"If Dr. Peabody has failed at all in the hard task of describing one in whom the full round of qualities blended into the white light of simplicity it is perhaps in not making his virility sufficiently evident. The first and last impression Frissell made was of lovableness, and he was so intent on getting work done that he never cared to be known as its author. Therefore, even his friends did not always discover his strength or sometimes his greatness. He carried on the school to a phenominal success and he developed more than one beginning to a definite policy.
"In the latter part of Gen. Armstrong's career a simple occurrence changed the whole character of the school. From it the school developed into a world institution. When the government asked Gen. Armstrong to continue the education of seventeen Indians already begun by Capt. Pratt, the task was undertaken as a civil and Christian duty, but thus was started a government policy, and an educational experiment which, carried on and broadened to other races under Dr. Frissell, has changed the face of our own land and altered the conditions of backward races the world over. Because of this great historical fact, Hampton should always keep up its Indian department, which witnesses to the beginning of its world relation.
"The passing of time after the Civil War and emancipation also made possible to Dr. Frissell the development of another policy, that of the unification of the North and the South. This was something very near his heart, and for it he started the southern education board—which was his creation more fully than Dr. Peabody explains—the Jeans board, much of the southern work of the Rockefeller or general educational board and other well-known agencies to this end. And to accomplish the reconciliation of the races and the regions he gave the vital force which finally cost him his life. The future will render this service its due meed of praise, as the writer so well sets forth, a service carried on in the midst of misunderstanding and sharp criticism.
"Dr. Peabody has devoted himself especially on bringing out the growth of Dr. Frissell's carefully-thought-out educational ideals, whereby he added the value of work to the necessity of it in a complete education. Under Frissell, as is so well shown, Hampton entered on its second stage, its relation to the philosophy of education. Men came from all over the world to study the question of the training of native races. Inspired by his work, Frissell saw the possibilities on every side, and looked far into the future. Thus, as has been said, his set purpose broadened the school to include Porto Rico, Cuba, the Philippines, and even Africa, making it what he loved to call it, a 'race laboratory.' That he succeeded appears in the constant stream of officials, educators and philanthropists from all over the globe coming to Hampton that they may study and copy its methods. The vision of the future which was given to Dr. Frissell was not so much a vision of a new race, as with Armstrong; it was for Frissell a vision of a new humanity.
"It is this vision of 'Education for life' which Dr. Peabody brings out so clearly—both its meaning and its value. The oldest friends of Hampton have hardly understood it before, so well does he explain it, and so thoroughly does he show that its purpose is to make men and women. Artisans and skilled workmen come out of it, but its first purpose is to develop individuals and all its interests tend to this end. This explains its limitations also, and answers many complaints. The white teacher who recently left because there was 'no future' for her own career; the educator who complained of a system which continued to educate on general lines when some vocational diversion would be more profitable; those who support the objections of the 'Crisis' that Hampton is not a university—all these critics fail to understand the new philosophy of Hampton and its dominant human motive. It would be a great mistake if, as appears to be hinted here, any concessions should be made to the demand of these last critics, whose aims would destroy the whole idea of Hampton, and its value as a world experiment. The author of the book and distinguished student of social ethics so strongly brings out its claim to a new education, for a new world that (to repeat) the reader cannot fail to inquire if this is the solution of the future in our forthcoming new world.
"Dr. Peabody brings us to the beginning of the third era and pays a deserved tribute to the new principal. Rev. James E. Gregg, who enters on the task at a critical time. Just now, when the race question is acute both here and everywhere, and when the new democracy is demanding a new education, there could hardly be a greater opportunity for the man or the school.
This inadequate sketch of a most informing and inspiring book may well be closed with a few paragraphs which sum up the aims of Hampton Institute:
"'In short, the fundamental issue in all education for life is between a training to make things and a training to make character. Is a man to be taught carpentering primarily that a house shall be well built, or that in the building the man himself shall get intelligence, self-mastery and skill?'
"'The principle was definitely accepted that these shops and classes were maintained, not as sources of profit, but as factors in an education for life. Young men and women were not to be regarded as satisfactory products of Hampton Institute because each could do one thing and get good wages for doing it, but because each had been trained to apply mind and will to the single task, and had made it not only a way of living, but a way of life.'
"'Trade education as conceived gradually developed and finally realized at Hampton Institute is a development of the person through the trade, rather than a development of the trade through the person. The product is not primarily goods, but goodness; not so much profit as personality.... These students become delivered from the benumbing conditions of modern industry by the emancipating and humanizing effect of the Hampton scheme of industrial training, and those who are thus initiated in a large view of their small opportunities are likely to find their way, not only to those occupations, which are still open at the top, but to those resources of happiness which are discovered when work has become a vocation, and labor has contributed to life.'"