Its diversified departments are conducted with such careful attention to detail, with such consecrated, self-denying enthusiasm, with such genius in teaching, and with such faith in God, on the part of its principal, Gen. Armstrong, and his corps of teachers, gathered from the best families of the North, that the school could not be otherwise than successful. This language may seem extravagant, but, if any one is inclined to regard it so, let him visit the school next May, and he will appreciate the self-restraint of one who says no more than what has just been said.
The Hampton Institute has settled two or three questions very satisfactorily.
From the experience of this Institution, it is plain that it is quite possible to combine industrial with intellectual and religious education without injury to any one of these branches of knowledge. Nothing is more prominent to a superficial observation than the industrial side of Hampton.
The saw-mill, which since September last has cut over a million feet of lumber, the knitting-room, which has produced this year 12,000 dozen mittens for a Boston firm, the market-garden, from which have been sent this spring thirty barrels of peas a day to Baltimore, and from which have been raised peas and asparagus, together amounting in value to $1,500, the ice house, in which are stored 180 tons of ice, the industrial room, where are made the students’ uniforms, the cooking school, in which the girls are taught the culinary art, the printing office, from which is issued monthly “The Southern Workman,” the shoe shop, the blacksmith’s shop, the wheelwright’s shop, the carpenter’s shop, the repair shop, the brick-yard, which has supplied all the bricks used on the buildings of the Institution, the $6,000 barn, where fine blooded stock is kept, the farm of 330 acres—these departments of activity, wonderful for their variety and completeness, are steadily training the students and the inhabitants of the surrounding region in ways of industry. But this is not all, nor the principal benefit, the students receive. If we may judge from a hasty inspection of classes, from the scope and skillful expression of thought in the graduating exercises, and from the testimony of teachers, a thorough and sufficiently extended education in all mental departments is given. Best of all, as the crown no less than the beginning of wisdom, the students, entering the school without special religious impressions, seldom leave it without becoming devoted Christians. The result of the combination of industrial with other forms of training, is seen in the evident union in Hampton students of hard good sense with scholarly intelligence and unostentatious piety.
Another question is most satisfactorily settled, whether it is possible to educate the Negro and the Indian together. On graduation day, in sight of the audience, was a stand on which rested a fragment from the building recently burned. It was a mass of red and black bricks cemented together, and prettily draped with vines. If this was designed to be emblematic, it was truthfully so. The red and the black races do harmonize most happily at Hampton, and cultivate together the graces of character. They are a mutual help to each other, especially the Negro, as farther advanced in civilization, to the Indian. Their dispositions supplement each other. The Negro is enthusiastic, demonstrative and dependent, the Indian reserved, bashful and self-contained. Each finds in the other, qualities that he needs and that attract him. As a consequence, there is great friendliness between the two races. When the colored boys were asked if any of their number were willing to room with the Indians, that the latter might learn to speak English more readily, there was no lack of volunteers. And no one can doubt the kindly feeling pervading the school, who has seen, as we have, Indian and Negro boys walking together, or chatting on the green with arms lovingly about each others’ necks.
Other questions, such as the wisdom of educating the Indians away from their tribes, or of the coeducation of the sexes, we have no time to discuss. It is sufficient to say that the experience of Hampton is thus far entirely satisfactory in these regards.
FISK UNIVERSITY.
Examinations—Ode to Jubilee Bell—Dr. Willcox’ Address—Prosperous Year.
The Nashville Daily American, whose proprietor is the Honorable Secretary of the U. S. Senate, gives a full report of all the commencement exercises of this school, from the Sabbath morning sermon by Prof. Bennett, the baccalaureate by Pres. Cravath in the afternoon, and the missionary sermon by Dr. Twichell, of Cleveland, Ohio, in the evening, to the doxology with which the Alumni dinner closed on Thursday afternoon, making in all at least five full columns.
Monday was given to examinations. The American says: “These examinations were held in different recitation-rooms of Jubilee Hall and were attended by interested visitors.