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: