THE HAMPTON ANNIVERSARY.
The Negro and the Indian——Co-Education of the Races——Addresses by the Rev. Dr. Hoge, of Richmond, and Secretary Carl Schurz, of Washington.
By the Editor.
More than the ordinary interest attaches this year to the anniversary exercises of the Hampton Normal and Agricultural School, just held. The experiment of negro education has been tried for the last 16 years, until it is no longer an unsolved problem, but one of which the once unknown quantities have come to have an ascertained value. But the question of the educability of the red man has been one not so conspicuously settled. What has been accomplished in that direction has been done so far away as not to have made much impression on the American people. This year, the institution which has done so much to prove the responsiveness of the negro to educational training has been engaged in its first experiment with the Indian. Of its success thus far there can be no shadow of a doubt. The Indian boys are contented and making progress, and coming steadily up to a plane on which they can pursue the regular courses of study. It was said by many at the outset that the negro and Indian races would not associate with each other, but the case is as contrary to this as can be. The Indian boys at first seemed to be somewhat discontented, and Gen. Armstrong found that they wanted most of all to learn English. “Too much Indian talk,” they said. He asked them in class one day how many of them would like to room with the negro boys; every hand went up. He then went to his senior class and asked them how many of them would be willing to take in an Indian as a roommate, to help and teach him. A larger number than was needed of his very best young men expressed their willingness, and so, instead of standing aloof, the two races are completely mixed in their rooms and at table, to their mutual satisfaction. This is a notable element in the experiment. Some 12 of the Indian boys have joined the church connected with the Institute.
Is it needful to say a word about the Hampton Institute itself? Beautiful for situation it certainly is, with its front on the creek, and only a narrow point of land separating it from the famed Hampton Roads. Its buildings are simple but effective in their outline and grouping. Virginia and Academic Halls, and the new wigwam——the quarters prepared for the 70 Indian students; the cottages in which the boys live, in families of 30 or more, largely self-governed; the residences of the Principal and his assistants; and not least, the great barn, sheltering a fine collection of blooded stock——and all this on a farm of some 200 acres. It is but a few years since there were only small and temporary barracks to accommodate the applicants for admission; now about 200 negro and 70 Indian students are well provided with dormitories, recitation-rooms and workshops.
A creditable brass band, composed of students, greeted the visitors with their cheering strains, well rendered, considering the short time since practice was begun. Capt. Romeyne keeps the boys, both black and red, in good military drill, and under firm, though kind, government, and in their gray uniforms, cheap but comely, they presented no mean appearance. Work and study are the order of every day. The brightest and most inspiring teaching the writer ever saw wakens the intellect to an eager activity; and work on farm and in shop for the boys, in kitchen and laundry and with the knitting machine for the girls, both teaches them how to labor, and enables them to pay a considerable part of the expenses of their living.
The examinations, except of the graduating class, were not written, but were oral, and on the plan of the daily recitations. The Indians attracted perhaps the greatest attention from the many visitors, in the conversation classes, which were conducted with rare tact and skill. On a table was placed a mass of common plants and flowers. One of the band of Indians brought only a few months ago by Capt. Pratt was called up and asked to pick out some grass; its uses brought out the words eat and horse, and sentences were formed of these words. Beet, onion, potato and clover were selected in turn, and their uses brought out by skillful questioning. Then, in another lesson, working and earning money and spending it were illustrated, and the language taught necessary to express these ideas. At the other end of the gradation of studies were the very creditable recitations of the graduating class of colored students in algebra, history, physiology and other higher branches; nor would it do to omit the class in teaching, where the seniors showed their skill in interesting and instructing the little children of the Butler Normal School.
In the afternoon the public exercises were held in Virginia Hall, which was crowded to overflowing. The addresses were manly and earnest; some of them quite forcible and free in thought and expression, and dealing with questions affecting their race. It was quite touching to see a black boy pleading for the extension of the privileges of education to the Indian, and one of the features of interest was a simple story of his home life in Indian Territory by an Indian youth. Music by the band, by a select few, and by the whole school, relieved the speaking.
But we must not forget to give the prominence due them to the visitors of the day. Most conspicuous among them was the delegation of Indians, in blankets and feathers, from Washington. Little Chief and six warriors with him of the Northern Chippewas were persuaded to come down to see what was being done for the boys of their own race. Just how they were impressed by it all, it is impossible to say, as their faces were covered with their blankets most of the time, and they acted like a group of shy old women. Probably they were a good deal bored, though they gave signs of occasional amusement. But there were other visitors of note. Chief among these were Secretaries Schurz and McCrary, of the President’s Cabinet; Senator Saunders and Representative Pound, of Wisconsin; ex-President Mark Hopkins, of Williams College; the Rev. Dr. Plumer, of Charleston, S. C., and the Rev. Dr. Hoge, of Richmond; the Rev. Dr. Armstrong of Norfolk, Va., and Judge Lafayette S. Foster, of Connecticut. After the diplomas had been presented to the graduating class by the Rev. Dr. Strieby, of this city, President of the Board of Trustees, Dr. Hoge was called upon to address the graduating class, and among other things said:
“It has been my lot to attend a good many college commencements, but I never attended one in all my life where so much honor and encouragement were given to those connected with an institution as to-day. Two members of the Cabinet of the United States, the President of the youngest university of the United States, and which bids fair to be one of the grandest (President Gilman, of the Johns Hopkins University), judges of our courts, eminent professional men, and two of the most venerable gentlemen on this continent, Dr. Plumer and Dr. Hopkins——Massachusetts and South Carolina uniting to-day to give encouragement to this institution and to the labors of those who are so nobly carrying out its objects.
