TRADES- 
 MEN TRAINED AT HAMP- 
 TON." 
 
 11 
 
HAMPTON'S MESSAGE 
 
 This rural-school work is carried on through ihc Negro 
 Rural-School Fund in 119 counties in the various Southern 
 states. 
 
 Negro and Indian women, trained by practice teaching, 
 skilled in home industries, experienced as cooks, dressmak 
 ers, and housekeepers by four years' work and study in the 
 Hampton family, are sent to officer these campaigns of edu- 
 cation for their people. With them the leaders of education 
 in state and county co-operate. From Hampton's laundries, 
 kitchens, and classrooms, the girls continue to go out, carry- 
 ing the plan of Hampton farther afield each year. 
 
 TRADESMEN IN DEMAND 
 npHE South and West are open fields for the tradesmen 
 
 and farmers trained at Hampton. About seventy per cent of 
 the tradesmen graduated from the school are engaged in trade 
 work. The complete training as carpenters, bricklayers, black- 
 smiths, or machinists, assures Hampton men of leadership 
 among their people. 
 
 Many Hampton tradesmen have taken places in the in- 
 dustrial life of their races by directing the trade training in 
 other Negro and Indian schools. It is significant that more 
 than a hundred tradesmen and teachers have gone from the 
 parent school to help Booker Washington at Tuskegee. About 
 twenty per cent of the Negro boys from Hampton shops go 
 out to teach their trades. 
 
 12 
 
" CARPENTERS MUST MAKE 
 DOORS AND WINDOW 
 FRAMES." 
 
 13 
 
HAMPTON S MESSAGE 
 
 The success of Negro tradesmen in the competition of 
 modern life at the South is no less important than the teach- 
 ing of trades to others. In Birmingham, Atlanta, Richmond, 
 Norfolk, and Danville, Negro graduates of Hampton have be- 
 come successful contractors. When in positions of trust and 
 responsibility, or as employers of other workers, graduates 
 give valuable aid to members of their race who lack advan- 
 tages but are striving for a chance. 
 
 HAMPTON'S TRAINED FARMERS 
 
 TN the building up of worn-out land the Negro and In- 
 dian farmers, trained in the fields and dairies of Hampton, 
 are filling a large place. Of the eighty-three boys who have 
 completed the regular agricultural course, ten are still in 
 school; fifty-eight are now following some branch of agricul- 
 tural work; thirty-seven are connected with educational in- 
 stitutions; and eighteen are farming their own land. 
 
 All of the nine Negro farm-demonstration agents in Vir- 
 ginia have been Hampton students. John B. Pierce, sent 
 out by Hampton and working under the direction of the 
 United States Department of Agriculture, began the Negro 
 farm-demonstration work in Nottoway County, Virginia. 
 Poor corn lands doubled their yield; systematic crop rota- 
 tion has increased fertility and profits. The gardens, yards, 
 and homes of Negro landowners have been made attractive. 
 
 14 
 
THE BOYS WHO SEEK THE 
 LAND ARE GIVEN A COURSE 
 IN FIELD PRACTICE." 
 
 15 
 
HAMPTON'S MESSAGE 
 
 General Armstrong wisely said, " The teacher-farmer is 
 the man for the times; he is essentially an educator through- 
 out the y«ar." 
 
 The boys at Hampton who seek the land, like the workers 
 in brick and iron, are given a course in field practice which 
 places them for long periods of responsibility in the dairies, 
 poultry yards, orchards, and horse barns,'and upon the fields. 
 Fifty-one hours a week in their first year they labor at their 
 tasks upon the farm. They have, in addition to their reg- 
 ular farm work, courses in dairying, farm crops, English, ele- 
 mentary science, and applied mathematics. Like the boys of 
 the shops, the men in the field are advanced in cultural sub- 
 jects as they proceed in their four years of vocational train- 
 ing. Coaching in the classrooms upon the management of a 
 farm and every department of a farm is continued to the end. 
 
 From the shops and fields alike, men must run at the 
 stroke of noon, for every farmer and tradesman has a place in 
 his company of the school battalion. Fifteen minutes from 
 the close of work at noon, each boy must answer to his 
 name in company formation and march with the battalion to 
 his place at dinner. This military training is required of 
 every boy as long as he remains in the Hampton family. 
 
 HAMPTON'S TRAINED TEACHERS AND HOMEMAKERS 
 
 T^VERY Hampton girl graduate is a trained teacher. 
 
