Two thousand Negroes who are scarcely a generation removed from bondage, being trained, disciplined, controlled by 200 or more of the same racial type; 2,000 Negroes being educated, morally, industrially, intellectually; an industrial university with 100 large buildings well equipped and beautifully laid-off grounds, with a hum and bustle of industry, scientifically and practically conducted by a race considered as representing the lowest ethnic type, upsetting the theories of many well-meaning people who believe the Negroes incapable of maintaining themselves in this civilization, incapable of uniting in any successful endeavor without being under the direct personal control of the dominant Aryan—this is one of the greatest achievements of the race during its years of freedom.
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 thousand years. General Armstrong's wisdom and foresight were truly wonderful, as indeed are also those of his worthy successor, Dr. H. B. Frissell, under whose direction the school's influence and usefulness have steadily increased, and along lines that General Armstrong would approve; but had Hampton been founded and brought to its present state of proficiency by a Negro, and its dominating force been of the African race, it would be a more wonderful and interesting institution. In other words, the white race has long since passed its experimental period. It now is the standard of measurement for all other races. The Negro's achievements, then, are considered largely with reference to the impression which they make upon the race of whose civilization and government he is a part.
THE EXECUTIVE COUNCIL.
Tuskegee, therefore, stands out more prominently than Hampton as an exponent of industrial education, and has been more severely questioned because of the imagined disloyalty in a Negro's aggressive attitude for this particular kind of education for his race. There are people of both races who, while they do not on the whole oppose Hampton and Tuskegee in their educational methods, are honestly afraid that, because of the growing importance and influence of these two schools and others of a similar kind, the idea will be thoroughly established that the Negro needs only and is capable only of the narrowest sort of industrial training—such as is represented by the "rule-of-thumb carpenter" and the "one-suspender mule-driver," who work by rule and rote rather than by principle and method, not in the slightest degree comprehending the science underlying the work in which they are engaged, whose mathematical knowledge is bounded by "the distance between two corn or cotton rows."
To fix such an idea in the minds of the people of this country—which is not likely to be done—would, no doubt, be disastrous to us for generations to come, and make it much more easy than it is now to deprive the Negro of the civil and political rights which are guaranteed by the Constitution. It would, without question, defeat the objects for which Hampton and Tuskegee have persistently stood, and for which they have ever worked and are still very successfully working.
No one familiar with the curricula of these two schools would for a moment raise such a question. General Armstrong saw, as few people did, the moral and intellectual value of industrial training aside from its merely economic importance. He founded a school on an entirely different basis from any that had been known before—the basis of character-building through practical education, industrial training, and self-help.
During the thirty-six years of its history, Hampton has sent into the world about 1,200 graduates and 5,000 undergraduates, many of whom have taken with them the spark that has started many other Hamptons, large and small, among the Negroes of the South and the Indians of the West. Hampton's success, and indeed the success of any institution, depends not so much upon the scholastic attainments of its pupils as upon the work that those who have received its instruction accomplish. Hampton glories, and justly, in the loyalty of its graduates and in the faithfulness with which they have inculcated and exemplified the traditions and principles for which it stands. Hampton glories in Tuskegee, because Tuskegee has started in so many communities the spark of true life and real civilization; in the impetus and inspiration it has given, so beautiful and so perfect a consummation of the prophetic vision of Hampton's founder.
Can the relations between the two institutions be better stated than in the words of their two founders? After a visit to Tuskegee, General Armstrong said: "The Tuskegee school is a wonderful work and Mr. Washington is a remarkable man. He has carried out the idea of training the head, hand, and heart in a wonderfully complete and perfect way. This school is very much like the one at Hampton, and any one can recognize the similarity, but he has made many improvements. It is not merely an imitation. It is the Hampton Idea adapted and worked into a most sensible and efficient application to the needs of the Alabama Negroes." In the same memorial address at General Armstrong's funeral from which I quoted at the beginning of this paper, Mr. Washington said, "The rose I place on his grave is his work at Tuskegee."