LC 2S5I 
 
 1 M?,z.c^ 
 
 r^^ REGENERATION 
 
 of S AM JACKSON 
 
 ^/ J. W. CHURCH 
 
 Ant/ior of " THE CRUCIBLE" 
 
 Education is a means to an end. The end should 
 determine the means. The neglect of this is the rock 
 upon which thousands are wrecked. 
 
 S. C. Al^MSTROXG 
 
■'.'"■tit* 
 
7h 
 
 e REGENERATION 
 
 of 
 
 SAM 
 
 J AC 
 
 K S O N 
 
 By J . W . CHURCH 
 
 Author <?/ " THE C R U C I B L E " 
 
 The Press of 
 
 The Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute 
 
 Hampton, Virjrinia 
 
 1911 
 
BOARD OF TRUSTEES ^ wi, 
 
 Robert C, Ogden, President, New York 
 
 Alexander McKenzie, Vice President, Cambridge, Mass. 
 
 Francis G, Peabody, Vice President, Cambridge, Mass. 
 
 HoLLis B. Frissell, Secretary, Hampton, Va. 
 
 George Foster Peabody, New York 
 
 Charles E, Bigelow, New York 
 
 Arthur Curtiss James, New York 
 
 William Jay Schieffelin, New York 
 
 LuNSFORD L. Lewis, Richmond, Va. 
 
 James W. Cooper, Hartford, Conn. 
 
 William W.Frazier, Philadelphia 
 
 Frank W. Darling, Hampton, Va. 
 
 William Howard Taft, Washington, D. C. 
 
 Clarence H. JCelsey, New Yorl^ , ; 
 
 Samuel C. Mitchell, Columbia, "3. C. 
 
 FORM OF BEQUEST 
 
 I give and devise to the trustees of The Hampton Normal 
 and Agricultural Institute, Hampton, Virginia, the sum of 
 , , . . . . dollars, payable 
 
 SEP m% 
 
SAiM JACKSON WAS LITERALLY "RAW MATERIAL' 
 
The Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute 
 
 MOLLIS B. FRI'SSELL FRANK K, ROGERS HERBERT B. TURNER 
 
 PRINCIPAL TREASURER CHAPLAIN 
 
 Founded by Samuel Chapman Armstrong in 1868 for the prac- 
 tical education of Negro and Indian youth. 
 
 To make earnest, useful, Christian citizens, who will lead and 
 
 teach their people, is its object. 
 The needs of the school are many, and its support depends 
 
 almost entirely upon private contributions. 
 Any amount you may desire to contribute, no matter how 
 
 small, will be gratefully received. 
 In providing a Hampton scholarship for some deserving 
 
 Negro boy or girJ, you will give your donation a human, 
 
 personal element, as a record is kept for the donor of the 
 
 student who receives the scholarship. 
 
 One hundred dollars pays the tuition of a student for one 
 year, including an academic and industrial scholarship. 
 
 Thirty dollars will provide an industrial scholar&hip for one 
 
 year. 
 Seventy dollars will provide an academic scholarship for one 
 
 year. 
 
 A permanent industrial scholarship can be endowed for eight 
 hundred dollars and a permanent academic scholarship 
 for two thousand dollars. 
 
 All contributions may be sent to the Treasurer, F. K. Rogers,. 
 Hampton, Va., by whom they will be acknowledged. 
 
A DIRTY CABIN, SyUATTING IN A SUN-BAKED CLEARING 
 
 The Regeneration of Sam Jackson 
 
 By J. W. CHURCH 
 
 Authnr of "The Crucible" 
 
 If by any chance you live in the South, you know- 
 Sam Jackson. 
 
 That is, you knew him before he left his 
 cabin in the "piney woods." Sam was born 
 lucky, tho a most careful study of his early environment 
 would fail to convince you of it. A dirty, unhealthy log cabin, 
 squatting in a sunbaked clearing surrounded by a few acres of 
 
sickly cotton, a couple of razor-backed hogs, and a discouraged 
 liound dog made up about all the landscape with which he 
 was intimately familiar. Of course his own family added 
 somewhat to the picturesqueness of the scene, there being 
 about a dozen of them. Eating, cooking, and sleeping in the one 
 room of the cabin, as they did, hardly served to inculcate any 
 vary definite principles of cleanliness or morality in Sam, 
 
 Not in his environment was he fortunate, but in the ac- 
 cident that brought to the neglected, almost forgotten country 
 school, three miles away, a teacher trained in the needs of his 
 race, the spirit of service to his people strong within him. 
 
 Yes, Sam was a little Negro. Just one of several millions 
 in the Southern States, the present horizon of most of them. 
 
