He began in April, 1868, with small things,—a matron, a teacher, fifteen pupils and buildings worth $15,000. In a month there were thirty pupils. Things moved straight on,—they were moved by the assiduity, the enthusiasm, the inspiration, of Armstrong, and the answering temper which he woke in pupils, teachers, contributors, observers. Presently a special effort, an appeal to friends, solicitude, students zealously making bricks and laying them, help from General Howard—and so, in 1870, a noble building, Academic Hall, and presently again, Virginia Hall,—and the school kept growing.
Its moral success was promptly won. The subject answered to the experiment,—those dark-skinned boys and girls came eager to learn. No one had believed in them, and they had not believed in themselves, but they speedily learned self-respect and gained the respect of others. They did what was asked of them, earned most of their support, showed good workmanship and scholarship, were blameless in morals, caught the spirit of the place, and went out to carry light into the dark places. No holiday task was set them. There was a working day of twelve hours, between the class-room, the work-shop, the drill-ground and the field, with rare and brief snatches of recreation. They met the demand with a resource inherited from their ancestors' long years of patient labor. The hard toil was a moral safeguard. The African race is sensuous, and co-education might seem perilous. The danger was completely averted by the influence of labor, strenuous and constant, but diversified and interesting. The essentials of character,—industry, chastity, truth and honesty, serviceable good-will,—were the aim and result of the Hampton training; and all ran back to the homely root that man should be trained to earn intelligently and faithfully his daily bread.
The story of Hampton is a theme not for a chapter but for a volume. How its founder won favor and friendship by his tact and large-mindedness; how he established good relations with the Virginians; how the Institute became the parent of other schools; how Booker Washington was there fitted for the founding of Tuskegee and the leadership of his race; how the work was extended to the Indians; how Armstrong's spirit and example gathered and inspired a company of teachers perhaps unsurpassed,—mostly women, whose refining influence on the pupils he specially valued; how he dreamed of what he never reached, some day to give industrial education at Hampton to the whites; how a worthy successor took his place, efficient and self-effacing; how deeply the Hampton idea has permeated the education of the Southern negro, and is coming to influence white education North and South,—all this can here be recalled but by a word.
But on the personality of its leader we must for a moment linger, to note one or two of its traits. His splendid vitality overflowed at times in frolic and extravagance. He never lost the spirit of the boy. He would come into a group of his serious-minded teachers and say, "Oh! what's the good of saving souls if you can't have any fun?" and start a frolic or organize an all-day picnic. In his home he introduced "puss in the corner" and "the Presbyterian wardance" among the very elect. He delighted his children with romances. "Like Dr. Hopkins, he believed that the class-room should be a jolly place, and used to say that no recitation was complete without at least one good laugh. 'Laughter makes sport of work,' he said." His teaching sometimes came in a droll story. "Once there was a woodchuck.... Now, woodchucks can't climb trees. Well, this woodchuck was chased by a dog and came to a tree. He knew that if he could get up this tree the dog could not catch him. Now, woodchucks can't climb trees, but he had to, so he did."
His devotion to his work was so whole-souled that it was joyous and seemed unconscious of cost. In the touching pages he wrote when death impended, he said, "I never gave up or sacrificed anything in my life." Yet he constantly made what most men count heavy sacrifices. His work involved frequent and laborious trips to the North to arouse interest and raise money. He did it in as gallant a fashion as he had led a charge, or as he made appeal to the students hanging reverently on his words. A glimpse of him on one of these begging tours is given by Professor Francis G. Peabody:
"I suppose that every lover of General Armstrong recalls some special incident which seems most entirely typical of the man's life and heart. For my part, I think oftenest of one of those scenes in his many begging journeys to the North. It was at a little suburban church far down a side street on a winter night in the midst of a driving storm of sleet. There was, as nearly as possible, no congregation present; a score or so of humble people, showing no sign of any means to contribute, were scattered through the empty spaces, and a dozen restless boys kicked their heels in the front pew. Then in the midst of this emptiness and hopelessness up rose the worn, gaunt soldier, as bravely and gladly as if a multitude were hanging upon his words, and his deep-sunk eyes looked out beyond the bleakness of the scene into the world of his ideals, and the cold little place was aglow with the fire that was in him, and it was like the scene on the Mount, that was not any less wonderful and glistening because only three undiscerning followers were permitted to see the glory."
Those frequent and long journeys went far to break up the happy home life in which he delighted, with the wife whose congenial and intimate companionship was his for nine years and the little girls to whom he was the most delightful of fathers. Then for twelve years, until his second marriage, he was almost a homeless man. He wore out his wonderful constitution; he suffered from dyspepsia and sleeplessness; a paralytic stroke crippled him; but for a year and a half he struggled on, cheerful, self-forgetful,—then the end.
His countrymen scarcely yet realize all that he was. He was the successful leader in that real emancipation of the American negro to which the legal emancipation was but a prelude. Beyond that, it would hardly be too much to say that he did more than any other man in either hemisphere to rationalize and Christianize our still half-medieval system of education. The working ideals of Hampton are to-day higher than those of Yale and Harvard. It may be questioned whether any professed preacher has done so much to develop the best modern type of religion; centered in daily work, reaching out into all human service, and consciously inspired by the divine life. It would not be extravagant to say that in the little group—perhaps half a dozen in all—whom America has contributed to the world's first rank of great men, not one stands higher in heroic manhood and far-reaching service than Samuel Armstrong.
But any comparison seems almost unworthy of his lofty spirit. There is no rivalry among the saints. Would that Armstrong could here be portrayed as he appeared in life. The outer man spoke well the inner. To look upon, he was a thoroughbred; of soldierly bearing, alert, vivid, noble; with the twinkle of mirth, the flash of resistless purpose,—a man to love, to revere, to follow. As a sort of mental portrait-sketch, we may glean a few of his sayings. It was as true of him as of Luther that his words were half-battles. They were flashed out like sparks struck from action. As to his special work, these:
"The North thinks that the great thing is to free the negro from his former owner; the real thing is to save him from himself."