Hampton Institute

“ It was such combined mental, moral and industrial education which the late General Armstrong set out to give at the Hampton Institute when he established that school thirty years ago. The Hampton Institute has continued along the lines laid down by its great founder, and now each year an increasing number of similar schools are being established in the South, for the people of both races. ”

“ When I was a student at this institution I was taught that Ponce de Leon spent years in search of a fountain of perpetual youth. In my opinion there is no spot in America where one can more nearly renew his youth and strengthen his faith in the wisdom and perpetuity of our institutions than at Hampton.
“To the students who are to go out from the Hampton institute today to begin what I hope are to be careers of usefulness, I wish to say: I hope that you will learn to be even tempered, self-controlled and hopeful. ”

“ The trustees were in session on Wednesday, the 22d, on which day also was held the first meeting of the graduates of Hampton Institute. There were assembled in the beautiful “Whittier Chapel,” on the upper floor of Virginia Hall, a large representation of the 277 who had gone out, most of them as teachers of their race. Of that whole number, not a complaint has been made. They have become good and useful citizens, maintaining the high moral tone of Hampton, and evidencing that growth in character which is the best witness to the existence of a true life within. ”

“ The Hampton Institute is becoming more known and appreciated in Virginia and the neighboring States. Its alumni are occupying positions of practical usefulness, and discharge the high duties of good citizens well and faithfully. [203] Virginians believe that Principal Armstrong is emphatically the right man in the right place, and that, with General Marshall, Miss Mackie and others on his staff, he will push forward the good work in which they are engaged, and will continue to merit and receive the grateful appreciation of the people of the commonwealth. ”

“ He went to work at once, and, through the aid of a number of Southern men, he established a school for negro boys and girls at Hampton, Virginia, and called it Hampton Institute.
His main purpose was to give negro boys and girls an opportunity to learn some useful trade. He believed that people must first learn to make a good living before they could make much progress in any other direction. He wanted the negroes to have good food and good clothes and good homes. ”

“ At Hampton I received a warm welcome from teachers and students. I found that during my absence from Hampton the institute each year had been getting closer to the real needs and conditions of our people; that the industrial teaching, as well as that of the academic department, had greatly improved. The plan of the school was not modelled after that of any other institution then in existence, but every improvement was made under the magnificent leadership of General Armstrong solely with the view of meeting and helping the needs of our people as they presented themselves at the time. ”

“ Armstrong, Hampton Institute, with its broad lands, its large and commodious buildings, its steam-engine and multiplied mechanical employments, gives educational and industrial training to its large company of students, graduating about fifty pupils each year, ninety per cent. of whom go into the State [Pg 235] as teachers, carrying with them, into the school, the Sunday-school, the prayer-meeting and the church a healthful Christian influence; while the noble old state of Virginia responds to the effort by a gift of $10,000 a year for the support of the school. ”

“ I felt that I had reached the promised land, and I resolved to let no obstacle prevent me from putting forth the highest effort to fit myself to accomplish the most good in the world.
As soon as possible after reaching the grounds of the Hampton Institute, I presented myself before the head teacher for assignment to a class. Having been so long without proper food, a bath, and change of clothing, I did not, of course, make a very favourable impression upon her, and I could see at once that there were doubts in her mind about the wisdom of admitting me as a student. ”

“ Armstrong, the founder of Hampton Institute, in his school reports as early as 1870. The following quotations from these reports illustrate the principles which guided him in the organization of his work:
The past of our colored population has been such that an institution devoted especially to them must provide a training more than usually comprehensive, must include both sexes and a variety of occupation, must produce moral as well as mental strength, and while making its students 331first-rate mechanical laborers, must also make them first-rate men and women. ”

“ General Armstrong had found out that there was quite a number of young coloured men and women who were intensely in earnest in wishing to get an education, but who were prevented from entering Hampton Institute because they were too poor to be able pay any portion of the cost of their board, or even to supply themselves with books. ”

“ I resolved at once to go to that school, although I had no idea where it was, or how many miles away, or how I was going to reach it; I remembered only that I was on fire constantly with one ambition, and that was to go to Hampton. This thought was with me day and night.
After hearing of the Hampton Institute, I continued to work for a few months longer in the coal-mine. While at work there, I heard of a vacant position in the household of General Lewis Ruffner, the owner of the salt-furnace and coal-mine. Mrs. Viola Ruffner, the wife of General Ruffner, was a "Yankee" woman from Vermont. ”

“ I have set forth the general aspects of Industrial Education and its relations to a missionary work like that of the American Missionary Association. I wish now to set forth, briefly, the practical possibilities and the present undertakings of the Association in this line.
Among all the industrial schools of this continent, Hampton Institute stands easily first in the amount of invested capital, or plant, and in the variety and extent of its operations. It is, moreover, unique ”

“ I derived a great deal of benefit from the studies which I pursued, and I came into contact with some strong men and women. At the institution I attended there was no industrial training given to the students, and I had an opportunity of comparing the influence of an institution with no industrial training with that of one like the Hampton Institute, that emphasizes the industries. At this school I found the students, in most cases, had more money, were better dressed, wore the latest style of all manner of clothing, and in some cases were more brilliant mentally. ”