 
 
 
 
 - 
 
 
 
 1 \ 
 
 ul 
 
 M 
 
 ^fe.. - 
 
 ..^^ 
 
 
 
 % 
 
 h 
 
 iK?^J3l 
 
 K!^ 
 
 
 -^ 
 
 '\ 
 
 i 
 
 "^x 
 
 1 
 
 
 
 
 H 
 
 SAM's school — NEGLECTED, ALMOST FORGOTTEN 
 
bounded by a log cabin, a patch of cotton, a country store, 
 and a county jail. 
 
 Sam's teacher wasn't strong on algebra or dead languages. 
 Fairly good English and an ordinary working knowledge of 
 arithmetic, together with a rather elementary education in 
 geography and history, marked the sum total of his academic 
 accomplishments. But, in spite of this, the little Negroes 
 whom he taught — but that isn't what I want to tell you. 
 
 For years he labored patiently with Sam, and, while the 
 progress was slow, little by little he fanned a spark of desire 
 in the boy's brain, so that one day Sam Jackson left the piney 
 woods, and a few days later walked thru the gateway of 
 Hampton Institute. 
 
 Had you met him that eventful morning, you probably 
 wouldn't have considered Sam worth troubling about. A 
 poorly dressed, unalert black boy with a sullen face isn't 
 particularly attractive. The suUenness, however, was only 
 skin deep, and rather more of fright than anything else. Of 
 what you call manners, that seem so simple and elemental, he 
 had scant knowledge. Toothbrushes and " I beg your pardon'* 
 are not an essential part of coaxing a quarter- bale of short 
 staple, low-grade cotton out of a thin soil with the aid of a 
 reluctant mule. 
 
 But the boy was possessed of grim determination to 
 learn, and Hampton Institute gave him a hearty welcome. 
 Nowhere else in all the world have his needs, his particular 
 needs, been the earnest study of hundreds of trained men and 
 women for two-score years as at Hampton, and what they 
 
have accomplished is beyond any man's pen to describe. 
 You can get an idea, tho, from what they did for Sam, how 
 they did it, and the fruit it has borne. 
 
 Let me' interpolate one thing right here, which has a very 
 great bearing on your thought as you read this story. Hamp- 
 ton's interest does not lie in the success or failure of the 
 individual Negro. Service to the Negro race, the missionary 
 spirit that makes a man or woman return in gratitude to the 
 less fortunate to spread the knowledge given him or her, is 
 Hampton's plea to its students and graduates. It succeeds 
 too. 
 
 Hampton Institute is nearing the half-century mark of its 
 endeavor. Few, it any, of its graduates are rich ; less than 
 two hundred have entered any profession save that of 
 teaching, and none are in jail. And there have gone forth 
 since 1870 nearly eight thousand graduates and undergrad- 
 uates, imbued to the core with the Hampton spirit. 
 
 Let's see how it worked with Sam, and why it's only fair 
 to term him good raw material, for he was, literally. Morality, 
 as we understand the term, was to him an unknown principle. 
 Not immoral, but unmoral — the reason for morality had never 
 been made clear to him. Physically and mentally he needed 
 bathing, but, far more, to understand why. He was lazy. You 
 need incessant practice in industry to make labor a habit, but 
 at that, if you are set blindly at a task, the "why" unknown, 
 it can never be congenial or competently done. He needed 
 thrift, for his race, until recently without possessions, held 
 little of value beyond the pleasure of the hour. And he 
 
LEARNING THE "\VH\ '" OF A PLOW 
 
 needed a broader view of life, of the world, o£ the things 
 worth while that study may bring. Morality, physical clean- 
 liness, industry, thrift, a trade by which to work and earn and 
 save, a knowledge of the dignity of labor, and a spirit of serv- 
 ice to his race. These, then, were Sam Jackson's needs. A 
 bit of a contract, you'll admit. Now I want to show you how 
 it's done. 
 
 You may know all about Hampton. You may even have 
 been there. If so, you have seen and heard the truth of this 
 story. If you haven't, there isn't much that's more important 
 or worth while to know. 
 

 
Should you visit it to-day, you would find a beautiful in- 
 dustrial village. Wide, spotless roads, shaded by giant elms 
 and maples, wind hither and thither amid broad stretches of 
 green lawn ; everywhere close-clipt hedges mark the approach 
 to walks and private lawns ; everywhere are stately buildings 
 and pretty cottages, now green with ivy, now half-hidden be- 
 neath flowering, climbing vines. Thousands upon thousands 
 of roses lend their perfume 1o the fragrant air, and over the 
 famous Hampton Roads, whose blue waters lap the edges of 
 the greensward, the cool, salt breeze of the Atlantic Ocean 
 brings its health and vigor to the busy workers of Hampton. 
 