 Every colored or Indian girl who leaves the school 
 
 has had long practice in sewing, cooking, laundering, 
 
 16 
 
FIFTY-ONE HOURS A WEEK 
 IN THEIR FIRST YEAR 
 THEY LABOR UPON THE 
 FARM." 
 
 17 
 
HAMPTON S MESSAGE 
 
 dairying, gardening, and housekeeping. The last half-year in 
 the course of these future teachers is given to teaching in the 
 Whittier School of Hampton, where classes among the five 
 hundred Negro children are managed by the graduating 
 women of two races, who work under expert supervision. 
 
 A broad range of academic study is given to these leaders 
 who must mould and direct the lives of many thousands of 
 the children of their races. 
 
 Earning their way by the continual practice and study 
 of household arts, the girls are giv«n at the same time such 
 broad training in sociology, psychology, history, literature, 
 and methods of teaching as shall fit them to hold firmly the 
 strategic positions of leadership far which they are constantly 
 sought. 
 
 Struggling yearly to earn their way, and earning more 
 each year as their work becomes more efficient, these men 
 and women of Hampton receive training in spending their 
 own money and in keeping their own accounts. They thus 
 gain a|knowledge of business which stands them in good stead. 
 
 THE GREATER HAMPTON 
 
 A BRIEF review of the methods and curricula of Hamp- 
 ton Institute can give no adequate conception of the 
 life which moulds the crude youth of two races into strong 
 leaders. Neither the outline of a system nor its results can 
 give a true impression of the spirit of a place. 
 
 18 
 
EVERY GIRL HAS PRAC- 
 TICE IN DAIRYING." 
 
 19 
 
HAMPTON S MESSAGE 
 
 The lives given to the school, the ideal of service which 
 
 Armstrong left, the devotion of other workers grown old in 
 the service, have established a tradition and atmosphere at 
 Hampton, creating spiritual power that no system or curricu- 
 lum can give. 
 
 Outside of the confines of the school in Virginia, beyond 
 the farthest outpost of Hampton's graduates, the benefit of 
 Hampton has passed. For Hampton has become a demonstra- 
 tion station of industrial training and racial adjustment, not 
 only for America, South and North, but for Africa, India, and 
 Macedonia. Visitors from all parts of the globe have come 
 with increasing frequency to this demonstration station of 
 racial training. 
 
 The greatest national value of Hampton, in addition to 
 the steady constructive work among two races, is in its benefit 
 to America as a common platform where the white man and 
 black man, the Southerner and the Northerner, meet each year 
 for social service, with tolerance and constructive spirit. 
 
 Each year at Hampton there is a succession of conferences 
 for constructive work in the South. Among recent conferences 
 may be mentioned that of the National Association of Colored 
 Women; the annual Negro farmers' conference; the state super- 
 intendents of public instruction for the Southern states; the 
 representatives and secretaries of the General Education Board, 
 the Rockefeller Sanitary Commission, the Jeanes Board, the 
 United States Department of Agriculture; and the Southern 
 
 20 
 
"negro and INDIAN 
 WOMEN SKILLED IN HOME 
 INDUSTRIES." 
 
 21 
 
HAMPTON'S MESSAGE 
 
 J --^University Commission on the Race Question — all represent- 
 ative of the great forces of constructive work in education, 
 \ sanitation, and agriculture novi active in the South. 
 
 : The officials of education in the Southern states met on 
 
 [ a common platform, with Negro farm-demonstration agents, 
 
 ^ colored wromen supervisors of rural schools, and the direc- 
 
 I tors of the great systems of practical education in agriculture 
 
 ' and sanitation in America. 
 
 Who can gauge the benefit of a constructive meeting upon 
 a common tolerant platform, where men of such power, men 
 of diifereut races and widely separate sections, meet for thought 
 and effort directed to the common good? 
 
 Hampton has cost lives and money. Armstrong died in 
 his prime. Other officers and workers for the cause have died 
 young, or have broken under the strain of raising funds to carry 
 on the work. It is a work worthy of life sacrifice. It is sup- 
 plied almost entirely by the individual gifts of public-spirited 
 'Americans. It has a wide constituency of loyal friends. 
 
 Hampton today, with more than one hundred thousand 
 dollars to raise from unassured sources for the work of the 
 current year, makes its plea to America. 
 
 22 
 
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