“I cannot stand here to-day in this historic latitude without some profound emotions. I should not be a Virginian if I did. I cannot stand in sight of Fortress Monroe without remembering our fallen fortunes. The last two summers I have been abroad, and I have come back believing that there is no land which God has so smiled upon as this country. We have no need so great as of a stable government. I do not mean of force. No government can be stronger than the love of the people for it. You may put great iron bands upon it, but there will be a centrifugal power which will burst them. There must be centripetal force powerful enough to attract the people together in it. If our Government is to be like that, may the Lord smile upon it and perpetuate it to the last syllable of time.
“All my life long I have been a friend to one of the classes represented here, and now I am grateful that this institution has extended its protecting wing over another. I have been something of a student of races. I could occupy the remainder of the day in telling you of the good qualities of the African race; and there has always been a great deal that has touched my heart in the character of the Indian people——their love for their ancestral lands, their reverence for the bones of their forefathers, that decorous reserve which gives such dignity to their bearing. One thing which I have always admired in them is this, that when a war is over, they never talk about the war that is fought. It is not considered magnanimous in an Indian to taunt a fallen foe. It seems to me that in our popular assemblies and in other assemblies it might be well to imitate the Indian, and not talk too much about the war.
“The Indian who told us the story of his life at home said something that went straight to my heart. He didn’t say it very forcibly, but the force was in the thing he said. Time was, he told us, when he did not know anything about his soul or his salvation. One end of this institution is to make the poor Indian acquainted with the things which shall help him see God, not in the clouds, but in the face of Jesus Christ; and to hear him, not in the winds, but in the still small voice of the Spirit, speaking peace to his soul.”
The Doctor closed with calling attention to goodness as the greatest element of success; that no man can afford to succeed by sacrificing it; illustrating it by reference to a humble girl who came during the yellow fever scourge to nurse the sick, and who died a victim to its poisons, and by the life of a colored Baptist minister who recently died in Richmond.
The Hon. Carl Schurz, Secretary of the Interior, was called upon to follow. He began thus:
“I respond to this call not to prolong the exercises of the day, nor for purposes of debate. I do not intend to discuss the war. I am glad it is over. I only desire to bear testimony that of all the speakers of the day, not one has alluded to the war save in a most innocent way, and they were the Indian and the reverend gentleman who is, I am sure, a most peaceable member of the church militant. As to the manner in which civil wars should be treated, he and I do not disagree.
“My heart is elated with this spectacle to-day. Reference has been made to the fact that two Cabinet officers are present. I assure you that we did not come here for purposes of amusement, but to witness elements in the solution of one of the most difficult and dangerous problems of our day——the problem of blending two races, one of which has been in subjection and the other in hostility. We are all filled with feelings of admiration and gratitude to Gen. Armstrong and his co-workers here; to the State of Virginia, which, by its generous aid, renders a service to itself not only and to the colored people, but to this whole country; and to the benevolent people North and South, in Massachusetts and in South Carolina. In this I see the real end of the war and the inauguration of true peace. If I look back with satisfaction on anything in my official career, it is that I have been instrumental in aiding such a work. I am happy to know that the experiment is a success; and I assure you that so far as the means and power of my department go, nothing shall be left undone to strengthen and enlarge the experiment. The time has gone when the Indian can live on buffalo meat and give himself to the chase. The time has come when every man must work. All the information which comes to us tends to show that not only these but other tribes desire education, and that the attempt to give it to them is successful.
“The question is often asked, Will they not relapse into barbarism on returning among their own tribes? I am inclined to think that this danger is real, unless the education be extended to a much larger number of Indians——enough to support each other, and so resist the pressure. This is the object to be held in view, and which I hope, in part, may be accomplished before my term of office expires.
“I commend this institution. I do not know of one educational institution in the country which is more important in its tendencies, as well as in its promised results, than this. I hope that Virginia will continue to extend her helping hand, that its patrons North and South will not withdraw their support, and that continued success may attend the labors of the General and those who are associated with him in this work. I will only add that these sentiments of appreciation of this work, and the desire for its enlargement and extension, are most heartily concurred in by the President of the United States.”
With a benediction from the venerable Dr. Plumer, the assembly broke up. The visitors turned toward their homes, and the school resumed its work, which will continue for three weeks, to the end of its academic year. I need not say to the friends of the Indian and the negro, perhaps scarcely to those who care for the welfare of our own Caucasian race in these United States, don’t forget Hampton and the institutions of which it is a shining example.