 But glance backward a moment, to whence all this sprang. 
 It will help you to understand it better. Forty- four years 
 ago, this wondrous spot was a barren waste, the wreck of a 
 plantation but lately ruined by the Civil War. There was no 
 scent of roses in the air, no stately trees or vine- clad homes. 
 Just a crude barracks, housing as best it might the infancy of 
 a great institution. Here General Armstrong, with two 
 teachers and fifteen pupils, the latter drawn from the 
 thousands of half-clad, starved Negroes clustered under the 
 frowning walls of Fortress Monroe, began the work of Hamp- 
 ton Institute. It was a pitiable plight, that of these dazed 
 freedmen at that time, unfit for the freedom so swiftly thrust 
 upon them. Unable to earn their living, bewildered by the 
 sudden destruction of the only sort of life to which they 
 were accustomed, unable to return to the old, and incapable 
 of living up to the new standards set for them. Volumes and 
 an inspired pen could not adequately describe the work and 
 
 II 
 
heroic self-sacrifice of General Armstrong and his little, brave- 
 hearted band of workers who gave themselves gladly to the 
 stupendous task of trying to teach another race that freedom 
 was not license, but the opportunity to be of service to man- 
 kind rather than a master. 
 
 Stick by stick, stone by stone, Hampton Institute was 
 built. With infinite patience, slowly, but steadily, the work 
 went on. Few at first, but in ever increasing numbers, the 
 Negro men and women came, and in turn went forth, and by 
 their industry and lives proved Hampton's work to be good. 
 Each succeeding year found a better knowledge of the prob- 
 lems to be met, and new problems added to those already 
 solved. Year by year was the equipment augmented, the 
 power of the school increased, and a greater struggle necessary 
 to pay the bills. 
 
 A few years ago, when Sam Jackson arrived, he found 
 awaiting him a master builder of human character, surround- 
 ed by two hundred able assistants, and every mental and 
 physical device to transform the sluggish raw material into an 
 alert, well-disciplined, competent product of the greatest boon 
 of this century, or any other, for that matter — practical indus- 
 trial training. 
 
 He found a dormitory, with spotless pine floors in rooms 
 and halls, to be scrubbed until they shone : a room, cot, and 
 bedding to be kept in perfect order ; a bathtub and toothbrush 
 to be regularly employed. He found a uniform to wear and 
 care for, and a battalion, without guns, to be sure, but with 
 rigid discipline, to which he must conform. Tobacco, liquor, 
 
 12 
 
1^ 
 
 
 i 
 
 i 
 
 r^'^i 
 
 fl 
 
 I .lARdiP!uBB 
 
 1 
 
 1 1 
 
 WHERE SAM LKARNKI) ORDER AND CLEANLINESS 
 
 cards, and all dubious amusements were taboo. Courtesy be- 
 tween the students themselves he found to be the order of 
 each day. Just as the Negro is apt in vice, so is he to imitate 
 and eventually absorb the better conduct of life, and Sam's 
 new ideas of physical and moral cleanliness were so gradually 
 absorbed that he scarcely noted the change. At five-thirty 
 each weekday morning he rose and went directly from his 
 breakfast to his work. There are fifteen trades to choose from 
 at Hampton, and in each of these every step of the journey 
 toward a skilled trade is carefully guided by patient, expert 
 instructors. Always the " why " of a task is made clear, and 
 over and over again the task must be done until there comes 
 a perfect harmony between the workman and his trade. 
 
 13 
 
SAM WAS TAUGHT THAT FARMING IS A SCIEA'CE 
 
 Agriculture, in which millions of Negroes are employed 
 throughout the South, and in which lies their greatest hope 
 for material prosperity, is the goal toward which Hampton is 
 striving. Each year sees a larger class entered in farming 
 and greater results obtained. There have gone forth frora 
 Hampton Institute in the past few years scores of agricultural 
 workers, skilled in the trae science of the farm, whose little 
 plantations in various parts of the South are by far the best 
 of any, black or white, in the community where they live, and 
 whose trained industry has won the admiration and respect 
 of all with whom they come in neighborly contact. 
 
 Sam Jackson worked hard all day, ate his supper at six 
 o'clock, spent two hours, from seven until nine, in the class- 
 rooms, and was entirely ready for bed when taps sounded at 
 nine-thirty. 
 
 H 
 
It wasn't all work, of course. There was no dearth of 
 clean, muscle-building, eye-quickening athletics, nor of earn- 
 est religious training. Under these ever-constant influences, 
 the raw material began to develop morality and industry to a 
 somewhat amazing degree. And as his labor, during the 
 work years, brought him eight cents an hour, and his board 
 cost him eleven dollars a month, thrift finally began to get a 
 very fair stranglehold on Sam's natural inclination toward 
 improvidence. His academic work, so regulated as to correlate 
 with his industrial training, broadened his scope of thought, 
 and aided him in finally comprehending that service, not 
 selfishness, is the true basis for a permanent enjoyment of 
 his newly awakened powers. 
 
