Evidences of Progress Among Colored People

by G. F. Richings

KINDERGARTEN CLASS.

Those of the girls who wish trades can be admitted into the Domestic Science Department where they are fitted to be teachers of sewing, cooking, and laundering, with an opportunity to do actual work in the school's laundry and kitchen.

All students of the school receive instruction in agriculture, but those who wish to devote themselves especially to it can receive special instruction in the Agricultural Department, with experiments in the laboratory and practical work upon the school's two farms.

Those who wish to fit themselves to become teachers in the public schools, after graduation from the Academic Department, enter the Normal Department, where they receive instruction in methods of teaching, and have practice in the Whittier School, in which there are over three hundred children, with kindergarten and classes in cooking, gymnastics, and the English branches.

The boys are formed into a battalion under the Commandant of Cadets, a graduate of the school, from whom they receive military drill and gymnastic training. A United States officer from Fort Monroe assists in this work. The care of persons, quarters, and grounds are largely under the care of the officers of the school battalion. The girls are similarly organized under their matrons and are instructed in habits and manners.

The school is non-sectarian but earnestly Christian. Careful instruction in the Bible is given by teachers representing different denominations. The Chaplain is assisted by the clergymen of Hampton in the religious work of the school.

TRADE SCHOOL PAINT SHOP.

Six thousand young people of the Negro and Indian races have had the advantages of the school's training and gone out as teachers, farmers, and business men, to lift their people to a higher level. Nearly 1,000 have graduated from the school's Academic Department, and of these 90 per cent. have become teachers. The great majority have gone into the public schools. Whole counties have been transformed by their work. Homes, churches, and schools have been built, land purchased, and the morals of the community improved.