“ Hampton Institute would have done good for the race if it had not educated any other man except Booker T. Washington; for he has inspired his entire race, and is to-day doing for the race what a thousand Hannibal Thomases could not do. ”

“ Too often, it seems to me, in missionary and educational work among undeveloped races, people yield to the temptation of doing that which was done a hundred years before, or is being done in other communities a thousand miles away. The temptation often is to run each individual through a certain educational mould, regardless of the condition of the subject or the end to be accomplished. This was not so at Hampton Institute. ”

“ The suit will cost about ten dollars.
—Seventy young men and twenty-two young women remain at Hampton Institute this summer—a larger number than in any previous year—finding employment on the school-farm, in the shops, knitting-room, laundry, and at housework. The young people are under watchful care and supervision; the family life of the school is kept up, and regular Bible-class instruction on Sundays. ”

“ As a result of this program, the principal institutions established were Hampton Institute, Atlanta University, Fisk University, Straight University, Talladega College, Tougaloo University, and Tillston College. ”

“ Our eight Chartered Institutions, including Berea College and Hampton Institute, which were founded by this Association, have experienced a year of unusual prosperity. The number pursuing a higher grade of study has been continually on the increase, and the quality of the work done, as testified to by many who have witnessed it, indicates that the grade of teachers has been improved, not only by self-culture on the part of those who have been long in service, but also by accessions from among the best educators in the country. ”

“ It calls attention to a most important part of the teacher’s work. Meanwhile, we would suggest that the Hampton Sanitary Tracts may be found very useful for distribution, or to be read to older pupils and parents. The first three can be obtained by addressing the “Hampton Tract Editing Committee,” Hampton Institute, Va. The cost is five cents apiece, or four dollars a hundred copies. They are entitled: No. 1, “The Health Laws of Moses;” No. 2, “Preventable Diseases;” No. 3, “Duty of Teachers.” ”

“ The efforts of some of the men and women, who in many cases were over fifty years of age, to learn, were in some cases very pathetic.
My day- and night-school work was not all that I undertook. I established a small reading-room and a debating society. On Sundays I taught two Sunday-schools, one in the town of Malden in the afternoon, and the other in the morning at a place three miles distant from Malden. In addition to this, I gave private lessons to several young men whom I was fitting to send to the Hampton Institute. ”

“ SELF HELP FOR YOUTH “While at Hampton I resolved, if God permitted me to finish the course of study, I would enter the far South, the black belt of the Gulf States, and give my life in providing as best I could the same kind of chance or self-help for the youth of my race that I found ready for me when I went to Hampton, and, so, in 1881, I left Hampton and went to Tuskegee and started the Normal and Industrial Institute.” ”

“ These evening classes were to be a kind of preparatory school for such as might afterwards attend the day school of the Institute, and the conditions of their receiving two hours' nightly instruction were sufficiently onerous to deter any from coming forward but the most determined enthusiasts. A long, hard day's work had to be fulfilled before they could think of joining their class. It is no wonder that such scholars are now doing well in the world. The school is still continued at Hampton, but the scholars have increased from tens to hundreds. ”

“ Her executive capacity is of a high order, and she manages a school of a hundred or more pupils with as much dexterity and ease as most teachers with twenty or twenty-five pupils. Her ambition in her chosen profession is unbounded, and she never tires. Beginning with a third grade certificate she was enabled to attend the Hampton Normal and Agricultural Institute, teaching one year and returning to the school the other, until she graduated with distinction at that institute. ”

“ As to your inquiry for the number, condition and wants of students seeking a higher education, I suppose if the question were put to the school, how many would like to pursue a higher education, they would rise en masse, without always much appreciation of the labor or the value in it; but the Hampton School is so well-known to be established on the basis of self-help, and for the purpose of immediate helpfulness, that it draws to it chiefly the class who are glad of a chance to work their way through school, and are seeking to fit themselves as promptly as possible for the work of life. ”

“ The white teacher who recently left because there was 'no future' for her own career; the educator who complained of a system which continued to educate on general lines when some vocational diversion would be more profitable; those who support the objections of the 'Crisis' that Hampton is not a university—all these critics fail to understand the new philosophy of Hampton and its dominant human motive. ”

“ An associate editor of one of our largest dailies, a widely influential man, commended, not simply by its excellence, but by way of contrast, the work done at Hampton, not because in the pursuit of its own aims it left the work of higher education to other schools, but because it taught its negro pupils to work, and did not make fools of them by teaching them Latin and Greek, and this, not because he is opposed to higher education for any one, but because such an education unfitted the negro for his place. ”

“ He said: “For many years after the beginning of this institution, we were accustomed in this part of the country to speak of the Hampton school as an experiment; to-day, by the help of Almighty God, we can say that Hampton school is a magnificent success.” He spoke of the work that was being done for the colored race, of the manly characters that were being developed by the school training. He referred to the Indians, and especially to the speech which one of them had made. ”

“ Hampton, though a dozen years older, the pioneer in industrial education, equally well equipped, quite as well conducted, doing as great a work in the elevation of the races it represents, and holding just as important a place in the scheme of modern education, is not so interesting or so wonderful, because its conception and execution are the product of Aryan thought and Aryan ingenuity. New ideas, new discoveries, new inventions and organizations, new methods and new institutions, have been conspicuous among the white race for a thou [94] sand years. ”