 Thus did Hampton solve the problem of Sam Jackson, 
 
 BRICKLAYING AND M AT H E^^ATIC.S GO HANU IN HAND 
 
 15 
 
and send forth, alert and vigorous, the ignorant, untrained 
 Negro boy of four years past. 
 
 ■ There was one element in Sam's training I haven't men- 
 tioned. It wasn't overlooked. Rather, it is of such tremendous 
 importance^ that even when dealt with separately, only those 
 who have visited Hampton Institute will understand. And 
 they never forget it- It is the atmosphere, the real, tho intan- 
 gible influence of self-sacrifice, devotion to cause and principle, 
 of hundreds of men and women for half a century. 
 It permeates the village, an all-encompassing atmosphere of 
 cheerful earnestness, unceasing, patient endeavor, and honest 
 content. And of this is born the "Hampton spirit," of which, 
 every teacher and student is justly proud. 
 
 In the files in the Bureau of Statistics are hundreds of 
 sheets, covered thickly with the records of work done by 
 those who have gone forth. Without having felt the Hampton 
 spirit, some of the stories they tell seem well-nigh incompre- 
 hensible. When you yourself have known it, then you 
 understand. 
 
 Now I want to leave Sam Jackson, who is Sally as well, 
 
 and of whom nearly eight thousand have passed thro the re- 
 fining crucible of Hampton, and talk with you about the 
 really big question that lies back of it all. DOES IT PAY ? 
 
 Eighteen years ago General Armstrong died, leaving 
 Hampton Institute as a monument to his great task. Dr. H. B. 
 Frissell, for many years his assistant, succeeded him, and un- 
 der his guiding hand the work has gone steadily on. To-day 
 the student roll numbers nearly one thousand, and the 
 
 i6 
 
strengthening influence of the school is felt in nearly every 
 state in the Union, but most of all where it is most needed, 
 in the South. 
 
 Few men, either North or South of Mason and Dixon's 
 line, deny the seriousness of what is termed the Negro problem. 
 Of theories as to its elimination or solution there are thou- 
 sands, but every practical man, be he from the North or South, 
 who has given the question sincere, earnest thought, agrees 
 
 A BATTALION TO WHOSE RIGID DISCIPLINE HE MUST COXFt)KiM 
 
 that in the last analysis it becomes a matter of education. 
 Not some visionary scheme by which a wondrous latter-day 
 miracle is to be wrought, nor a standard curriculum to which 
 all Negroes, willy nilly, must fit or be fitted. Not in these, 
 but in the sort of training Sam Jackson got, lies the future 
 hope of the Negro race. 
 
 If Hampton simply sent out into the world eight thousand 
 
 17 
 
Negroes equipped to earn their own living by skillful indus- 
 trial work, I would call it good, worthy, and let it go at that. 
 But when the almost boundless ramifications of its work are 
 known, when one thinks of the scores of little Hamptons its 
 graduates and undergraduates have founded to spread its work 
 as best they may, from Booker Washington at Tuskegee to 
 many an unknown worker in some almost unknown village, 
 yet one and all with the Hampton spirit strong within them, 
 then does Hampton's work assume its proper importance in 
 the world scheme of things worth while. 
 
 In view of this, and much more that a volume could but 
 
 inadequately tell, the question "Does it pay?" strikes you 
 as rather absurd, doesn't it? Yet when you know the tre- 
 mendous strain of meeting each year a deficit of more than 
 one hundred thousand dollars, in order that the work may go 
 on, that aid many not fail those whose need is dire, it ceases to 
 be as absurd as you might think. Altho Hampton has the full 
 moral support of the National Government, and of the state in 
 which it is located, its income from these sources is relatively 
 small. It is really a private institution, and must depend al- 
 most entirely upon individual subscriptions for its existence. 
 Its future lies entirely in the hands of the men and 
 women of this country who believe in its work, and whose 
 vision is sufficiently clear to see that in the regeneration of 
 Sam Jackson lies not only the truest and best hope for the 
 mental, moral, and physical prosperity of the Negro race, but 
 an era of better understanding between black men and white, 
 both of whose interests are best served by kindly considera- 
 tion of each other's needs. 
 
 i8 
 
THK FINISHED PRODUCT— ALERT, THOUGHTFUL, VIGOROUS- 
 AN HONOR TO HIS RACE 
 
 ^9 
 
019 601 604 1^ 
 
 n